What Happened Next - Trapped

I'm pretty sure this is what going crazy feels like.

My entire world has crumbled down around me, and I can't face it. With medication to assist me, I have shoved all my demons into a locked room. With my back to the door, I tell myself that everything's okay now. There's a door between me and them. And sometimes I can convince myself that I am safe.

But then one of them bashes against the door, shaking it on its hinges. And I back away in a panic, suddenly realizing that I am the one in the locked room. The demons have taken over my house and torn it to pieces, and I fled to this basement room and locked myself in to escape. But I was a fool. There are no other doors, no windows in this room. I am trapped, alone, with nothing but the sound of scratching and howling on the other side of the door.

*          *          *

Confession: I twitch violently or cry out sometimes, when something triggers the pain inside of me. It's like an electrical shock that completely surpasses my conscious mind. All I ever do is try to ignore it, push it down. I can't handle it.

Confession: I am losing the ability to speak. I want to be around people, but I can't think of anything to say. Even when the need to speak is boiling within me, I can't find the words to say anything. I am losing my voice from the inside out.

Confession: I am angry all the time. I am so full of frustration, bitterness, and aggression that 50% of my thoughts are violent lashings. So-and-so is such an idiot! Oh, you just got something you really wanted? Don't bet on keeping it. Stop putting useless inspirational quotes on Facebook! Do you think they mean anything to someone who's actually suffering? Stop smiling at me; you don't know me; GET AWAY FROM ME! And then my fury fades. And I am appalled at what I am becoming.

Confession: I don't want to admit how badly I'm doing - how terrible and mixed-up and awful and decimated I feel inside - because I feel like it's my fault.

I feel like it's my fault.

I hate feeling like it's my fault!

My fault.

My fault.

My fault . . . .

What Happened Next - Falling Apart

I'm awake again.

This is the third time I've woken up, and the sun shining through my window is too strong of evidence for me to convince myself it's still nighttime. Since it was already starting to get light the last time I woke up, it's probably creeping towards late morning now. I don't care. My automatic response is still the same.

I should go back to sleep, I tell myself. And, curling into the hidden depths of my quilt, I do.

*     *     *

I'm awake again.

Each time, it's a disheartening realization. Eventually, though, I cannot force myself to return to sleep. Twelve hours, fourteen hours . . . I can't seem to cram in more sleep than that. At some point, usually just a little before noon, I simply have to resign myself to being awake.

My pills . . . 

I roll over, reaching drunkenly for the pill box at the side of my bed. I snatch my water bottle and quickly swallow the three little pills, my body still mostly on autopilot. It's not that my brain isn't awake; it's just that it's miserable. What's the point? The murmur slouches in my mind. I feel awful.
But I'm too afraid to not take the pills. If I feel this bad with medication, what horrors lurk just beyond?

Now that I've moved, it becomes impossible for me to ignore my screaming bladder. I drag myself to the bathroom - fortunately only a few feet from my bedroom door - and return to my bed as quickly as possible. I bury myself in blankets again.

My stomach is aching, but I can't stand the thought of walking upstairs, of having to prepare food. So I pull out my laptop to distract myself. YouTube. Netflix. Facebook. Tumblr. Pinterest. Yahoo!News. Sporcle. Comics. Anything. Everything.

This is giving me no pleasure whatsoever, I notice, dispassionately. I don't care about any of this. I don't care about any of these people.

Something in me rustles, unsettled. I should get up, I think. I should do something.

I can't.

I can't. I just can't.

*     *     *

Once it starts to feel like someone is scraping the inner lining out of my stomach, I finally go upstairs to find something to eat. It's almost 3:30pm. My family is there. They're watching TV, or talking, or playing games, or making plans.

Someone is talking to me, I realize. I glance over at my sister.

"How are you?" she asks, innocently.

Why do people ask me that? "I'm alive," I tell her.

She smiles awkwardly, unsure what to say next.

I'm not being very nice, I think. But I don't care. Fortunately for my sister my mom comes in and wants to talk to her about doing something with the ward this week. They start talking about activities and who'll be in attendance, and I'm listening because I'm desperate to be around conversation but I'm incapable of participating in it. (That's also the reason I pretend to be asleep in the living room sometimes.)

I'M A COMPLETE LOSER!

The thought slams against the inside of my head, and my arm shoots out involuntarily. I frantically try to wrangle my thoughts as they continue to batter me. I DON'T DO ANYTHING TO HELP ANYBODY. I DON'T EVEN BOTHER TO TAKE CARE OF MYSELF. I'M PATHETIC! I'M PATHETIC AND NO WONDER I'M MISERABLE BECAUSE I'M SUCH A WASTE OF SPACE!

My mom notices me twitching. "You alright?" she asks.

I'm biting my tongue, stomping down the anguished beasts gnawing at my insides until they're quiet again, just growling. "Mm-hmm," I grimace. I make eye contact with her, and an understanding passes between us. I'm not okay. But that's okay.

It's weird how much that soothes me: that I can be in pain around my mom and it won't bother her.

*     *     *

Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I can sneak in a nap during the afternoon, a few more hours of sweet, peaceful unconsciousness. Otherwise I'll probably go down to my room and let my eyes glaze over in front of my computer screen some more. Every so often, frequently without warning, another one of the beasts will get out and snap at me.

I have to move this week. I HAVE to. What am I going to do with all of my stuff?

I squint my eyes shut.

I worked so hard for that life, and now it's completely destroyed. I've lost everything.

I grit my teeth, balling my fists.

What am I going to do? What on earth am I supposed to do? I can't start over again!

I let out a strangled cry that's half moan and half gasp. My family glances at me, mixed expressions of embarrassment or concern or irritation - after all, this has gone on quite long enough. I want to be around them - it doesn't make me happy, but it makes me not alone - but I feel bad about it. I have nothing to give. I'm a drain and a drag, and nobody wants to be around me. I don't blame them. I haven't even showered or brushed my teeth today.

I am filthy. I'm disgusting. But I can't muster up the energy to do anything about it but hide. Besides, all I can do is clean up the outside of me. If I were to go out into the world where people are, they might want to talk to me - unbearable, unthinkable. And even if they didn't talk to me, I'm leaking despair. I'd leave trails of invisible grime all over the place.

*     *     *

Ironically, even though I spend all day trying to duck back into unconsciousness, at nighttime I don't want to go to sleep. I lay in my bed for hours, reading or drowning myself in the internet again. Alone with my thoughts, I let the morose waves wash over me again and again.

I have become a wretch, I think, distantly. I've turned into some kind of hobgoblin, hunched over, with just enough discolored skin to stretch over my bones and tissues. My hair is limp and stringy, falling over my face as I crawl around in barbaric, lurching movements. Once capable of speech, now all I do is growl and snap, staring out distrustfully from the dark confines of my cave.

Oddly, putting it into words like this - writing a story for myself, creating a world where this makes sense - amuses me. It brings a smile to my face for a moment. But then my smile collapses under its own weight and I'm left with only darkness.

Always, always darkness.

*     *     *

How am I ever going to get better?

What Happened Next - Visitation

[Note: This post continues the story from "What Happened Next - Getting Better." If you haven't read that one, I recommend doing so before proceeding with this one.]

A few weeks later, I get to talk to her.

They've set up a room for us. Two rooms, really, with a thick glass window between. There's a table and a chair on each side, facing the glass. There are also holes in the glass - just enough for us to hear each other, a circle of fifteen dots at eye level. (I've had time to count while I've been waiting for them to bring her in.)

