A Different Kind of Crazy

Yesterday was April 16th and around the world, people struggling with depression and thoughts of suicide drew semi-colons on their wrists in a display of strength. We will beat this, they said. We won't let our story end. 

A semi-colon is used when an author could have ended a sentence, but didn't. Pause, it says; but keep going. 

White ink tattoo, to match my scars. #semicolonproject416

Mental illness runs in my family. I've seen how it tears at a person's emotions and leaves them feeling like they are not quite themselves. I've seen how medication helps, or doesn't. How it makes a person feel numb, empty. Or how medication lulls them into a sense of security, and then leads them to believe because they are better they no longer need it, and then they stop taking it and everything falls apart again until they start taking it again. Repeat ad nauseam. Or how, when the right person finds the right medication and the right dosage, it works exactly as intended and helps maintain balance, normalcy. 

I've never taken medication for my depression. Honestly, I'm scared to. Afraid of how it will make me feel. Afraid of getting the wrong medication, the wrong dosage and feeling (more) suicidal, maybe going through with it, or maybe just going back to self-harming like I did when I was a teenager. I've been able to suppress my depression with cognitive behavior therapy. Though I've never seen a therapist. (My mother's admonition, though I am now an adult with my own healthcare plan, runs through my head: "We can't afford that, Kate.") 

I've seen the way emotions flood through a person, and all logic and rationality leave their bodies like steam from a kettle. I know how it feels to want to control everything, everyone and the frustration of not being able to. I've felt the possessiveness, the jealousy. That was me, once upon a time. But not anymore.

"I won't ever behave like that," I tell myself. The lashing out, the paranoia, the inflated self-importance. The criticism. The angry disappointment when someone lets you down, despite the insanely high expectations you had. It's not me, I say. "Oh, you have it too. Or you will," my brother warns me with a teasing smile. And I worry I do. But I won't. "My kind of crazy is different," I tell him. 

People can't let me down, because I expect nothing of them. I will never feel the inflated self-importance because I cannot see myself as important. The paranoia will never overcome me because nothing is really about me, not really, not ever. And that's okay. I don't need it to be. Our world is but a lonely pale blue speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark, and I am exponentially smaller. The things people say or do are not reflections of me or my self-worth; they are reflections of themselves. 

I'd like to believe myself incapable of the sort of sharp criticism that cuts another person down. I know the pain words can cause. The back-handed compliments that cause a young girl to feel ashamed of her body. Intended as a statement of jealousy, envy. Me, enviable? No, they must be mistaken. They must mean there is something wrong with me because I am different. I don't want to stick out, I don't want the attention. "Blend in, blend in." But no, that's not right either because I don't want to be the same. "Be unique, be you." But who am I? I am but a reflection of my environment. I am not Me in that environment. So I run away. 

There's a picture of me from high school graduation, parents flanking me with proud smiles. They see an accomplished young lady, beautiful, with her whole life ahead of her. She is not Me. When I look at that picture, I see something entirely different. My smile is unconfident, my eyes sad. My white blouse clings to me too tightly, revealing too much cleavage and I'm underweight, unhealthy. I'd lost 25 pounds in two weeks that year because of depression -- anxiety caused my stomach to churn at every meal I sat down to, food was unappealing -- and I was struggling to fight the urge to self-harm, my coping method when I had first started high school. The future was opaque to me. Where was I going? What would I do? I had no idea. It was a challenge just to make it through the day. I saw no future for that girl in the photo.

My family shielded me from the truth of a lot of things. As if I needed protected. Am I that fragile? Is it written somewhere on my face like a parcel? Fruh-jilly, we used to say, the faux-French pronunciation. But I am not a delicate flower. I am strong. I battle my mind every day. No one would know it. People see me as a dog, the kind who gets kicked but keeps coming back, tail wagging low, scared but hopeful. But I am assertive. I stand up to that little voice in my head that tells me I'm not good enough and I tell it to shut the fuck up. 

I've said that same phrase to my husband on more than one occasion -- in a shrill voice not my own -- so maybe I'm not as immune as I think. Maybe I am not a different kind of crazy. I am capable of lashing out. But as soon as I see that happening, I run away. I've always run away. It used to be only after issuing ultimatums and threatening break-ups. Now I run before. For one, because now I can see it coming: the rage, the overreacting. For two, because my husband told me early on, "I won't chase after you. And if you threaten to leave me, you better just do it and never come back because I won't put up with those games." So when I feel that bubbling underneath, when I hear those words becoming shorter and sharper, when I start to lose rationality, I run and I hide in a closet, or I walk alone around the neighborhood, fuming until my head returns. 

My collage graduation photo is different. My parents flank me again, looking proud but there's something else in their faces too -- a sort of bewilderment. As if thinking, Who is this person? My smile is a little crooked, but wide. My pupils are dilated -- I'm a bit out of sorts, overstimulated, but it's okay. It happens sometimes when I'm in big crowds or when there's a lot of sensory input going on around me. And I know how to deal with it. I just need a little time alone; time to reflect and regroup. My parents still saw an accomplished young lady, beautiful, with her whole life ahead of her -- just as they saw that high school graduate. But this time they're not quite sure how she got here, or where she's going, what she'll do. And truth be told, I didn't know either. But that was okay. I still don't know, and it's still okay.

The future is wide open. Every day is full of choices, decisions to be made. Each one of those decisions as a collective make up your life. When I was younger, each day was a challenge to get through. But I made decisions that got me through, one way or another. Then I began making decisions that made getting through it a little better -- saying kind words to myself, connecting with people who understood me, cutting out negativity. Each decision is a choice, and I chose life. 

Whatever you need to do to stay strong, make that decision. Pause; but keep going.