Tonight, I finally felt a spark to write and post again. I’m sitting here reading through a bunch of my poems and I have no idea what I feel like sharing. This is the hardest part for me about this blog. As I’ve mentioned before, most of my poetry and writing is highly personal and includes many dark themes. Sometimes I’ve felt I need to put a disclaimer before them or a ‘trigger warning’. And that sometimes keeps me from wanting to share. I still don’t know if that’s something I should do or not. It seems like in the world we live in everything must come with a warning. WARNING, this may cause cancer…. DISCLAIMER, results may be varied…. **trigger warning**…. I personally don’t think it’s a bad thing for the reader, because we all have different amounts of mental space to read those types of things. But for me as a writer, it makes me feel like I have to warn people about my story. Warn them that there are parts that are really dark, so dark you can’t even see your hand in front of your face. But then that feels like I’m trying to water myself down to be more acceptable or palatable to the reader. I do want to respect people's mental health and boundaries as well though. It’s been a juxtaposition of feelings ever since I considered sharing my poetry.
To be honest, a large portion of my poetry from the last 6 or so years deals with dark themes of depression, suicidal ideation, and much more…but these poems are the deepest and most raw parts of me. I’ve written them when I was in the lowest depths of depression, places I didn’t think I was going to make it out of.
My mental health struggles were something I tried to hide for years. I never wanted to appear that I was not doing ok, even when I was going home and thinking about why I was even here at all. These kinds of things are hard to talk about, even in the world we live in today where mental health and seeking help for your struggles has become much more acceptable. There are still the voices of anxiety in the back of my mind telling me lies. These lies often are spoken by the voices of people I know and love, but mostly myself.
A big part of starting this blog was for me to be more real and to be able to share the parts of me I have kept hidden for a long time. I’ve feared in the past that people would look at me differently if they really knew what was going on inside my head. For the most part, to colleagues and friends and even family, I was able to put up a facade that I thought had most of them fooled. But it never fooled
me, and I felt like I was walking around pretending I was ok all the time. Every day I forced a smile and went along with my outward-facing life as if nothing was amiss. But the truth was, it felt like absolutely everything was amiss. I could hardly function, and it took every ounce of strength and energy I had in me to get up and go to work, or even to brush my teeth. There was a time when I found I couldn’t even work anymore.
It was in 2022, and I was working from home, as many of us, who were able, did at the time. This was an incredibly hard scenario for someone with clinical depression. I was able to get away with sleeping a lot of the day and doing the bare minimum to slide by at work. I’m not proud of my work ethic during this time, but all I could think about was how to survive. How could I make the next day bearable? Then, how can I make the next hour bearable? Soon I was taking life minute by minute, and then second by second. This was the lowest point in my life. I ended up taking a medical leave of absence from work, and the crazy thing was, I felt like my ‘reason’ for needing it wasn’t going to be seen as ‘good enough’. I was honest with my boss about why I needed to take it, and he was nothing but supportive which I was so thankful for. I thought if I could just take a break and try to focus on my mental health, I would be fine and I could go back after a few months. But unfortunately, this was not the case for me.
During this time, I was also on a journey trying to find mental health medication that would help me. I tried so many medications and drug combinations that I couldn’t even tell you everything at this point. Nothing helped my symptoms and after every trial period with no improvement, my psychiatrist would move on to the next on the list. One of the medications I tried made me nauseous 24/7. No matter what I ate or what I did. This was the only one so far that had felt like it provided any improvement to my depression. But with the nausea as a side effect, it was ruled out. My psychiatrist was amazing, and she gave me hope that every month I tried something new, there was a chance it was going to work. This went on for almost a year and a half. Thankfully, we were able to find something that worked for me. My therapist and my psychiatrist's help ended up saving my life.
Here’s the point in the story where things get really dark. If you feel that you do not want to hear those aspects of my story, that’s ok. The rest of this post will go into detail of that, so I understand if it’s not for you or if you stop reading this post here. If you’d like to continue reading after that part, skip to the content after the green dotted line.
To continue….
For most of the time I was working to find the antidote to the depression that was swallowing me whole every day, I was in a constant battle for my life. This was when I started having suicidal ideations. I thought that maybe… I didn’t want to be here anymore. This feeling is one I hope no one that I care about in my life ever feels. Or anyone for that matter. It is truly one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever been through. I didn’t really want to die, I wanted to escape the emotional pain and agony I felt every day. And for me, when no other solutions were working, like the medication, or the therapy, or the deep breathing or, ‘ insert any and every coping skill in the book here’…that was the only thing that I could think of that could bring me relief. The ideations themselves almost became a coping mechanism of sorts (an extremely unhealthy and scary one) because I felt like I had an out.
Each day was a battle with myself to keep going, and I am proud to say that I never gave up trying to feel better, even through all of that. I truly did want to live. I wanted to be happy again, and I wanted to feel joy in life and be able to live one day without wishing I could turn to dust. I’m so thankful for the mental health care team I had at that time. I had a wonderful therapist and psychiatrist, and they helped keep me alive. I kept myself alive too. I was so scared that I was having those thoughts. I felt so broken and alone. But I always communicated with my care team about my ideations, and they (obviously) kept an extremely watchful eye on me. I went to therapy and my psychiatrist every week almost for a very long time. I needed to.
Then I finally had a breakthrough with the medications, and finally…. finally, something was helping. I still take those medications today, and when I say that being able to take medication for my mental health saved my life, I truly mean that. I was an absolute shell of myself, and now, I can live a ‘mostly normal’ existence. I still struggle with depression and anxiety, but those things are no longer in the drivers seat. And I can tell you all, I am thankful for that. And I’m thankful for my life and the people in it. For all of you out there reading this, I love you all.
So……. That was a lot of heavy stuff to share. But I hope that maybe my story can help someone somewhere. I made it through the darkest depths of despair and was able to walk out on the other side, and to whoever you are out there, you can too. Don’t give up. Life is worth living. I promise.
Thank you dear friends, for reading and glimpsing another piece of me. Moving forward, I will be posting poems with the themes and topics I spoke about in this post from time to time. I understand if that is something you may not have the mental space to read. So, with that being said, I've decided I will always put a content warning at the top of those posts. Please know there is no judgment from me if you feel those posts are not for you.
I do want to provide the below information in case anyone who stumbles across this blog needs it. It's okay to not be ok, and seeking help is not weak, it’s one of the strongest things you can do for yourself.
To all my friends and family, never hesitate to call or text me, I’ll be there for you if you need me, always.
Suicide & Crisis Lifeline website: https://988lifeline.org/
Suicide & Crisis Lifeline Call or Text: Dial 988
This hotline is available 24/7 and is free.
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