Mission: Accomplished?

I handed in my project yesterday – although it’s nowhere near the standard it would have been if this year hadn’t been so difficult, posting it under the college office door, felt quite emotional. I’ve been on this rollercoaster for a year now, if I take the ‘start point’ as my final clinical rotation of third year, and for so much of that period of time, I really didn’t know if I’d make it through the year academically, or, in perfect honesty, at all.

These last few weeks have suddenly felt different, and it is such a huge relief. I feel like myself again and I find myself making plans and getting excited about things that for months, have left me cold. I’m actually sleeping for a full night, which hasn’t happened for a long time. I’m not spending hours every day crying, hours every day wondering if all this effort was worth it, if I was even going to make it through. It’s like that moment in the Wizard of Oz where the scenery suddenly changes from monochrome to colour, from the drab Kansas in the grip of the depression (oh, the irony!), to the joys of Oz (joyful until those monkeys appear, anyway) – as though after months of living in complete darkness, the light has come, the dawn has broken, the sun has come forward. God’s really come through for me, in these last few weeks. I’m also incredibly grateful for that. Many of you readers may not be believers – I don’t know whether you are, but I can say that I owe a big part of my recovery to that focus God gives me on the promise of better things to come. Without God, I am hope-less. With him, I have something to fix my eyes on, something to lean on, someone I hope and pray and yearn to come, and bring me out, bring me home at last.

I’ve posted one of my favourite hymns, that I’ve not listened to for a while – for many months, I just couldn’t bear it, it had no relevence. All was certainly not well, with my soul. Today though, I feel a sense of peace that has been so very elusive. I feel a sense of stopping, safe and still, that has been so resolutely absent. I’ve been to the bottom, I know it, I’ve met it, I’ve returned. I still have a long way to go to find my feet properly – my confidence has been seriously knocked this year, and there is , of course, still the weekly counselling with L to get through – but feeling like I’ve found that nook in the rock halfway up to rest is wonderful. I’ve not always managed things that well this year, and although partly that comes down to the things depression does to your personality and judgement, it was also partly due to me just being stubborn and needing something to rile against. That I’ve come through it, this episode at least, mostly without medication, without rest, and without getting myself to the help I probably needed, amazes me.

I used this video as it also has a bit about the background to the song, which I think is one of the reasons I love it as much as I do.

http://youtu.be/T8_EfDqF7YI