When You Think You've Clicked Delete On All Your Files. But It's not Your Files: It's Your Life

I love similes and metaphors. Of course I do— I'm a person who loves to read and write poetry. By mapping a more familiar image or feeling onto something less familiar, a good metaphor or simile can help a person understand something outside their frame of reference. I especially like similes and metaphors for mental health because some aspects of mental health can feel so alien or incomprehensible if you don't relate.

So let me share a simile now to tell you how I feel.

Imagine you've been working for months, if not years, on a piece of work on a laptop. A lengthy, involved dissertation for example, maybe a second draft of a novel or perhaps a film comprising footage from different moments of your life. Then imagine you have a moment of panic and accidentally click delete. You have no back up. How do you feel?

Replace 'piece of work' with 'your life'— everything and everyone you've ever invested in, cared about, found meaning in, loved. Imagine how it feels to have clicked delete on all of that. That's how I feel right now.

I've sent messages on WhatsApp that I shouldn't have sent. I can't handle that I've shown vulnerability too many times over. I've made a mess in social situations and relationships. I know I've handled the stress of my move really badly. It's been so difficult and I don't have enough support, even though I do have support.

It's been one massive silent scream for two months. I want more help and I don't know how to get more. I feel like I'm in the immensely painful trap of being a person with these kinds of mental health problems in a world that doesn't have space or capacity for these kinds of things.

I just want _____. If I could have anything in the world right now it would be ______. It's too much to ask. It hurts more than any physical pain could ever hurt.

***

[Note: This post contains mention of suicidal thoughts].

The last few days and have weeks have been all-consumingly painful. Overwhelmingly so. I don't know how to make it through, but I have to. Somehow. I have to.

It's so painful that it's giving me suicidal thoughts. I'm not going to act on them, but they are in my mind a lot the last few weeks due to how much pain I'm in emotionally and how disconnected I feel.

I know they will pass once I start to feel better.

***

Time is spent wondering whether it is actually all in the 'recycle bin' and can be recovered or whether it really has gone forever. My husband keeps telling me it hasn't gone forever. I try to believe him, but it's incredibly hard.

...

My husband asked me what kind of help I want. The problem is, what I want I can't have. I just want _______.

I hate to be a person wanting, so desperately wanting, this.

***

It feels so bleak to want this.

I then feel shame and guilt for feeling so bleak when I know I have SO many wonderful things in my life. And everything might not be lost. It might be recoverable.

I'm sure this feeling will pass, but until then it's all-consumingly painful.