Finally, the door in the other room opens. I lurch to my feet, leaning forward. I watch as my other self shuffles into the room - hair unkempt, trembling nervously, but no longer wearing a straitjacket. The doctor has decided that she's well enough for this trial visitation, provided she's closely monitored. The required two uniformed attendants follow her into the room, close the door, and point her toward the table. She turns to look at it and sees me through the glass. I wave encouragingly.

Slowly, she makes her way to the table on her side of the window, and we sit down simultaneously. At first we just stare at each other. It's like looking in a mirror - except that it shows me a version of my face that's hollowed-out with starvation, and darkened eyes that are deep and haunted. I find myself wondering what she's seeing in my face. I know that I'm smiling, but for some reason I'm not sure if my eyes look any different from hers.

"I've missed you," I finally say.

Disbelievingly, she jerks in a way that scares me for an instant. It's just a twitch, though. I breathe deeply, trying to remember how many times I've begged to be allowed this meeting, rather than the flush of shameful fear I experienced when I was told it was finally going to happen. "I have," I insist. "I haven't felt right without you. I feel like I'm only half-awake."

She eyes me for a moment, then apparently decides to trust me. "I feel like I'm imaginary," she says, quietly. "Like at any moment someone's going to wake up and I'll just disappear."

"You aren't imaginary," I tell her, forcefully. "And you're not crazy, either. I'm going to get you out of here."

She closes her eyes, twitching again as tears start falling down her face. "No," she whispers. "I'll hurt you. Like last time." She starts shaking with the soft beginning of sobs, and I can see the attendants starting to lean forward. I have to stop her crying or this is going to be over before it begins.

"Hey," I interject, energetically, "did I tell you I went on a date last week?"

That catches her off-guard. The rhythm of her misery interrupted, she hesitates. "What?"

"I went on a date last week," I repeat. raising my eyebrows intriguingly. "A blind date."

Success. This completely distracts her. She leans forward with her eyes wide. "No," she says, uncertain. "You didn't."

"I did."

Baffled, her face returns to something sweeter, less shadowed. "Why?" she asks, incredulously.

"It was kind of an accident," I say. And I tell her the story about the guy who asked me out via text - someone who was in my ward, but whom I'd never met before. I told her about how I wasn't sure whether he was asking me out or just trying to fellowship a new member, and that's why I'd agreed to go, but that it became obvious very quickly that it was a date when he pulled out a red rose for me.

"Red?" She crinkles her nose distastefully. "A guy you'd never met brought you a red rose on the first date?"

"Yeah," I say, laughing. "But that was the peak of the interest he showed in me. He spent the next hour and a half talking about himself. I tried to join the conversation a few times, but he bull-dozed right over me. So eventually I just got up and left."

She scoffs, "Do you think he noticed that you left?"

"I guess so," I say, "because he's been texting me again recently."

Her face is indignant. "You're not going to go out with him again, are you?"

"Of course not. You know how much I hate dating. He's lucky I agreed to meet him in the first place."

"Yeah," she agrees. Then we fall silent for a while.

"Sam's coming home soon," I comment.

"Next week," she says. "I remember."

Another pause.

"Oh!" I say, suddenly. "I've had a few job interviews."

She leans away from me slightly. "Oh?" she asks. "Doing what?"

"Well, I applied for a few building supervisor positions - custodial stuff, you know." She relaxes  somewhat. "But managing this time instead of just being a laborer. Also, there's this receptionist job I really, really want. It sounds so cool!" My excitement makes me talk faster, and I don't notice that her face is tightening. "It's like, part receptionist, part office manager, and part security. I think it would be really fun, and I think I'd be good at it!"

"Yeah, sounds fun." Her shoulder twitches. "I'm sure you'll be terrific."

Something in her voice pops my bubble of enthusiasm. "Thanks," I say, uncertain.

She's rubbing a hand up and down her arm now, up and down, over and over without stopping. "It's a good thing I'm in here, then," she says. "You wouldn't want me messing things up like I did the last time."

"Hey!" I object. "That was an accident. Neither one of us saw it coming. We were completely blind-sided." But I can see her agitation is growing, her mouth twitching with pain. Anxiously, I try to distract her again. "You know it's Octoboween, right? A scary movie every night during October?" It's a holiday our mom invented.

My other self nods, a little jerkily. The attendants who have been relaxing in the back corners of the room for a while prick to attention. I start to talk faster.

"We've already watched a bunch of movies," I say. "And I got candy corn!"

"I love candy corn," she says automatically.

"I know," I say. I work to keep our eyes locked together, trying to talk her down from the cliff inside our head. "We've watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, Mars Attacks!, The Woman in Black, and Hocus Pocus."

"I like that one."

"I know," I say, encouragingly. "Tonight we watched one I've never seen before called Mama. It's about these two little girls - sisters. The older one is blonde and has glasses, and the younger one has kind of reddish-brown hair with these cute bangs -"

It happens so quickly that no one is prepared for it.

I hear the sound of shattering glass at the same moment I hear my other self's piercing scream. An instant later I've been pulled out of my seat. Her hand is clenched down on my collar, blood dripping from cuts on her arm, which is still slicing itself open on the jagged hole she has - impossibly - punched through the glass. I look at the blood dripping onto me, then back up at her, frightened.

She's kneeling on the table now, hunched over in agony. Her free hand is pressed against the glass imploringly, and all at once I realize that her frantic shrieking has words to it.

"I'M SORRY!" Her wild eyes look so trapped. "I DON'T WANT ANYONE TO DIE! I SHOULD HAVE SAVED THEM! THEY'RE DYING! WHY AM I HERE? I CAN'T SAVE ANYONE! MY FAMILY . . . MY FRIENDS . . . I CAN'T KEEP THEM HERE! THEY'RE LOST! THEY'RE ALL LOST AND DYING AND I CAN'T SAVE ANYONE!"

The attendants have finally made it across the room and, forcing her arm to be still, have injected her with some sort of sedative. The grip on my shirt relaxes, and one of them gently pulls her arm back through the sharp-toothed hole. She's fallen silent, eyes drooping. She starts to collapse backward and is caught by one of the attendants.

"Sorry about this, Ma'am," the other attendant says, businesslike regret in his voice. "She caught us off-guard." He shakes his head. "Don't know what it was that set her off . . . ." He pauses for a moment, considering. Then he must decide it doesn't matter because he shrugs, collects her limp legs, and assists in carrying my other self (now fully unconscious) out of the room. The door closes behind them.

I just stand there, unmoving. I am completely shaken. There are spatters of blood on my shirt and streaks of tears down my face (Where did those come from?); I think I might be bruised from where my body slammed against the table when she pulled me forward. But all of that is background noise to the shrieks still running through my head. The echoes, the words are what pierce through my skin and get trapped inside me.

I am afraid of myself again. And furious because now I know that the doctor was right.

"Getting better" is not the same thing as being healed.

How to Treat Depression and Stop Thinking Like an Idiot

My awkward phase was basically my entire adolescence. When I started junior high, I wore boxy t-shirts and a pair of jeans to school every day. I had gained about twenty pounds of hips in middle school, but not much else was going on in the way of womanly developments, so I still looked like a little girl - with just really big thighs. I had long hair that had once been blonde, but was now some horrible color I was in denial about, and I always kept it back in a ponytail. I had glasses and zits and braces.

And I was obsessed with the idea of going crazy.

I used to talk to my friends about it all the time - though they usually dismissed me pretty quickly. Even the adults in my life (teachers, youth group leaders, parents) didn't seem to be at all interested in the conversation. But I had a question that I was fixated on, and nobody but me ever seemed to care what the answer was.

