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Clinging to Joy in the Midst of Deep Pain
When you start wondering whether it’s worth it, I hope you can look at your frozen moment of joy & feel even the slightest glimmer of hope. Because joy is a gift.
If you have spent any time with me, you probably would have noticed that I have a habit of taking pictures. A lot. It is something that annoys the heck out of my dad & brother when we’re on family holidays because I’m always stopping and snapping a picture. People I hang out with often roll their eyes when I ask them to stop for a picture or to take another selfie with me. I often am asked why I can’t just enjoy a moment without having to capture it on camera and I’ve never known how to respond to that question. Until now.
Pictures to me aren’t just pictures. They’re memories. Frozen moments of time that I can access again and again. It is a way for me to freeze a moment when my heart felt warm & happy. Because I don’t feel warm & happy very often. So when I’m in that moment, and I’m with my loved ones and I’m feeling a positive emotion, I capture it. It’s my way of holding on to good times. A way I can pause time and then go back and relive it when needed. Pictures are my way of remembering feelings. That I have experienced feelings. When things are hard, I often forget about the good times. I lose sight of what it feels like to experience happiness, warmth and joy. I doubt if I’ll ever feel it again. Capturing moments of happiness and beauty can be a powerful tool to remind me that this world isn’t all dark and awful.
Living with a mental illness is exhausting. I honestly feel that my brain operates on its own accord. It decides what it does and feels and I just have to sit there and survive what it throws at me. Happiness, joy and excitement are not feelings I experience often. Rather, I am often numb, feeling nothing at all, or am trapped in a deep hole of negative emotions. And no matter how hard I try, I’m stuck there. Until my brain decides it’s time for something else.
I recently went through a period of dissociation or complete numbness that lasted well over a week. During that time, I felt no negative feelings, but I also didn’t feel any positive emotions either. I was numb. I wish I could explain it in a way you could understand, but I can’t because I don’t totally get it myself. My body is present, it is in the room, or around people, it is physically present. But my body is just a shell. I’m not really there. My mind is somewhere else. I can’t tell you the number of jokes I’ve missed or conversations lost because my mind was busy burying my emotions and trying to find my one safe feeling deep inside my subconscious. I was approaching my first trip to Disney with my mom & everyone kept asking how excited I was about my trip. I love Disney. More than the average adult should. But I could not find one ounce of excitement or joy inside of me. I woke up early Monday morning for my flight, completely terrified that I would get there and feel nothing. I had dreamed of this trip for years. I’ve imagined standing in front of the Castle, marveling at its wonder, watching in amazement as they shoot fireworks off and laughing as I met all of the characters. The fact that my trip was so close, but I still felt absolutely nothing was extremely discomforting. I was plagued with worry and what ifs. What if I get there and feel nothing? What if I’m just a numb, walking zombie? What if I ruin this trip for my mom? What if, what if, what if… It’s hard feeling like you’re not in control of your emotions. My brain is so used to burying all the emotions, good and bad, to protect me. To keep me safe. It shuts everything out. It happens automatically. For how long, that depends.
I am incredibly thankful to say that when I got to Disney, something shifted inside of me. I don’t know if Tinkerbell dropped some pixie dust upon me, or if I was swept up in all the magic or if I was just blessed with an incredible gift, but I FELT something. For what seemed like the first time in forever (catch my Disney reference? Eh, eh?).
My mom and I aren’t big into rides and were on a mission to meet as many characters as possible during our time there. The nice thing about Disney is that they have Photographers around that will take your picture on their camera so you can purchase them after, BUT they’ll also take photos on your camera for free too! I won’t even tell you how many thousands of photos I have from our four days in the Disney Parks. But I have one absolute favorite. It will be a photo I will go back to often, when I’m feeling down and hopeless.
At Animal Kingdom Park, we happened across Russel and Dug from the movie, “Up” (which is one of my favorites. I can quote most of it). But that’s not why this moment is so significant for me. The Cast Member who had my phone captured a candid photo of me that every time I see it, fills me with a feeling I’m not too familiar with – hope.
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Dug had taken my Bullet Journal and did something funny. I don’t even remember what it was. But I LAUGHED. Like really laughed. A real laugh. Not a fake one to make others around me feel comfortable. Not a nervous laugh as I’m trying to fight panic. A real, actual, happy laugh. I haven’t laughed in a very, very long time. But in that moment, with that person in a costume who didn’t even speak to me, something happened inside of me and I truly laughed. And by some miracle, the Cast Member snapped this picture at just the right moment – mid laugh. I wish I could go back and find the Cast Member and hug them and say thank you. It may seem like just another picture to you, but this one, this one picture of me and a person in a dog costume tells a story. It is so very special.
