i know i'm coming out of a depression when i finally change the sheets on the bed. i finish fluffing the pillows and folding my hospital corners, all the while thinking to myself 'You're going to be ok.'
***
this summer has been the darkest days i've seen. in the worst of it, i spent hours sitting in the bathtub with the shower running over me, begging desperately to melt into the water. since i wasn't working, i had no communication with anyone - i didn't have the patience or the desire to engage in conversation. i wore cement shoes, shuffling along while the earth moved like lightning.
my lungs hurt.
***
i've spent the better part of my lifetime in therapy - family sessions, psychologists, pychopharmacologists, social healers. i've never really wondered if it was actually doing me any good. it was just something i took for granted. of course i'm in therapy. i'm the kid that was so afraid mummies were going to pull her brain from her nose in the night, she demanded her father install a home alarm system. i'm the kid that could fill a short book with the poems she'd written entitled "Depression" and "My Sad".
looking back, though, i'm not sure if most of it actually helped. i think i spent the majority of my time performing for these people - a willing, open stage to produce a multi-act saga of my life. i'm sure i stretched the truth. i'm sure i lied. i'm sure i told really good stories.
***
for the past two years, i've finally started to understand why i really am in therapy, and it has little to do with mummies or poems. it has a lot more to do with the truth, and being boring and vulnerable and sloppy.
***
so here's the thing. this blog is a different story. it's a true story, and mostly i'm telling it to myself.