I find sometimes that my brain feels dusty, almost like it’s been sitting stagnant for too long. Maybe I can’t remember what someone’s face looks like, even if I’ve seen them several times. Or I can’t seem to grasp the name of a person that I have talked to again and again.
Thoughts constantly drag me back into the recesses of rumination. Whether I am thinking about what to wear tomorrow, or if a new medication is working, the world becomes blurry. An out of focus world is not one I want to live in, yet I cannot escape the anxiety that drives me back into my mind.
I like to think of my brain as a storage unit, full of labeled boxes. Every now and then I’ll venture into the dark part, full of layers of dust and stringy feeble cobwebs and get out some old thought or feeling. Maybe it’s a relationship, a revisitation of what someone said, or did. An old dream that faded long ago. I know that I am not alone in the desire to revisit the past, and maybe even try to relive it. Trying to catch a feeling that slipped away, or a notion that lies crumpled and listless can be a dangerous game.
So what happens when I open an old box? Dust off the cardboard top and gaze inside? Most recently I decided to read some old journals from around the time my father died. It is something that I try to never open, yet I also cannot let it go. After going through some of the journals, ones that I had written for my first therapist back home, I started to feel this sharp pang of anxiety. The period directly after my dad died was a vulnerable time in my life. I was raw, impressionable, and looking for unconditional love. Unconditional love, that I still have not found. My depression and paranoia grew, day by day, until I found myself in an emergency psychiatric inpatient unit for the first time. I slowly closed off emotionally. I became a person who could let people in and out of my life without looking back.
The green journal for me, represents a period of emotional vulnerability, that I may never capture again. Yet, at the same time, it is tinged with a dark sadness, an eighteen year old word filled with grief and searching for an answer. So why do I put that folder back into my storage unit? I walk away, shut the box, and look back towards today. Even so, a piece of me always remains, one that will live in that time perpetually.
In a therapy group that took place the other day, we talked about clearing out cobwebs. Things in our lives that remain despite their innate ability to break us down piece by piece. For me it’s clinging onto hope, the past, onto fear. We cleaned off the messy table we were sitting around, and looked at a clear blank surface. I thought the concept of thoughts, memories, and emotions that I cannot let go of as cobwebs was incredibly interesting.
Sometimes, cobwebs are so thin and opaque that they are hard to see. Hard to see until they are illuminated by a sharp beam of light. I saw one the other day, just above my dresser, when I turned on my light and cleaned my room. I marveled at its beauty for a moment, the way the light reflected off of it. Yet I quickly swept it away with a broom, knocking down something that had been lurking in my dark room for who knows how long.
Recently, I spent a long time under my covers, anxious to leave my room let alone the building. My past, which I hardly ever ventured out of, bogged me down. I cried for a world without my father, without love, and without much of a support network. I let days go by, dust accrue, staring at the ceiling and waiting for change.
Yet one day I got out of bed, at 8:00 AM just like I have wanted to do for months. Maybe it was a medication change, or maybe just a placebo effect. All I know, is that for a moment, I captured a little piece of motivation.
I am still scared of confidence, and of high self-esteem. I walk a fine line between typical motivation and mania. When will just a slight bit of elation become a life without inhibition? Mania, which people sometimes view as a period of productivity, creativity, and unbridled joy, has been as dangerous for me as depression. I am very vigilant, and watch for both constantly, sometimes to my detriment.
Recently, however, I have been embracing my elevated mood. The fact that I do not feel as hopeless and listless as I have in the recent past has been relieving. I still dip into anxiety, or sadness. I still feel hesitant around new people, new ideas and new things. I still have trouble getting out of bed sometimes. I don’t know what I am or where I am in terms of mood and emotionally, but have found that I do not want to label it. I just want to accept it.
In the group, my therapist asked us to sit with the idea of our cobwebs for a while, things that are cluttering our lives, that we may not want to let go of. I thought of that tiny moment, cleaning my dresser. The cobweb illuminated by just a tiny bit of light. The fact that I reached up and swept it away. Feeling happy, more future oriented, and productive helped me see something that I had not seen before in the darkness of depression. In order to sweep the cobweb away, I had to see it. I had to turn on the light. I can’t see all my cobwebs. Yet in that one moment, I cleared out something. Maybe as my light brightens I will be able to see more, let my mind move towards the present.
No matter how bright my world gets, it will always dim, and new cobwebs will inevitably grow. The cycle will continue, the table will clutter, and then be cleaned off, again and again.
What are your cobwebs? Have you swept some away or have you been holding onto them and letting them grow?
Let me know!