Under Attack

I’ve a tendency to personalise nature. Something deep in my mind will begin to relate to what I’m seeing. A passing creature may still my fears, its very ‘beingness’ inviting me to enter a state of calm.

By following the movement of wind as it moves through the leaves and branches of a tall tree I can change the course of a troubled day. On the other hand a sense of loss and loneliness can give way to one of belonging and connection, simply by following the movement of a ladybird walking across a leaf.

As I move through my days I connect mentally with many aspects of life: The impact of a storm at sea, indiscriminate in its rage, a cliff-face or a magnificent cloud. Drifting snow or a life-threatening heatwave. I sometimes sense our blue planet - our place of such strange beauty - being forever held and nurtured by a never- ending yet constantly changing light, and this lifts and sustains me.

I am not alone, I have all this. I have all this.

And yet, despite ‘all this’ I’m troubled this week, disturbed and ridiculously fearful. I have a simple thing - a speeding issue to sort out online, but my recent fear of using technology has me paralysed and, by trying overly hard to overcome it, I’ve managed to make myself unwell.

I feel old now and terribly confused so I’m left with no choice but to give up. I turn off the light, I pull up the duvet and am gripped by another bout of panic. I turn the light back on with a shaking hand.

Brain?

Yes.

What was my last step?

I don’t know.

So can you tell me how to make my next one?

No.

I’m desperately tired but I can’t go to sleep because I now have an evil intruder in my head. He has no actual form, but I imagine him as hunched, charred and extremely powerful.

He sits behind my eyes and I’m waiting for him to jump out and bite me. I’ve already been bitten. I can’t stand the thought of it happening again. I’m being told to do things I can’t do and trying to do them scares me half to death. Easy things they may once have been, but they are no longer easy for me!

Because I’m so distressed, I find myself interpreting images and turning them from glory and wonderment into this vile, terrifying and hurtful intruder. I close my eyes and try to go to sleep. If I go to sleep everything bad will go away. He’s powerful, this invader, so powerful I can hardly get his image out of my mind. He’s made out of all my dark and fearful thoughts. I want them to be banished, but if they are he’ll die and he’s not going to let that happen.

I still can’t sleep and he’s still here, but what or who is he? I try to remember but my mind, which he seems to be controlling, goes blank. Is he real, I wonder, or is he just something I’m writing about? I’ll turn off my head and act as normal and maybe he’ll go away. He doesn’t, and after a while I start to dig, again, for what I’m trying to get across. Evil intruder doesn’t want me to continue. He wants me to fail. So now I’m hoping that my failing brain may soon be too small to support both of us.

It would be the one good thing to come out of this. My experience of Evil makes things appear differently to me. Nothing seems to really touch me. I know it should, though I’m not sure I want it to. I have a sense of incompleteness and unworthiness. Even though I know beauty is still, and always, there, it’s lost to me just now and I feel I shall never get it back.

I try to find myself by taking a dream walk by the sea in the soft dawn light. It’s more calming than walking on a blustery day with rain in the air and angry waves hurling themselves at me and trying to tear me apart. Though sometimes, when things get tough, I find that exhilarating and mood changing. But, really, what is the point of all this thinking and dreaming. The sea is no longer my friend. It too has abandoned me. Up until a couple of weeks ago I had hardly any problems.

Generally I was at ease, friends with my sense of being, my style of life, the patterns I was making and the footprints I was leaving as I walked, fairly calmly through my days. I felt on top of things in a way I’d not have anticipated, given that I’m now filed under D for dementia, rather than simply D for Danya.

Did I ever realise, when I was counselling, what my poor clients were going through? So many of them were lost to panic attacks and trying to fix things through food, eating either too much, or too little of it. And though I do know I was able to help them, I never, until this cruel night, had any real-life understanding of mental illness.

So, if you’re reading this as a carer, please, don’t get cross with your loved ones if and when panic comes to call. I know it can be really hard for you, but just now they are in hell and they may only have you to rescue them.