"People always say," I would start out, "that if you think you might be crazy, you aren't. They insist that insane people have no grasp of reality, and are therefore unaware of their own insanity. And that may be true." Then I would get really eager, leaning forward as I prepared to argue my case. "But what about during the transition? When a person starts off sane and then later becomes insane, there has to be some sort of transitional period during which they retain some sanity. There has to be some horrible period during which they do crazy things, but are aware of it. Where it's like they're watching themselves, unable to stop their behaviors because of the illness descending upon them, but cognizant enough to realize what they're doing."

This is frequently where I lost people, but I was pretty good at pressing forward even after my listener had lost interest. "Can you imagine?" I'd ask. "They would be so powerless! And scared, too, because they never know if they can trust what they perceive to be reality. They could never be sure if what they thought was happening was what was really happening. Wouldn't that be terrifying?" The horror of the idea would swell within me, and I'd become irritated with the dispassion displayed by my audience. So I'd go back to my question and insist, "Well, do you think that happens to people or not? Do you think someone can go crazy and be aware of it?"

Dear 14-Year-Old Self: The answer is yes. It is called depression.

I am not a doctor. And I'm pretty young, and therefore stupid inexperienced in many ways. But I come from a family where clinical depression runs wild and free on both sides, and I've experienced it at least a couple of times myself. And in my experience, a depressive episode feels like going crazy. It feels like losing yourself, as your old interests and hobbies and friends suddenly seem unimportant. As skills and talents you once had now seem inaccessible. As your very personality seems to fade away, lost in impenetrable darkness.

When I first became aware of my family's history of depression - maybe when I was 16 - my main concern was that my mother was going to go crazy. She had always been an inspiration to me, a brilliant woman with many talents and a personality that drew people toward her no matter where we went. But when she went into a depressive episode, she locked herself in her room. She spent days doing nothing at all. She couldn't stand to be around people. It was like she became someone else, like she had gone crazy and lost herself.

And she would come out of it. But sometimes it got really bad. She started to see a therapist around that time - and I, like most people who are uneducated about mental health, assumed that therapists were only for crazy people. I loved my mom, and I still admired her. So at first I tried to ignore that she was seeing a therapist, to pretend it wasn't happening.

A year or so later, though, my mom sat me and my siblings down for a serious conversation in which she confessed that she had been cutting herself. She pulled back the long sleeve of her shirt (somehow, none of us had noticed that she'd been wearing only long-sleeved shirts for months), and I was shocked to see the jagged scars on her wrists, some as thick as pencils. She told us that she hadn't actually been "cutting," but scratching, using her own long nails to make herself bleed, using the physical pain as a relief from the worse pain inside. She told us that she wasn't doing it anymore, and that she wasn't going to do it anymore, and that a lot of that was because of the work she'd done with her therapist. She tried very hard to educate us about mental health, the reality of mental illness, and the importance of taking it seriously and treating it like you would a physical illness.

I listened to her. And I tried to learn the lesson. But I only learned it in my head, just enough to apply it to other people. And that was good; it helped me to extend compassion and understanding instead of ignorant judgment. It made me nicer to other people. But in my heart of hearts, I didn't believe it. Because I'd already started, by then, to sense the void within myself; and though I denied it consciously, subconsciously I knew that I'd inherited whatever genetic flaw it is that makes you go crazy. And while I could forgive others for not being able to control their emotions and their thoughts, I believed that I was better than that. Stronger than that. Even as my mom talked about the importance and the benefits of therapy, of getting medication when you need it, I thought fiercely - I'm never going to go to therapy. And I won't let them lobotomize me with those drugs that are supposed to make me "normal." I am strong. I won't let it get that bad.

Pride is my cardinal sin. And if you hate the teenager-me a little bit, that's okay. I do, too. I was arrogant and closed-minded, and the truth is that in my heart I clearly was still being judgmental about people with mental illness. In my defense, I was 17. And I was very, very frightened.

Because 17 is the age I was when I had my first depressive episode. It was much less intense than this most recent one, but it lasted a lot longer - a slow burn as opposed to a instantaneous inferno. And once that had happened, I stopped worrying so much about my mom going crazy and started worrying about ME going crazy. To the point where watching TV episodes that dealt with insanity started to make me feel anxious. They had the eerie feeling of foreshadowing.

I recovered from that first episode and returned to my normal self - vivacious, intelligent, curious, dynamic, yet inexplicably boyfriendless - and I largely moved on with my life. I was ambitious; I wanted a lot out of life, and I worked hard to get it. I got a full-ride scholarship to college. I moved to St. Petersburg, Russia and taught English for four months as a volunteer teacher. I earned a Bachelor's Degree - something neither of my parents had done. I was successful.

But throughout that period of my life, there would be days when I felt as though there were a ticking time bomb inside of me. My whole life was a game of Russian Roulette, a stroll through the minefields, and I knew that at any moment something could set me off, and I would begin my spiral into insanity.

If you've read any of my previous blog posts, you know that that is exactly what happened. I got a job, and early into it I began to slide into a depressive episode. A massive one. I fought it with everything that I had, determined - as I had always been - that I could keep myself sane if I just fought hard enough. But in the end, having almost completely self-destructed, I finally had to give in. I went to the doctor and to the therapist with an air of defeat, of failure.

But I was an idiot. I was an idiot to think that I could cure myself just by trying hard not to feel sick.

How many people do you know who have fought off cancer by sheer determination?

That's why words like "crazy" and "insane" are problematic. They make us think of weakness, that for someone to lose control of their mind is an embarrassment and a shameful character flaw. BUT IT ISN'T. And that's what I've been learning these past two weeks.

We have control of our minds in the same way that we have control of our bodies - most of the time, we can tell them what to do; we can decide what they intake; we can manage their health. But sometimes you get hit by a car, and then your legs don't do what you tell them to anymore. Sometimes you are born to a woman with a drug addiction, and her chemicals end up inside of your body, poisoning you against your will. Sometimes your appendix ruptures for no apparent reason, and you have to be rushed to the hospital so the doctors can save your life.

We think we have control of our bodies, but that isn't always true. And when it isn't true, it's not because we did something bad or we're inherently weak. Sometimes it's because of our own choices, but sometimes it's because of the choices of others, or random happenstance, or unforeseen complications, or simple genetic vulnerability - you don't think less of a person who is allergic to peanuts!

The same principle applies to our minds. We have control of our minds sometimes, but not all the time. And when we don't, it's not because we did something bad or we're inherently weak. Sometimes you get hit by a terrible tragedy. Sometimes you are born into a family where you are beaten and unloved. Sometimes you start crying for no reason and you can't stop until they rush you to the hospital so the doctors can save your life.

I am not allergic to peanuts. My vulnerability is that I am prone to depressive episodes.

It is not something I chose. It is not something that I brought upon myself. It was written into my genetic code at birth. And most of the time it doesn't affect my life; but sometimes something happens, and I get really sick. And then I have to go to the doctor.

The doctor analyzes my symptoms and recognizes that I am experiencing an imbalance of chemicals that is causing nausea, fatigue, and an inability to focus. He gives me a diagnosis and writes me a prescription so that I can fight off the illness and become well again. Because that's why we invented medicine.

The pharmacists give me two bottles of pills, each with instructions written on them. I take them home and put them in my little pill box organizer - one box for every day of the week. Every morning, I roll over to my nightstand and pull out my water bottle and three pills for the day - a red one for depression, a blue one for anxiety, and a white one for my hay fever. (Because I do have some allergies.)

