Reblogged
This post originally appeared on my old blog, Unwritten, but I wanted to move it here because I feel like this is an incredibly important piece of my journey. It's a long one, but I hope you'll read it if you come across it!
It has been awhile since I've written. I guess maybe I just haven't felt like talking about what I've been going through... or maybe it is that I have been so confused about what I've been feeling it's been too hard to put in words. For awhile, things were good. I got a job that I didn't hate, decided to make my way back onto the stage, and I was even elected to the Board of Directors for a local non-profit. I really felt like I was starting to get to that whole responsible adult place.
And then I lost my job. After struggling for so many months to get one, and then to just lose it without warning... it brought everything crashing down around me. In public, I made jokes about not having a job, but when I was alone, I was spiraling downward very quickly. Everything had become a blur. Days mixed together as I spent one day after another lying on an air mattress at my mom's sleeping, binge watching Netflix, and eating just to eat and not because I felt hungry. In fact, I felt little of anything other than despair. And yet I couldn't cry. Not at or for anything or anyone. I told everyone I was sick, and for the first few days, I think my mom chalked it all up to being exhausted, so I got by. I never left that room except to let my dog out, use the bathroom, or get food. I went... I don't even know how many days without showering. I had even stopped taking my anti-depressant and sleeping pills because every time I looked at a pill bottle, I would think, "Well if I just took them all, I'd fall asleep and never wake up."
And the thoughts of dying became more insistent. If I died, I wouldn't have to worry about being in debt or having to get a job that made me feel like my soul was being crushed. What did I have left to live for? Well, there was my family, but as I was sleeping on an air mattress at my mom's house, I felt more like a burden than anything else. In the past, I had always had my dreams to look forward to, but over the last year, I had begun to lose my grip on those. They now seemed impossible, impractical, and entirely intangible. And as far as friends went, most of them hardly talked to me, and I had grown so tired of always being the one to reach out. The only person who did talk to me on a consistent basis lived half a continent and an ocean away, and she, of all people, would understand. The hardest thing, I thought, would be leaving my dog behind. Would my mom be able to keep him around, or would he remind her too much of me? "Poor GusGus," I thought, "He wouldn't understand.
And that was the thought that finally set me off crying that night. He was the only thing that made me feel any emotion at that point. Eventually, my crying turned into sobs... not quiet sobs, but loud, body heaving sobs like how you'd expect someone to cry upon hearing someone they'd loved very dearly had died. And I guess in a way, maybe I was already grieving my own death.
My mom was asleep. I knew she was because I could hear her breathing machine through the wall. And yet somehow she heard me, through the wall, over the noise of snoring and the machine working to help her breathe at night. (I'm convinced this was mostly motherly instinct.) And then I heard her get up, and that made me cry even harder, especially when she came into the room and found me a sobbing, broken mess... like she had so many other times before.
I started talking, telling her how I felt. She took my pills from me and told me she'd give me my medicine each day and that she was going to call a therapist in the morning. I finally went to sleep from a mixture of the exhaustion of crying and the effects of the medication. I awoke the next morning to my mom knocking on the door and informing me that she would be taking me to the Stress Center to be evaluated. I said my goodbyes to my dog, told my friend across the ocean what was going on so that if she didn't hear from me she wouldn't worry. I even packed some things in a bag... I wasn't sure what I'd be allowed to have. I thought for sure I would be admitted for inpatient treatment... which was almost comical because all I could think about was Sam and Dean Winchester from the show Supernatural hunting a monster in a mental ward.
But I went without any further fuss or discussion. In fact, I hardly spoke at all except to confirm that I was thirsty when my mom asked if I wanted anything to drink. We went into the stress center, and I immediately found myself judging the patients I saw coming and going... mostly the ones coming. I kept thinking that at least I wasn't that crazy... but I had been on the edge of suicide, so maybe that wasn't so true. We had to wait for a long time, but I finally saw an evaluator. The only time I cried was when I was talking about my mom, because I regretted so much that I was putting her through this. In the end, they decided I didn't need to go into the inpatient program, but they placed me in a partial hospitalization program... which basically meant I had to come to the stress center and be there all day every day throughout the week. At least I wasn't going to a locked ward with potential monsters or ghosts...
