I’m on holiday 🙂

This holiday has been in the pipeline for months and then all of a sudden covid was back on attack in Australia and every state started to lockdown and close their borders. We weren’t sure if we were going to get here and once we got here, will we get back?! I’ll find out next tuesday.

But we did get here and I’m enjoying the beautiful blue skies along with the cold rainy days in Adelaide’s rolling hills. Like so many people in the past 15 months, it has been a long time since I got away. It’s good to be here.

BUT IT’S ALSO REALLY SAD

My recovery is strong and well but the more time that passes, the more I realise how much I’ve lost. I’ve lost people and places and opportunities. One of the things I’ve lost is the ability to socialise. I can still do it, but it drains the living hell out of me.

I am travelling with very close friends. We have known each other so long and travelled together so often that they are basically family to me. We don’t need to “make conversation” with each other – we just talk because that’s what families do. And sometimes it’s silent because that’s what families do. We open drawers and cupboards without asking, to look for a spoon and a bowl, because that’s what families do. We can wander around in pyjamas with no bras on. We’re just comfortable in each other’s company. And that doesn’t drain me.

But because we’re on holiday we go off doing holiday things and I look forward to it but then come to realise how difficult socialisation has become. Talking to the sales girls. Trying clothes on. Making payments. Ordering food. Passing people in the street. Chatting to the wine tour guide. Meeting the wine tasting experts. Every time I’m out of the house I have to make conversation. It takes so much out of me and I feel so feeble.

I REMEMBER A TIME WHEN I DID THIS WITH EASE

And I miss that. I could hang out with people all the time – make everyone feel comfortable and listened to. Hear people’s stories. I love hearing people’s stories. Years of practice with school teaching and performing and counselling and working left me very comfortable spending time with people.

Since 2015 I have been in a mental health decline and one of the consequences is my inability to maintain social connections. I keep thinking it will change but I have come to realise that getting older is contributing to my unease and I won’t be getting any younger any time soon. As we age there is a slow withdrawal from society – because it’s just plain exhausting. So this change in energy levels feels fairly permanent.

It’s like the old me is being wiped from the face of the earth and I have to discover the new me. Which is neither good nor bad. Better nor worse. Like so many things in life, it simply is.

Realising how different and how tired I am has cast a veil of malaise over my holiday. Which I would like to very quickly point out is not a recovery failure. Recovering from a mental health breakdown is not about never being sad again. Life brings all the emotions and situations that it always has. The difference in recovery is how I respond to uncomfortable emotions and situations.

AND MY GO-TO RECOVERY TOOL IS WRITING – SO HERE WE ARE

For six years now I’ve struggled with varying levels of depression and anxiety, accompanying my eating disorder behaviours. Tie into that my extreme sleep issues and I ended up swinging from manically high to desperately low. Medication has stabilised those extreme emotions so I’m very stable these days. But like everyone else, I have fluctuations. And coming away on holiday with close friends has brought about a juxtaposition of the joy and familiarity of being with people I love, and the sadness at realising I don’t know who I am anymore. And I don’t know when I’ll know.