Insecurity
Friday, April 6th, 2001.
This is something I wrote in an email today. I don’t have the energy to explain the context of the conversation, but basically it’s about the paradox of beginning to feel healthier, having survived my withdrawal, but instead of feeling better, I feel an apprehension, not necessarily a resurgence of depression, but a kind of insecurity.
I wrote:
“At this point in my life, recovering from my Paxil Experience and about to return to life as I used to know it, I feel an apprehension, a feeling that the foundation I used to stand on, my personal history (which has been sort of blank since last July when my withdrawal began), that my history (the experience that makes us) isn’t there as firmly as it used to be. And it’s almost as if the healthier I become, the more insecure I feel.”
First response:
I can understand wanting to get back to “normal” in a hurry, but sometimes it just doesn’t work like that. Slow for someone else may not be slow enough for you. The one thing I have learned is that I now take as much time as I need to get over some things. Like at this point in my life I am still kind of getting over the shock of how the person I was seeing before my withdrawal experience ended our relationship. It has been about a year and a half and I am just now slowly beginning to trust people again. That is how much time I needed for it and maybe even a little more.
Do you know just this past year I have met men that actually admit to crying? I know it feels bad but it is really a good release. I do think from reading your posts and what you’ve just said that you need to say “stop” and try to start with the little things, like how the sky looks. I still have this “awe” for things, it’s so hard to explain.