Bruised..but not Broken

Okay - didn't mean to scare anybody with that last post.

You know that dark space we all have in our hearts, in our heads, that we usually don't show to anybody? Well, in the midst of my dark space, I had a "you know what? fuck it" moment. I can't be the only person to have taken a trip to the dark side, and I know that most of us won't talk about it, because its too much, too heavy to tell your friends...you feel ashamed of having felt it at all... so you say nothing, you let it happen, and, if you're lucky, you never feel that way again. Or, if you're like me and prone to a bit of depression, you press on, build yourself up, hope you won't break with the next breakdown...

People don't talk about clinical depression the way they should. Like you should be locked away...

So here's some talking, a little explanation of the dark and light of me. Because when you are doing an honest closeup of yourself, you should be vulnerable, because there's no getting out of exposing both the bad and the good.

I used to have to be silent a lot. Because reactions - any kind of reactions - were met with punishment or ridicule. I learned to be so silent I was still. The only time I let my emotions out were when I was singing, or dreaming. I tried very, very hard to be a very, very good child...but when I was about 12, I realized that all of my silence was causing me to stress out. Act out. I was very unhappy and one day, after having been left at a school, I walked home in the rain measuring my life. At twelve, I was weighing the pros and cons of continuing on...or not.

That was the first time I realized that there was something wrong, something sad, in my head, in my heart, that would make me question my value, my worth.

I started paying better attention to my moods, my triggers. I didn't grow up in a family that believed in doctors, and there was too much other stuff going on so that they were scared of therapy. I needed an outlet, I needed to talk, or distract myself, and after so many years of being silent - that was hard. I found someone who I believed would listen - and he did. And slowly...very slowly...I stopped being silent. And the talking...having someone listen...it loosened me up. My heart stopped feeling so small, started filling up, started to consume everyone around me. I didn't feel sad all of the time, and I wanted everyone around me to not be sad either...

I didn't realize that kind of thinking was dangerous...because I started basing my happiness on just that, on whether the people around me were happy. Otherwise...I started to droop. And after the death of my son, I entered the darkest period I'd had in years.

I won't talk about what went on...what I put my partner through, how he fought with me - for me - when I was trying to shut out the world. I looked at him one day, saw his sadness, stepped back and said "whoa...ok..."

Walking into the student health center - where they had counselors and such...I was so scared I was shaking. I think I tried three separate times to go in the doors before I actually succeeded in making an appointment. At my second session my counselor diagnosed me. She put me on medication...and I alternated between hyper and hollow for two months. But I had trouble opening myself up, saying the words I was saying in my head to a perfect stranger...and by the end of the third month, I stopped going.

Not the best thing to do. It got too hard, I got too uncomfortable. It was literally my spilling my guts out one day, canceling my appointments the next. And that became one of my habits. Run. Quit. Activate Plan B. Do what you need to do to move forward...focus on your partner.

I focused so hard I didn't see. You've read the blogs before this, you know what happened. No need to rehash it. The stress affected me physically, became my proverbial boulder I rolled up the hill every day. And in the end - I imploded with all of it. Things happened very quickly after more years of silence...

I shut down. Like all the way down. I didn't leave my house. I didn't change my clothes. I got up to pee and feed my dog...and the days blurred together. I didn't open the windows or turn on the light... It got to the point that my ex called the leasing office to have someone go knock on my door.

I didn't answer it. But I did get out of bed. I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked at my dog. And I said "okay. This is a problem."

This time, I knew that I needed to get it out - all of it - no matter how much it was going to hurt, no matter how afraid I was. When I met my counselor, my friend, I knew she was going to help me get it out. We worked together, twice a week, for four months. She called me. Gave me all her numbers. And I used them. Together we worked on the three parts of me - the little unresolved girl, the abandoned wife, and the woman at odds with herself and the world. She didn't just listen - she gave me tools, assignments, let me cry it all out. She gave me a hug every time, let it be okay that I didn't have all or any of the answers, backed me up and didn't let me sink in my funk, called "bullshit" on me when I needed it, gave me the push when I needed to be spontaneous. She helped me let go, gave me the permission to hold on, and when she thought I was ready - she pushed me out into the world.

She reads my blog - anonymously, but every once in a while I get a text from her. On days like this - when I blog like this - I get the virtual hug. Which makes me smile. Doing this was one of her challenges...to shine the lights into every corner of myself, to learn that, even low, down in the dark, there is nothing to be ashamed of.

Even the parts of you that aren't picture-perfect, that aren't glamorous, that you'd rather hide from the world - they deserve to be outed, so that you aren't afraid, so that you aren't ashamed, so that you aren't sitting at home alone with it...scared that if people find out, they won't love you any longer.

