New look me

Hi from a new look me, who couldn’t stay away for more than a couple of days (with a warning that this is probably going to be a long post sorry).

I was only here for a few weeks but in that time it really hit me how important being part of a community and connecting with other people are to me and many others. It’s something I lost not long ago (along with a whole heap of other things) and something I am trying really hard to get back. I suppose I wanted to use this space, the ‘virtual ocean’ as a test run, because the ocean I reside in has proven to be very scary and dangerous. I stepped here in the virtual ocean, thought I could handle the waves that came and found I wasn’t strong enough for some. I got stuck in a whirlpool that I helped to create. Unfortunately the whirlpool here coincided with a whirlpool in my non-virtual ocean, that I also played a big role in creating. It kind of had the components of a perfect storm. I used my plan, my ‘team’ have come together and now I'm riding it out.

I feel like I’m failing at everything and every time I venture outside my comfort zone and get spat out by the waves, it becomes like a cycle, or self-fulfilling prophecy. I want to give up on it all, but I promised myself I wouldn't give up until I had tried everything. So now I am trying this again, only this time with the lesson I learnt about that sometimes frustrating, but always essential ‘self care’. Something I learnt about here the hard way. This week I have also learnt the very hard lesson about the importance of sticking with the prescribed dose of meds, which even being on medication is a hard pill for me to swallow (ha - see what I did there?!). I'm now accepting support with that too. It means being very careful not to get too caught up here particularly at night when I have to turn my lights off and rest my tired brain.

It seems as if I have run on anxiety for so long, that I've crashed really badly. I get hits of it, often in the stab that comes with ‘triggers’, and as much as I don’t like that word that’s exactly what they are. I have heaps of tools for managing anxiety, but many are failing right now as I have lost my ability to concentrate properly so i jump from thing to thing to thing never really getting anywhere. When this happens, I crash. I feel as if I have limited skills to deal with the fall and the really tough, dark, twisty pits of depression, with the almost constant nagging voice of ‘give up, there's no point, it's not worth it’. I would really love to learn ways to better manage this.

So this is my story now and where I'm at. PTSD stinks. Anxiety and depression stink. I'm doing everything I can to fight it, even when it doesn't look like it to others.

I don't want to tag anyone because the last thing I want to do is drag anyone out of their quiet, calm place and I am very sorry if I did that at all. I genuinely did not ever mean to ‘trigger’ anyone else, hurt anyone's feelings or put pressure on anyone, and the idea that I may have feels terrible. I really believe everyone here, myself included, is doing the best they can with what they have, and I have nothing but respect and empathy for that and how it may appear. There's an ocean full of experience and insight here and I’d love to be part of it and learn from others' experiences, share my own when it might be helpful for someone, and celebrate the little (and big!) victories, while riding out the tough times together.

So if you'll have me back, I'm now wearing my lifejacket and can see a little island on the horizon that is coming in the form of a holiday (of sorts) from the rough seas of my non-virtual ocean. This will help me a lot. There's some rough water to navigate to get there, but just feeling that it’s there is a relief. This time I enter the virtual ocean knowing full well I need to tread water carefully, especially while I get my sea legs back. I’m now very mindful that it’s easy to unintentionally create waves here, and get caught in them, as well. I also come back not so sunny, because try as I might, there are clouds. I’m now wearing a rainbow belly badge, (as the next best care bear) rather than a sunshine, hopeful that following the storms there will always be rainbows. It might be a good place to start my journey take 2 here (plus Cheer Bear is pink and pink is kind of great).

Fingers crossed there’s an eight-sided room with a lime coloured corner and some lemon gelato in the freezer, as well as a busy garden to walk around full of fabulous residents that I can visit again sometime…

CheerBear