This post was nearly The Problem with Alcohol 3 but that would have been too limiting. However it is a problem that I want to talk about, the problem of moving on. Put like that it sounds easy but I am finding it to be a problem; a problem for me, a problem for my family and a problem for those who know me.
To explain what I mean I have to explain a bit about what happened to me. I had a breakdown that had been a long time coming but when it did it was rather spectacular. This resulted in me receiving treatment that has enabled me to understand what happened to me, why it happened and, I hope, what I need to do to stop it happening again. The end result is that I feel like a different person and I want to move on. Sounds simple doesn’t it.
The problem is that I’m not actually a different person but a modified and updated version of the old person who still looks the same and, in some ways, still behaves the same. People around me still treat me the same way as they always did and will bring up things that the ‘old me’ did. I want to shout and say “That’s not me, that’s the old me but I’m a completely different person now.” but that won’t work. I am both the old and new me. I have to show everyone that I have changed so that they will treat me differently because if they bring up how I was too often it drags me down and stirs up the old me. That is not to blame anyone but myself for how I used to be and, therefore, how others react to me now; I’m just trying to explain how things are.
So you see moving on isn’t as simple as it seems. I don’t just have to move myself onwards but I have to be able to take my friends and family onwards with me and that isn’t easy.
Now I haven’t written this to get sympathy but to explain what it is like to recover from mental illness; in my case depression. If this is how it is for me it is probably the same for a lot of other people who go through mental illness and come out the other side. We want to be accepted and loved for who we are and not reminded of who we were – we know that only to well without any reminders.
