how you remember

(real time: i'm in the midst of a horrifying wave right now. i just grabbed my macbook because i am having a slight window. what are waves and windows, right? right. i live in a different world now. in a world of recovery and withdrawal of psychotropic medications and if i talk about it with those not in this world their eyes start to glaze over. i completely understand. it's confusing. it's boring. it all sounds so very tragic and perhaps made up?  i should get back to my story.....)

I'm 17. I'm sitting in a psychiatrist's office.....
Because i came home from work a few days prior and pitched a complete fit because my mother didn't take the blueberries out from the freezer. I screamed and yelled, like a toddler not getting their way. I threw myself onto my bed and screamed that i wanted to DIE. all of these feelings were choking me. everything was so overwhelming. life was just much too much. i didn't really want to die when i said it but i wanted to not feel like this anymore. i just couldn't handle everything being so desperate. why did everything feel so very heavy and difficult?

when your child is 17 and they tell you that they want to die i can only imagine how that must feel. it must shake you to your core. i wasn't 12 and mad because i couldn't go to the movies with my friends on a friday night. i wasn't crying out for attention. i was crying out for an escape. i just wanted a way OUT!

my mother and i had always been very close. i didn't hate her. i was snotty to her more times than i care to admit. but i adored her. and i knew she loved me. i had watched her put her life on hold for all of her children. for all of my life. she never put herself first. and i have to admit that i was embarrassed to be acting like such a spoiled brat. i had all of my needs met and more than that. i had so very much. we lived in one of the wealthiest counties in the country. i went to excellent schools. i had a life filled with a lot of love. But it wasn't helping me to not feel all of these feelings. i was drowning in pain. i had to tell her. i knew if anyone would help me it would be her.

a friend of my mom's suggested a reputable doctor. it sounded like a good idea to me. clearly there was something wrong with me.

so there i was. in the psych's chair. fully expecting something. and he delivered. boy, did he deliver.
i had a "chemical imbalance". so simple.
all i had to do was take a pill every day and i was golden.
so relieved i was.
nothing but tidal waves of relief.
"major depressive disorder" was my diagnosis.
prozac was my answer
lets start living life!

my father thought it was a bad idea. compared it to smoking weed? that confused me but it didn't carry much weight. it was fairly easy to ignore. i had had lots of practice.

i distinctly remember my boyfriend thought it was weird. why did i need to be medicated? i was just right. do i talk about Alex here?
Alex and i had been dating since the start of 10th grade. to say we were close would be an understatement. we were pretty much inseparable. all of my relationships with boys were very committed. i was all about all or nothing. i wasn't about wasting my time with someone who didn't want to invest. Alex knew my every thought and fear. I knew about his deepest, darkest struggles. i knew about all of his ugly. he knew about all of my ugly. we truly loved each other and not in the "oh that's high school love". we may have been in over our heads but we didn't know how to do "us" any other way. in retrospect i realize that it was here that i started pulling away. because it was the first time Alex didn't understand what i was doing. he didn't understand how badly i needed this diagnosis. i needed it like i needed water. how could he not understand? it was the first thing about me he couldn't understand. he didn't understand the depths of my pain.

and i needed my pain.
my pain was the only thing that made sense.

Restart

i’m going to tell my story. I have no idea where my story begins. I’ve hesitated writing this story for 19 months because I simply do not know where to begin..… when did it start?

was it when i was 4, nervous about my little brother being safe in his crib so i would watch him nap? was it when i watched that Disney movie at age 5, about the Vietnam war and they rescued all of the children whose parents had been killed? i couldn’t stop thinking about death. was it when my parents divorced at age 8 and all of my stability came crumbling down? was it all of those nights when I stayed up watching that channel about children with leukemia? some died and some made it into remission. was it when i was 13 and my best friend was diagnosed out of nowhere with leukemia and it ravaged her? was it when she died 8 short weeks from the day she was diagnosed? was it was it was it……. i think it’s here. when i just couldn’t handle any more sadness. i think this is when i began to come undone. 

i want to get this story right. for so long i wanted everything symmetrical. i wanted to tack my real life events up on a timeline and pinpoint when i broke, when i became officially “diagnosable”. but i’m free from wanting that now. i know life, pain. suffering and healing are not linear. i know now that I was never broken. I know now that i was just a girl with a lot of feelings. I am still a girl with a lot of feelings. 

i don’t know if i will get this story right but i am going to tell it. 

i will sit here with my headphones on, listening to Sleeping At Last and i will type away on my macbook.
when i was 17 i swallowed 2 lies.
my first capsule of Prozac and the belief that i was mentally ill.

-Maybe your light is the seed
And the darkness the dirt
In spite of the uneven odds
Beauty lifts from the earth

You’re much too young now
So i write these words down,
“Darkness exists to make light truly count.”-
Sleeping At Last- Uneven Odds