This week’s Memory Monday is a ‘double bill’, with the first post feeling very apt right now:

https://lifeinabind.com/2014/08/30/escape/

The second post is a poem that I wrote shortly after ‘Escape’, as I was starting to come out of that period of severe depression and suicidal ideation:

https://lifeinabind.com/2014/09/02/if-the-shadow-falls/

This therapy break feels as though it’s hitting me harder than previous breaks, particularly given the length of time it’s been going on (only eleven days so far). I mentioned to my therapist when I last saw her, that it felt as though the separations were getting more, not less difficult, and we agreed it was because I was so much more settled and attached to our therapy. Things are bound to get worse, when it comes to breaks, before they get better.

I don’t know how much of my present depression is due to the therapy break, and how much might have happened anyway. I’ve been away for a period, on holiday, and although work was very stressful before I left, the break from my usual routine does tend to have a negative impact upon me.

Whatever the reason, I’m so very very tired. Physically tired, and mentally exhausted. I’m so tired of the constant battle going on in my head, between the part of me that has some interest in survival and in getting better, and the part that has no hope at all for the future, and doesn’t want to carry on. The latter part uses apparent logic, not just emotion; it plays on my frustration at the boundaries of therapy and it focuses me on the things I will never have; and when it comes to life outside therapy, it brings to mind all the invalidating and hurtful things that have been said to me and focuses me on the pain that being around other people, brings me. I have to keep trying to keep a lid on that part just to function and get through the day; and so that when, in a week’s time, I’m back in therapy, I’m more than a morass of tears, bitterness, frustration and anger, for someone who doesn’t deserve them.