And every once in a while I go to a therapist. When I'm there, he talks to me so we can figure out how I was exposed to whatever it was that triggered this episode. We talk about ways to avoid potential "allergens" in the future. And he teaches me things that I can do in a moment of crisis - things like breathing and mental exercises - giving me the mental equivalent of an EpiPen.

And what kind of person would you expect to walk around without an EpiPen when they know they're allergic to peanuts?

I'm not sure if I've made any sense at all here. Wandering from junior high to a metaphor about EpiPens seems a little meandering, but I find that many of my journeys are less direct than I expect them to be. My main point is this:

I am feeling better. Amazingly better. And I'm even feeling better about feeling better, so all kinds of good things are going on. And as I've been recovering, I've been realizing what an idiot I was about mental health before this happened - not because I'm a stupid person, but just because I hadn't learned it yet. Well, now I'm learning it. So I'm also sharing it.

Mental illness is as real as physical illness. And it can be treated, just like physical illness can be treated. We need to let go of whatever stupid hang-ups we have over words like "crazy" and "insane," and we need to start encouraging people to go to the doctor when they need to. If it's your friend, or your family member, or an acquaintance, or YOU, don't over-complicate things.

When you get sick, go to the doctor.

And let it be as simple as that.

What Happened Next - Getting Better

I feel fine.

I mean, I feel fine. Great, even! Yesterday I decided on a whim to ask Dad if I could go to work with him today - take my laptop, start the work for my new job search, and just hang out with him for a while. He said sure, Fridays are a slow day for him anyway and hardly anyone goes in to the office. So this morning I got up at five o'clock, walked with Dad to the bus stop, and we talked for the next ten hours - on the train, in his cubicle, at breaks. I talked his ears off! I was bubbly. He kept teasing me, and I laughed every time. And I didn't just have fun - I also worked through a couple aptitude tests, rewrote my resume for the general public (as opposed to education administrators), searched for jobs and even applied for one at the MTC that I think I'd be great at. It was a terrific day. I hummed; I skipped; I danced around.

I was joyous.

. . .
. . . .
. . .

And that bothers me.

Now, with the night falling around me - and after talking to a few people who came with shoulders to cry on and found me singing instead - I feel uneasy. Bad. Betrayed.

Betrayed? By what?

By the medication? Do I think the medication is stealing away my rightfully-earned pain? Do I feel like it's turned me into something fake?

Or am I feeling betrayed by myself? Like my present self has killed my past self, erased her and the experiences, cut her loose so I can be free?

I haven't forgotten my students. I haven't forgotten the time I spent there, or the effort and dreams I had invested. I haven't forgotten any of that.

But I have forgotten the pain.

Already, I can't reach it anymore. I can see (through a haze) the wretched, desiccated girl who was so torn by agony it ripped the sinew from her bones. I can see her, and I know that she is me. Not was; IS. Fundamentally. She is a part of myself without which I would not be myself.

But I can't feel her anymore.

And it makes me angry. I'm watching my other self through bullet-proof glass (for my protection, they say), and I can see they've got her in a padded cell. She's bound, tied up like a criminal, like she's crazy. And I know she has screamed herself to exhaustion because I can see her, straitjacketed, leaning against the wall and crying.

But she's not crazy. I know her; I've known her all my life. I love her! And I can't stand to see the way they've chained her up and condemned her to bedlam. I want to yell at the doctors, rage at them, tell them she doesn't belong there - she's not crazy!

Would they believe me?

This. This, I think, is why I'm upset about being happy. Because my health set against her illness makes her look crazy. And the speed of my recovery makes my affliction seem ridiculous. The reality of my joy makes my sorrow seem fake.

And it wasn't fake.

Whatever the cause, I know with every fiber of my being that the darkness that engulfed me - that nearly consumed me - was REAL. It was substantial. It existed within me as tangibly as the oxygen atoms in my blood that keep me alive. It was more than fancy, more than feeling. It was.

But I can't feel it anymore.

And if I can't feel it, can't hold it, can't shake it in the faces of the naysayers, then how can I prove that she isn't crazy? To the doctors, or to myself? How can I get them to let her go, to let her come home with me?

How can I be whole again?

What Happened Next - The School

On Tuesday I went back to the school to get my stuff.

My mom drove. We went to my apartment first so I could gather the books that belonged to the school or that had been loaned to me by other teachers, so I could return them. There were enough to fit in one small box, and I clung to it like a teddy bear.

I was so scared to go back to the school. Part of that fear was the shame I felt, wondering how I could show my face in that place again when I'd ditched them for something as meaningless as "I was having a hard time." Whether that shame was fair or not doesn't matter; I felt it.

But I was far more afraid because I knew that walking back into the school meant I would see students and friends, and that I would have to say goodbye. I feel goodbyes; I feel them down in my core, each one molding me like a transformation that can never be undone. Some goodbyes are less significant than others, of course, but with these people . . . I wasn't sure my fragile heart could take it.

We parked in the school's lot at 3:15, just about ten minutes after school got out - so, as expected, there was a crowd of teenagers spilling over the lawn and the stairs to the front door. They were waiting for the bus or for a ride, gathered in clusters and talking, joking, complaining, being together. My heart wobbled when I saw them. There would be no sneaking past these people. I knew it wouldn't have been right anyway, but I thought it sure would have been easier. I grabbed my box, took a deep breath, and started walking toward the school (Mom trailing behind me).

It started almost at once.

"Miss Grosland!" someone shouted. "Miss Grosland!" The mass of students suddenly became one group, looking around bewildered, their faces lighting up in surprise when they saw me making my way toward the steps. They smiled widely. They were excited. "Miss Grosland!"

It was the most incredible feeling in the world.

They weren't all my students, but many were. Their names ran through my head as I caught glimpses of them, some of them pushing forward to see me. I loved them so much. Just seeing them made me so happy I could barely breathe.

"Miss Grosland," one girl asked excitedly as I approached, "Are you coming back?"

A knife in my heart. This was why I hadn't wanted to come. The well of sorrow within me shook with waves, but something unexpected happened:

My teacher face came on. My teacher self came on. What I felt inside didn't matter. What mattered was giving these students what they needed, and they didn't need to worry about me. I had only been there a few weeks, but I had made an effort to show them - through myself - that learning and working hard was exciting, that it made your life better, and that there was always a positive spin to things. If this was the last time I was going to get to interact with my students, I was going to make sure they remembered me as a source of optimism and light. Because I knew they needed that.

I kept my tone lighthearted. "Nope," I said. "I'm just here to get my stuff."

"What?" An uproar of disappointment.

I pouted sympathetically, "I know, I know," I said. "I'm sad, too."

"Miss Grosland," a new girl came rushing from around a cluster of people. "Where ya been?"

 "I went to the hospital," I said, matter-of-factly, still walking up the steps.

"Wait - really?" one boy asked.

"Yeah," I said, raising my eyebrows like it was cool.

His goofy face shaded slightly with concern. "What was wrong with you?" he asked.

"Not tellin'," I said, feigning snottiness as I turned haughtily away. More outcry.

"Miss G, we miss you," someone whined. Shouts of agreement followed. "Yeah!" "We miss you!"

I turned back, smiling sadly. "I miss you guys, too," I said honestly. My heart was swelling uncomfortably in my chest.

"So when are ya coming back?" someone asked again.

By now I was standing at the top of the stairs, the front of the crowd. Everyone was turned toward me, listening, watching. So I allowed a teeny bit of the sorrow I felt to show on my face, and I let them see the sincerity in my eyes. When I spoke, in that hush, it felt so final. "I'm not," I said.

Murmuring. "But why not?" a girl argued.

