Five Years

I've been feeling pretty sentimental as September has approached this year. Some of you know, some don't, but this September marks five years since my month long hospitalization and the start of ECT. Five whole years. It's hard to really wrap my head around that. I have a few things to say. What more could I possibly say that I haven't said a million times already? Perhaps nothing. But what I want to say I feel is so important I will repeat it as many times as I can for as long as I can. 

The other night I read, for the first time in years, some things I wrote here around September 2018. And I cried. I remember vividly the hollow emptiness inside and the void that was once any hope. More than anything, I was completely out of hope. Depression is a such a bitch. It steals. And lies. And it robs you of anything and everything beautiful life has to offer. It is darkness. It is suffocating. My world was collapsing, I was suffering and I was literally dying. I thought, no, I knew, my time on Earth was over. 

But you see, it wasn't. Because as strong and as powerful as depression is, inside of me was strength and power that was stronger. I didn't find it alone though. And now every single day for five years now, my gratitude overflows when I think of those who rallied for me and fought my fight when I lost the strength and will. The doctors, the nurses, the social workers, the therapists, the other hurting patients. My family, my friends... To Lismarie. Thank you for tying up my hospital gown for me in the ER. For doing that small act of kindness when I could barely move. And when we were checking into the ER I remember looking at you and saying "I don't want to do this." And you looked at me and said "I know." Your empathy very well saved life that day. Thank you. To Betsy. We were driving home over the bridge one day, I can't remember what from exactly... (Perhaps it was when I was released from the hospital on October 2...) Anyway we were talking about going to Seattle for ECTs and how it was no small deal, and yet it wasn't a big deal. I remember asking something to the effect of "then taking me to ECTs three times a week isn't a burden?" And you said "nope! It sure isn't!" I believed you. I knew it. You made me feel completely loved and I knew in that moment I wasn't a burden to you. And in that moment I felt a massive burden lifting off me. Thank you for literally showing me my worth. To Diana. You made ECTs fun. I loved our field trips in Seattle when the ferry was early. You would say how you just enjoyed spending time with me. You made me feel like I was the most important person in the world and there was nothing more you'd rather do than be with me in that moment. Thank you. I love being your Sariah. To Mike. You took me to several very early morning ECTs. I tried to thank you profusely. I know making a 6 a.m. ferry is no fun task. But as always, you just quietly served. You told me it really wasn't a big deal. It was a big deal though, at least to me. So thank you, again. To Zach. You took me to my last ECT. I'm so glad it was you who got to take me as I finished. There is power in that shared experience. I don't remember a whole lot of my stay at St. Joseph's. But I remember you visiting me and the smile you automatically put on my face. I didn't even feel like smiling. Thank you. And of course I have to thank Mr. Purrington, even though he isn't with us any longer. He was my true companion and waited for me and never left my side while I was hurting. I remember in 2014 when I was struggling one night, Mr. Purrington came onto the bed with me and layed next to my head. Then he put a paw on my shoulder and kept it there while I wept. He was my angel. And he was with me until I was okay. Then he left, and I was still okay. 

And I'm am still okay.

I got what far, far too many don't get. I got a second chance. Because ECT worked. It literally changed my life. And I will advocate for ECT the rest of my life. My depression isn't gone. But I am happy. I feel peace. I feel joy. I feel gratitude. Some things are really hard still. And it still, even right this second, scares me so much to think about depression. In particular, my depression. I can't have those feelings coming back. It scares me so much that someday I could be depressed again. And I am afraid of anything that reminds me of the past, including my little blog posts. I have to trust myself though, that I will be okay. I feel I am at a point in my life where I can be okay visiting the past a little. Not a lot. Not yet. But I can be powerful and remember and respect the power depression has without letting it get ahold of me. I can do that! 

I love this life I am building for myself. It isn't perfect and I do complain a lot, but it is good. There is joy. There is healing. In two years I will be a social worker myself. I am mighty proud of that. Where there was pain, now there is growth. Where there was no hope, now there is peace. 

