Continuing...

I'm trying to find the next step.

I've worked so hard... nearly a decade... on the cognitive, behavioral things, and I think because of that, it is hard for me to believe that there really is something biochemical wrong with me that medication does help... or can sometimes, anyway. But I see the things that come back, the things that you don't realize are gone until they return... the ability to laugh more, to just be happier in the moment, to be silly and spontaneous. Michael sometimes complains that I'm not fun anymore... I think he means, not spontaneous... and, you know, he's right. I'm not fun. It's all a balancing act, me on this tightwire between ok and not ok, teetering all the time, trying to keep my ducks all in a row. I beat myself up mercilessly a lot of the time for not getting things done... but I forget, it's hard. It's hard to get up in the morning and put myself together and do the basic things. It shouldn't be. But it is.

I wish that I had the words for the feeling, that inchoate formless longing to be on the other side of this, to be that person I can feel sometimes, the person who I am without the sadness and the regrets and the anxiety and fear. I can see her, sometimes, just on the edge of my vision. Sometimes, just for a moment, I am her. And then I lose my balance again.

But the last few days, I can see the form and shape of it, see the choices that I have to make, see these things as real and possible rather than things that require unimaginable, insurmountable effort.

I think this is all good. But it's tentative and a little frightening, too.