Thursday 27 November 2014

Auf Wiedersehen. Goodbye.

End. Roll credits.
Quick.
Before life carries on and messes up the ending.
It's all looking complete, tied up neatly. It has closure. Narrative arc. Beauty.

Quick. Finish the story before the baby starts crying and there is the first argument about something minor and insignificant that is made huge and meaningful by its intensity. Before I have have a meltdown about my medication and my husband is hit with a tsunami of post traumatic waves of sorrow.

Turn off the cameras. The show is meant to be over. We're home. 

Over the last 7 months I have continued to recover every day. I don't take it for granted and I stay vigilant and mindful of what is happening to me, emotionally and physically. I know how brilliant it is to be well, because I know how horrifying it is to feel utterly lost to yourself. I have loved and hated this illness and will forever have the remnants of it stained on my knuckles like a survivor of its sentence of imprisonment.

I always said that psychosis picked the wrong Mutha to mess with, because I was always going to shout about it to anyone that would listen, and even people that didn't particularly want to. I have been talking to students, midwives, parents, healthcare professionals and unfortunate passers-by about postpartum psychosis and I will keep doing so to spread the word as far and wide as I can.

The bigger reason why I talk about it, apart from the occasional free lunch, is that it means I can talk about talking. I can share the vital importance of understanding and compassion, for ourselves and for others.

As my blog about psychosis comes to an end ready to be reinvented into something else, like the phoenix rising from the cyber ashes I, too, feel like I am ready to give flying a go. 

I wouldn't change what happened.
This was one of the most troubling, profound, awful, awesome, terrifying, inspiring episodes of my life.

Living with what happened and how to adapt my life accordingly is an ongoing lesson and like the best teachers, it has made a huge impact on my life. I will never be the same for having learned its teachings.

The end is in sight and yet it never is.

Love and cryptic sign offs,
Mutha Courage. X

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