Several years ago I wrote an essay on a different blog about my struggle with anxiety and depression after my boys joined our family. The writing was shared a lot on the internet, and I received so much support and positive feedback as a result. I was brutally honest in a way that I didn’t allow myself to be in public. Here’s an excerpt: My chest often feels tight. My hands often shake. My thoughts are less coherent than usual. My inexplicable tears come more frequently. My hope feels lost when it should be "built on nothing less." Last night I asked Chris if he had noticed a change in my moods and emotions lately. "Don't be mad," he answered, "but yes." I wasn't mad. He was just confirming what I already knew. I went on to share that I was starting medication for situational anxiety, and it was scary to put those words in writing for the world to see because mental illness comes with a side of stigma in this country. But I wrote the words, and I shared the story because I didn’t want others to feel like they had to suffer in silence. Since then I was able to stop taking the medication, but you can bet that I would take it again in a hot second if I felt myself falling into that pit of despair again. It was difficult to walk into my trusted doctor’s office and tell him how I was struggling, but I would do it again because I know that depression and anxiety are real, and they aren’t my fault. Somedays still I feel myself in a place of darkness. Really I’ve always been prone to moments of deep melancholy. I remember in high school sitting in my room and listening to “Fake Plastic Trees” by Radiohead on repeat and deeply feeling my feelings. I was actually just in the same space yesterday. When those days come, I don’t find joy in things that usually bring me joy. I can’t find something to look forward to. On those days I want to walk out of my house and never come back. The things that normally cheer me up -- my favorite music, a good cup of tea, a walk with my dog -- don’t make a difference. I feel despondent and inexplicably gloomy. It’s hard to admit this because I still like to wear the mask of the perpetually optimistic girl. I hold on during those days, though, because I know it’s a short season. Last night I went for a walk and prayed and looked for joy in small places. I crawled back out and see more light today. I’m grateful for that. But sometimes we can’t crawl back out. I remember what that felt like, when the joy didn’t come in the morning. When the place of darkness didn’t just stay under the bed and or in the closet but came out and made its home in my heart, stealing my joy and tinting my view of the world with a perpetual gray filter. Today I’m writing and crying and listening to music and shaking my fist at the sky because just this week we lost two bright stars, Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, to suicide. I’m crying because suicide rates in this industrialized, modern country have gone up 25% since 1999, and I can put names with some of those statistics, names of those I knew, shared meals with, taught. I’m also crying because all of the evidence points to a higher risk of suicide for adoptees. Right now I’m looking at the photo of my sweet children on their last day of school. I sent them off to the bus for a fun day of adventure with friends, but nagging in the back of my mind is the thought that as much as I try, I can’t always protect them from the demons that hide in their closets. This isn’t a place to tell their story, but I can just say that trauma has left a deep thumbprint on their brains. I’m writing this because maybe someone in my circle is struggling and needs to know that people care (National Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255). Maybe someone reading needs the nudge to seek medication to help with the very real struggles of mental illness. Maybe someone is reading who doesn’t struggle with depression but needs the reminder to be intentional about sharing love and showing care. Yesterday on my walk I turned a corner down a road I normally don’t walk on, and I was greeted with a front yard full of peonies of every shade of pink imaginable. Peonies are my favorite flower ever, and that sight felt like a gift. So many moments are a gift. NPR had a beautiful tribute about Anthony Bourdain today. I would love for these words to someday be said about me: ...he treated the world as if he had not given up on it. He treated it as if, at any moment, it might open itself wider, reveal a crack into which he hadn't ever slipped, with pen and paper, with a flashlight and a fork. And he might be able to help other people understand what was inside.
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