When I look at this photo, I see JOY. Something I thought I would never feel again. I see a smile that is real, not faked to please others. I see me. The me I used to be. And the me I want to be again. I see a girl who is living in the moment and is emotionally present.
I was blessed with an entire week of freedom. Honestly. I normally have incredibly bad anxiety while flying, and I was able to sleep on the way down (which NEVER happens) and I blogged the entire flight home. I usually panic in large crowds or when people are too close to me and I’m closed in and I handled the groups of people without difficulty this week. I even slept in the bed closest to the hotel room door, which is something I haven’t been able to do for over 10 years. I carried Ativan in my backpack just in case, but I didn’t even think about it. I didn’t have to run my hand over the bottle to reassure myself. I literally had a week of freedom. I was given an amazing gift, the gift of feeling JOY. This gift means so much to me. I am so, so thankful.
But then, there is also a part of me that wishes I didn’t receive that amazing gift. This post was born as I was driving back home from Edmonton. I normally don’t drive without talking to either my mom or boyfriend on the phone. I find driving myself to be incredibly difficult. The bad thoughts come too easy. So I talk for the distraction. However, yesterday as I was driving, no one was available to talk on the phone with me. So it was me and my thoughts for a solid 6.5 hours. I left feeling such a high – I had felt JOY! I had experienced a positive emotion! I felt something! But as I got closer and closer to home, I could literally feel the joy and happiness being sucked out of my body. Drop by drop, my feelings of happiness were draining and being replaced with overwhelming dread, anxiety and panic. As I sat alone with my emotions, with no one to distract me, I began to weep. I cried for the last three hours of my drive. I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I picked up my phone and started dictating my feelings into my notes. My therapist tells me I’m supposed to allow myself the space to feel my emotions. To let myself cry. I haven’t cried in years (that’s another story), so I find it extremely uncomfortable. There was a point where I slammed my hands into my steering wheel and yelled, “This is stupid! Stop crying!”. But then all of a sudden, I realized why I was crying.
I was grieving the loss of my happiness. I know how ridiculous that sounds, trust me. But it’s true. I went from feeling nothing positive for over 8 months, to feeling JOY again after truly believing that it would not ever be possible again. I had finally experienced what it felt like to be better. That it is possible for me. I hoped that feeling would last forever. I wished I could just catch it in a bag and pin it to my chest. But I couldn’t. And as I got closer and closer to home, with each kilometer, the level of happiness drained and dread went up.
You see, I realized that I was no longer in a Magical Place. I was coming back to reality – one that hurts like hell. Today I start the hardest part of my trauma therapy. It’s going to be a hard week. A hard next few months. And there’s no fairies flying around dropping cheerful pixie dust on me anymore. It is time for me to face my past. My trauma. Time to fight like hell to heal. My temporary escape was only that- temporary. And as silly as it sounds, I was grieving the loss of the joy and peace I felt last week. Grieving how it felt to be “normal” for a while. Because I had hoped it would last forever…
So I sat, crying for hours, long after I returned home. Letting myself grieve. Until I noticed my box on my coffee table…
![](https://i0.wp.com/fightingtheinvisible.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/20190428_190804.jpg?resize=960%2C467&ssl=1)
Engraved with “Find the Joy in Everything”. A message I had chosen long before my recent eight months of hell began. I sat there, crying, staring at that stupid box thinking, “There is no joy to be found here. There’s only pain and hurt and a deep hole of suffering.” But then, it CLICKED. Photos.
Photos are my JOY. They are the way I can cling to my joy despite the pain. When I look at that photo of me from Disney, I see a girl with a natural smile and joy radiating. That is me. I FELT THAT. I was given the gift of joy. Which means that I can and will experience this feeling again. While looking at those photos may not make my anxiety or panic magically go away, I trust that deep down in my heart, clinging to these small moments of joy will provide enough hope to keep me fighting. Pictures are my tangible, visible frozen moments of time that prove to my brain better times have happened before. And they will again.
So, if you’re here, battling alongside me in the trenches, walking through the dark tunnel with no light in sight, I challenge you. Find some sort of tangible memory of a time you felt warmth inside your heart, felt joy. And then cling to it. When you start wondering whether it’s worth it, I hope you can look at your frozen moment of joy & feel even the slightest glimmer of hope. Because joy is a gift. Gifts aren’t always given excessively. But you will receive another gift of joy. I can guarantee it. So let’s keep fighting. Fight until we get our next gift. It’s coming, I promise. But for now, cling tight to that small piece of joy. It’s your lifeline.
Keep fighting, dear ones. I know it is so, so hard to find the good within all this pain. But it is there. Find it. Hold it tight. And fight like hell.
Love,
Becca
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One Comment
Amy H
Thanks for sharing your heart!!! I can relate to many areas that you wrote about. Very encouraging!