Lived Experience Forum

[Rick]

                    THE FINAL SCRAPE CAN BE THE FINEST SCRAPE

Well, just when you think you've nailed it down. That you know exactly where you are going. You know that whilst the rest of the world would see that path and revile it for it's extreme negativity and innate morbidity. You know you will find relief and release in that deadly coil and as the coil embraces you and you embrace it you look to the failed efforts and justify to yourself as for one last time you reach down, fingers scraping the very bottom of that barrel of treatment options and what happens?

The sun rises. Monochromatic vision suddenly flares into colour. There is a sense of , what is it, beauty, vitality? What the hell is this stuff? What do I do with this alien feelings and thoughts of possibility? Of potentiality?

Somehow after 14 horrific years are striving for the Grail of healing, suddenly, there it is. Heavy and warm in the hand, and disturbingly right.

I experienced 14 years of complex trauma. My entire development from toddler to young man destroyed and mutated to the point of impossibility. Like badly designed hardware you run your programs, your software and no matter how often you code new and better patches for that software the hardware delivers a malformed and malignant solution. People harp at you about neural plasticity, but there has been no evidence that the growing of new cells and creating new but miniscule pathways actually trump the complex interactions of malformed structure.

And then

That last scrape found a magic pill. It's not really magic but the longer you take it the more miraculous the seeming effect. And the payoff? Well imagine being limited to a range of, let's say just for argument, 6 states of emotional being, all below the dysthymic line, and then suddenly, that plexi-glass ceiling has enormous cracks appearing. A flood of emotions, ones never felt before, let alone integrated dazzle your perceptions and a strange feeling, that after consulting wiser heads than your own, you discover a thing of golden light. It has a name. It even has a fecking name. HOPE.

Hope??!! It's a beautiful name and one has witnessed its beauty from outside, has seen it's reflection in the hearts and minds and actions of others. Something that until this moment was  it's own form of torture. Now? It lives within your own breast. So alien at first that one must try and get rid of it. Surely this is a phantasm. A delusion. But this thing , Hope, does not crush. Though your arms are of the strength whispered of in ancient myth, you cannot hurl it from you. And it hurts. But only a little.

It won't be destroyed by your hand so what option remains? Acceptance. An embrace. While you do not understand and you hate it's unproven promise all that is left as action, is embrace.

I am now feeling things that are beautiful. But have no stick against which to measure it. I am perplexed because This HOPE demands a pathway. The very same pathway you have walked since the days of short pants. It's locomotion on over this path is different. It's destination unknown, as opposed to the former experience where the end was worked for and inevitably mortal.

What happens now?

A new decompartmentalisation. A necessity to take positive action against the entropy that you had work so hard to hurry along.

I work now. I am able to serve my fellow man and be useful because of that last scrape of the barrel. To work ethically and morally and without hypocrisy one must challenge those lethal thoughts and actions and inactions.

Why ? Well, if I am to be of use, then I must consider that use fullness and longevity are partners.

So challenge after internal challenge stand in line, waiting to be addressed and shifted.

I am doing. I am very confused. I am embarrassed by my backflip. I am overwhelmed by unfamiliar emotional states and their range.

But now, quite suddenly I want to.

I want to live. To LIVE.

My first thoughts of terminal relief began at age 5. I am now 46. 41 years of morbidity lies at my feet. But it's at my feet, not coiled around me.

Am I cured? Well, does it matter?

There is a possibility that a personal recovery in the right circumstance may lead to a clinical recovery.

And it is all HOPE

That is all..............................................................

[Bridgetjones]

Interesting and well written post @Rick. Im 44 & had many years of depression and anxiety so can relate to the feelings expressed in your post

[Kurra]

There is hope @Rick.
As you said the morbidity is no longer wrapped around your body. This is a positive sign.

Recovery can take many forms and can come in fits and starts. I can now say that I have attained personal recovery. Nevertheless I will always be more vulnerable than many others in the community and will always need to remain vigilant. Clinically I show no signs of bipolar - the first time in 61 years. Is this clinical recovery? Time will tell. My hope and my belief is that this will come to pass......

[suzanne]

Beautiful post @Rick.  I took from it the importance of continuing to work on your recovery as you never know what will work and when it will start to make a difference.  And the power of hope.  It's sometimes the only thing keeping us going.  Thanks for insights.

[Rick]

You took the point I was trying to make.
thankyou for seeing that.