Three weeks in, three weeks out.

Longer now, but I wrote these words, longhand, after I’d been out of hospital three weeks. I’m typing them now, with today’s point of view, so you can’t believe anything.

What they don’t tell you, when you leave the mental hospital, is that you have to start running your own life again, like an adult, in control of yourself. You have to set an alarm and actually get out of bed so you can get to work. You have to remember to take your meds, morning and night, you have to go shopping for groceries. You have to create some sort of routine. You have to smile and tell everyone how much better things are now, thanks for asking, because you don’t want to worry them, or make them uncomfortable, or bored.

If you stay in bed all day when you come home from the mental hospital someone might suggest you sign yourself back in. What they don’t tell you is that you don’t know what you want to do, but sleeping all day doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world. I wish I’d  slept more while I was in the mental hospital.

To think I started to miss my normal life, but now that I’m in it I’ve come to realise that I’m actually quite shit at it, shit at my job, shit at making decisions, shit at planning, at being on time, at giving a fuck about it because I don’t really have anything I want to look forward to.

I thought the meds would make me feel less depressed but, SPOILER ALERT, they do not.

Nothing much has changed, mentally, except I’m not expressing myself as readily as I used to and I’m not taking Valium like they are Lifesavers.

I’m not taking them at all, actually, which makes everyone very pleased with me, and themselves. Also also, I haven’t been an asshole to anyone so far.  Is that the bonus we were all hoping for?

I haven’t yelled at anyone, mainly, because stressors have been taken from me and given to others. No more evening work at home. No more new staff for the shop. No more toxic Facebook groups or people. No more this, or that. I have “light duties”, and I’m told not to worry about “this”, and that “that” is being taken care of. I tell them “alright”, I won’t think about it. There’s a lot I don’t think about, like writing, I don’t think about it at all. That’s a lie. Every day I have this fleeting thought. The word “writing” comes and goes. Just like that.

I have ideas. So many ideas. But then I remind myself where my ideas end up. So I let them fly away. Like the word “writing”.

So there it is. I’ve become the benign person I always feared I’d become – no hopes, no dreams, no passions, no vices. Just a benign middle-aged woman, fat, having lost my looks around 30 kilos and 5 years ago, and with nothing much of interest to say.

I’ve literally lost words.

It’s safer this way. For everyone.