Cry for Help
The thing I wrote that made me reenter therapy (again)
If the world is going to end
or when
I’d just like a one-week notice.
I’d like to quit my job and take my family to the ocean. Pull the kids from school, have one last adventure.
I don’t want this, now, the “trying to make it every day through eight-ish hours of work.” As if where the commas go is going to even matter. If the world ends.
We all pretend our lives are important — and they are, to some extent, to us. But ultimately, if someone said, “You will die in seven days” or even, “EVERYONE will die in seven days” how many of us would keep doing what we do, day in day out.
I’d drop everything, I’d let the cat go into the wild, I’d keep the dog with us, because let’s face it, she’s pretty, but she’s not a survivor, I’d leave all my bills unpaid — cancel anything that’s scheduled — fill the car up with gas, and go to water. I’m not even sure I’d try to pack a bag or get a hotel.
Although on second thought, I guess I would take what we had to eat and some clothes. Stay out of the way of the preppers.
I’d spend the week playing with my family. If it rains, we’d find someplace to shelter. We’d talk about the things we would miss. We’d cry, probably, for all the stuff we didn’t get to do; laugh about the shit we wouldn’t mind losing.
I would have regrets. But at least they would be short-lived.
I would probably try to find a priest, make a confession. I’m not sorry for everything, but I’m sorry for enough.
I’d make love to my husband every night.
I’d stop making decisions. That would be a relief.
The world ending would be a relief! Sad, sure, yes. My children’s future erased because of … what. A madman, a natural disaster — same thing. A disease.
I wouldn’t have to worry anymore. I would like that.
++
I wrote this at the beginning of this year. It’s pretty dark; I was in a pretty dark place. The war in Ukraine had just begun, I was suffering the worst seasonal depression I had ever had to date, and I didn’t like very much about my life.
Only anti-depressants and restarting therapy helped me climb toward the light.
In May this year, my therapist suggested I create a binder of stuff that helps me when I am depressed or anxious — so depressed or anxious (or depressed AND anxious, which I did not know could be a thing until the year of our Lord 2022). A toolbox that I can refer to help me get out of whichever rabbit hole I am going down.
Among other things, she suggested I put this piece of writing in it.
Until I wrote this piece about the world ending, I hadn’t realized how full of despair I was. In the previous two years, I had lost so much — the entire world had (has)lost so much. And then my family all got COVID at a time that was supposed to be for relaxing and recharging (i.e. winter break), the weather was cold and gray every single fucking day, I was working in a job I didn’t like, and then the war in Ukraine started.
Despite my plea, the year was not being kind.
I was beyond sad.
Depression is new for me. After Gabriel died, and I went back into therapy, even as I spent the 50 minutes sobbing, I knew this was “just” sadness, grief. That, ultimately, I would start to feel better, that the grief would ebb. (It doesn’t leave, it waxes and wanes.) Depression feels like it’s not going to end.
What I felt earlier this year was … it was bad. It was darkness. I didn’t think I would find my way out. And so, I reached out: to my husband, firstly, and then to my current therapist.
In the short-term: therapy, meds, limit doomscrolling. Find small joys in every day. Exercise, get outside.
I’ll keep working on my binder, fill it with tips, tricks, a coloring book. And small, creative endeavors like this, to remind myself what my brain looks like in the dark.
