I went to therapy for the first time today.
I should've been in therapy my sophomore year of college. Big-time. The fact that I managed to stay in school and (even more remarkably) get good grades that year, especially that fall, still astounds me. It was only because I had a show. I had a small but important part in Frank Wildhorn's The Civil War and because they needed me, because I needed the woman I played, I managed to stay. That show changed my life. That part, which taught my family that I was meant to be an actor. That director, who guided me toward auditions that would ultimately lead me to the Peterborough Players, where I found a few of my best friends and biggest cheerleaders and which is the bedrock of who I am as an artist. That show is one of my foundations.
But at the beginning of that semester, my foster brother died of AIDS and my heart got shattered into a thousand pieces by my best friend, who was going through the hardest time of his life as well. That summer and fall were my first experience of depression. I didn't know which way was up. I didn't want get up in the morning, dreading most days, unable to get things done. I was lost and dragging myself thru each dark day by my fingernails for months. I should've been in counseling. I should've been on anti-depressants. But I was young and stubborn and my family was far away and I was so independent and emotionally self-sufficient (ha) as a rule that no one important to me intervened. Teachers were largely sympathetic and accomodating. Friends were as helpful as they could be, especially the one who remains one of my best friends and favorite people 11 years later. She couldn't fix it but she showed up. Day after day. I don't know what I would've done without her. Ultimately, sophomore year is hard on everyone, and I slipped through the cracks.
Two weeks into my internship at the Peterborough Players the following summer, I realized that two weeks was the longest time I hadn't cried in almost a year. And I thought that was just kind of normal. I was sensitive and emotional and had been in such grief that I didn't see how bad things had been. Or maybe I just couldn't acknowledge it. I had needed help and I didn't reach for it. I couldn't stand the idea of looking weak or incapable.
So that's when it started. Sophomore year. Heartbreak and grief and inability to move. It would come back to haunt me over the years, but only for a few weeks at a time. Maybe a month or two. But it was never so severe that I couldn't get out of bed. Never so dramatic that I became paralyzed or desperate. For about eight years, I simply powered through, and that worked for me. (Sort of.) I knew when I wasn't operating at peak function but you tough it out, right? You take all the German/Scottish/American stubbornness youv'e got and you just. keep. moving.
Until you can't anymore. Until you become so tired, deep in your bones, that you don't remember what joy feels like. You forget what you love. You can see life, but only thru a glass case. The glass is a foot thick, and everyone and everything you love is on the other side. You can see it, but you can't touch it. You know you *should* be grateful, happy, fulfilled... but there is nothing left. You become a sieve. Nothing lasts.
Two and a half years ago, directly post-grad school (while I was still writing my thesis, silly me), I went off birth control to see if I could deal with my hormone imbalances solely thru diet, exercise, and supplements. I've studied nutrition a good bit in the last 8 years or so and knew what a difference it could make. I knew it would be hard for a while, but I had to give a naturalistic/organic approach a shot.
After about 6 months, I noticed that my "PMS" was no longer just a few days but two weeks. PMS for me is basically being weepy and tired, and maybe one migraine day. I got off relatively easy on the PMS front - until it meant two weeks of depression out of every month. Not really worth it, right? But again, stubborn, independent, Little Red Hen me said, "I'll do it MYSELF." I gave up sugar for Lent. I stayed off the gluten as much as I could. I immediately dropped about 15 pounds and felt pretty great. But a few months later, bits of sugar had crept in. And then for two weeks in June, I was in a hole, no matter what I did or ate or how much I slept. I hated everything. I couldn't get out. It finally passed and I thought I was doing okay.
July was great. August was mostly lovely. I was walking on air and in a show and part I adored and I was giddy over a blossoming relationship.
But the relationship stalled. And September brought another two weeks of depression, darker than ever. I couldn't sleep, which is *very* dangerous and destabilizing for me. On and on it went. I started to feel desperate. After about three weeks, I managed to start sleeping again and got a bit of air, but soon I was under again. The depression stretched and deepened. It's claws were deep in me and getting deeper every week. One of my favorite teachers died in October. He was always in poor health, but it was still a shock. He was in England and so were most of the people who knew and loved him. I felt out to sea about it. I didn't grieve for weeks. I couldn't. There was no time and the last time I had grieved, it was an abyss. I couldn't afford an abyss when I was already so low. Around the same time, the formerly blossoming relationship went from a stall to a shut door. I spent Thanksgiving weekend crying. By Christmas, I felt like George Bailey before he throws himself into the river. But where was my Clarence? And what difference did I really make? None, I told myself. Nothing I had done or been had mattered. It was a nightmare.
