My life has gotten incredibly better. Since starting the ketogenic diet about 2 months ago, I feel like a new man. The clarity I have is something I didn’t know existed.
But this newfound clarity is a double-edged sword.
The great part about this clarity is that my graduate-level work is so much easier. I can formulate my ideas and thoughts effortlessly. My fingers fly over the keyboard, and it almost feels like cheating.
The pain that feels like a spear in my heart is the other edge of that clarity. I can finally look back at everything that happened, and it crushes me.
The decades I struggled with depression and PTSD. The medications I was prescribed not to heal me but to zombify me so I wasn’t a danger to myself. The years I couldn’t even hold a conversation with my family because of the effects of the medications.
Decades lost to mental illness that I will never get back. A youth spent struggling to get through the day instead of enjoying life.
It is too much at times. I went on a walk today and the weight of my pain hit me like a truck. I know I am grieving and that the intensity of the pain won’t last forever. But it still sucks.
I’ve worked very hard for a long time, but instead of a finish line with pageantry and celebration, I am faced with a past that is heartbreakingly tragic.
I usually have a lesson from the pain I go through. Some type of takeaway that makes this easier to carry. But today, I find there is none.
The best I can hope for is to write about it and pray the jaggedness of the wound hurts a little less. To hold on to hope that one day, hopefully soon, I will find myself in a different place that doesn’t feel bleak and deserted.
What is happening with me is that I can feel my emotions for the first time since I was 16. 16 is when my Pop died and I decided to not feel anything but anger.
It was a horrible choice, one that I’m still paying for, but I just didn’t know what to do with the sadness of his death. I thought if I buried it with rage that somehow, I could bypass all of it. That the pain of my Pop dying could be bypassed like a broken circuit.
If you have read this so far, does any of this resonate?
I feel like an astronaut lost in space. Drifting farther and farther into a bleak, cold space that contains nothing but darkness. It would be a small comfort to know I’m not alone.
Thanks for reading. I usually post Monday and Thursday, but this grief has covered me like a thick oil, and I thought writing about it could help.
I’ll see you back here tomorrow.
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