Categories: uncategorized
Date: 13 April 2008 09:22:46
Now I'm back to banging my head against brick wall we come to lesson number 3: Rational decisions are not always the right decisions and when they lead you to hitting rock bottom you can climb back up - if you dare to dream.
In the mist of my falling apart stage I came to some conclusions about life and death which made sense at the time and still actually make sense in there own way today. They were not the conclusions of a "very sick person", although society finds it easier to treat them as such; rather the rational conclusions of somebody who could not look beyond the immeadiate future. Infact the only irrational part of that decision making process was thinking that large amounts of anti-depressants could be used in ways they weren't intended. What I need to say at this point, though, is that however rational the decision it was the wrong decison.
However black my life seemed at the time and whatever the motives in terms of thinking about my daughters future in different circumstances I was infact only looking at the immeadiate situation. You can't dream in the mist of a nightmare, you just end up with everything being exaggerated and more vivid than it is in reality. That's how it is when you are living a nightmare.
However, when you start to be able to look at the medium and long term the colours soften and things change back to their correct proportions, you start to be able to dream of a different ending and ending you have created.
Now don't get me wrong, the brutal experience of reality means that you are not going to be able to dream of a fairy tale ending (you are likely to be way too cynical for that). Rather you dream of rewriting the script so that you achieve that ambition which your past experience, what ever it was, was holding you back from. You dream of a future free from the perscription drugs which you are being fed to "keep you normal", you dream of a future pursuing the career you want to rather than doing the job you've fallen into, you dream of building positive relationships rather than being a drain on those who love you enough to hang around whilst you have fallen apart.
As I moved on from the professionals who were seeking to help me put my head together I learnt the power of dreaming and chasing the dream. I know I was lucky, quite early on in the process I saw a doctor who recognised the greatest danger in my life was that I could become an insitutionalised out patient and so discharged me to get on with building my own future. Chasing that dream then led me out of the benefit office and away from the school gate where I spent my days for a couple of years, (only escaping to London once a week to do the MA). In the couple of years that followed, I moved across the country and onto my PGCE (post-compulsory), then into a career; and I also moved into a life where I was able to rely on myself and my judgements rather than the happy pills. The dream became reality.
**At this point please don't panic and think I am thinking particularly dark thoughts again, I'm not. It's just I need to remember how following my dreams got me out of my darkest hole if I am to believe that following my dreams may make my current, generally, good life experience even better**