Hey Friends,
It has been a while since I have written any update on my life. The only thing I can say is that I continue to be on this rollercoaster of…what? I am not sure how to fully describe what I have been experiencing. Which is something I think millions of us can actually relate to. Life as we know has been turned inside out for literally the whole world. And if you’re an American like me, not only has life been turned inside out, life is also in the process of being flipped upside down. That’s a good thing. I won’t talk too much about it here because I did write a post a couple of weeks back, but in regards to America being turned inside out, I more than welcome it. The civil unrest in this country is in no way slowing down or stopping. It’s beautiful and powerful. Why is it happening? Because like I said last post, Black Lives Matter.
It is not a secret that I live with depression. Back in December of 2019, I was finally able to see a therapist. It went well. One thing I appreciated about my therapist was how she acknowledged that I have a lot of insight. She knew after our first session that I know myself very well. I know the cause of my emotions and I am very capable at understanding why I feel what I feel. I can get to the root of my trauma on my own, very well. I went to therapy because while I can trace traumas and understand them, I could not figure out how to cope with them. It was like I was able to climb to the top of Mount Everest on my own, without directions or even proper equipment – but then I wasn’t able to figure out what to do once I reached the top. And you know what? She wasn’t much help. Her solution was more or less just actions on becoming more independent. She actually laid into me pretty hard on only our third session regarding how NOT independent I was. I never did figure out her reasoning for that. All it did was make me feel like an incapable toddler – sitting with someone that doesn’t understand what I need from them to help me be better.
We had another session or two after that. They went about as normal as they could. We weren’t unpacking any traumas. We weren’t trying to figure out ways to heal my still broken and grieving heart. We weren’t even talking about how hopeless I still felt. To be honest, I don’t even remember the conversations anymore. All I remember was that I had felt that there was nothing left for me. Therapy wasn’t adding any value or help. The only thing I had left were the antidepressants my doctor had given me back in October after my last physical. I hadn’t taken them because I didn’t really want to believe that my depression was due to a chemical imbalance. I actually could not accept that. That would mean it was truly out of my control. And I always need to be in control with everything that involves my mind and emotions. Always. That would mean that I could never really feel better on my own. It meant that I would need to put something in my body, possibly forever…just so that I would want to live. Metaphorically speaking, that was not an easy pill for me to swallow.
Anyway, I began taking the antidepressant and what do you know, I started to feel better. When I say I felt better, I mean that I felt like there was hope. Nothing actually got better. It was just my outlook on my life. I went from feeling/believing that I was held in a black hole that was surely going to kill me, to actually feeling the darkness fade. The grip was loosening. When I acknowledged the difference in how I was feeling, I started to believe that anything was possible again. I didn’t want to continue therapy anymore. She wasn’t giving me any real direction. My battery had gotten the jump that it needed, and I felt like I was back on the road. But that’s the funny and cruel thing about hope. Don’t get me wrong, hope is my actual drug. I need it. I live off of it. But it is a lie. And anytime I questioned why I actually felt better, the hope would painfully abandon me. It got to the point where I had to stop questioning and just start “doing”. Which for me meant waking up everyday, taking my little teal pill, then working anywhere from seven to ten hours. That was how I was coping. The hope/cope I was practicing was also a lie. But it was working well enough for me to function and still feel better. I accepted the lie because for the first time in years, I didn’t want to die.
Then Covid-19 hit New York, hit New Jersey. The daycare I work at was closed due to an executive order. On March 16th, everything for me stopped. It felt like I had been doing 125mph on the highway and came to a screeching halt, and all of my shit that was in the back of the car crashed into the front with me. It was like I had been skydiving and landed in the middle of the ocean with the parachute on top of me. Because my routine was suddenly so out of whack, I had missed a few days of taking my meds. And I quickly started to drown. I dropped 3 lbs in two days and couldn’t get out of bed. I was still having therapy sessions. During our first virtual session, which was only about eight days after being home, within 90 seconds my therapist said to me, “you are not okay”. We came up with a few “solutions”, which was basically finding ways for me be stimulated, and we increased our sessions. We hung up the phone, I changed back into my PJ’s and stayed in bed.
That next day she texted me about a free online course that I could take. I looked it up and signed up for four additional courses. I was so thankful and excited. She actually gave me something to do, and it was something I could really benefit from. I got back on my schedule for taking my pills (SSRI and Prednisone) and started to feel like I could survive staying at home. I had a compass, and it was working.
Fast forward about 3.5 months, and now I can’t locate the compass. Over three months of still being out of work and over two weeks since finishing all my courses and I am once again spending time with a familiar and painful feeling.
The hopelessness has returned.
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