"My doctors said I couldn't." It was the best way I could think to explain. "I went to the hospital, and the doctors told me I couldn't come back." I kept stepping towards the door; more words would not make this better. A long goodbye would only make it worse, when I had so little I could offer in the way of explanation. "It was good to see you all, though," I added, in a pitiful attempt to tell them how precious they were to me. They murmured back answering sentiments, still looking like they didn't understand.

I couldn't help them with that. I still don't understand.

As I pulled the door open and started to slide inside, a boy called after me in a mock-baby-crying voice. "But I'm gonna miss you so much, Miss Grosland," he said.

I answered in the same teasing tone, "Oh, I'm gonna miss you, too, L----." We both laughed.

The door closed between us and I kept walking, heading upstairs to my room. But I had to stop a short ways in because my Mom was already a wreck, crying her eyes out. I knew she was crying for me. She looked up at me with red eyes and a smile of support. My professionalism slipped; my breath hitched in my throat. So I turned around and kept moving.


*                                    *                                     *

In the end, it didn't take that long. When we got to my room I was greeted by Nic - one of the other new teachers from a different campus, whom I'd become friends with at all those district training meetings we'd had to attend. It turned out they'd put him in charge of my classroom until they could find a permanent replacement - what a gift to me, to know it wasn't just some stranger. I was happy to see him, and more than a little surprised when he hugged me - this man who had told me once that nothing got to him - and asked tenderly if I was okay because, in his words, "You're breaking my heart a little bit."

Kerry - my friend the math teacher, who has apparently forgiven me for stealing her room at the beginning of the year - came to find me, too. She made a joke about being the reason I was quitting; hugged me; told me she'd miss me, but hoped I'd get better and do great "out there."

Kathy - dear Kathy - was the one who really made me cry. I gave back the books she'd offered me and thanked her for doing so much to help me those few weeks. She'd been my champion, and it meant a lot to me. We spoke a bit about students, about materials and where everything was supposed to go. But then I suddenly realized that I was standing there, looking at my best friend smiling sadly back at me, and that I might never see her again. So I choked out a sob and grabbed her, hugging her and crying into her shoulder until we were both a mess of grief.

I packed up all my books. I had brought such little else - a photo album, my desk toys, a BYU flag, my pith helmet. I grabbed my guitar from the closet and then tried to figure out how my mom and I were going to carry it all to the car.

I needn't have worried.

Both Nic and Kathy loaded up on boxes, following me and Mom to the car and packing it all away. Almost all of the students were gone. There was just one box left upstairs. Mom offered to go get it, but I wanted it to be mine.

My little entourage followed me, but I felt like the only person in the world as I walked up the stairs - glancing at the familiar, typo-ridden decorations. I turned and walked down the hall, trying to memorize the way my little door looked in the corner. I used the drinking fountain one last time. I walked into my room, grabbed the box, and just looked around, drinking in my last glimpse of a room that, in many ways, had been my home.

And then I walked out, and what had been my classroom vanished like smoke.


*                                    *                                     *


I stopped by the office on my way out. I even went and checked my little teacher mail box, even though there was nothing there I needed to keep. I ran into Rhonda - the Instructional Coach - which was good because I got to hug her and tell her how terrific she'd been in supporting me. She was sweet and kind, and told me I'd been great. Then she left.

I turned my keys in to Debbie, the wonderful secretary, the first person I ever met at GWHS. We had a good laugh about the whistle on my key chain - how I'd used it to get rescued that time I got locked in the bathroom. I told her thanks for everything, and that I'd loved my time there and wished I could have stayed. She understood and said they all wished I could have stayed, too. And she agreed to invite me to graduation in May.

My principal - Benji - was in a meeting. I was afraid to face him, even though he was one of the most honorable and admirable men I'd ever met. I dreaded the thought that maybe he regretted hiring me, that maybe he was disappointed and frustrated at having to hire someone to replace me. But I knew he'd be insulted and hurt if I snuck out of the building without saying goodbye. So I knocked on his office door and waved through the window.

He came out immediately.

He was not weepy or sentimental, but he wasn't angry either. He just looked very serious. But he immediately pulled me into an embrace, holding me tightly, like he wanted to take all of his strength and give it to me. Like all he wanted was to protect me.

I cried. Just a little.

When he pulled back, he kept his hands on my shoulders, looking me in the eyes. "You got everything?" he asked.

"Yeah," I sniffed.

"I'm serious about what I said," he told me. "You can - and should - use me as a reference, wherever you go from here. I'll be delighted to tell them all the great things about you."

My lip quivered as I nodded. "You were terrific," I said, the words bursting out of me. "Really, you have been amazing, and I'm so grateful I got to work with you." I was starting to lose it.

"You're gonna be okay," he promised, never breaking eye contact with me. Looking at him, I believe it. I trusted him completely.

The music was playing in my head. I could feel the curtain falling. It was almost over.

Benji knew it, too. He let go of me with a supportive nod, and I took a step back. But I still had one more line, one thing left to say.

"Take care of my kids for me," I asked him, my voice splashing as I met his eyes.

He nodded. He understood. And I knew he would do it.

So I left.


*                                    *                                     *


One more student caught me on the way out. A boy from my music class; a boy with braces who liked to talk to his friends in the middle of whatever I was teaching. A boy who had come to Back to School Night cowering behind parents who thought he was worthless. A boy I had rigorously defended and praised and loved.

"Miss Grosland!" he said, surprised and delighted. He had a basketball under his arm, on his way to after school gym. "Why haven't you been in school?" he asked.

My tears were gone, my optimistic teacher self back in action before I could even consciously reach for it. I smiled at him. "I decided to go to the hospital instead," I told him, holding out my arm so he could see the large purple bruise my IV needle had left behind.

"Oh," he said, blinking. "Well . . . that's fun."

I grinned. "I thought so."

He grinned back. "So, are you coming back?"

Another gash. I simply shook my head this time, the sadness starting to choke me.

I saw disappointment and hurt in his eyes - he needed me; I knew he needed me; and I was leaving anyway - and I wondered how my heart could possibly survive this much pain.

"Why not?" he asked.

"My doctors," I said. "They said I had to move back to Springville, so I can be closer, so they can keep an eye on me."

"Oh." He looked down.

"I'm really glad I got to see you before I left, though," I offered.

He nodded. "Yeah. You, too." He turned to go into the gym.

I could not bear to leave him.

"Hey!" I shouted after him.

He turned back.

"I'm gonna be coming to graduation for the next few years, still," I said, smiling. "So, you know, I'll be seeing you again."

He smiled, genuinely. "Yeah," he said. "See you." And then he turned and dribbled away.

And I took my last box of stuff and walked out the doors of George Washington High School.

Mom had been bawling on-and-off since we'd arrived, and it was nice to know she could feel my pain even when I was masking it for everyone else. I was able to stay calm and professional all the way to the car, leaving the school with my head held high. I put the box in the trunk. I got into the passenger seat. I closed the door.

And then, finally, I allowed myself to weep.

Tears poured from my eyes in a steady river of grief. Mom leaned over to hold me while I mourned. After a moment, I was suddenly worried that a student might walk past and see me, so I asked Mom to drive somewhere, anywhere but here. When the goodbyes were over, it was time to go.

We drove up the canyon, where the beauty of the cliffs, the streams, the iridescent trees, and the lake soothed me. God had made this for me. And I loved it. It was the loving arms of someone comforting you at a funeral; it didn't change what you had lost, but it was nice to remember what you still had.

We drove for a long, long time.

I'm not sure I'll ever be done crying.

