Oh hey, a beginning!

I remember my mom sitting on the edge of the futon that served as my bed in that little alcove of a room. As she spoke I lay there, thinking about what to say next in the conversation, debating whether to say anything at all. I let her walk away…

“Mom, I think I’m depressed”

And she rushed back with that look, “Oh, honey”

We talked, kind of. We talked, but I didn’t feel understood. I didn’t feel like now it was going to get better. I felt, still, that it would be a bad idea to go down to the kitchen, with the chef’s knife in the dish drying rack. I hadn’t been a particularly impulsive kid up until then, but the urges of impulse had begun. “what if I just starting talking, right now?” “what would happen if I walked out of the class in the middle of the lesson?’ “what if I just picked up this knife and . . .” I called it my fear of one moment of irrationality, but I felt it all the time, living fearful of many successive moments of having, and taking, the opportunity to… end it, re-roll the dice, cause the pain, loosen control.

I didn’t indulge in any of those one-moments, not yet. What I did do that day, looking back, was start to learn the principle of “nothing changes until something changes.” While it seemed that my mom had quickly forgotten that conversation, something still changed. I changed. I decided—something members of my family are certainly not known for—that the darkness was worth fighting, that it was time to leave the solitude of my head, that it was time to say something.

 

 This may seem like an odd way to start off a blog. I mean—I don’t know you like that, I haven’t properly introduced myself, and already I’m talking about my adolescent suicidal tendencies.

The fact of the matter is that I’m not secretive or shy about my past, especially not about what I have mentally struggled through to get where I am, alive, today. I may talk about it too much and too willingly, depending on your perspective. I’ve gotten to the place where I don’t actually care about that. I’m not sharing for attention, sympathy, or even to be besties with anyone. I share for understanding, for connection, but more importantly for that small chance that someone will read/hear/overhear and feel themselves understood. Along the way I found sometimes all I needed was one anecdote, just one example of someone feeling the way I did and making it through to keep me going a little longer. And that sometimes when you’re breaking down, “a little longer” is all you need.

I’ve felt compelled to write through this process/journey/life with (a couple) mental health disorders, along with a sleep disorder that affects me like a mental health one. I’ve finally stopped procrastinating on it….