Survival

It's funny how my perspective changes and I don't even really realize it.  It's a bit like watching kids grow, you don't see it as much when you are with them every day.  I was describing some of my journey the other day to people who didn't know anything about it and it make me see that things are different.

I got to thinking back to before I started to see I needed to deal with things.  At the time I couldn't see it, I didn't even have the ability.  I was in survival mode, period.  This entailed forcing myself out of bed every day to go to work.  Getting through the day, hopefully without too many, or any, incidents.  Incidents of bosses yelling at me, of me losing it etc...  Going home, hopefully getting enough rest to do it again the next day.  There was no break in this for me, every moment of every day was hard.  I hardly slept I was so anxious and I couldn't see a future past the end of my nose.  I was completely isolated from friends and family and not letting anyone be a part of the horrible life I was leading.  At one point I seriously thought about killing myself.  I guess this is what happens when the present is hell and there is no future.  Thankfully there was a small part of me that finally got fed up and decided that I needed to make a change.

The thing about survival mode is that there is no clarity to be able to move on, to be able to see that there are alternatives to the present, to understand that there is a way to get help, a way to have a better life.  There is so much emotional pain and so much anxiety that it's all you can do to keep getting up in the morning and carrying on.

Now, the present is not hell and I can see a future.  I have good days and bad days now, but I am no longer in survival mode.  I have let people be a part of my life, and what a great blessing that is.  I understand that I am not stuck in any particular place and if things get bad like that again I need to look at my life and know that there are alternatives.  In fact, things got bad like that and I started on this journey of medication and counseling and soul searching.  Life is rolling on, but for me, as hard as it is on the bad days, it is life and not survival anymore.