Today I want to sleep.
I want to go to sleep and never wake up. To luxuriate in the endless bliss of nothingness. I want to be free from physical pain. Free from exhaustion. I don’t want to feel worried or anxious or guilty or afraid. I don’t want to be fat and old and lost and weary. I just want to rest. To slip into eternal, blissful rest.
I can’t know for sure how anxiety manifests for other people – and to be honest, it’s only in recent months I acknowledged I have my own manifestations – but apparently, I have anxiety. With a capital A. As I’m currently feeling extremely anxious, now is a good time to put thoughts and observations down on “paper” …
And if as a society, we nurtured those in the earlier stages of illness, perhaps those “high functioning” addicts and depressives, those people with hidden and invisible mental illness, would feel okay about acknowledging their issues much earlier on. Because the earlier the problem is tackled, the better the outcome.
I don’t know if love makes all things easy, but I do believe that combined with faith and hope, it could just make all things possible. And in 2017, I hope all manner of possible things bless you and me.
I may be living in a minefield and the recovery process feels thick, viscous and horrifyingly distressing, but that unknown fog is more terrifying. I know where the pitfalls in my minefield are – it feels better to live with the devil you know…
It is not every day you meet a woman with no ears and half a nose. Lucy Henry is not an average patient in the Emergency Department [ED], with her prominent scars from self-inflicted burns. She is one of the forty thousand patients that present at the Royal Hobart Hospital emergency department each year. This 35-year-old blonde is confident and comfortable in herself, despite the life-altering events of the past 13 years. As she relaxes on her sofa, with devoted dalmatian Lottie nearby, she speaks frankly about her experiences as a self-confessed “frequent flyer” in the emergency department.
