I keep typing and deleting words that don't exactly seem to fit how I have been feeling the last week or two. There isn't an adjective that I have found that perfectly encapsulates this absolutely dreadful mood I have come to know all too well.
A part of me kind of expected to find myself right back here in this comfortable, isolated, cold room where I was familiar with the shadows. I always knew that I had the power to lead my feet right back to the very place I was working so hard to forget. My entire body aches because of it.
I think the idea of imagining a life where I am healed is an inevitable wish I will never overcome. Even within the last thirteen months, I have spent healing and understanding depression, the thought of eventually being Emma without the depression was a wish I never let go of fully because my heart was positive that this moment of my life would bring that anomaly to fruition. I have stated this previously, but I didn't have a good idea of what life would look like after I had hit the one-year mark of my hospitalization. Within my season of healing, the reality that I would eventually make it to the other side wasn't something I had allowed myself to be aware of.
Desperately I wish to just crawl in a hole and let the world continue to move forward while I am in the fetal position. My heart hurts. My head is foggy. My appetite is inconsistent. Sleep is my solace, and crying comes much easier than before. I feel alone. I feel scared. I feel bleak.
It is hard explaining this to the people I love most. How do you get someone to understand that you want to be anywhere but in this sea of hurt? How do you show them that your heart is broken but not for a specific reason? How do I allow myself to open those doors to others when the only thing I want to do is shut everyone out? How do you keep going when your feet feel cemented and chained to the ground by an invisible sickness?
"Stagnant" was the word that seemed to hang in the air as I was talking to my mom last night. My entire figure feels stationary while the world continues to swirl on. I don't know how to erase the image of a life where I am absent. Hope seems to show itself just barely amidst the foggy atmosphere of my mind.
I have withheld from always being truthful here. I am as vulnerable as I feel the need to be. Authenticity isn't always the first thing I achieve. I think that is OK because not everyone has to know these soul-sucking demons that I know. I never want you -- the reader -- to be in fear that I am tiptoeing toward the edge of an irreversible choice. But, I do want you to understand that right now I am hurting, so much.
Writing is my escape. It gives me the courage to bout my soliloquy loud and without shame. It is my refresher that feelings aren't always reality. Truthfully, I refuse to allow myself to lose to the very thing that has fostered my strength. Writing about a life where I am different allows me the opportunity to see the mercy and grace I was given to be able to even find breath in a new day. I am able to see that although I am hurting here in these moments, it does not mean that I will always feel so painfully exhausted.
I do partially feel that I have found myself right back in this nest of false security, where the pain is familiar and the dreams are insincere. I guess, really, it is always a distant wish -- to be healed. But there are times where I dip so low that I am overcome with fear about how my heart feels. Right now is a time where I am feeling that low and overcome with fear.
The Lord is near the broken-hearted. He heard my cries from the bottom of the pit. He will never leave me nor forsake me. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for His rod and His staff -- they comfort me.
As I was typing this, I was reminded of David and the Psalms. The Psalms were my comfort while I was in treatment. I identify with David because I understand fully how his woebegone heart was feeling. Here is what Psalm 56:8-13 says:
You have kept count of my tossings;[c] put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? 9 Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know, that[d] God is for me. 10 In God, whose word I praise, in the Lord, whose word I praise, 11 in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?
12 I must perform my vows to you, O God; I will render thank offerings to you. 13 For you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life.
It is easy for me to feel so lowly and distraught when the invaluable woes of depression are swarming my entire being. Although I do ache for the time I am healed or feel as if I can't erase the image of a life where I am absent, I absolutely refuse to allow myself to give up in this fleeting moment all because I am hurting. God has delivered my soul from death too many times for me to give myself the chance to ever even taste it again.
More than anything I just want to be OK. Right now, I feel far from being OK. I often describe it as just "meh" because it is an accurate description of this melancholy cloud surrounding me. I didn't want to ever find myself sitting in the same pit I was sitting in so many months ago. The difference between then and now is there is a much greater fight in me.
I do not need the promise of future healing or a life where I am not here to give me the strength to see tomorrow. If I leave, I will not be able to ever play with my dog again. If I leave, I will never be able to work another shift at Starbucks. If I leave, I will never be able to watch Gilmore Girls with my mom or play golf with my dad and younger brother. I'd never be able to make homemade buffalo chicken with my older brother or stay the weekend at my grandparents. If I leave, I'd never be given the chance to celebrate my sister's baby on the way. I would have an empty bed and an empty chair and parents with empty hearts.
I refuse to lose. I refuse to give in. I refuse to allow myself to know a life without me in it.
Em