Thought I Was Good.

I thought I was good… until I wasn’t.   My first psychotic episode has been hard for me to accept.  I’m just taking my first steps toward recovery and I hope that with the help from others, I too, can embark on a path of self-improvement and wellness.  In my case, it happened quickly - but with time away from many of life’s responsibilities I can say that my first episode was, likely, the culmination of a kind of mental illness whose symptoms I had simply ignored for many years - after all… I thought I was good… until I wasn’t.   In my case, I pleaded desperately for people to believe me, to hear me, to validate my experiences.   The blank, helpless stares that I received in return seemed impossible to accept.   Clearly, the world had gone mad.  Progressively, while the ‘madness’ of the world intensified - the ‘clarity’ in my mind only became more firmly entrenched.  Me vs. the world (even my loved ones).  Four blurry months of my life have now passed me by in a series of frenetic highs and lows.  I knew better than those trying to help me and, as a result, I was slow to accept help.  I was slow to accept medication.  I was slow to accept therapy.  I was slow to accept the fact that I was in need of attention.  My episode has revealed obstacles that I never thought I would have to deal with in life.  In a word, it’s been scary.  All that said, after falling freely for so long… I’ve now taken the first steps toward remedying my first (I may have had more in the past) episode.  I suppose you might say that I’ve taken the first steps toward acceptance.  

As I have dabbled with the concept of acceptance I have came across a term that I’d previously only understood in the most primary of ways:  self-compassion.  I’m not sure how acceptance and self-compassion work in tandem but, in my case, these two elements seem to have combined to provide me, finally, with a sort of 'light at the end of the tunnel’ - a light that, for once, isn’t a high-speed train charging in my direction (that analogy is borrowed from Slavoj Zizek).   No, this appears to be a light of hope… of acceptance.  I wish I could have accepted it sooner but I suppose it’s better late than never.   Any fears moving forward?  Yes, a constant fear that it will happen again.  An angel of sorts, swooped into my life awhile back and has stepped with me through this door kind of hand-in-hand.   She told me last night that above all other things, she values learning… that’s lingering in my mind somewhere as I type this, and as I take my first steps toward acceptance and self-compassion, with the hope of creating a self who doesn’t just 'think’ he’s good, but 'knows’ he’s good.  Lots of learning ahead.