My current road? Bumpy as hell...and I don't see an end for it anytime soon. My life is all twisted up and, honestly, I haven't been taking care of myself, feeding my soul, shoring up for when the rough becomes the impossible. That's my mistake. I'll work on correcting that tomorrow, maybe even Tuesday. This stress - it's like a physical ache, like having a boxing match with myself. I hurt all over and I don't want to fight anymore...

But I will. I feel broken but I'm not broken. And when I wake up in the morning I still won't want to fight...but then I fight not because I want to. I fight because I don't know how not to.

Still here.

-A.

Asha

I have days when I remember that I used to be better than this...heading on my way towards awesome. Which may sound narcissistic, but hey, it was an honest feeling.

After months of being in the very darkest of depressions, I was finally seeing the light in myself, in the place I lived, in the people I surrounded myself with. Job situation sucked horribly, but at least I had days, hours, moments, where I could feel the light...

But now it's dark.

There are a lot of things you don't think of when you're unemployed, in an unhappy place, floundering under an ever approaching deadline. Simple things people who are not in the same situation take for granted. Like having food. Feeding your dog. Being able to wash your clothes, your sheets, having a bed to sleep in...things to occupy your brain when you're lonely. Even very simple things feel impossible - and well-meaning friends feel distant, their words callous and unfeeling. Why tell me that "everyone is going through money problems" and, as evidence, tell me a story of how you won't be able to fly first class to your Mexican getaway this year because of "the economy"? Really? Dude, I am mentally jacking you for your wallet so I can feed my dog for a few days. Maybe put some gas in my increasingly illegal car. Maybe pay my phone bill so I don't get so lonely I start feeling suicidal...

Real shit. Don't bring me the fake shit.

I had someone (a "friend") offer up the idea of selling my last commodity to pay my bills. I thought about it. I'm both ashamed and not ashamed to admit that I thought about it, weighed the options, mentally calculated how long I would have to "sell" in order to bring some order to my life...then I got very depressed that, given the woman I was, the light I once had, that I would have to entertain THAT as a viable option...

I guess I'm trying to explain that rock bottom seems to go deeper than I ever thought possible.

You'd think I'd racked up years of torment, of bad karma, for everything from baby-kicking to living off puppy burgers. Okay, yuck, that was a gross image.

Still.

Everyday I think about the girl I used to be. Even in pictures, videos, old blog posts, I see a woman incredibly different from the woman I cringe at in the mirror. Everyday I wonder how much longer I can go on like this - "living" but not.

My proudest scholastic accomplishment? My 4.0? Tonight I feel like saying "Fuck that - worry about whether you're going to be able to eat today or tomorrow or the next day."

Somehow...somehow my life has reached a point, such a low point, that yesterday, as I waded in the ocean, I thought "you know what would be great right now? A man-eating shark."

This. This right here. It's my own personal version of what Job would have felt. It's beyond the bottom. There is an alternative - a nasty, horrible, soul-killing alternative - and every day it looks more attractive. It's not "hard" or "rough". It doesn't "suck". Telling me you are "praying for me", that "everyone goes through this" when I know FOR A DAMN FACT YOU HAVE NEVER GONE THROUGH THIS, or to "keep my head up"....Fuck you.

Dammit. Do you see how "not me" I am?

I would give everything I don't have (because, truly, there isn't anything left) to have someone pull me in and hold me close in silence for a while. To let me breathe in the good, the hope, to share a little bit of light with me. Everyday I think about you - the girl I used to be - and I wonder if I made you up.

I don't think I can be Asha anymore. Readers, ever Google the name for its meaning? "The golden, blazing, water with the ability to determine truth." The light that - even in the darkness - is able to detect and determine what is real, what isn't...

I started this blog in an effort to peel the layers back from myself, to the very essence of me, and to be unafraid of, to fully claim, all that I find there.

I didn't expect my external journey to so greatly inhibit this internal one...

But maybe...maybe to fully understand the light, you must embrace the dark. The yang of yourself. I am encountering things...things I did not know about myself, things I thought I would never do, never contemplate doing or having to do, in the name of that spark, that quick glimpse of my happy self I saw, I felt....and it feels...so damn wrong. Like the world is wrong and I don't know how to fix it so that I can move forward.

For a time, I let myself imagine a better life, and I lived in that false image. Nothing was real. The hurts didn't hurt - the fire didn't burn. So - very suddenly - I was thrust into the real world, forced to face the love that wasn't, the faith that may have been the first thing I gave up on, the reality of being alone in this. No one is holding my hand, watching my back, bandaging the scrapes, scars...bruises. The everyday pain is overwhelmed by what it takes to wake up every day, to try, to plan and re-plan, to fail, go to sleep, knowing that you will be faced with it all again the next day...

I know how I sound. I know what I feel. I don't know...if tomorrow will be the day I give in. If tomorrow will be the day when I finally "curse God and die", losing myself completely...

I don't want to lose but I don't know if I'm still fighting or just going through the motions and slowly giving in.

Give me strength.

A.