Bell Let’s Talk day has been really jarring for me today.
Just a year ago on this day, I was happily tweeting, comfortably sharing my story with the world, because my ordeal was over. I was “cured”, or so I thought. I don’t know if I was just naive, if I was lying to myself, or if it was a combination of the two. But I thought I’d risen from rock bottom, never to sink so low again.
And I was so wrong.
I almost tried to crash my car at 2am one night. Then spent god knows how long I don’t even know where sitting in my parked car, freezing and crying my eyes out. Somehow made it back home and had to show up to work the next day like nothing had happened.
Something fundamental had fractured in me that night. Everything was fucked: my living situation, my friendships, my grasp on sanity, just, everything. I felt like I was hurtling towards something terrible, fizzing out like that timer on a bomb, or something like that. I needed to breathe, and I couldn’t find the space, and I forced myself to do things I didn’t want to do and made a million bad decisions along the way. I fucked up so bad and I didn’t know how to fix it. I didn’t know how to get support anymore, let alone support myself. I’d had support, a year before, when my depression and anxiety had hit their highs in grad school. But now I’d realized that despite what I’d been telling myself for years, I never really stopped being suicidal. Or at least having suicidal ideation.
I’m in a much better place now. I’m happy. I want to end the stigmatization that comes with mental illness. I love actively participating on these days. I still did so today.
And yet, seeing all those tweets, retweeting as many of them as I could... I never in a million years would have expected it to hurt this much. I lost count of how many times I had to hold back tears at work. And I realized it was because I knew now that I couldn’t be naive. I’m not cured or fixed. I might be far from where I’ve been, but I’m not 100%, and I might never be. I’ve thought about this a lot, accepted it even, but today was the first day that thought really hurt, probably because it’s the awareness day. I’m not sure where I’m going with this anymore. I’m pretty jumbled up today. I guess what I’m saying is, this day has had a bad effect on me this year, but it’s so important, and I don’t want it to stop being important. Meanwhile, I’m going to keep living.
