I'm sorry I said I was fine.

Remember the mean girls, from high school?

Mercifully, that torment falls away when we graduate, doesn't it. For most people. The sweet relief of growing up releases us from the grip of petty name-calling and we can walk effortlessly down a hallway without fear of insult or injury.

But I kept one of mine.

I didn't mean to. I didn't know.

She's here all the time. She's here now. She is clever and perceptive and knows me intimately; She knows where my most vulnerable places are. Every time I walk through my bathroom I have to walk past her, head down, eyes to the floor, hoping desperately that she won't notice me today. But she does, she always does. And her cruelty is unmatched.

You should probably stay home. You shouldn't let anyone see you like this.
You are disgusting, don't you know how to take care of yourself?
You can't wear that, you don't have the body for it.

You are unworthy.
You are human garbage.
You don't have anything left to offer this world.
Why can't you just get your shit together?
You are useless.

I've been hiding for most of February, from friends, from the world, from the truth. I turned 30 this month, and did my best to celebrate it. In earnest, I really don't care about age or the numbers attached. I had no dread or fear for this birthday, and it has been otherwise very low on my radar of significant things that warrant worry or emotional energy. It was a good day.

But February has been a hard month.

I've had an old friend visiting. My bully. My mean girl. And I can hear her constantly. When I'm smiling and joking, when I'm speaking with you. When you're speaking with me. She sits beside me when I'm driving and lays next to me in bed. She lives in my head and has a direct line to my heart and she makes my bones ache. She makes my self ache. Tangibly ache; like the agony of losing a loved one, I am compelled by grief and mourning and crushing self loathing and spend my days weeping softly in the shower or wailing from my couch as my children watch Netflix in the other room.

If I said I was fine, I was lying.
I'm sorry.

She told me you didn't want to hear it. She told me you might say something insensitive and make it worse. She told me you didn't have time for me. She told me you had problems of your own, and that I've already asked enough of you and I shouldn't be so selfish.

It's as though I am living behind glass as the life I've worked so hard to build carries on around me. I can see my husband and my children smiling, but I can't hear their laughter. I can't reach out and touch them no matter how agonizingly I want to, how hard I try. I can see my friends and my book club talking and laughing, and sometimes the autopilot in my head says something that sounds meaningful and sincere, but I can feel a terrible distance and I feel like it's painfully obvious to everyone.

But no one can hear my cries for help, and the glass is so thick they can't hear me banging from the inside.

When I am asleep I do not miss my life, I do not miss my family. Because I am asleep. But depression is so different. Depression is being awake but having to watch from a distance. I'm not allowed to participate, I'm not allowed to feel the joy and fulfillment from my hard work.

And if I'm being honest, on my worst days, it feels worse than death.

I have never died, so I can't say for sure. But it is a special kind of torture, watching your life go by, powerless to break free, gasping for air. It is a torture so crushing that in its most gripping moments it has you absolutely convinced that you will feel this pain forever.

And sometimes I just want a rest, you know?
I'm tired.

I'm tired of fighting. So in the darkest depths my mind rolls over the fantasy, just ever so lightly.

What if I could sleep until this was over?

But it will never be over.

Then what if I sleep forever?





But 

I will not let her win.

I will take my life back.

And it is going to be hard.

My husband and I are working together on some strategies to combat this visitor, and are going to be implementing them in the weeks, months, years ahead. Probably for the rest of my life.

I'm going to get up early and take some time to centre myself before I am thrust into my day.
I'm going to nourish my body with life-giving foods.
I'm going to engage in my passions and create things that feed my soul.
I'm going to take a walk outside every day regardless of the cold because I do not have the luxury of winging it anymore.

That's what it comes down to, really.

I can't be spontaneous anymore. I can't fly by the seat of my pants. I need strategies, systems, and structures. I've lived within them before and I've thrived but when I thrive I forget about their importance and they fall away. Like vitamins you forget to take when you're feeling better.

I need to come to terms with the fact that I have a lifelong illness that I'm not just imagining. I have a serious and potentially fatal disease that I need to learn to live alongside and not deny anymore. This is my reality. I need to listen to my body, and speak to my best self, and she needs to speak kindly back. Always.

I've been in desperate need of a map to lead me out of this darkness, but I've had it all along.
The journey just seems so long and so impossible.

But. My family deserves to keep me.
And I can do hard things.

So it's time to fight.