Passing Storms

I haven’t been doing so good recently. Some things happened that specifically touched all my mental health struggles in the worst possible way. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say it's been one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had.

It’s felt like a storm has passed over my life, and I have been lost in it: Tossed and turned and shaken by its furious wind and rain, drowning in the dark clouds of my own mind and unable to see up or down, left or right, or any light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s left me paranoid.

I don’t feel safe in my own home as I sit peering out my second story window, writing down the number plates of suspicious cars passing by, just in case. I’ve been looking in the reflective windscreens of parked vehicles to make sure no one is inside, watching me. I thought a car was following, so I doubled back around the block to shake it off my tail, but only felt more afraid and alone as I made it home. I am on edge all the time, I haven't been sleeping well. I know all of this is kind of insane and paranoid, but these compulsions feel to me as irresistible as the storm, and as terrifying.

Slowly, I am coming out of it.

The storm is passing and only the drizzle remains. Leveller heads than my own assure me the time for healthy cautiousness is over now, and there is nothing to worry about. A week has passed and nothing more has happened. I know I have nothing tangible to worry about.

I know it. I know it. I know it. I know it. I know it. I know it. I know it

I just wish it were as simple as that. Logic is a weak spell against the dark magic of mental health trouble.

This image springs to mind as I try to believe everything will be ok. Sometimes, I get moments of relieved clarity through the paranoia, which feel to me like this rainbow curving vast above the building, which rises over the gloomy neighbourhood to catch the warn glow of the sun. It reminds me that storms come and pass, and leave behind them a world still standing: A warm world. A safe world of golden light. A world that I can feel safe in.

I am struggling right now, badly, but I choose to hope that better days are coming.