My first day in the Stress Center is a blur. I don't remember a single thing talked about in our lessons that day. All I can remember is sitting in my small group, leg bouncing wildly, listening to someone talk, and realizing that I might actually have some people here to whom I didn't have to explain in exact detail how I felt. They already knew because they were living through it themselves. This was kind of a novel concept for me because for YEARS I had felt that the only place I could go where people understood me was the theatre. That day, I basically sat alone at lunch. Someone sat down with me for a couple of minutes, but they left after eating just a few bites, and I don't think we really even spoke. They were new, too, so I could empathize.
The second day was better. Wednesdays in the outpatient program are Individual Expression. In the morning session, all the small groups come together, and people get up and share things that bring them happiness or that are important to them. Never being one to have been afraid of public speaking, I went up to share. It had taken me awhile to decide what to bring, but in the end, I showed everyone this custom-made coin that a producer of one of my shows had given to me. He gave it to me for reflecting my light and sharing it with the world. It means a lot to me. That day, some people sat down and ate with me, people talked to me, they were all actually interested in learning more about me and about what I do.
In the weeks to come, I felt myself improving quickly, which was great, but I needed to consider why all of a sudden I was feeling better. It didn't take long for me to figure it out, truthfully. In the past, I had always considered my isolation to be a symptom of my depression, but through this experience I discovered that my isolation could cause these depressive episodes. I knew my first step had to be to reach out and try to make new, positive connections with people I could actually spend time with in person. The next step was becoming a more responsible adult, which proved to be a little more challenging...
When you suffer from depression, you become extremely apathetic about almost everything. I wasn't pulling my weight around the apartment, my room was a disaster, I wasn't taking care of my dog like I should have. All I wanted to do was sleep, even when I started therapy and was beginning to see some hope, I just wanted to come home and curl up in my bed and not face the world. I identified this as an area that I needed to improve if I wanted to have a happier life. It started with my dog. Until this point, I was lucky if I managed to take him on a walk a few times a week, but now my goal had become to take him on a walk at least once day. It was surprising to me that this was also something that would make me happy. My dog is crazy and goofy, and watching him just be so excited to see and smell everything he possibly could in that short walk made me smile, so I kept making time to do this day after day.
I quickly realized that taking Gus for a walk also gave me more energy. I physically felt like I could maybe do some housework, even if I didn't have the motivation. Action before motivation. That's what they said frequently in therapy. I would make myself do the dishes, I would make myself put away my laundry, I would make myself clean my room. Even though these were small, every day tasks, every single thing I accomplished felt like an incredible achievement to me and made me feel some pride in myself once again. That feeling of accomplishment was echoed when I would share these small victories in group and receive encouragement from people who knew exactly how hard it was to convince myself to do those things.
My next step was learning to face and manage my anxiety, and even without working at a job, the opportunity came. I don't even know how things like this happened, but all of a sudden I became conscious of the fact that I had about 8 tabs open on my browser and was continuously jumping back and forth between all of them as I tried to complete all my tasks, unable to focus on just one. My heart was racing as I sat there restless and overwhelmed. And then I shut my laptop. I shut my laptop, got up, and began tidying my room. Once I could pull the chair out from my desk, I cleaned my desk off and organized it, creating an actual place to work. After everything was cleaned up, I sat down at my desk and made a list of what I needed to do and prioritized it. As I tried to write the list, I had this moment of clarity when I realized I didn't really have all that much to do after all. I knocked the tasks off one after another without allowing myself to add anything else to the list. The first test of my new coping skills was a victory.
And the small victories continued. Everyday, it got easier to do those things that had initially been so difficult. I even found that I was now able to sit and listen attentively in group rather than sitting there bouncing my leg and checking the clock.
In the midst of all of that, I put in a job application. Just the one. It took some time because it seemed an overwhelming task, but I did it, and it was actually a job that I felt excited to do. I waited and I waited and I didn't hear anything. I called to ask about my application, and the message on the voicemail said they wouldn't be returning any calls about applications due to the high volume. Well, great. If there were that many, there was probably no way I'd get a job. Over two weeks passed, and I hadn't heard a word, so I began looking for other possibilities. And the next day they called to give me a phone interview. Not even 30 minutes later, I received a second call asking me to come in for an in-person interview. I went in for the interview the next week and was offered the job on the spot, both of my interviewers telling me how impressed they had been with me.
