Having pulled myself out of the rabbit hole I was about to plunge into on Saturday, I seem to have turned around, catching my foot on the rim and plunged straight back in.
It’s been a while since I explored the depths of my particular rabbit hole and I don’t like it any better these days.
Perhaps I could climb back out if I knew exactly what pushed me back over the edge, but I believe there were several contributing factors.
This stuff is never easy.
No doubt, it’s just a “phase”.
Normally, spotting a new visitor to the garden lifts my heart.
I was delighted to see the bunny, but when I got a good look, I saw that it is probably not in the best of health.
Not that I’m an expert, but I did have bunnies once. See that “horn? I hope it’s not the beginning of Shope papilloma.
This, of course, is “bottom of the pit” thinking which is always going to be negative.
Even the return of bitter cold nights…and days…couldn’t get me excited, though my camera still seemed compelled.
It too, is in the doldrums, it’s time-recording seeming to have got out of whack. Daylight Savings, it says needs to go.
“Come, now!” says Zoomer. “Things can’t be that bad!”
“I’ll give you my corn if it’ll help?”
“Well not if we have a say in the matter!”
“Oy, missus, this bowl is nearly empty!”
This is the deer I call “Hope”. I’m sure Grant has another name for her, but it’s not important. She is beautiful. They all are, but Hope is quite unique in her colouring.
I want to look after them, to save them from the harshness they face. But I cannot. It breaks my heart.
As always, when I feel this way, I give myself a stern talking to. “Carolyn, you are blessed to have the life you do. Now stop all this self indulgence and think where you could be!”
In Yemen, for example. A friend posted some photographs yesterday on Facebook. That was a big help. I took one look and wanted to howl. Because there is nothing I can do to help those people. It’s a scandal such a thing is allowed to happen, but it is totally beyond my control, just as the crisis in Myanmar is.
People like me try to support good causes, but in the end, what good does it do? In fact, now that the financial imbalance is obviously so enormous, it makes me angry that little people like myself and people much less fortunate than me, are constantly deluged with begging letters, bearing photographs of tortured animals and starving, homeless people. I know those things exist. I really don’t need those photographs to upset me. How much money is wasted on all that mail? I’ve written about this before but now I’m starting to get really annoyed about it.
There are quite a few in the world now, who have billions. Why don’t they solve some of these problems?
Yes, I know, some of them are very philanthropic. But more of them are not. I guess I just don’t understand how humanity works. Probably because it doesn’t.
The bottomless pit of despair. How did I get here?
Medication change is a large part of it, no doubt. Although I tapered, as instructed. New medications don’t work immediately. It can take weeks.
It’s maybe also the memoir I am reading, of a well-known author whose parents lived through WW2 in England, as mine did.
We have than in common. We were both born after the war, though I am older. It surprised me that her memoir would affect me as it does. Maybe it’s just bad timing.
The author quite obviously adored her father. In one place she says she would give anything to hear him call her name, one more time.
What I found myself thinking was that I wished my father would come back so I could throw things at him.
Reading this memoir is making me realize how much I longed for what she had, when I was a child. I so wanted a loving father, one I didn’t have to be afraid of, one that would acknowledge me.
Instead I had a father who resented me, tried to ignore me and pushed me away every chance he got. Until I grew breasts.
That ugly skeleton is back to drag me down. it was supposed to be all packed up in a box I left behind, but somehow Dad always managed to creep into my brain.
What’s done is done and to allow it to make me suffer now is pointless, but with my resistance low, all the bad stuff comes up. My father and my uncle between them wrecked my life.
They made it impossible for me to have a normal social life, impossible to find a mate, impossible to have any self confidence. I always saw myself as second-class, undeserving of attention and somehow not normal.
The only people I attracted were themselves a bit odd.
In consequence, I constantly got hurt.
Until I got involved with a married man, because at least with him, I knew exactly where I stood. no lies, no pretense, no promises, no long term relationship.
He needed something he saw in me and I needed the love he was able to give me, even though it was time-limited by his retirement.
If it had not been for him, I would never have known how it felt to be loved. So there are no regrets, just fond, lovely memories.
Most of the time, I try to stay positive when I write, because people have enough of their own sad shit to deal with.
Quite often, I have scratched my head to find cheerful answers to other people’s troubled posts, because I feel for them. Since I was a child, I always wanted everyone to be happy. I can’t help anyone, but I try to type a few words of support.
But now I’m drained of everything positive.
I just want to cry and cry and it’s all I can do until this thing rides itself out.
Dee Dee forgot about Daylight Savings Time.
She said “what do you mean I missed breakfast?”
See, I am not quite at the bottom of the pit.
I don’t seek sympathy. I just needed an outlet.
After all, I am not starving in Yemen.
Or murdered in Rangoon.
You are a light in the world. Your letters pulled me out of many a dark night. Thank you:)
Such a kind thing to say. Thank you.
I guess we could blame it on Daylights Saving Time… For some reason this always messes me up, even though I really have no place I have to be, I find it leaves me in a melancholy state for a few days/nights.
Your on line friends are here for you in good times and bad, and hopefully, being able to talk it through will make it easier to make it go away… Hope your meds level off and you are able to enjoy that spring is just around the corner with all the joy and new life it brings…
Thank you, Judy. It will, pass, I’ve no doubt!
You have got to consider yourself first in everything. The animals will sort themselves out for a while. Hugs to you Carolyn.
Thank you, Peter XX
I’m curious as to the name of the memoir you are reading — if you don’t mind sharing.
It sounds of interest to me. Thank you.
It’s called This Time Next Year We’ll be Laughing, by Jacqueline Winspear
🌻🌻🌻 It is horrible waiting for it to get better but it does eventually.
It does. Thank you!
Wow I love your post and the pictures are adorable 😍
Thank you!
You’re welcome