June 25, 2012

There I was...(coming up on almost 2 years ago now) living a life I was ready to leave. Some of you know this story, a personal period full of pain and anguish for me. I revisit it now for personal reasons. For reasons I can't explain in detail, but that the word smith in me feels the need to talk about it now.

Heavier than any feeling imaginable. Darker than any blackest night. My thoughts, my body, my life was unbearable. I tell you that breathing hurt because of the mental anguish of knowing another breath would follow the last one. I just needed it to end. I could not FEEL that way anymore. I've said it before...death would have been kinder, easier in fact. This hollow, hopeless shell of a soul was not me and therefore was no longer of any use to me. My choice was insulin and metoprolol (a medication that drops the blood pressure and the heart rate). I stood in front of the drug dispensing machine at work calculating what I would need. Ironically enough it was my depression that saved me in that moment. I was so hateful of myself that I assumed I would not even be able to kill myself properly and I would end up living through it and forever be known as the nurse who tried to kill herself with stolen drugs. I walked away. Less than 12 hours later I was institutionalized.

This is not a glamorous story. It has no funny anecdotes and there will not be praying tongue in cheek at the end of it.

This was a time of being broken. Of self loathing, hatred in fact, and burial. I sat there..in that institution, not being helped by any "groups". Biding my time and putting on a smiling face (a face that just didn't have tears running down it). My people loved me. I cried to my sisters, my parents, my dearest friend Suzanne. I cried at the loss they would feel when I would eventually be gone. I could not...not live..any longer. I was dead inside.

Hope is a funny thing. We find ourselves hoping for all manner of things..good weather, a raise, a tall dark and handsome man to sweep us off our feet. Frivolous, petty things. I fully believe we should be taught the proper art of being hopeful, not to mention a few other things like self worth, confidence, love, and feeling understood.

The sad and unfortunate matter is that my story has happened to so many people. Maybe you. Maybe your loved one. The space a soul stands in during the very deepest of depressions is unreachable for the most part. Nothing logical will do. It is wholly miraculous to make it out alive. What brings the saddened soul to the surface is not the out stretched hands of those that love them, so much as it is the graceful spirit within that knows you have been down long enough. Breathing faith into the livable life.
One must bury the shell of pain. Shed it and leave it to rot in the hell it created..and walk toward the beauty of being alive. It's not about huge mile stones or bucket lists. It's not about material possessions or fame and fortune. It's about the acceptance of being flawed, imperfect and lost. To embrace each day thankful for the ability to know oneself and ultimately be understood by that most important soul.
Love the people you will love. I beg of you to start with yourself first.