It’s a sobering thought, when you find yourself confused, helpless, and alone, and you realize there's no one you can turn to for help. Sure there are people you can call, and you might even reach out, but it’s the jarring awareness that there isn’t that one person who is top of mind for you to call when you’re down in the depths and struggling to make it out alive.
I’ve had these episodes before. It starts with a knot in the chest, like a vise slowly tightening, and I find myself fixed on a spot on the wall, forgetting everything else I was supposed to be doing. Then the dark thoughts invade my brain; I try my best to hold them off, but they come in waves, inundating my consciousness. And before I know it, the tears come, hot and fast, and the tightness in my chest becomes unbearable. Sometimes I feel like I’m levitating, and I’m looking down at myself, crying for no apparent reason, and I can’t help but add insult to injury—I tell myself, ‘What a wuss! What a pathetic loser who can’t keep it together, drenching your t-shirt with tears that don’t even mean anything.’ It’d be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic.
You’re looking for comfort; a moment’s relief from the debilitating pain inside that doesn’t even have a name.
That’s when you try to take control of the situation and realize that what you need is to share these feelings with someone, to direct these emotions outward and maybe find comfort in the words of a friend who will understand. I‘ve read enough about these things to know that it’s always better to let things out. I think that’s how I know that things aren’t terminal for me. Yet. There’s a tiny part of my brain that’s still trying to “handle things,” and the logical thing to do is to talk to someone about whatever it is you’re going through.
And that’s when it hits you. You make like the Ghostbusters and ask, ‘Who’re you gonna call?’ Yes, you do have friends, but you know they have problems of their own and you don’t want to be a burden. It’s embarrassing to bring this up to your close friends, especially since you can’t even articulate what’s happening even to yourself. You start going through your friends list and imagine the conversations you’ll have with each one. You know what they're going to say, so why bother?
You interrupt this little episode when you realize you have somewhere to be. You pull yourself together enough to get dressed, drive to your thing, plaster on a smile and go through the motions of behaving like a functioning human being, pretending like there’s nothing wrong. For a moment, you actually believe that you’re past the episode, and that you’re actually feeling a bit better. You finally made it through another one of these things.
But it’s not that simple. The chest pains start again while you’re driving back home, and a few tears escape no matter how much you try to dam your eyes. By the time you get home and plunk yourself down on the couch, you slide back into the darkness and you’re full-on bawling your eyes out again. The t-shirt you were wearing earlier hasn’t even dried and now it’s wet again.
This time, I’m grateful to a new friend I messaged to ask if we could meet. She had plans, and of course, I didn’t want to impose, but she suspected something was up and she called at just the right time. We have only known each other for a couple of years, which is far less than my other close friends, but I knew she was the right one to talk to because of her expertise in this area. She is not my therapist, but she knows and understands enough about these things that I felt comfortable opening up without fear of being ridiculed, shamed, or that I’m burdening her with unknowable drivel.
There are no easy answers, that much I also know, but opening up about the things eating me up inside was enough for now. I couldn’t hide the lump in my throat and the way my voice croaked trying to hold back the tears, but I also wasn’t actively trying to; it was a therapy session that allowed me to express myself without feeling guilty. It didn’t fully release me from the demons still swirling around in my head, but it was enough to afford me temporary relief and sanity.
