Finding Bravery

Be brave.  It’s an easy thing to say and gets plastered all over inspiration memes, and mugs, and wall art, and everything else under the sun one can think of.  The problem with the pervasiveness of this idea is, it is all well and good to promote the lofty idea of a brave world, but the real explanations of what bravery is are few and far between.  What actions and ideas are brave?  This concept is so subjective, attributing it to any definition that might ring true to one, could be complete falsehood to another.  Personally, I have never known an interpretation to be the answer within my person.  I have found myself searching for the correct idea of it for most of my life.  What is the bravery that could empower me to face the world head on? But now, I may have discovered something that will enable me to embrace the concept.

For twelve long years, every day I have woken up with a little black rain cloud floating over my head.  I imagine it like the cartoons where the character tries every which way to escape the storm cloud floating over their heads but, the minute they think it’s gone and they stop, it races into view and unleashes a deluge right on top of them.  I have a wonderful life full of friends, and family, and love, but I have always had a deep seeded hurt.  I’m sure that it will come to the surprise of no one that the death of my mother all of those years ago, was the catalyst for this constant, hovering storm.  Maybe it lingered from before, but the true weight that transformed my days was poured on after March 16th, 2010.

With Mom’s death, I broke.  I shattered into pieces that spread across the points of the world.  It took years for me to gather all the detritus of my soul.  And even after each was put back in its place, each breath ached a least a little bit.  For these years it made sense that losing her would cause lingering pain and all those extraneous symptoms that come with.  And I accepted that.  But then, even as the sharpness of her loss dulled and I became more adept at dealing with my grief, I never quite recovered.  There was still my sadness, no longer associated with the death but now just there.  Every experience, not matter how wonderful, was tinged with melancholy and anytime there was unhappiness, anger, or even too much stillness, my mind would wander back to where it had grown comfortable, sadness.  I wanted to understand it.  I wanted to let go of it.  But it never left.  I tried.  I certainly tried.  But when it steadfastly persisted, I became resigned.  I even assumed, to explain its constant companionship, that, as an artist, I needed to always be a little bit sad.  That it would help me reach the depths of understanding that was necessary the embody all my acting ventures.  I tried to reason it into acceptance and for the most part I did.

When you live with high functioning depression and anxiety, you look at the world in a very specific way, always compensating for your low energy, reactive behavior, people pleasing, and a million other things.  And unfortunately, those around you are constantly maneuvering around those things in you as well. That is difficult and unnerving for adults but so beyond unfair and disquieting for children.  Looking at my children, my heart cries for all the years that they have had to cope with it.  My eldest, Atticus, is a child of constant energy.  He never stops moving, even in his sleep.  His natural state is one of volume, and speed, and impulsiveness.  Each and all these things felt like a challenge with every step, minute, and word.  For me, I was in a constant state of overwhelm in parenting him.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my boy, there is no question, but all of his grandiosness felt like the opposite of me.  The opposite of what was natural and safe in my person.  I tried my hardest to be the parent that he needed.  He needed absolute, constant attention.  Whereas I needed space and detachment.  He needed to be able to be boisterous and exploding in all directions.  I needed quiet and calm.  He needed to run everywhere he went.  I needed to sit in stillness.  I needed all the things in order to keep the pieces of myself on the verge of shattering together.  The sadness that I felt always threatened to bore down into me and tear me limb from limb.  All that he needed from me, that took so much out of me, took away the focus that I tried to maintain in order to keep living.  And that wasn’t fair to my child. 

Being all that I am, under the storm cloud of depression, mom, wife, daughter, sister, friend, actor, employee, correspondent, is exhausting, to a fault.  Feeling like I am always letting people down in procrastinating my work, or not responding to communication, or trying to read other’s minds to do things “correctly”, and a million other ways I interact with humans in my sphere doubles down on my lack of energy.  I live in a constant state of tired.   Throw in four children in different stages with different challenges, including at least one of them not sleeping through the night on any given day and you have permanent state of weariness.  And yet, about a month ago, I reached a point of debilitation that had been unreached before.  I literally (and I mean that in the traditional sense of the word) was unable to get myself off the couch.  I could not move, for hours.  I couldn’t do the laundry or wipe the kitchen counters, or even organize the diapers the girls scatter around on a daily basis.  This was my breaking point.  After twelve years, I finally reached a point where I couldn’t do it anymore.  And with that, I made an appointment with my doctor.

Walking into her office, I didn’t know what to expect.  I honestly didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I needed a solution.  I sat on the wheely, revolving stool in the little room, hoping that this woman could help me.  I slowly explained my problem and she listened patiently.  We chatted about how little sleep I get between all the kiddos, the culprit right now being Jasper.  I suggested that I might have a thyroid imbalance to which she promised a blood draw and subsequent tests.  And then, after exhausting all of my suggestions and ideas she tentatively brought up the option of “mood enhancers”.  It was like a light flicked on.  I had always resisted taking anything before, thinking that I should be able to “fix” myself.  But I hadn’t fixed myself.  I had just grown accustomed to it.  But now, I knew it was time.  It was time for me to be brave and accept the help that was being offered to me.  So, I said yes, and she wrote me a prescription.

I picked up the orange bottle and carefully added the tiny seafoam green pills to my daily ream of vitamins.  It took less than 48 hours for me to notice and astronomical change.   I don’t know if it was the placebo effect or if the medicine worked that quickly, but it didn’t really matter.  I as a different person.  I was the person I wanted to be.  I felt relief for the first time in TWELVE years.  And for the first time, I was able to be the parent that I have wanted to be.  I finally left behind the reactive parent that I hated myself for being and now entered a phase of conscious parenting.  I know that I have a long way to go and not everything is going to be perfect overnight but now I can see that I CAN be. 

The days are long, but the years are short.  I spent those long days counting the minutes until they were done, hoping that the next day might be better.  And they never were.  And the years slipped by in my unspoken misery.  Now, the days might still be long, but they no longer weigh on me.  Now, I look at the face of my children and my husband and have the energy to smile with them.  To laugh with them. To be the loving mom and wife that they deserve.  There is sun rising on the horizon and I am so excited that I can see it’s rays and feel it’s warmth.  I feel brave enough to greet each day knowing that it can’t crush and scatter me to the winds.  I am moving towards whole, and it has given me the ability to breathe.