Picture this. You’re in a plane. Everything;s good. There are no problems. Then, all of a sudden, something goes wrong. The plane goes into a nosedive, and you’re plunging towards the ground. Everything is terrifying, and you don’t know why it’s not working properly, but you do everything to pull it up, and eventually, you manage it. But the engines aren’t as smooth. there’s a wierd choking noise, and nothing seems to run properly. You pull the thing up, and decide to push on for Portugal. She’s sluggish, unresponsive, and unpleasant to pilot, but she functions.
You could land, sure. But you can’t afford the airport fees, the repair fees, the time lost. So you push on. And you get used to the unresponsiveness, the sluggishness. Your own responses start to adapt to the plane. And just as you’ve managed to pull her up to twenty thousand feet, the stupid engines decide that now is a good time to cut out. Once again, you’re in freefall. Nothing’s working, and you’re headed with with the rapid and inexorable progress of Newton’s Apple towards the ground.
That, at the minute is what life is like. Nothing works as it should. I try to urge on my heart and nerve and sinew, but they do not listen. And I’m headed for the ground, about to hit rock bottom hard enough to split concrete…
Tuesday night, I spent in hospital, attached to a heart monitor. Wednesday morning, the cardiologist reviewed me, and sent me home with the non-diagnosis of a vaso-pharyngeal episode. I’m not at work, because of that. Couple that with the black dog rearing his big, ugly head again, feelings of uselessness and incompetence, and just a genuine malaise… Going to the Royal wasn’t where I hit the ground, it was just where the engines stopped.
People keep saying to me “Don’t feel useless. You’re not.” It doesn’t help. If anything, it makes me feel more useless, for not being able to illuminate the darkness inside by just flicking a switch. I wish I could. But because I don’t know why I feel so useless, I can’t just not feel it. I’m really struggling to see the brightness in the world.
So please, remind me who I am. Don’t just tell me that I’m not useless. Highlight the darkness for me. Point out my specks of light. Be the little pearls of light you’ve been for me in the past, strung out across the world. Show me why I’m not useless.