Sometime life is really heavy still. There's no denying that. Life is difficult. But compassion exists. Hope thrives. I am living proof of the wonders of modern medicine. Even more than that though, I am living proof that the world, though not perfect, is still beautiful.

And life is beautiful.

I can't believe it's been five years.

Haunted

I've been feeling haunted lately. Not by anything supernatural or anything like that, but by people and places long past. Memories, laughter, regrets. Ghosts of the past. My friend Scott haunts me. Scott died several years ago from ALS. One thing he said to me as he lay dying was "you're the last good thing that happened to me." And still that gives me chills. Why doesn't that settle well in my heart? Joann haunts me. I lived next to her for a few brief months before she passed away. I did the 12 Days of Christmas for her only a month before she passed. It brought her such happiness. She smiled everytime I saw her. It was supposed to be anonymous, but she knew who was bringing her joy. What if that was the last good thing to happen to her? And why can't I accept that? Brenda haunts me. From my teenage years. This is a regret I will carry with me all my life. I wish so badly we could be friends. I can't shake it. I treated her poorly and I am so sorry. So many people, so many places, just don't sit right with me and it hurts and it haunts. Somebody told me once I need to accept that I can impact people's lives the way I do. That I am a good person. I try. I try SO hard to be a kind and loving person. But these people and places, things, memories, they just... haunt.

On Turning 40

It's 12:01 on October 28, 2020. Happy Birthday to me. 

I'm usually a huge birthday person. I love birthdays. They're my favorite to celebrate. I just love that there's a day just for you, to celebrate YOU and your life. But, the longer the day worn on yesterday, the 27th of October, the worse I felt. This sense of doom and gloom just lingered over me. For the first time in my life, I was not happy about having a birthday and felt zero excitement in the upcoming day.

I turn 40 today. Forty. The big 4 - 0. I remember turning 30. No longer in my 20s. I felt great. I was happy, healthy, life was going good and I loved embracing turning 30. I remember I felt powerful that day. I felt like a princess. I felt a turn in my life that day and excitedly embraced a new chapter of life.

But today, now, it's 12:14 a.m. I feel, well, kind of sad. Grief, I feel grief. I didn't know I would feel this way at all. I have been joking all year about turning 40, and others have joked with me and that's been completely fine! But suddenly it's today, it's really here and happening. And now suddenly it isn't fine anymore.

Interesting to me. Very interesting.

So what should I do? How do I accept what is and let go of what was? When I'm not even sure exactly what is, or what was to let go of.

I feel like this. I feel like my life is half over and I havent done a damn thing with the 40 years I've had. And I feel I'm getting too old to start anything new. I feel grief over that. Grief and anger. Have I wasted my whole life away? I mean really, what have I done? What have I done to show for having been around for 40 years? And way more than when I turned 30, I feel changes in my body that I don't like. I can no longer just jump up at a moments notice whenever I want without moaning and groaning about how everything hurts. I can't sleep like I used to, yet I can't stay awake like I used to either. I can no longer eat ice cream and Milky Ways for breakfast without gaining five pounds and feeling sick for the rest of the day. I feel myself being so out of touch with "kids" today, what's "hip" and cool. I have no idea who's on the Billboard Top 100. Or if that's even still a thing... I'm at a place right now where I'm everything I always said I never would be.

How has that even happened?

It's 12:33 a.m. I'm tired. Let me think, actually let me sleep, then I'll look for some answers. Goodnight.

Well. It's now 4:47 p.m. Technically I was born at 4:33 p.m. so I am actually 40 now. And, it's been a good day. I don't feel the doom and gloom that I felt yesterday. I just kind of feel a calm, this just is. I'm starting a new chapter in my life. Today is a day not just of being powerful, but of being empowered. I am in control of my life and it is going the direction I want it to go. And that feels good. And, it's taken forty years to get to this point. That's a long time, it really is, I can accept that. But wow, I take a moment to reflect and look back and I have come so far. I have moved and twisted and shifted and I have come out on top of the world. I have conquered obstacles I thought bigger than myself and I have learned to love and accept myself and that, my friends, is the greatest lesson I have ever learned. I am so grateful to have had these forty years to work on becoming who I am today. I'm proud of all I have done and have overcome and have accomplished thus far.

