I swear to god, I’ll survive if it kills me to

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A while back, I wrote about being in this weird head space:
I’ve been in a weird place lately. Not quite depressed, not quite manic, but definitely not normal. I’d say I’m cycling but it doesn’t feel like that, either. I’m stuck in this weird off-center bipolar limbo. Even my shrink picked up on it when we met this week. I don’t know. It is what it is and nothing is fixing it. I’m just going to ride it out and hope I come out the other side soon. I thought I’ve experienced everything the bipolar could possibly throw at me, but this is new. And I don’t like it.

Well, the good news is I’m out of it.

The bad news is that I’ve been living in a never ending panic attack. (Hollander, you are having panic attack.)

My shrinky dink can’t prescribe me the good drugs because she’s not licensed in Maine. She did prescribe me something that would - supposedly - calm me down.

My brain looked at it and said, “What’s the maximum dose? Three? Oh, honey, you’re going to need to at least triple that shit if you want them to work.”

My brain? It’s an asshole.

I’m mentally ill - of course my brain is an asshole. It’s just a bigger one than usual.

Fuck.

At any rate, let’s discuss why I’m actually here.

We’re trying something new today! Trauma dumping!

Wait. That’s not new. You must be new here.

Warning: this entire blog is nothing but a trauma dumping ground.

Well, that’s not totally true…

I’ve been gushing (ha!) over gay hockey players. I bitch about writing. I try to be humorous.

I write.

It’s what I do.

(We’ll get to the puppy later; that’s a whole fucking thing that I don’t have the energy for.)

On April 30, 2001, I went to my father’s apartment at lunch. He wasn’t answering my calls and that was unlike him. He was supposed to be home, waiting for a furniture delivery. I had to have the complex manager let me in… Once she clocked what had happened, she fucking vanished. *poof*

I was not so lucky.

In my nightmares, I relive that moment. The door opening. Him napping on the couch. Walking over there to wake him up. Realising he wasn’t going to.

Everything after that is a blur.

I had just turned 26.

I was an orphan and, very literally, all alone in the world.

No family left.

A boyfriend, a few friends scattered here and there, a coworker who welcomed me as a full member in good standing of the Dead Parents Club, Toledo Chapter. (God, do I love the people in my life who understand my sense of humor.)

May 3, 2001 would have been my mother’s 55th birthday, if she hadn’t died nine years earlier.

May 10, 2001 would have been their 32nd wedding anniversary, had they not gotten divorced in March of 1992.

May 13, 2001 was Mother’s Day.

If my brain is an asshole, the calendar certainly gave it a run for the money.

I honestly don’t remember much about the aftermath, either. I do remember an epic melt-down at work, four therapists, a shrinky dink, a diagnosis, clarity, and walking out of a pharmacy with a little orange bottle that would, also quite literally, change my life.

The contents of that bottle has changed over the years, as has the number of the bottles, but without them? I might not have survived the darkest chapter of my life. I’ll never identify as suicidal, because I can’t do it. The unaliving, I mean. I don’t want to do that to my friends. Not the ones that hung around and supported me when I didn’t even know I needed it.

But.

I came really fucking close.

Depression lies and my brain is an asshole.

And both of them were whispering in my ear about how everything would just… go away.

How I would see my father again. Make peace with my mother. How my friends would go on with their lives and I’d just be a faded memory. How it wouldn’t hurt them and how it would fix everything.

I looked at the pill bottle.

I looked at the side effects.

I calculated the risks.

I looked at the clock to see how much time I had before the boyfriend would come home.

And I put the bottle back where it belonged.

Thursday is the 25th anniversary of the day I found his lifeless body on a couch in some shitty Toledo apartment.

I am not doing well.

Not even close.

Someone asked me if this year was especially bad because April 30th is also the day we went in front of a judge and finalised our divorce.

Also? May 3rd? The day he told me he wanted a divorce. Granted, I’d been thinking about it for a while, but to finally pull the band-aid off? That was a weird night on so many different levels.

The calendar?

An absolute motherfucker.

 

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[Verse 1]
How long till it feels
Like the wound’s finally starting to heal?
How long till it feels
Like I’m more than a spoke in a wheel?

[Pre-Chorus]
Most nights, I fear
That I’m not enough
I’ve had my share of Monday mornings when I can’t get up
But, when hope is lost
And I come undone

[Chorus]
I swear to God, I’ll survive
If it kills me to
I’m gonna get up and try
If it’s the last thing I do
I’ve still got something to give
Though it hurts sometimes
I’m gonna get up and live
Until the day that I die
I swear to God, I’ll survive

[Verse 2]
How long till you know
That, in truth, you know nothing at all?
How far will you go
To get back to the place you belong?

[Pre-Chorus]
Most nights, I fear
That I’m not enough
But I refuse to spend my best years rotting in the sun
So, when hope is lost
And I come undone

[Chorus]
I swear to God, I’ll survive
If it kills me to
I’m gonna get up and try
If it’s the last thing I do
I’ve still got something to give
Though it hurts sometimes
I’m gonna get up and live
Until the day that I die
I swear to God, I’ll survive
I swear to God, I’ll survive

[Chorus]
I swear to God, I’ll survive
If it kills me to
I’m gonna get up and try
If it’s the last thing I do
I’ve still got something to give
Though it hurts sometimes
I’m gonna get up and live
Until the day that I die
I swear to God, I’ll survive
- Survive, Lewis Capaldi