The Rapids: Navigating therapy and depression

Some of the greatest writers are the ones who bare it all. The ones who lead you into the depths of characters or the ones brave enough to let you into the depths of their own souls. To write is to bare it all, to tell the naked truth. It is to put to paper your deepest feelings and thoughts. I am not very good at giving speeches but I sure can put my pen to paper. My goal as a writer is to make you feel things, to read things, the very things people won’t talk about. The very things I fear will cause ridicule. In order to be true to my love I must bare it all. Sobriety comes in many forms. The most popular form of sobriety involves the abstinence of alcohol or drugs. It is rare to think of sobriety as sobriety of your mind. However, many of us are walking around with inebriated consciousness full of wretched thoughts and memories that intoxicate us beyond repair. There might be desperation for that sobriety, the help to get out of those toxic thoughts and memories. There might be an addiction to this intoxication. In my case I believe I was drunk off the depressive state I’ve been in. I believe I’ve suffered from depression and definite anxiety for a very long time. I believe sobriety of the mind is a thing more difficult than weaning one’s self off alcohol or drugs. How do you stop yourself from believing all the bad things you’ve told yourself or been told? For many years I rolled my eyes at the idea of therapy. Many people spoke to me about its benefits and this and that and the other. I rolled my eyes. I said I don’t need that. I’m not crazy. It was not a place I wanted to venture. I had tried it once. The intern I saw at our student center painted me 50 Shades of Crazy. I suppose I scared her. You can’t just casually mention suicide and cutting to someone and not expect them to wig out. My therapy has consisted of the following: alcohol, rage, music, poetry, the gym, yoga, prayer, crazy conversations with God, and many times my friend’s ears. I’m sure I’ve made those ears bleed. Particularly I’ve made hearts bleed as they watched me not take advice or act like I had everything together. Perhaps they thought I did truly have it all together. I’ll let you in on a secret-NO ONE has anything together!! This New Year I took a leap of faith, a last resort. I stepped into the office and they handed me a clipboard with tons of paperwork. So my journey began. In front of me was a list, it read please check all that apply: Death of friend Death of family member Work related stress End of relationship Financial issues Legal issues Illness Family issues DEPRESSION The list went on and on. I felt compelled to leave the clipboard in the seat and get up and leave. I sat there for a while recalling the past few years. Now fast forward to the past year. I checked off almost the entire list. I sat there as I took it in- that all these things had happened to me, to people I knew, they happened. They existed in my life. And I was still standing. I was still breathing. I took a big breath as I was led down a hallway to another office. I took yet another huge breath. As I sat in his office and he introduced himself I could feel my heart thumping harder and faster. My mouth was as dry as the Sahara. As he reviewed each line item they recalled each event as an assessment I swallowed hard. One by one I admitted and described each thing. Sigh by sigh I felt relieved. Admission is the biggest relief in the world. When you admit who you are and what has happened that is the first small breath that comes of relief. Your body changes, you start to ease. Perhaps it means you are truly breathing for the first time in eons. When you realize you are accepted with all that you have admitted, now that’s when the storm really begins. When you come to acceptance of what has occurred, the choices you’ve made, the things you have caused; that is when the flood begins. You realize you are sailing out in the middle of a vast ocean on a makeshift raft all by yourself in a storm. You are pushing against the torrential current cascading down the waterfall of life. As the water rises, as the storm rages on what do you do? Do you drown? Do you survive? Do you thrive? I believe you do all of the above. I’ve drowned so many times I should be dead. I’ve risen so many times I know that there is someone other than me pulling me out of the dredges-the deep dark pits I’ve been in. And just like that I’ve climbed out of the pit and into a garden where the day is starting to break. Then just as soon as it began my first session was over. Soon it was a new day. The day came for my first day of my group therapy. I looked around much like the first day of my math class in college. My eyeballs darted around. I attempted to make myself cozy. Then we were told we would introduce ourselves. I felt my throat go dry, I wanted to run. As I listened to each and every person, I felt like hugging each one of them. I felt like someone understood me and they felt the same. If you think that therapy is something for “crazy” people think again. Therapy is for the broken, the tattered, worn, very human masses. People tell me I’m strong and I just don’t understand. But you were given this life because you were strong enough to live it. So are you ready? Are you ready to live? Get ready because this is the beginning, the beginning of my story. It is the story of the raft I began to build to handle the rapids of life. Stay Tuned

Lot

Running on and on Through this door And through the next You can’t turn back Pillars of salt you’ll become Running running So out of breath He really hurt her Stole her star Running on and on No more avoiding Keep running Keep running So tired So out of breath The languid limbs Yearning to give up Can she do it outrun the demon Can she flee the inevitable Door number 1 Door number 2 She starts to turn but no cannot cannot turn back must be like Lot not like his wife must keep going not turn into salt The past it grows bigger it grows stronger And she is weary And she is weak She near the top And her bosom heaves heavily and the sweat runs down the brow tears burn the coffee brown eyes She looks to the top Ready to give it all she's got Running and running No turning back....

