Everyone has bad days. I suppose Monday's are notorious for them. You feel down, lethargic and worried that it's only the start of the week, wondering how you'll get through the rest.
But when I have a bad day I feel all those things and more. I was just playing with my son after getting in for the evening and he was screaming with laughter as I was tickling him. There probably isn't a better sound in the world that I could hear, my child deliriously happy. For a split second I was too but then my mind kicked in and reminded me I was having a bad day.
I was lying on the bed with my son and my wife playing and before I could do anything about it my mind went to my son dying and how our lives would be nothing. I think he had cancer. It's difficult to remember a lot of the diseases or accidents my mind makes my son befall, primarily because I don't want to remember them. I don't want my mind to come up with them. I don't want to feel the enormous pain of a loss that hasn't even happened.
But I do.
This has been a bad day because others around me have been unhappy. I have no idea why they were but to my mind that doesn't matter. It was my fault and I am terrified that I will have to suffer the consequences.
Mental illness is at times a very selfish condition. Your mind plays the tricks with you that everyone is against you, emotionally you are the centre of the universe with everyone saying bad things behind your back. Logically of course this isn't the case, everyone has better things to do with their time.
So tonight I will live in fear, fighting with my own mind to try to make it stop. I know it isn't real, I know that what I am afraid of isn't actually happening. But my mind won't let me accept that, there is a thought there that is hammering away continuously that it IS my fault. I am to blame. I will end up suffering. I don't really even know what it is that I'm at fault for but that doesn't matter, the thought is there. It's like there's clingfilm wrapped around my head and it can't get out.
Bad days suck for everyone. Bad days for those of us with mental health problems suck so much that they bring a fear that in a perfect world a fear that no one should ever have. A fear of being alive.
