Silver and Gold.

Here we are on the home stretch of 2011. I can honestly say that this has been the most difficult year I’ve ever had to learn from. I didn’t have the option of having layers being gently peeled off; I got myself cracked open to my core and had it exposed for the world to see. Recently, I wrote a poem called “Broken In Two” to express how I’ve been feeling for the past few months. I’m coming out of that dark place in great strides, but I needed to release those feelings and writing a poem seemed the perfect way to do it. Well, there was a reason behind it.

            Back in November I was diagnosed with panic disorder. Nothing else seemed to matter in my world. All I could think about was when the next panic attack would hit. I would do perfectly fine during the day. I kept busy and stayed positive as best I could, but then the night would come and I knew I would have to be alone with nothing to protect me. The thought of being alone in the dark frightened me. I would sleep with my bathroom light on just so I knew that the shadows that lingered couldn’t touch or taunt me. I felt like this was Karma punishing me for something I did in a past life or even in my current one, and I would cry myself to sleep because I had no strength to fight it. It was consuming me from the inside out and I felt powerless. Horrible thoughts passed through my head. I needed relief and I was willing to risk my life to get it. Although the thoughts did pass through I knew in my heart of hearts I’d never go through with it. I thought about all the people I would be hurting if I did.

What a lot of people don’t know about me is that I need them more than they need me. The relationships I create with people are important and special to me. I need that human connection to survive. I think we all do. It’s nice having people who are happy to see you every time you come around. I have a lot of those people in my life and somehow I forgot about them. I was so wrapped up in my sinking ship I even lost myself a bit. I would look in the mirror every day and wonder who the person was staring back. It got to the point to where I couldn’t even look in the mirror. That wasn’t me and I refused to look at an illusion.

I’ve since started seeing a counselor and it’s really helping me deal with the issues at hand despite my hesitance at first. It has really opened to eyes and even given me some insight to the madness that I call my mind.

I’ve learned a lot these past few months. I learned that I’m not as strong as I thought I was. I learned that it’s OK to ask for help and I learned that the silver lining is much easier to see when you treat yourself like gold. Someday when I look back on this in twenty years I’ll referrer to this as “The Dark Time” but for now I’ll just call it recovery.