What Happened

I wore my very classiest outfit on the first day of school - a black skirt, a beautiful white and green blouse, and a tightly-fitted button-down shirt. I wore my pearls and my shiniest shoes. Miraculously, my hair was styled and gorgeous. I was nervous, but very excited to get started.

My students wandered, slipped, and sauntered into my room. They looked like they had grown up on a planet completely different from my own. Their faces were pierced. Their hair stood out at strange angles, was shaved or dyed electric colors. Many were covered in tattoos, some reeked of smoke, and several showed signs of being parents-to-be. They used language that battered my ears, and from the way they were dressed I might as well have been at a rap concert.  But they were my students, and I was determined to accept them as they came.

At first they laughed at me, rolled their eyes and mocked my excitable demeanor. They made snide remarks and I flipped them on their heads with a witty retort, always optimistic. After a while they realized my chipper attitude and enthusiasm was genuine, and sooner than I expected, they softened to me. In some cases, they clung to me.

There was the girl who had just moved from California, who told me I was her favorite teacher and asked me what I'd like her to bring me on my birthday. There was the feisty diva who constantly swore in my class without realizing it, then covered her mouth in shock every time and said, "Sorry, Miss G!" There was the kid who ran into my classroom every time he passed by in the hall, reaching out for a high five before zooming back to class. There were the quiet ones who perked up when I noticed them, and found themselves migrating to my room during breaks or at lunch. There were kids who came by to play my guitar, to try to solve my Rubik's cube, to fumble with my juggling balls, or just to sit with me (sometimes they talked, sometimes they didn't).

I had quite a few students who didn't like me. Some shoved against me, some verbally assaulted me. I sent five students to the office in one day. I tried not to take it personally, but it was always a bad day when I had to send a student away. I was very blessed to not have bad days very often. For the most part, I found that deep down these were the same kind of hilarious, adventurous, soul-searching teenagers I'd ever known. I loved them. It was easy.

And things were going great! Despite the fact that I was at least 15 years younger than every other person on staff, I quickly made friends with the other teachers. They laughed at the way I danced around my classroom when I thought no one could see; they took me to lunch; they gave me books and handouts and lots of support. They really were my friends. On my bad days, they made things a little bit better.

After that first half week of lessons, I knew almost every student's name. I was pleased with my week's work, but I was exhausted, too. When I climbed up the stairs to my 3rd floor apartment, I fell onto my futon and just slept for hours. When I woke up at 7:30pm, I crawled onto my patio and slept in the warmth of the setting sun. When it got dark, I crawled back inside and finally dragged myself to my bed, and I didn't get up until Saturday.

When I woke on Saturday, a buzzing panic was coursing through me. I hadn't planned any lessons yesterday. What had I been thinking? I needed to plan lessons. Lessons, lessons, LESSONS! Why hadn't I planned anything? The panic was completely primal, short-circuiting my brain entirely. I shook my head, trying to dislodge the feeling. It was Saturday. I should get to take a break.

I turned on Netflix and watched a couple of movies, fighting to ignore the angry buzz in my head. But it felt like it was tearing my brain in half. After the second movie, I felt so awful that I knew I had moved beyond being able to plan a lesson. Something poisonous, corrosive was eating away at me. The movie ended, I closed my laptop, and quite suddenly I exploded.

Raking sobs tore from my throat. Tears coursed down my face without ceasing. I felt as if I were drowning, and I had no idea why.

I crawled to the futon, the sobs gushing from me, causing me to shake and moan in pain. I could hardly breathe. I was almost screaming.

What's wrong? I thought, frantically. What's wrong? I knew the first year of teaching was supposed to be monstrously difficult. And surely I was stressed - new job, new apartment, far from home - but everything was going fine so far. Nothing horrible had happened to me. Why was I writhing in agony?

On Sunday I went to my new ward for the second time. Here, I had made no friends as yet; but the Bishop gave me a big smile and renewed my temple recommend, so it should have been a good day. I thanked him, but instead of going to Linger Longer to socialize I fled to my car and went home to cry again. Again, raking sobs. Again, absolutely bewildered about why I sounded like I was being attacked.

The next day was Monday, so I had to go back to work. I cried the whole time I was getting ready - "Come on, all you have to do now is wash your hair. You can do that. Good; now just brush your teeth; it's not that hard." - and I didn't eat any breakfast. My stomach had hardened into a burning, iron core that twisted and yanked and made it impossible for me to eat. Unable to stand completely straight for more than a few minutes at a time, I went to work. I engaged with my students. I taught.

Then I came home and cried some more.

To my credit, I reached out for help. I sought the advice of other first year teachers and experienced teachers and I got lots of helpful tips and even some lesson plans I could use. I begged my mental-health guru mom for help on how to escape the thick cloud of poison that was filling my brain, and I took her advice to heart. I went outside more. I listened to calming music. I bought healthy food.

But things got worse. Every day I went to school, stomach gnawing, forcing me to always have an exit strategy in mind in case I needed to vomit in the middle of class. At lunch I ate a carrot stick, an apple, maybe a corner of wheat bread. I kept teaching, and I gave my students my full attention and effort, even on days when they said outright that my class was boring and that I was an f***ing cow. I wrote lesson plans through gritted teeth and red eyes. I prayed all the time, and I made it through each moment one by one. And sometimes my students worked hard and impressed me, and I felt like maybe I was doing all right.

My stomach was still disintegrating, though. Labor Day weekend was coming up, so I took the chance to go home and see my family. I was so happy to see them, I forgot my pain for a couple of hours. We went to a football game on Friday and had a blast, but by Saturday my stomach was hurting again, and the angry buzzing was back. I went to my old singles ward on Sunday, and as soon as someone hugged me I started crying my eyes out and didn't stop for an hour. I drove back to Ogden embarrassed and disappointed.

I wasn't getting better. Eating healthy meant very little when I only had half a meal a day. I couldn't exercise - I was too weak. Meditation was impossible with my mind spinning out of control. All I could do was turn to God.

I had already been praying - constantly - for strength to get through this. Now I poured my desperate soul into worship. I prayed without stopping. I searched the scriptures. I fasted. I sang hymns. I took the sacrament. I read my patriarchal blessing. I got a priesthood blessing from my new bishop. I read conference talks and watched Mormon Messages. I saturated myself with the words of God.

At first, these would provide moments of peace or calm. But eventually my buzzing panic and aching sobs drowned it all out, and I railed at the dark canvas that shrouded me from the light I knew lay just above.

By the grace of God I made it through another two weeks of school. I threw up while I was brushing my teeth, then put on my slacks and went to work anyway. I put all of the strength I had into teaching, working one on one with those who needed it, commanding an army when it came to full class instruction. I wondered if they could read the pain on my face, see the weakness behind my eyes. I wondered if I could trust any of the decisions I was making, if I was doing my students any good at all. But I survived another day.

I was consumed with misery, and I had only one thing left I knew to try - something my missionary sister had recommended to me in a letter: go to the temple. It had been a while, but I remembered the quiet peace and the atmosphere of love that filled the House of the Lord. I felt like a cripple and a filthy wreck, but I had tried absolutely everything else. And despite it all, I still had faith that God would heal me.

With urgency, I looked up the schedule for the Ogden temple (five minutes down the road from my apartment). It was closed for maintenance and wouldn't open for two weeks.

I could not wait two weeks.

I searched frantically and found the next closest temple: Brigham City. I checked to make sure it wasn't also getting maintenance done, then I drove the half-hour north, crying all the way, clinging to the relief I knew I would feel once I got inside. After getting lost a few times, I finally pulled into the parking lot of the temple. I dried my eyes, straightened my skirt, and walked up to the front gate.

