Flicker

The Thanksgiving weekend was not kind to me. The couple hours I spent at my brother’s house for lunch were okay but after that, things went downhill. I’ve blogged about how my depression has increased and it was certainly raging over the weekend along with the multitude of negative thoughts I deal with on a daily basis. I did a lot of crying, a lot of sleeping to try and forget what was going on, and a lot of not so healthy thinking. I was at my lowest I’ve ever been. The self-destruction label from my last therapy session was hitting me hard.

I somehow managed to write the first draft of a short story, however, which I guess was my saving grace of Sunday. It was the highlight of the weekend and I was glad I was able to complete the draft because it gave me a tiny ounce of energy to keep going.

When I woke up Monday, I didn’t want to go into work. I had no desire to do anything and I debated for a good half an hour. Calling in after a four day weekend is highly frowned upon so I realized I had to go in but I certainly was going on my terms – yoga pants, a t-shirt, and a comfy hoodie. I certainly didn’t look like the professional teacher I was but I was at work, damn it. The problem was that I wasn’t feeling like anything Monday morning. Not a woman, not a human, not someone anyone cared about. I was low.

The school day concluded and I headed off to therapy. I was honest with my therapist about my weekend and her first question was a little scary – Do you need inpatient? I told her I didn’t want that and we proceeded to have a discussion about want vs. need. I explained that it would be worse for me to be away from my cats, my Daughtry music, my writing, and my students. I was afraid it might not be my decision; that she might be under some legal obligation but thankfully, that wasn’t the case.

So we continued talking and at one point I asked a question – Have I hit rock bottom? Her answer? Yes.

Now one might think that hitting rock bottom would be a terrible thing and it is but the more important part of hitting rock bottom is the fact that you’re at the bottom. Falling any lower is probably not going to happen. Knowing this was both difficult to hear but also a relief. I’m at the bottom. There’s no other place to go but up.

This is a good thing but I still have a lot of work ahead of me. Hitting rock bottom didn’t snap me out of anything; it hasn’t magically made everything better. My depression is still raging and the negative thoughts are still there. I’m still sleeping on the couch because I feel safer there than in my bed. My appetite is still all weird and eating healthy is not happening. Joey the Cat still lets me hold him when I cry tears into his fur.

But what has changed with the revelation that I’ve hit rock bottom is that I now have a small flicker of light at the end of my dark tunnel which was never there before. Like I said, it’s a small amount of light, just flickering enough to show me that there is the tiniest bit of hope that my issues might improve. I haven’t had that light before and I worry that it might extinguish and I’ll be stuck at the bottom. It’s a fear I’ve had before; that where I am right now is just supposed to be my normal.

I have that flicker, though, and it’s given me a little hope. I feel like there’s a direction now. I’m hoping therapy won’t be like a shot in the dark anymore. I expect therapy to be harder now and exhausting but just want to get better. I want to finally feel.

I hope I haven’t alienated more people with this blog. Depression has such a stigma still but I hope people realize that depression is a serious matter and not just ‘the blues.’ People with depression need support and understanding. We – I – already feel bad and it doesn’t help when people dismiss what I’m going through.

But I really shouldn’t worry about those people. What I need to focus on is that small flicker of light and traveling the difficult road in growing that light until my gray days are finally gone.

Dana