Doldrums

This is a great book. The main character, Milo, goes off on an adventure and reaches this area called “The Doldrums” where he meets people known as the Lethargians who don’t think or laugh. It’s supposed to be a place where people who daydream too much get stuck. Our hero figures out he has to think to get out. 

It’s a cloudy place where nothing has much color and there really aren’t any trees, grass or flowers. 

I can relate. 

This is a conversation Milo has with the Lethargians:

“You see,” continued another in a more conciliatory tone, “it’s really quite strenuous doing nothing all day, so once a week we take a holiday and go nowhere, which was just where we were going when you came along. Would you care to join us?”

“I might as well,” thought Milo; “that’s where I seem to be going anyway.”

This is how I feel at the moment. I’m not doing anything and I don’t seem to be going anywhere. 

Isn’t the definition of insanity repeating the same thing and expecting a different result? If so, then I need to change something. 

Ultimately, that is why, although I am not giddy about DBT, I am open to it. I obviously need to try something new. Old crap is not working. Clearly my way is getting me absolutely nowhere. 

Like Milo, I’m stuck. 

I hate it.

The only way for me to “think” my way out of this is to trust the people who are there to support me and go with what they think is the right thing. I surely cannot be trusted anymore with those decisions because my decisions got me to this place. 

I say that and then that feels kind of unfair. Part of me is screaming that if I had been on decent meds sooner or if I had a therapist I had connected with sooner or if I had a competent case manager sooner, maybe this wouldn’t be the place I was at, but all of those “ifs” are kind of irrelevant. They are statements about what didn’t happen. 

What did happen is that none of those things came together soon enough and now I’m here. In the Doldrums. Stuck. Not able to think my own way out. 

Man that sucks.