Temporary Standstill

This time last year I was inside psychosis, i.e. I was deluded and paranoid.  Because I was paranoid about everyone, I cut off contact with everyone.  I stopped taking my medications, stopped seeing my therapist, deleted this blog among other negative actions.  I listened to the voices in my mind, which were intentionally leading me astray.  Inside my home I went in and out of mania.  I was so caught up in a delusional world.  I suffered trauma and for a little while I began to split up in my personality.

I'm not sure what got me to turn around away from sickness and back towards health, but I did.  I went to my psychiatrist and was honest with him and just returned to taking the medications again.  For a couple of months I had no therapist, then an online therapist, which didn't work out and then found a new therapist very close by.  I started going to an Al-Anon meeting once a week 40 minutes away from my home.  I reconnected with several friends.  I began a morning routine of taking my medications, thanking God, praying for myself and others and reading from several daily readers.  I returned to writing my blog.  And there were other things I did, which I won't go into.

During this time my father moved into the nursing home, my brother and I took on the large job of clearing out my father's apartment and then, in July, my father died.  Because I had experienced so much trauma, my father's death was not so disturbing to me.  He was 88 years old and had lived a good, long life and had been very kind to me and to my brother.  I had been preparing myself for my parents' deaths ever since they reached their 80s and so, in some ways I was prepared.  So my parents were gone, I was not as close to my brother and my uncle had lived in another state for many years and I did not keep in close touch with him.  And so the isolation that I had begun last year with was still lingering.  Despite now having a very good therapist and developing a closer relationship with an old friend, I see myself standing alone.

I have my voices for companionship.  They have matured this year as I went through the recovery process again.  For the most part, they don't try to lead me astray.  I know they live with a pain that goes deep, deeper than the pain I go in and out of.  In some ways we are recovery partners.  I want to be a good influence on them and I tell them what I appreciate about them and there are many things to appreciate.  But still it comes down to daily/nightly practice of recovery attitudes and behaviors.  Right now I am quiet, peaceful, yet depressed.  And so I stay patient and as open as I can be.  I can see that I have come a long way in a short time this year.

I know this time of year, the Fall into the Winter, the holiday season, is hard for me and many people.   But I do have faith that I can get through it.