It was locked.

I pulled on the gate twice, unbelieving. A sob gushed through me as I collapsed to the stone outside. All I wanted was to go to the temple. Didn't God want me to go to the temple? Why wouldn't He take me in?

I drove home in despair, but I was determined. Tomorrow was Saturday. If there was a single temple in the state of Utah that was open, I was going to go there. I felt I would die if I could not feel the light of Christ inside of me again, and I was going to fight for it until I had nothing left.

Saturday morning was just as hard as the rest - crawling on the floor and weeping, tears streaming down my face as I pulled on my nylons, my skirt, a blouse. I got in the car and drove for almost an hour before I found the Bountiful temple. Set high in the mountains, a monument of gleaming white pillars, it was spectacular. And it was open.

In fact it was crowded with people. I walked tentatively, afraid I might shatter if I bumped into anyone. I made my way down to the baptistry and stood still for a moment, waiting for the darkness inside me to evaporate.

It didn't.

Instead, I was bombarded with noise. There were dozens of people in the baptistry, Young Men and Young Women groups, wards and families and chaos as the temple workers tried to sort through it all. I moved forward, walking into a locker room buzzing with chatter and quietly changing into the white temple clothes. When I emerged, I was corralled into a confirmation room. Everyone was sitting quietly as the ordinances were done, and I relished the soft sound of the prayers. But after a moment, my eyes were filling with water again and it was all I could do to keep my tears silent, because I knew that the Spirit of the Lord was there, in that room, and I couldn't feel it.

After I finished doing confirmations they tried to rush me over to the font to do baptisms, but I wasn't ready. I knew that as soon as they got me wet, it'd be a matter of minutes before I'd be back in my street clothes and out of the temple. I hadn't gotten what I'd come for. I couldn't leave. I asked the worker if I could just sit for a minute, and he agreed, hurrying off to deal with someone else.

I grabbed a Book of Mormon from a bench and started reading, trying to pierce the smothering cloud around me with scripture. But every verse I read slammed against me with phrases like "slothful"and "put forth all your effort" and "His wrath is kindled." And I threw the scriptures away from me, because even as the guilt swam up my throat I knew it wasn't true. I had done everything I could. I knew I had been obedient in everything God had asked of me. I had no reason to fear Him. So WHY was He withholding Himself from me?

Sitting alone in a hidden hallway, I whispered the scripture like a mantra, "Draw near unto me, and I will draw near unto you. Draw near unto me, and I will draw near unto you." And then I broke, and all my reservations fell away as I began to weep loudly. I cried out to God, WHY WON'T YOU DRAW NEAR UNTO ME? YOU PROMISED!!!

I curled into a ball and wept openly for at least half an hour. Many people walked by; many more glanced nervously at me, an interruption in their nice little temple trip. After a while I had a crowd of temple workers around me, wondering if they should escort me out to a hospital or something. I was in agony, and I was humiliated. But I wanted to finish the work I came to do and perform my baptisms for the dead.

Hesitantly, they let me go into the font room, and something amazing happened. My brain filled with static. No thoughts; no anything. I didn't understand it; it wasn't peace, really. It wasn't even really quiet. But it made me stop crying, and I relaxed just a little bit. I made it through the baptisms without having to embarrass myself any more, and I was grateful.

I made it all the way home and lasted a few hours after that before the static popped. A hurricane tore through me, rattling my bones and tearing the air from my lungs. I drenched myself in sorrow almost at once, lurching to my bed and writhing in torture. I was empty, scraped completely bare. There was nothing left. I had tried everything. Everything.

I was lost.

Piecing together words from the rubble of my mind, I prayed once more to God and begged Him to send me someone who would know what to do. I was helpless. I had no more answers. I begged that He would send me someone who wouldn't ask me what I wanted to do, who wouldn't give me options, but who would make the decisions for me. I could not fix myself. I needed someone else.

My mom called.

I picked up the phone like a lifeline. She asked what was wrong. I gasped and sputtered what I could, but she quickly took over. "Either you drive home right now," she said, "or I'm sending Dad up there to get you."

I drove like my life depended on it. I wasn't so sure it didn't.

I slept in my mom's bed, trembling and whimpering all night. The next day, she and Dad took me to the InstaCare, where the nurse gave me a couple of shots to sedate me. My wailing turned to exhausted rivers of tears. The doctor told my parents a lot of stuff about drugs and treatments, and he diagnosed me with situational depression and anxiety. Then he sent me home.

I cried and I slept and I took whatever pills my mom handed me. I started to panic because the next day was Monday and I didn't have a sub or any lesson plans. Dad took care of everything, calling my principal and explaining that I was very sick and wasn't going to be able to come back for a few days. I loved my dad for making that call for me, but I felt like such a failure and a disappointment that I cried until I fell asleep.

On Monday, when I was still sobbing and convulsing - despite the drugs - Mom and Dad took me to the ER. I was severely dehydrated (because I still couldn't stomach anything) so they put an IV in my arm to get some fluids into me. Soon a hospital crisis worker came in to talk to me, asking questions to make sure I wasn't going to harm myself or anyone else. I told her I didn't want to kill myself; I just wanted to go to bed and never get up again. That was apparently good enough; she told me I needed to follow up with another doctor, and Mom said I'd be taking her appointment with her regular therapist in a couple days. They sent me home again.

Since we were already out of town, Mom and Dad decided this would be a good time to get some more of my things from my apartment (I only had one change of clothes). It broke my heart, knowing - from the things the doctors had been saying - that I might not get to come back here, and I left as quickly as possible.

On Tuesday we saw my regular doctor. He asked me all the same questions and gave me the same diagnosis. I had stopped crying as hysterically, instead just sitting morosely while the doctor discussed treatment regimens. When we left, the nurses all smiled and said, "Hang in there!" but I couldn't even manage a courtesy smile. I was in torment, thinking about how I was going to have to call my principal again and tell him I still wasn't ready to come back to work. And what was worse, when I shook and trembled at night, I had sobbed the confession, "I don't want to go back! I don't ever want to go back!"

Wednesday we saw my mom's therapist. He's worked with both of my parents for going on ten years, so I've secretly associated him with everything bad that's ever happened in my family. And even though I knew that wasn't fair, I always thought that I could be stronger than my parents; I thought that if I could sort my problems out without therapy, it meant I was okay. I understood that therapy was a good thing for other people. But for me, personally, to need therapy was to admit once and for all that I wasn't good enough.  I wasn't enough.

So it was with no small amount of trepidation and dread that I allowed my parents - one on either side of me, as I was tipsy from Valium - to usher me into the office. The therapist's smile was big and open, and I felt almost as if it would crush me. I was only a shadow, after all. I was ashes, a breath away from dissolving forever.

My mom handed the therapist a picture I'd drawn the day before, in my voiceless effort to explain what was happening inside of me. It was a picture of myself chained to a wall, my body taut with agony, covered in filth and wrapped with barbed wire. And I was screaming.

"Ouch," he said.

I half-grinned, trying to make a joke out of it. My mouth barely twitched.

"No, I mean, ouch," he said. "This looks like you're in a lot of pain. Is this how you feel, Jessica?"

My eyes overflowed. I nodded.

"Well, Jessica, that's not okay," he said simply. "What's happened?"

