Life Floats
Does Anybody really know what they are doing?
Do you ever sit and think….what the hell am I supposed to be here for?
I don’t ever remember being handed a Study book with a calendar In, with all of my life events to read through before I got here.
I’d love a map. An itinerary would be great too.
Is there even a right or wrong as to what we do here?
Did we make a grand plan prior to arriving? and due to some time zone differences and the most insane universal jet lag ever, we’ve totally forgotten the memo?
What about N? Did she know she was signing herself up for the bravest, most courageously unique life?
I feel pretty underqualified to be honest. I’m just blindly making choices and feeling feelings, and time just carries on regardless of whether I’m keeping up.
And here we all here, and I’m hoping a few out there feel mildly similar to me about the whole darn thing.
There are moments, sometimes even weeks in fact, where I feel more confident about the whole journey, my inner voice is all… “Enjoy the ride, do your best, we are only here once, you’re doing great”. Then I have these moments where it’s quite the opposite. “Why an earth are you heading in this direction, you have no idea what you are doing! You are useless!”
Basically the wheels fall off and I stop, and I look around and I’m lost with no idea where the hell I am, or how I even got here.
Sometimes I even think it’s all a dream and one day ill wake up and I’ll be 6 year old me again.
I’ve been in and out of therapy since I was 15 for various things. After Arthur I was in for a bit, you get to a place in it where you feel like you don’t need the life float of it anymore and you park it for a while.
I Needed a life float again at the beginning of the Rett syndrome journey, it stopped me drowning. I then felt strong enough to swim again on my own and so I parked it again for a while.
But that drowning feeling has crept up on me again in the last year, my nearest and dearest start to notice it before I do….the subtle conversations about feelings and the odd “how are you really doing?” start to become more routine.
But then I get to a place where I can’t swim anymore. The grief and emotional exhaustion is drowning me and I need a life float.
Get me some arm bands, for the love of god!
So I’m back in therapy.
Its literally like someone giving you a life buoy to hold on to.
I can breathe again.
We aren’t as open about therapy in England as some other countries. People see being in therapy as an indication that there is something wrong with you.
We can feel like perhaps we will be judged if people know we are in therapy. That there is something fundamentally wrong with us….Nope! Its just a human trying to navigate life and unravel and unpack all the crap and grief and confusion of this journey, so that they can be a better mother, a better friend, a better sister. Just a better bloody human!
I’m not going to stand here on my soap box and tell everyone “Go get therapy! You’ll fucking love it!” ……but honestly….Do!
If anyone is out there feeling like they are drowning in this life, or aren’t feeling understood, or heard, or if you just feel lost a little in what the hell we are doing here...
Talk to someone.
I read a thread the other day saying something along the lines of “It takes a village to raise an adult too” And fuck, it really does!
We are all out here trying to be successful. Trying to accomplish so much shit that society has made us believe we need to achieve; and it takes a whole heap of friends and family to support and love you along the way. But sometimes, you just need another human, a life float, someone emotionally uninvolved to give you some space to work stuff through.
And I’m grateful that we can.
So I suppose all I want to say is…
If you feel like your sinking, or drowning, talk to someone, seek out a life float, get yourself a pair of armbands for a bit. Life is exhausting at the best of times and sometimes we all need a little time to re-group…time to breathe…and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