Wonderwall

“I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I feel about you know…there are many things that I would like to say to you but I don’t know how.”-Oasis There will never be the right words, the perfect ending, peace in a never ending argument. Sometimes things just have to end tragically and ugly. Sometimes you literally have to cut someone out of your life harshly and unwillingly; because they are like cancer sucking out your life force. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t kill you. It doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. But at what point are you willing to stop being a masochist? At what point do you become tired of living an unhappy life? For a long time I believed that I couldn't change my masochistic tendencies. I kept inviting and giving to people who were like leeches feeding off of me. Where did it get me? Slit wrists, slashed heart, broken spirit, dirty soul. BROKEN. They led me down a broken road of glass and more glass. You get to a point where you are numb from walking on the shards of glass-so numb you can't even feel. And before you know it something else has happened that has you at the bottom of another rabbit hole screaming for the white rabbit to get you out. When you decide that you finally need to get out it's a climb, a climb you're not even prepared for. In the past year I have embarked upon a journey to climb out of such said rabbit hole. I have struggled with depression for many years. I didn't really know that's what it was. I thought I was just going through a phase. This year I started a journey into the unknown, the taboo-A WORLD CALLED THERAPY. In the past I would've lied and said I was going to the gym or spa or something more interesting than this but I can't. As a writer I fell in love with those writers who bared their soul, who kept it real, those whose words I could see and feel when I closed my eyes. What I aspire to be is real. I want to make people feel like they finally have someone they can relate to. I want you to read my words and be transported to another time, another place, to feel everything. So here it is. I am bare. This is the beginning.... I began because on was at the end. I had been attempting to give myself closure for years. I covered wound upon emotional wound with "band aids" that didn't fit, didn't stick and didn't cover anything. In retrospect there are so many things left unsaid, so many things I want to tell people but I truly do not know how. So maybe, maybe it will save me. Will it finally be my Wonderwall? I will detail my experience in the next few blogs and poems.

Because I Have A VAGINA: For Juarez

Because I have a Vagina I have to carry pepper spray Because I have a Vagina I have to come home early Because I have a Vagina I might disappear after work; never to be seen again. Because I have a vagina I am the perfect scapegoat Because I have a vagina I cannot walk alone Because I have a vagina I must look at all sides Because I have a Vagina I can be accosted for the way I dress the way I walk the way I stare even for the my breath of the air Because I have a Vagina I wanted to be raped Because I have a vagina everything is my fault Because I have a vagina I carry the weight of the world on this bridge called my back Because I have a vagina I will be pillaged, plundered, robbed by the eyse, by the hands, by the minds, by the words of the government of the people of the men of society at large Because I have a vagina I will fanish I will be buried in conspiracy theories in a bed of lies Because I have a vagina those who dig deeper will be tortured they will die Because I have a vagina I AM SHE SHE IS ME AND SHE IS WE Because I have a vagina it is my business it is my cause Because I have a vagina I am JUAREZ and JUAREZ is me NI UNA MAS!!!!

Ghost of You

It's the ghost of you haunting me Walking around everywhere It won't let me be free Sneaking up in my good life Reminiscent of all the bad things I've ever done It's the ghost of you that whispers you're nothing without me everyone can see it yes even me It's the ghost of you popping up inconveniently in text messages in social media creeping along the fog the fog of my mind that has almost forgotten you and it like another land another time it's the ghost of you rattling my chains angering my inner self disrupting sleep it's the ghost of you the demon of you raining on my parade when will you fade away it lurks on the treadmill when I'm detoxing at the gym it creeps into my thoughts when i'm reflecting within is there a way to exorcise you castrate you annihilate you behead you like the llorona your voice echoes along bodies of water down the deep dark halls lingering in every space and across time haunting and lurking never in flesh it's the ghost of you that won't let me alone not even in my home

Nana is a Hero

Nana is a hero As she takes a big huge breath Nana is a hero She’s beat death again Nana is a hero As she opens her eyes wide Nana is our hero As she smiles that million dollar smile Nana is my hero She has made it through one more trial Nana is a hero As she gets up out of bed Nana is a hero She takes her first brave steps Nana is a hero They’ve saved her life again Nana is a hero She braved the knife one more time Nana is a hero She’s with me once again. Nana is a hero