I graduated from therapy shortly after. I began there on March 11, 2013, and I ended on April 11th. The counselors were proud of me, amazed that I was ready to leave so quickly. But I wasn't. I wanted it. I wanted to get better. I was eager to learn, eager to work, eager to listen. I fought hard every single day to get better. The therapy graduation ceremonies are always bitter sweet. Everyone sits around in the small group circle, and they pass around a pin that looks like a dove, and the members of the group and counselors talk about you and give you words of encouragement. The counselors were the only ones there on my graduation day who had seen me when I first came into the program, everyone else had started after me. One after another, though, everyone spoke about how positive I was. One of the group members even went so far as to say I had a beautiful, colorful aura around me. The counselor told me I gave thoughtful, holistic feedback that would be missed when I was gone. Most people cry, but I didn't. I sat and smiled and listened. It seemed odd to me at the time that I didn't cry, but now I can see that I wasn't emotional because I already knew in my heart that everything they said was true, and I am grateful that I've shared some brief moments in this life with those people.
Once I received my pin, it was my turn to speak to a group. Usually they talk about the things they're worried about now that they're leaving the program, but honestly, I wasn't worried about anything. I felt at peace, like my life has come together and all the stressors that lead me to the stress center were gone. So instead, I gave something to them. I played "No Day but Today" as performed by Idina Menzel. The room was silent as everyone listened the world, and some of them even teared up. When the song was over, I encouraged everyone to live as though there's no day but today, to throw themselves into this treatment 150% percent, to enjoy the small things in life, to get things done because you don't know what tomorrow will bring or if you'll even have tomorrow.
It is my hope that my story will inspire others. Whether it inspires people who don't understand mental illness to learn more about it, inspires people with mental illness to seek help, or if it just gives someone who is going through a hard time hope that it will get better. Emotions are fleeting, they only remain if we hold onto them. Let go of the sadness, the judgement, the hopelessness, the anger... let it all go and leave room in your heart for love and joy and contentment.
It has been awhile since I've written. I guess maybe I just haven't felt like talking about what I've been going through... or maybe it is that I have been so confused about what I've been feeling it's been too hard to put in words. For awhile, things were good. I got a job that I didn't hate, decided to make my way back onto the stage, and I was even elected to the Board of Directors for a local non-profit. I really felt like I was starting to get to that whole responsible adult place.
And then I lost my job. After struggling for so many months to get one, and then to just lose it without warning... it brought everything crashing down around me. In public, I made jokes about not having a job, but when I was alone, I was spiraling downward very quickly. Everything had become a blur. Days mixed together as I spent one day after another lying on an air mattress at my mom's sleeping, binge watching Netflix, and eating just to eat and not because I felt hungry. In fact, I felt little of anything other than despair. And yet I couldn't cry. Not at or for anything or anyone. I told everyone I was sick, and for the first few days, I think my mom chalked it all up to being exhausted, so I got by. I never left that room except to let my dog out, use the bathroom, or get food. I went... I don't even know how many days without showering. I had even stopped taking my anti-depressant and sleeping pills because every time I looked at a pill bottle, I would think, "Well if I just took them all, I'd fall asleep and never wake up."
And the thoughts of dying became more insistent. If I died, I wouldn't have to worry about being in debt or having to get a job that made me feel like my soul was being crushed. What did I have left to live for? Well, there was my family, but as I was sleeping on an air mattress at my mom's house, I felt more like a burden than anything else. In the past, I had always had my dreams to look forward to, but over the last year, I had begun to lose my grip on those. They now seemed impossible, impractical, and entirely intangible. And as far as friends went, most of them hardly talked to me, and I had grown so tired of always being the one to reach out. The only person who did talk to me on a consistent basis lived half a continent and an ocean away, and she, of all people, would understand. The hardest thing, I thought, would be leaving my dog behind. Would my mom be able to keep him around, or would he remind her too much of me? "Poor GusGus," I thought, "He wouldn't understand.
