Talking the Walk

Baby steps

Now, my Kraken loving lovelies, I'm going to drill a tiny hole in my skull and let you have a sneaky peek into my fetid, post-breakdown psyche. Fuck knows why, but you could say the same for this entire blog, so go with me.
After spending a year of my life in bed I got right out of the habit of exercising. Christ knows, I got right out of the habit of managing a decent shower so taking a daily constitutional was well out of my league. That was then. Now that I am recovering I've started walking again. Nothing too yompy, just an hour's walk every day to reacquaint myself with lactic acid and civilisation. 
There is, though, a snag. While I'm physically up to the task mentally I'm like a fucking newborn. In my head these walks feels completely and utterly beyond me. 
Now, I've been doing these walks five times a week for the last couple of months. So it's safe to say that I have evidence to prove that I can, indeed, walk. So why the fuck is it that every day I go through the same battle with the voice in my head over whether I'm  capable of leaving the house?
I blame Shit FM. That's what one of my counsellors and I decided to call the blaring, negative voice in my head, the one that unceasingly yells my supposed failings at me. Believe me, it's deafening. It's like having Celine Dion screaming at me about her ongoing fucking heart, day-in, day-out. And you wonder why I've been suicidal?
Anyway, every day when I shove on my trainers Shit FM is yodelling again. So I go through this process I've been taught, to mentally turn down the volume knob until said cranial radio station is on so low that I can actually sing over it's noise. See, I can't turn off Shit FM, but I can turn it down, so that's what I do.
Problem is, though, that because I can't turn off the radio of doom it's with me on my entire walk. From shuffling start to sweaty end, to the point that some days I think my only option is to sit down on the pavement and wait for someone to carry me to the safety of my bed. 
Take today. I fiddled with my mental knob and left the house but the evil radio in my head got louder and louder. Seriously, I stumbled up the street like I was dying in the Australian outback. Every step was its own individual battle. Each time I raised a foot my internal radio told me that I'd never make it. I'd sing over it but then the skirmish continued with the next step and the next and the next...
Even when I was 100 yards from my front door the voice was telling me to give up and lie on the pavement. And the bastard didn't stop when I got to the house. Then it started telling me that I'd never be able to open the front door and now, as I bash out this blog, it's telling me that it can't believe I walked at all, that it must have been a fluke.
See, this is the reality of my breakdown. On the outside I look as ordinary as any other bugger. Yet inside my head I scale Everest every single fucking day. It's crucifying and it's why I have no idea of when I will ever work again, as much as I feel like a heel for the long-term sick note. When doing the basics is this much of a slog, adding a job to it would turn me into an atomic incident. 
So I take my pride in the small things, like ignoring Shit FM for another hour or walking through what feels like a wall. It's not pretty but it's a start. I just hope that one day I'll actually get to see the finishing line.