January was another hard, hard month. I'd say it was an emotional rollercoaster, but it was mostly downs. My "ups" were getting lower and lower. On Groundhog Day (I remember because I had the day off for some reason and left the movie looping on AMC all afternoon, as one should), I found myself worrying about a potentially difficult situation that could come down the road. In 4 months. No kidding. I thought, "I need to talk to [best friend] about this and what that conversation will need to look like and what I should do and say and -"
I stopped myself. "ABBIE." I said. "Why are you worrying about something 4 months down the road that MIGHT NOT EVEN HAPPEN?" And then I answered and my illusions about things being okay dissolved completely. "Because being here, now, is too painful."
And once the scales fall off, there's no going back, is there? That's why we try so very hard to stay in denial. Because there's no way to un-face reality. I'm reading a book by Henry Cloud about integrity. He talks about how integrity is wholeness, being an integrated person. This means that all your parts are connected and working in harmony. It means you leave a good wake wherever you go, in any situation, with anyone. Because you have integrity and character, which is, by his definition, "the courage to face the demands of reality." The book is excellent, and I've spent a lot of time in the last few weeks considering what that means to me and where the holes are. Because there are real holes in me, there are pieces missing, and I can't blame it all on the shell-life of the last year. Time to face my dragons.
This time - this incredibly painful time of growth and healing and integration and pain - has been a very long time coming. As with so many things, it has taken my whole life to reach this place. (That's a bit of a joke, but nonetheless true.)
That day in February, I looked ahead and saw the road Robin Williams went down. The man who brought millions of people around the world pure joy for decades found himself unable to find that joy for himself. He was beloved, by those close and far from him. So deeply beloved. And yet he took himself away. He couldn't bear *life* any more. Is there anything more tragic? I could so clearly see that well-tread turn off from which there is no return. I wasn't suicidal but for the first time in my life, I saw it on the horizon. I saw the path to get there. It was right in front of me and if I didn't change direction fast, that's where I was headed. It's a startling place to be. I decided in those moments of excruciating clarity that it is not a road I will take. I will not do that to the people who love me. I will not lose my life to slow, devastating wasting away and sudden violent harm. I will not. I will humble myself and I will ask for help and I will fall back on what I used to know about love and faith and the people who stand at my back, lift my arms, hold me up. I will find my way back. I vowed to myself. I will always find my way back. (Sometimes stubbornness is an incredible gift.)
By April (things take time), I was back on birth control and newly on a low dose anti-depressant. 3 weeks into the anti-depressant, I found myself doing a little dance as I made myself breakfast in my friend's apartment, which I was house-sitting. I caught myself dancing red-handed. I stopped dead when I noticed. Wide-eyed, I said to the empty room, "I'm back. I'm back!!!" And then I did a proper Snoopy dance on those beautiful hardwood floors. And then I ate my eggs.
That night I called my parents. "I'm back!" "GOOD! You *sound* back." It stuck for days, weeks, I was still alright. I could feel things. I could be in a good mood. I wasn't weepy. It was remarkable.
Fast forward a few months and I've been having a harder time again. There are personal/situational factors for this - and there are chemical factors to this - as my doc said today, I "come by depression honest" and it's exacerbated by all the other things I'm going through. The relationship that started and stalled and stopped and died and revived has continued to confound. I don't know if we will find each other again at the other side of the growing and healing we are each seeking. Time will tell. My job security (at the day job I love) suddenly cracked at the foundations this week. I can't count on it anymore. Maybe it's the kick in the pants I need, maybe it'll be fine, maybe it's time to move on soon. I have kind of forgotten what moving forward looks like but I am trying to slowly, steadily heal and nourish and fill myself back up.
People talk about depression somewhat but rarely about what the aftermath feels like. Glennon Melton over at Momastery recently wrote an astounding piece about falling back into depression and then coming out of it again that made me weep with relief . I'm not the only one. Coming back is being reborn - and birth means death to the womb, death to the old and life to the new. I feel brand new and raw and hollow and I don't remember what joy is, quite, or lasting happiness. My skin is thin and my legs are wobbly. I don't quite trust myself. I don't quite believe that I'm worthwhile sometimes, because I spent so long feeling deeply undesirable, unlovable, and useless.
I don't need smothering and I don't need to be kept from hardship or bad news or reality or other people's pain. Life is out there and impossible and gorgeous. As Glennon says, Life is brutiful. I want to face it and soak it in and be in it 100%. I can't do that in isolation, no matter how hard it has been for me to admit. I need help. I am reaching for it and receiving it and I am deeply grateful.
You are not alone. Neither am I.
I went to therapy today, for the first time.
It was really, really good.