So on turning 40. It really isn't that bad after all. I have a feeling the best is yet to come. And that feels so good. 

One Year And Counting

I will never forget the moment the doctor said to me "what do you think about ECT?" ECT really? For me? The thought was scary. I said "I'm not sure." We talked about it some more; he showed me a video of someone receiving an ECT. Which both relieved and added to my fear. It was relieving to see it happen and that everything was alright, but it was also unnerving to watch someone have an induced seizure. Mostly though, as scared as I was, I felt that ECT was the correct course for me to take. Was it crazy? Absolutely! ECT for reals?! This is nuts. But, it was also my last chance. Live or die.

It's been a year since my final ECT. And every day I am in awe of its workings. If you were to tell me 18 months ago that ECT would change my life, I definitely would've laughed at you. Nothing, I thought, could make me feel better or help improve my life. I was done. But still, I gave it a shot.

And how grateful I am that I did. I am grateful for ECT. As wild and scary as it seems. It's made me kinder, gentler, more compassionate. It's given me my life back to a degree. There are things that I just can't do anymore, the depression forever robbed me of many things in my life, but ECT gave me some back. My mood is generally good. I can smile now and mean it. And while it is still ridiculously tough to brush my teeth, or go outside to check my mail, I can still feel good. I am thankful for the doctors and nurses who helped me along the way and who performed my ECTs. I am thankful for all those who took me to ECT. 25 over six months. That's a lot. And I am so grateful. I just am so grateful that I was part of the 80% success rate of ECT. It's a miracle and it worked. And I am forever changed.

100th Post!

This is my 100th post! When I first started this blog I thought it'd be easy to write 100 posts. I wasn't right. Hahaha. But five years later, here we are!

My first post is dated Feb 20, 2015. Since then my blog has received 10,891 hits, averaging roughly 110 hits per post. My highest visited post has received 388 hits, and my lowest has received 16. So you can do some figuring and reasoning there, should you be interested. :-)

To celebrate 100 blog posts, I thought it'd be fun to do a 100 fun things about me list. Or a questionnaire getting to know you type thing. Maybe 100 way to practice self care. 100 unique things about me...? I searched for a good long while for just the right list I could use to inspire a blog post. I couldn't find one.

So, instead I'll ask, what's on your mind? Haha I used to date a guy who would ask me that. I always said "nothing". What a dumb question, I thought, always. Hahaha. ANYWAYS. Another time, another story. How can you sum up into one or two sentences and verbally speak allowed all that is on your mind?

But really, what's on your mind?

I think about the possibility of a future a lot now. It's a foreign and kind of uncomfortable way of thinking for me. For most of my life, I have felt that tomorrow is not a sure thing. Like they say, there's no guarantee. This taught me to live for literally one day at a time. Whether that's good or bad, I go back and forth. I don't know. But it is what it is. So to start to think of a future is a very strange idea to me. I could still be here in six months from now, and I AM OK with that idea. I'm still trying to comprehend and wrap my brain around the concept. Like learning a new language. But a future. What does it look like? That's too broad a subject, once again. In a future, what do I look like? I imagine I LOOK very much the same. That's fine I guess. Maybe I could wash my hair a little more often? Haha I don't know. But maybe a little deeper I do know. Maybe I'm hoping for a future in which I'm taking better care of myself. I must see that as a possibility, for it to be coming up. Interesting.

So, yeah. A future. I've also been thinking about goals. And I'm seeing how a future and goals are tying in to each other.

