Category: Mental Health

Autobiography · Mental Health

Cheated

Ruby Pipes26 Comments

"Umbrella + Light - 16/365" © [Flávio], 2012. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
“Umbrella + Light – 16/365” © Flávio, 2012. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Two cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon. I think that’s how I knew Jon was cheating on me. I’d had my suspicions before, but when I came home that night from my second job and there were two empty cans of PBR on the counter, I knew. He was already in bed. Sound asleep. His twists and turns of slumber disguising anything that had happened there earlier in the evening.

Later Sheldon would send me a text about Jon being out with Stephanie. Would tell me about confronting him at the bar. A lot of people would tell me that. And I asked Jon what he was doing out with her. Asked him if there was anything he needed to tell me. He wouldn’t confirm or deny, just say, “Consider your sources.” As if everyone but him was full of shit. That’s probably why I was so angry with him. Because I asked and he acted like I was the one who needed questioning.

I was giving him an out. He didn’t have to sit me down and tell me that he was sleeping with his coworker. He just had to say, “Yes.” Nod his head. He just had to tell me that all those suspicions were valid. That the smell of perfume in his truck was exactly what I thought it was. That when he said he was working late he wasn’t. It would have been easier, wouldn’t it have? To not have to make anything up. But he didn’t. He just said, “Consider your sources,” and kissed me on the forehead. Like I was the crazy one. Gaslighted before I even knew what the phrase meant.

After finding the beer cans I crawled into bed next to him. Cried quietly into my pillow like I usually did in those months. The next morning I got up, went to school, and signed the papers to drop all my classes. Called my mom. And, with my parents help, packed up all my belongings. Sent a text to Jon that just said, “Moving out.” I didn’t bother telling him that he couldn’t deny it anymore. I figured he’d figured it out by then. And I wanted to kill myself. Not him. That’s the interesting part. I wasn’t angry with him. I was angry with myself. Angry for being the type of person that would be cheated on. As if it had anything to do with me at all. As if it wasn’t just about him.

Months later we’d meet at a bar and he’d ask me to move to Arizona with him. He’d tell me that he wanted me to be his girlfriend again. “Don’t you know I know you were cheating on me the whole time, dude? Why do you think I would run away with you?”

He flinched. Like maybe he thought I hadn’t put it together yet. And then he looked me right in the eyes and asked, “What was I supposed to do? You were crying all the time and cutting yourself and… I need a companion.”

I should have slapped him, but instead I apologized. Apologized like I was something broken that had failed him. And I really thought I did. Thought I did to the point that, to this day, when I catch myself on the floor crying I think my husband should be leaving. That’s depression for you. That’s mental health. That’s low self-esteem. That’s… It.

But I can unlearn it. And he can go to hell.

Autobiography · Mental Health

Lights

Ruby Pipes14 Comments
“Weißt du, der Raum ist unendlich…” © Daniel Grünfeld, 2013. CC BY-NC 2.0.

The morning after I got my glasses I went for a run. Still dark out, street lamps glowed gentle instead of starring across my field of vision. I listened to my music loud and ran hard, completely lost in my own rhythm. Flow state. Breath fogging up the corners of my glasses every so often and sweat forming behind my ears. Zedd’s vocalist crooned at me, “Something tells me I know nothing at all,” and I believed her.

I climbed the next hill and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the first tree. Drops of water clinging to the tips of every branch, illuminated by the traffic lights. Each twig sparkling. Vibrant. Magical. As close to a religious experience as I’ve ever had. A cross between being high on drugs and being completely in love. Enamored with beauty.

It occurred to me that my blurred vision looked a lot how depression feels. All soft around the edges, out of focus, detached. Like I was never really looking at anything, just the general shape of it. How lucky that vision is something that can be helped with two pieces of plastic and frames. How all I had to do was put them on and see everything different.

But maybe everything doesn’t have to be so simple. Maybe we wouldn’t appreciate it if it were. Maybe other things need to take a little bit more work. Glasses are really just a Band-Aid solution for something broken, aren’t they? And that’s not what I’m looking for out of life.

So I find ways to keep building up my foundation. To keep finding little hints of beauty outside of things that I see. That feeling I get when I realize I haven’t curled up on the floor sobbing in days, maybe weeks. The moments when I’m able to say, “Isn’t it interesting I think that?” when I’m anxious instead of following the thought down its rabbit hole of panic.

Over the phone an old friend asks me hesitantly how I’ve been. That tone people get then they think they’ve just asked a really stupid question. I laugh and tell him, “You know. Not bad. I started taking Prozac a few weeks back and… You know, it’s not like I’m happy, but I don’t want to not exist. And that’s pretty awesome.”

On my run I think about that question. Think about that answer. Think about liking the idea of existing in the world. Staring at that tree, watching sparkle and light dance on what used to look like one flat, unremarkable thing.

Autobiography · Mental Health

Grit

Ruby Pipes18 Comments
"Gravel 2" © Stig Morten Waage, 2008. CC BY-NC 2.0.
“Gravel 2” © Stig Morten Waage, 2008. CC BY-NC 2.0.

I track my footsteps, my water, my food. I have running plans and diet rules and a sleep schedule. Medications to take every morning and night. A handful of vitamins for after breakfast. My whole life is a self-imposed tightrope walk.

Often I try to tell myself that I don’t have a choice in any of this. That I simply have to do everything I do for my health, my mental wellbeing, my sanity. But lately I’ve been reminding myself that every day is a decision. There are rocks beneath me, yes. But laying down on gravel is never beyond the scope of possibility. Deciding to be resilient, deciding to fight back was not the only option I had. That’s the thing I have to remember.

But it’s hard to continue. When every day involves just a little more fight. Just a little bit more commitment. When I want nothing more than to turn off the alarm and stay in bed. It just comes down to a matter of grit. Of deciding to rally the energy and get going, even when I don’t think I can do it. Because there are going to be days when I can’t.

There are going to be days when the depression closes in too tight. When I will have no choice but to cancel the plans and draw the blinds. There will be days I will have to dissolve into the bed sheets. So I must seize any day that is not one of those days. I must close down tight around it and do everything I possibly can. I must continue to remind myself that I am not so fortunate as to have all my days be capable ones.

Even now, when the medication seems to be working and the days are dark, but not desperate, I have to remember that it’s not always going to be like this. Not dwell with the weight of the hopeless days standing over my shoulder, but remember how easy it is to slip back down that hole. Yes, it often comes without warning, but sometimes there are things I can do to avoid it.

Sometimes I can fight it off just a little longer. Sometimes I can say, “No,” and get up and put my running shoes on. Sometimes I can climb into my raincoat and take a walk. Sometimes I can go hug someone I love or take a nap. Sometimes I can fight just a little harder.

And sometimes I can’t. Sometimes there is nothing I can do. Relapses can happen for no reason in particular. Suddenly I just can’t seem to keep my feet under me anymore. And that’s something I have to learn to be okay with, too. I have to remember what I learned last time. Go back and read old journal entries. Think about how much better acquainted I became with myself through that darkness. When there was nothing in the world but me and my own brain sparing.

When I felt completely disconnected from everything outside my own head, what did I learn?