Perhaps it was waking up in fear? Maybe parking on campus? Or having nothing to do? Worries about money? Whatever it was as I sat eating my lunch today I was overwhelmed by a sense of loneliness, melancholia and despair. A junior doctor some years ago wrote on my notes dysthymia. An all pervasive low mood chronic in its nature but not as bad as it might have been.
Come June it will be 30 years since my life descended suddenly and decisively into mental illness. The labels I've attracted are not kind, true or helpful. That I survived against odds every doctor bet for is something of a miracle. Yes I fought back, got out and tried to lead a normal life.
Yet still I'm cursed with this sudden descent into depression and despair. In truth I always wake up terrified. The bad dreams are not frequent as they once were but they still come most mornings.
A week today I will be back in the thick of it at the university. The waiting list we left behind at the end of term will have grown. In three weeks time one of our immediate colleagues is changing job. That prospect is also terrifying. Often I wonder what on earth I'm doing. But I have to work.
Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. It will dawn when it dawns and it takes me closer to the coming fear. New Year's Day will be spent with Sarah and her family. I'm blessed with extraordinary friends yet still the loneliness creeps back every once in a while.
With luck I will snap out of it soon. I cannot afford to have another relapse. Each day comes and I get older. Sometimes wiser but always flawed.
I Heard a Voice.
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