I woke up this morning and did my typical routine. Brush my teeth, get coffee, fill the dogs food and water bowl, sort my daily medication because I’m getting old. All I take now is blood pressure and heartburn and migraine preventative. But there was that period of time I was heavily medicated, and that is where this routine formed.
I remember getting out of the hospital, and at first just being so happy to be free. To be still out of work able to work on my jewelry and be creative. But I didn’t really realize the repercussions of me being in the hospital, and honestly my brain was still kind of broken. I was sent home but I still wasn’t really functioning. And after about a week or two I remember I could feel myself falling, I could feel it coming. The excitement was wearing off, something else was happening. It was also January, so it was terrible outside (where I live its freezing and we get a lot of snow). I was seeing that nurse from the hospital a little bit, but something felt off about him too. I guess when you meet someone in a circumstance like that chances are it won’t work out. So by February, I was extremely depressed. I realized my friends had abandoned me completely, the medication had settled in my brain. I felt like I could barely move. I would wake up and it would take all of my strength just to get on the couch. At this time, my son was doing full time school from home because of covid as well so the only time I would leave the house would be to take him to his dance and art lessons. Even though I had just been in the hospital his dad never checked in again (still hasnt) and I did my best to act like everything was fine even though internally I was slowly dying. I had never been this depressed in my life. I would try to pull myself out of it, I would start something or try to move my body, nothing would stick. No shows interested me, no games on my phone, no social media. I didn’t have any inspiration to write, any jewelry I tried to make at this time was a complete failure. There was a foot of snow outside. I could barely get to the store by myself, I would go and be nervous that everyone could see what happened to me. Where I had been. That I had lost my mind. I didn’t want to come back to reality, wherever I went it was really nice there. A world I created for myself, and now I returned to hell.
So in February, I remember asking my mom if I could drive down to visit. She lives in a warmer area and I needed to get away. I drove with me and my son about 14 hours to get there. I remember having suicidal thoughts while I was there, but finally feeling safe to have them. Like the pressure was off. And I could finally be honest with myself about how I was feeling. A couple weeks later I started work again, Thank God from home. And leading up to starting, I remember for a solid week every single person I saw, whether on TV or in person, I would wish so deeply I could be them instead. Whether they were young or old it didn’t matter. Anyone and everyone I would see my first thought was, “I wish that could be me”.
So I started work, and thats when I discovered that maybe the medication was the problem. That maybe it wasn’t normal to sleep 10 hours and still be exhausted. To have thoughts of killing yourself everyday, to barely be able to sit up for an hour let alone eight. So that’s when I began being really honest with my doctor and started the medication change, which finally led to no medication at all. The reason I didnt before was because they insisted that it was normal, that the problem was me. That this is what it was like to have manic depression, and I was just in a depressive phase. They didn’t care that I was 34 and never had experienced this before. They just sent me on my way.
So once the medication started changing, I started changing as well. Slowly, slowly, slowly I found joy in things again. I ate popcorn and I liked it. My son and I watched a TV show together at night. I went for daily walks after work and allowed myself to listen to the music I liked. And slowly, slowly, slowly I became myself again. Got off all that medication. Healed from within.
I just found it ironic that over a year later the only thing left from that version of myself is that start to my day. Brush my teeth, get my coffee. Fill the dogs food and water, get my medication in order. From there, I was a clean slate to rebuild. I crumbled, fell apart. Hell, I needed to. I couldn’t see that at the time, it was incredibly painful. But now that I look back I’m so grateful that it happened.
The Girl Without A Face 