how i made it out of hell, this time

november 27, 2019

when i woke up this morning, i did not want to live. i wanted the covers to swallow me up. i wanted to go back in time and choose to have never been born. i wanted the planet to stop spinning long enough for me to jump off of it and escape into an abyss of nothingness. (i happen to know that there is no such thing as nothingness due to several supernatural awakenings i’ve had but at that point this morning, i didn’t even have the strength to cope with the afterlife; what i wanted was no life at all.) it was pretty bad. but then i got a text from my ex-boyfriend who swears he’s still in love with me even though it was his choice to leave the relationship after five and a half years. the text said that he was sorry for “everything” and that he loved me terribly and missed me terribly and felt lost without me and thinks about me all the time. hmm, how interesting. suddenly, i had the strength to turn my body upright. suddenly, i felt like a person with an identity again. i knew there was no chance of us getting back together (this guy is a prince of double talk) and that our relationship had been a sort of trap for me to begin with and that i did NOT want to repeat that mistake. but all the same, someone had just told me that they loved me. i was not alone in the world. i was not an unwanted woman. i was still a woman with no degree. a woman with depression. a woman with no driver’s license and no faith in her ability to ever get one. i was still a woman with no job, with no active career, no spouse, no home of her own (i live with my mother) and absolutely NO self-confidence. but i wasn’t alone. and i was not unloved. i was still somebody to somebody. and that’s all it took. in seconds, i was off the sofa. i was folding up the blankets I’d been hiding in for the last 16 hours. i was asking my mother for a cup of coffee. i was telling her i loved her, and that i too was sorry for “everything.” i was paying love forward which is the only thing that makes life in this world at all tolerable.

now, receiving that message at that critical time in my depressive episode was either a fluke or a miracle. either way, i’m grateful it happened. but knowing that my ex was momentarily having regrets about leaving me was not going to be enough to cure my affliction. it would not be enough to give me strength for facing my ever-worsening fear of life itself. but it was enough to give me strength to search for my adderall. i hadn’t taken any since my doctor put me on an anti-depressant that he wasn’t sure would interact well with it. so far, i had gone two weeks off the adderall and on the anti-depressant and i felt like hell. i had no desire to shower, to leave the house, to do anything at all but sleep. i didn’t see things ever changing and i wondered how i would ever find the strength to do something as daring as get a day job much less resume my acting career. hence i had no idea how i was going to ever earn enough money to live on and avoid homelessness after my mother was no longer around to care for me. the one thing that had been giving me hope was the children’s novel i was writing. it was a great story. it was halfway done. and the feedback i got on it was phenomenal. everyone who read this story told me that it was a winner, a story that simply had to be told. and i’d been writing it diligently each day. but lately, it was getting harder and harder to face my laptop. the subject matter of the book was triggering feelings related to my breakup and i was losing faith in my abilities as a writer. maybe i didn’t have the strength or the intelligence or the talent to tell this story any further. what if i couldn’t find the right words? furthermore, what it i was just too depressed to think of anything good? this was a book about children and i felt way too unhealthy to even be near a child, much less write about them or for them. my fear had me in a fix. if i couldn’t work on this book, i wouldn’t be making any forward motion in my life. writing my three pages a day had been the source of what precious self-esteem i still had going for me. without that, i was lost, a nothing, adrift and hopeless. this book was my chance to contribute something meaningful to the world. without it, my life was a waste. at least that’s how i saw it. and now, i was losing my grip on my life raft. maybe i had already lost it completely. fortunately, about half an hour into my spiral of despair, my adderall kicked in. it happened while i was on the phone with my therapist. “it’s just this terrible fear.” i whined to my counselor. “i look at the blank page and i just feel terrified to write a single word. i’m afraid i’ll ruin the book. or that i’ll have to dive so deeply into the suffering of the characters that the book will ruin me.” that’s when i got an idea, surely thanks to the activity the drug had enabled in my brain. “i’m going to try to write one sentence today. i’m just gonna see if i can get one decent sentence out of myself right now. will you stay on the phone with me while i try it?” i asked her. “of course,” she encouraged me, “go ahead, i’ll be right here.” and the next thing that happened was not a fluke but a definite miracle. i did it. i wrote the next sentence of my novel. it was decent but not great so i asked my therapist to hold on a moment longer while i tried to make it better. i succeeded! i had written an adorable 18-word sentence that made perfect sense and moved the story along in a sensible direction. my anxiety had been lying to me. i hadn’t suddenly lost my talent and i wasn’t too weak to handle my own subject matter. i hadn’t lost my story or my talent, that was just the depression talking. i wrote another sentence and another and another, with my therapist still on the phone. “i did it,” i told her. “i just wrote a new paragraph. and i think that when we hang up, i can finish the rest of the page, maybe even the whole chapter!” i had faced my fear – stared down the dragon of the blank page and proved myself up to the challenge. all i’d needed was someone to hold my hand while i walked the tightrope. plus the gumption to step onto the tightrope to begin with and the imagination to ask for help. thank you, adderall. thank you, therapy. thank you, text message from my vacillating ex. thank you, mom. thank you, coffee. thank you, courage. thank you, self.  i did finish that chapter today and it’s exactly as well-written as it needs to be for now. furthermore, when i was done, i was no longer depressed. i was proud of myself. i was confident in my talent. i was hopeful for my future. and i was interested in living once again. it took a lot to get me out of the woods today. and once i was walking through them, it took resolve to get myself to keep going. it took resolve to finish this blog post as there were times in the last hour when i felt restless and tempted to put it off until tomorrow. but i pushed through. and i’m glad i did. i feel better about myself for having done so. i feel better about my tomorrow for handling today with some courage and resolve. and now i feel i’ve earned the reward of binge-watching The Good Place until i fall asleep. several people helped me today. and many people have helped me all my life in my struggle with depression. not to mention all the help i get from medication. and so i’m paying the love forward. the fact that i am glad to be alive right now is nothing short of miraculous. and when a miracle happens, people can’t help wanting to spread the news. i’m grateful for my miracle and i’m grateful for all the help. my hope is that this blog post may help someone else. if so, then my life and even my suffering is not without meaning. be well. – sue d.