I touched on this a bit yesterday, but I figured why not write about how I’m really feeling. Now, I should say “trigger warning” if you don’t want to hear anything that could be perceived as negative. The thing is, I don’t have all good days. I don’t always feel hopeful, or that I could take on the world. Sometimes, when I’m alone at night, dark thoughts enter my mind for seemingly no reason.
I suppose I kind of felt this wave coming over me the past few days, it’s just that I’m aware of it so I’m trying to figure out what’s causing my mood to fluctuate. Last night, as I was lying in bed, those terrifying thoughts started to enter my head again. The ones that tell me that there’s no point in being here. The thought of how relieving death would be. How incredibly alone I am. How no one ever reaches out to me. “It’s incredible how I’ve gotten here”, I think this to myself. I have always been surrounded by “friends”, have always had boyfriends (no matter how toxic they were). I always worked two jobs, for six years I taught dance classes. It was here where I had to be full of joy and energy, I taught at a local college. My students expected that from me. Every once in awhile, when I contemplate how desperately alone I am now, I want to escape it, but I can’t. I have a son to think of. I know you’re probably thinking, “Don’t say that, there are plenty of reasons to be here”. You are right. On good days, I agree with you. But on these days, sometimes weeks, there’s a dark cloud that surrounds me. My mind goes to this point, it’s like there is something begging to be killed off inside of me. I get to the edge of the cliff in my mind, and every time my love for him saves me. Brings me back to reality. Calms me down, breathes new life into me.
You’re probably asking yourself, “why don’t you get help?!” I’ve seen what that looks like. I’d rather soothe myself. And I know that I can, I know this too shall pass, I know I just maybe need a little more self-care this week. This is just a dark wave, it doesn’t mean I need to run from it. I will survive, the thoughts are there for a reason. Last night I thought how in January it will mark two years of sobriety for me. How I am just about two years into this healing journey. I’m 35 years old, my trauma started when I was born. This past week my sister and I have dug up very deep, repressed stuff. Things like how there are no memories of our mother holding us, how my sister used to hold her breath until she passed out. My mom would walk over her lifeless body and then get angry at her for making a scene. She did this starting at the age of three. For our whole lives we just thought it was something that was wrong with her, with us. We never even questioned that we were reacting to our environment.
Healing work is wonderful, necessary. I also think that healing work has consequences. That maybe me working through a depressive episode is me grieving the loss of the childhood I never got to experience. As we heal, my sister and I, I’ve felt many deaths. But each trauma I process and grieve, I then come to accept. If I can get to the other side of it it’s like im born over and over again. I make it to the other side of the pain. Unfortunately, the only way out is through it.
The Girl Without A Face 