"This pain is not forever," a reminder to myself when I feel broken.
On reminding myself that the cyclical nature of my neurodivergence has eventually pauses and does eventually get better-even if only temporarily so.
From time to time I come across or remember an old piece that is relevant to my current feelings and deserves a home here. I wrote this in the middle of the night, in my last trimester of pregnancy, and feeling like I was, yet again, losing my mind.
November 4, 2020
“My brain is broken and I am crazy,”
I casually said out loud to no one in particular at 3:30 in the morning, hoping for some convincing reassurance that that wasn’t the case. That I was perfectly fine and it was just the current stressors of my life causing these bizarre swings in my moods and the irrational thoughts that accompanied them. That reassurance never came and I spent the next two hours trying to quiet all the dark thoughts currently plaguing me and force myself into a deep sleep. I’ve had more “bad days” than I care to count recently, and I am mentally and physically exhausted from fighting to get through them.
“This pain is not forever. This moment in time is not forever.”
A quote I have been repeating to myself after hearing Beth from This Is Us so gently and convincingly use those same words to soothe Randall after he admitted that everything going on around him just felt too heavy and too sad to hold.
A few months ago I considered myself lucky.
In the beginning of my pregnancy I thought for sure shit was about to be flipped upside down in my mind at a more rapid pace than it normally did. The world shut down. I finally received my bipolar disorder diagnosis. I had the first trimester from hell and was simultaneously dealing with withdrawal from weaning off an antidepressant that stopped working.
I constantly feared that any day now the weight of it all would be too heavy to continue to hold and it would come tumbling down on top of me.
“Surely I’m about to lose my fucking mind,” a persistent thought that lingered in the background.
But then a mental calm came. Physically though, a different story. I guess because I was so physically ill the first five months of my pregnancy, my brain decided to give itself a break from the mental sickness.
During that time the highs weren’t too high and the lows weren’t completely earth-shattering. I welcomed the relief, immensely grateful for its surprising presence. Though it was sometimes difficult to genuinely feel and express that gratitude because of the lingering anxious thought tapping me every now and again as if to say “you hoo bitch, don’t forget about meee...”
“This pain is not forever. This moment in time is not forever.”
The crash that I dreaded coming is now here.
I guess the physical relief signaled to my brain that is was time to crack its knuckles, say “oh yeah, where was I?” and proceed to wreak havoc. Suddenly, I want to jump out of my skin and run away from the heavy emptiness following me around.
The perpetual state of agitation, aggression and, irritability—every thing and every one is annoying me and getting on my last nerve, myself included.
The paranoia—suddenly every one who claimed to love and care about me was only pretending to do so so that I didn’t kill myself.
The constant urge to just fuck shit up—punch a wall, crash a car, harm myself.
The fatigue, the guilt, the confusion.
And then I think of my daughter and I feel so sad for her. I begin to dread the inevitable moments in time when I am feeling the weight of this and can’t show up for her in the way that she needs me to because I have already expelled too much energy trying to exist. Feeling so ashamed and selfish for choosing to bring her into this terrible world with a mentally ill mother.
And again, I remind myself..
“This pain is not forever. This moment in time is not forever.”
As many times as I have to write, read, and recite those words to remind myself of that fact, I will for I am hopeful that the day will come when I believe them.