And that was the thought that finally set me off crying that night. He was the only thing that made me feel any emotion at that point. Eventually, my crying turned into sobs... not quiet sobs, but loud, body heaving sobs like how you'd expect someone to cry upon hearing someone they'd loved very dearly had died. And I guess in a way, maybe I was already grieving my own death.
My mom was asleep. I knew she was because I could hear her breathing machine through the wall. And yet somehow she heard me, through the wall, over the noise of snoring and the machine working to help her breathe at night. (I'm convinced this was mostly motherly instinct.) And then I heard her get up, and that made me cry even harder, especially when she came into the room and found me a sobbing, broken mess... like she had so many other times before.
I started talking, telling her how I felt. She took my pills from me and told me she'd give me my medicine each day and that she was going to call a therapist in the morning. I finally went to sleep from a mixture of the exhaustion of crying and the effects of the medication. I awoke the next morning to my mom knocking on the door and informing me that she would be taking me to the Stress Center to be evaluated. I said my goodbyes to my dog, told my friend across the ocean what was going on so that if she didn't hear from me she wouldn't worry. I even packed some things in a bag... I wasn't sure what I'd be allowed to have. I thought for sure I would be admitted for inpatient treatment... which was almost comical because all I could think about was Sam and Dean Winchester from the show Supernatural hunting a monster in a mental ward.
But I went without any further fuss or discussion. In fact, I hardly spoke at all except to confirm that I was thirsty when my mom asked if I wanted anything to drink. We went into the stress center, and I immediately found myself judging the patients I saw coming and going... mostly the ones coming. I kept thinking that at least I wasn't that crazy... but I had been on the edge of suicide, so maybe that wasn't so true. We had to wait for a long time, but I finally saw an evaluator. The only time I cried was when I was talking about my mom, because I regretted so much that I was putting her through this. In the end, they decided I didn't need to go into the inpatient program, but they placed me in a partial hospitalization program... which basically meant I had to come to the stress center and be there all day every day throughout the week. At least I wasn't going to a locked ward with potential monsters or ghosts...
My first day in the Stress Center is a blur. I don't remember a single thing talked about in our lessons that day. All I can remember is sitting in my small group, leg bouncing wildly, listening to someone talk, and realizing that I might actually have some people here to whom I didn't have to explain in exact detail how I felt. They already knew because they were living through it themselves. This was kind of a novel concept for me because for YEARS I had felt that the only place I could go where people understood me was the theatre. That day, I basically sat alone at lunch. Someone sat down with me for a couple of minutes, but they left after eating just a few bites, and I don't think we really even spoke. They were new, too, so I could empathize.
The second day was better. Wednesdays in the outpatient program are Individual Expression. In the morning session, all the small groups come together, and people get up and share things that bring them happiness or that are important to them. Never being one to have been afraid of public speaking, I went up to share. It had taken me awhile to decide what to bring, but in the end, I showed everyone this custom-made coin that a producer of one of my shows had given to me. He gave it to me for reflecting my light and sharing it with the world. It means a lot to me. That day, some people sat down and ate with me, people talked to me, they were all actually interested in learning more about me and about what I do.
In the weeks to come, I felt myself improving quickly, which was great, but I needed to consider why all of a sudden I was feeling better. It didn't take long for me to figure it out, truthfully. In the past, I had always considered my isolation to be a symptom of my depression, but through this experience I discovered that my isolation could cause these depressive episodes. I knew my first step had to be to reach out and try to make new, positive connections with people I could actually spend time with in person. The next step was becoming a more responsible adult, which proved to be a little more challenging...
When you suffer from depression, you become extremely apathetic about almost everything. I wasn't pulling my weight around the apartment, my room was a disaster, I wasn't taking care of my dog like I should have. All I wanted to do was sleep, even when I started therapy and was beginning to see some hope, I just wanted to come home and curl up in my bed and not face the world. I identified this as an area that I needed to improve if I wanted to have a happier life. It started with my dog. Until this point, I was lucky if I managed to take him on a walk a few times a week, but now my goal had become to take him on a walk at least once day. It was surprising to me that this was also something that would make me happy. My dog is crazy and goofy, and watching him just be so excited to see and smell everything he possibly could in that short walk made me smile, so I kept making time to do this day after day.