I have a very broad goal to write more. I've had that broad "goal" for many years though. But I think about it and it's too overwhelming. I get paralyzed when I get overwhelmed. I mean really, where do you even start? So I just did nothing. Someone recently asked me what a goal of mine was. I said to write more. That sparked a conversation with the rest of the people at our table about writing and what I liked to write. I said poetry is what I used to love writing. But goodness, I haven't written a poem in a good seven or eight years. For many, many reasons I stopped writing. Suddenly though, as we were talking around the table, it FINALLY dawned on me a way to achieve my huge goal to write more is to begin by writing one poem. To start breaking down the wall I'd built between me and my goal, one brick at a time. One poem at a time.

I haven't written a poem yet. But I have written more... And I think about my poem every single day. And in this I see a future.

One last thing I've been thinking of a lot is joy. What brings me joy. My brother gave me a Joy Jar for my birthday last year. He also gave me 366 small slips of paper on which I am to write one thing a day that brought me joy. I love my Joy Jar. It's made me focus each day, which has been very hard on some days, on joy. Just joy. Pure, innocent joy. I've been doing my Joy Jar for over four months now, and I can definitely see a difference in how I look back on my days. Looking to find a joy. I find it's fun to wonder at the beginning of a day what my joy will be. It gives me something to look forward to. Just a simple joy. In every day. They're there, I promise.

So that's what's been on my mind lately. (Among a billion other things, but hahaha you get the picture.) Future, goals, and joy.

And that's what happened when I went to write a 100th post celebration.

Stream

Stream

Shhh, listen.
I will tell you
What I know.
All I know.

The rocks.
Hard. Cold.
Unmoving.
I hit them. I have to.
It hurts. It has to.
They cannot stop me.
And I make them smooth
Over time.

The wind.
Howls, swirls. Pierces.
Deafening.
It threatens at times
To break my soul.
It doesn't.
It calms, eventually.
It has to.

Dirt, mud, debris.
I do not always sparkle.
Sometimes I can't.
It is not easy
When I am meant to shine.
It slows, halts. Chokes.
I move only faster
Until I run clean.

I wind, twist, turn.
I grow stronger, I fall.
I laugh. And cry.
I wander, appear lost.
I find my way.
I shout. I whisper. To no one.
And no one hears.
And everyone hears.

And I just...
Go.

Listen. It's silent.
And I make my own path
While in silence I sing.
It is not so hard.

June 2, 2011

Notebooks

I used to carry notebooks around with me. I would write in them all the time, everywhere I went. I always had some kind of notebook with me. A place to capture emotion that I had such a hard time releasing otherwise. A place to write fantasies. Poems. I'd take my notebook to therapy, to groups I went to, to doctors visits. Anywhere and everywhere I could possibly need a moment of clarity, a moment to write. A moment to feel or a moment to let go.

For some reason, this is the last one I kept. It's dated January 2014 - August 2014.

I loved this notebook. It was my lifeline, filled with so much emotion. It was with me during some pretty shitty times. Which is kind of what I want to write about now.

Here, for example, is a sample of what this notebook contains.

So. Much. Sadness. So much grief. So much anger. I was a very, very angry human. Towards how my life had turned out thus far. I felt like such a failure. I was angry towards myself for never being able to get a handle on my depression. I was angry at the way others interacted with me. I was mad, I was sad, I was overwhelmed, I was hopeless. And I felt all alone.

But.

I don't know. The notebook ended. And I didn't get another. And I stopped writing.

But.

I am still here. I reread my teal notebook. And I AM STILL HERE. Do you have any idea how utterly amazing that is?? I hung in there. I NEVER gave up. I fought and dammit I fought hard. Even when I felt all alone in this great big universe, I fought and I stayed alive. Reading my notebooks now, I am astonished at how far I have come. And I am beyond thrilled that I CAN see how far I've come! I've overcome deep heartbreak, so much anger, and I have risen above and become a better human because of it. I have to hand it to my past self: Past Self, you are a warrior. Look at you. Against all odds and against every ounce of doubt in this world, you survived. And I am PROUD.

I can see this now because of my notebooks. I'm going to start carrying around a small notebook again. Someplace to start writing down the inner working of my brain. A poem, a rage page, words... sometimes, just words.