Still ill

[j4]

I came off the Pill on Thursday. I'm now shaky, nauseous, and uncontrollably weepy (and my period won't stop). Every time I think it can't possibly get any worse while I'm putting so much effort into trying to make it better, it does. And after 10+ years of fighting depression I'm really tired of being shouted at for not being optimistic enough about getting better or finding a cure.

And yes, I cried, I'm sorry, I cried because I'm in pain and I'm frightened and I am worn down to scratchy backing-material and bent tacks from gritting my teeth and trying not to feel the wrong thing.

I feel like my life is just one big flat I'm-sorry-I'm-sorry-I'm-sorry with nowhere left to hide.

Comments

[j4.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine not being able to snap myself out of it with a stern talking to, so I'm useless at empathy for this kind of thing. Which is nice for me, but no use at all to you.

Gee, thanks so much for that. You really weren't kidding about the lack of empathy, were you.

[perdita-fysh.livejournal.com]

I am sorry, I didn't mean to cause offence there. I wasn't suggesting that you can or should 'snap out of it'; rather that without any experience of how it can feel to be unable to do so I have no understanding of how it must feel. Nor was I suggesting that such feelings are in any way unreal or to be belittled - I am (as I hoped my last comment conveyed) grateful not to have ever had this experience.

[j4.livejournal.com]

So if you know nothing about it, why did you feel the need to comment on it at all?

Do you tell cancer sufferers "Wow, I can't imagine what it must be like to know that you're going to die soon. I know nothing about your illness, I'm just so glad I'm fit and healthy!"? If so, do you think they're grateful to you for rubbing it in?

(Don't bother answering -- I dread to think how tactless you could be if you were really trying.)

[perdita-fysh.livejournal.com]

I can understand death and pain, I have experience of them and I know how they work. Collectively we don't understand how functioning brains work yet. Brains not functioning quite right is so intangible therefore, that without direct personal experience it is very much 'here be dragons'. Especially as there isn't really a useful frame of reference to even describe such things and no means of comparison to discover what is 'normal' and which parts of any person's brain functioning is outside of 'normal'.

You might suggest, for example, that my perceived believe of looking at this in an objective scientific frame of reference is, instead, tactless and cruel; and not 'normal'...