I quickly realized that taking Gus for a walk also gave me more energy. I physically felt like I could maybe do some housework, even if I didn't have the motivation. Action before motivation. That's what they said frequently in therapy. I would make myself do the dishes, I would make myself put away my laundry, I would make myself clean my room. Even though these were small, every day tasks, every single thing I accomplished felt like an incredible achievement to me and made me feel some pride in myself once again. That feeling of accomplishment was echoed when I would share these small victories in group and receive encouragement from people who knew exactly how hard it was to convince myself to do those things.
My next step was learning to face and manage my anxiety, and even without working at a job, the opportunity came. I don't even know how things like this happened, but all of a sudden I became conscious of the fact that I had about 8 tabs open on my browser and was continuously jumping back and forth between all of them as I tried to complete all my tasks, unable to focus on just one. My heart was racing as I sat there restless and overwhelmed. And then I shut my laptop. I shut my laptop, got up, and began tidying my room. Once I could pull the chair out from my desk, I cleaned my desk off and organized it, creating an actual place to work. After everything was cleaned up, I sat down at my desk and made a list of what I needed to do and prioritized it. As I tried to write the list, I had this moment of clarity when I realized I didn't really have all that much to do after all. I knocked the tasks off one after another without allowing myself to add anything else to the list. The first test of my new coping skills was a victory.
And the small victories continued. Everyday, it got easier to do those things that had initially been so difficult. I even found that I was now able to sit and listen attentively in group rather than sitting there bouncing my leg and checking the clock.
In the midst of all of that, I put in a job application. Just the one. It took some time because it seemed an overwhelming task, but I did it, and it was actually a job that I felt excited to do. I waited and I waited and I didn't hear anything. I called to ask about my application, and the message on the voicemail said they wouldn't be returning any calls about applications due to the high volume. Well, great. If there were that many, there was probably no way I'd get a job. Over two weeks passed, and I hadn't heard a word, so I began looking for other possibilities. And the next day they called to give me a phone interview. Not even 30 minutes later, I received a second call asking me to come in for an in-person interview. I went in for the interview the next week and was offered the job on the spot, both of my interviewers telling me how impressed they had been with me.
I graduated from therapy shortly after. I began there on March 11, 2013, and I ended on April 11th. The counselors were proud of me, amazed that I was ready to leave so quickly. But I wasn't. I wanted it. I wanted to get better. I was eager to learn, eager to work, eager to listen. I fought hard every single day to get better. The therapy graduation ceremonies are always bitter sweet. Everyone sits around in the small group circle, and they pass around a pin that looks like a dove, and the members of the group and counselors talk about you and give you words of encouragement. The counselors were the only ones there on my graduation day who had seen me when I first came into the program, everyone else had started after me. One after another, though, everyone spoke about how positive I was. One of the group members even went so far as to say I had a beautiful, colorful aura around me. The counselor told me I gave thoughtful, holistic feedback that would be missed when I was gone. Most people cry, but I didn't. I sat and smiled and listened. It seemed odd to me at the time that I didn't cry, but now I can see that I wasn't emotional because I already knew in my heart that everything they said was true, and I am grateful that I've shared some brief moments in this life with those people.
Once I received my pin, it was my turn to speak to a group. Usually they talk about the things they're worried about now that they're leaving the program, but honestly, I wasn't worried about anything. I felt at peace, like my life has come together and all the stressors that lead me to the stress center were gone. So instead, I gave something to them. I played "No Day but Today" as performed by Idina Menzel. The room was silent as everyone listened the world, and some of them even teared up. When the song was over, I encouraged everyone to live as though there's no day but today, to throw themselves into this treatment 150% percent, to enjoy the small things in life, to get things done because you don't know what tomorrow will bring or if you'll even have tomorrow.
It is my hope that my story will inspire others. Whether it inspires people who don't understand mental illness to learn more about it, inspires people with mental illness to seek help, or if it just gives someone who is going through a hard time hope that it will get better. Emotions are fleeting, they only remain if we hold onto them. Let go of the sadness, the judgement, the hopelessness, the anger... let it all go and leave room in your heart for love and joy and contentment.
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