Mom put her hand on my knee as I told the story again. I couldn't remember how many times I had told the story. It never changed. It never got better or made sense. I felt so tired and so small.When I finished, the therapist said, "Jessica, something has happened with you and this job. And I don't know what it is, but this job is harming you. And staying there, trying to force yourself through it, is self-harm." I looked down at my feet. "Jessica," he started. He lowered his head, looking me in the eyes, and there was absolutely no judgment in his gaze. "Do you think you should keep this job?"

My heart burst. I let out a sob, and through my tears I whispered, "No."

"I don't think so either," he said. He looked at my parents. "Is there anyone in this room who thinks she should keep this job?"

Mom and Dad shook their heads.

"But - " I gasped.

"But what?"

"But I signed a contract," I whispered. "They need me. I said I'd be there for them."

"You signed a contract," the therapist agreed. "But, Jessica, your health is more important than that contract. They'll find someone else. You are your first priority."

I cried a little more.

"When you go home, you're going to call your principal, and you're going to quit that job," he said.

I sobbed. My dad - my knight in shining armor - stepped in, "I'll take care of it."

"Okay," the therapist said. "You make sure it happens, but Jessica, you have to quit. And you need to practice not feeling guilty about it. Now, I'm gonna set you up to see someone else tomorrow, and you'll talk some more about this, okay?

And so it was that Thursday I saw my fifth doctor, my own personal therapist. He was also very smiley, but he didn't seem to mind that I was whimpering and scared. He just talked as if everything was normal. He asked about what had brought me here, but he also asked more, going back to elementary school days and high school and college. And I was still feeling very dark, but I didn't mind talking to him. I liked him.

When we got to the topic of me quitting my job, I started to cry again. Dad had called the principal the day before, while I pretended to sleep. I could hear their muffled conversation, all the talk about how no one blamed me, how I was a strong kid, how there were no hard feelings. But every word was a slice in my skin. I couldn't believe that it was over. Ever since junior high, all I'd ever wanted to be was a teacher. I was good at it. It was the way I could make the world better, could influence people's lives. And now it turned out that I couldn't do it. There had been a ticking time bomb in my mind and now I'd destroyed my dream job. My beautiful classroom, my teacher friends, my students . . . I had lost it all. It hadn't even taken a full month.

"Jessica," my new therapist asked while I was crying, "do you feel guilty about quitting your job?

I nodded helplessly.

"Why do you feel guilty?" he asked, innocently.

The confession burst from me in wet, choking waves. "When I was looking for a job," I started, "I prayed and asked God to send me somewhere where I could help people, and where they could help me." I wept. "And when they offered me this job, I felt sure it was where God wanted me to be. God wanted me to be there."

I broke down completely. "But it was too hard. I wasn't strong enough. I tried everything I knew how. I put everything I had into it, but it still wasn't enough." I gasped for breath. "And I don't know why. I don't know what went wrong. Maybe I needed to try harder. Maybe I needed to do more." I gritted my teeth against the pain. "But instead I gave up. Because it hurt too much."

He let me cry for a minute. Then he said, "When you say, 'try harder,' do you mean you should have endured longer? Because how could you have tried harder?"

I nodded. Of course I should have endured longer. I didn't even last til midterm.

"Jessica," my therapist asked, leaning back. "Why are we here on earth?"

I sniffed. "To gain experiences."

"Bingo!" He snapped his fingers. "To gain experiences." He paused. "Well, you gained some experiences up there, didn't you?"

I nodded half-heartedly.

"Maybe you did some things up there you needed to. Maybe you had the experiences you needed to." He paused again, thoughtful. "Maybe God did send you up to Ogden. I don't know why He did. You don't know why He did. But, Jessica?"

Blinking shame, I looked up at him.

"Do you really think God wanted you to endure more?" he asked, gentle eyes on me. "Do you think He wanted you to suffer more?"

I knew there was an expected answer. But I started crying again in earnest. My heart was heaving as I answered honestly, "I don't know."

"Well," my therapist said, leaning back. "why don't you ask Him?"

I Can't Get It Back

I am overcome today by the tragedy of my lost past. By the overwhelming realization that nothing is permanent; that in order to move forward we must leave behind what we have been, and that those moments - golden, enshrined in memory - will never return to us. I can't turn back the clock. All I have are shadows.

I can't go back to that time when my siblings and I all lived and played together. When we were young enough not to notice how chubby our cheeks were, still young enough to be enraptured by a game of tag. I can almost hear my little sisters, my little brother, laughing in my head. But I can't get it back.

I can't go back to those years I spent walking to and from school with my best friends - Eric, Logan, Drew, and Adam. The stories we made up, the inside jokes that were created by the mere mileage we racked up on that 15 minute daily walk, echo inside of me. Those conversations, those friendships, forged my character and made me who I am. That time is a part of me. But I can't get it back.

I can't go back to that tree in Amanda's backyard, where the two of us used to play all summer long. I remember the game we made up - she pretended to be a spider, I pretended to be a praying mantis - even if I don't remember the rules or the purpose of the game. I remember her infection smile, and the way her courage inspired me. But I can't get it back.

I can't go back to all of those plays in junior high and high school. All of the friends who came loudly into my life and stomped around joyously in my heart. When did they leave? How did I not notice the silence that was falling around me? I can still see their faces, the make-up smeared over them. But I can't get it back.

I can't go back to my first job at BYU - cleaning offices at 4:00am with the greatest crew of people I've ever known. Damon, do you remember when I wrote that song about you for the Christmas party? And Alena, my Minion, when did we stop messaging each other on Facebook? We swore we would keep in touch. But it's gone now. And I can't get it back.

I can't go back to those days in St. Petersburg. The marvel of the sights and sounds mixed equally with the ardor of difficult work and homesickness, but I loved being there with those kids - Lyra, Ivan, and my sweet sister Evelyn. My host parents, Oleg and Sonia, with their bright smiles that I never returned often enough. And the other girls: Clarie, Leslie, Jodi, Bekka, Allison, Heather, and Kaylie. I have such fond memories of each of them. Such a warmth in my heart for the time we spent there. But I can't get it back.

And now here I am. With so many amazing people having passed through my life, how is it possible that I have wound up alone? In this moment, in this place, I have no one. All I have is a heart ripped to pieces, stringing out across the world as it reaches for my old friends, my family.

Can they feel me? Do they remember me? Do they wish we could get it back, too?

I have never felt so much pain from the realization that I have had a wonderful life. But that's the problem with the present: it's impossible to know if there is more happiness lying ahead of you. Nothing is guaranteed; and when you've had a life as good as mine has been, sometimes you wonder if you've used up your quota of good fortune. I have had such a gloriously happy life.

But I can't get it back.

And it haunts me.

Sick Day

“You okay?”

I looked up from my half-crouch, sitting on my bed, slumped against the wall. Adrian was standing in the doorway, looking down at me. His eyes met mine, and I felt the usual energy pass between us. There was no point in lying to him. “No,” I said.

He walked over and sat down on the bed, next to my feet. I sniffed. “In fact, I’m pretty miserable,” I added. He just stared at me, waiting, so I let the reins loose on my mouth. “I don’t know why – I don’t really have a good reason; but I’m miserable and I don’t care that there’s no reason. I’m just sad.”

He tilted his head, and something like a smile twitched at his lips. He put his hand on my ankle and rubbed my leg reassuringly. “I know.”

I felt disgusting. I hadn’t been out of bed for more than fifteen minutes today – not to shower, not even to throw away the trash from the food I’d mindlessly devoured. The carpet next to my bed was littered with wrappings and used tissues. My nose was still running sporadically. I sniffed again.

“You want anything?” Adrian asked.

I shook my head, the despair clogging my throat and making speech too much of an effort.

              

He nodded, not taking his hand from my calf. We sat there quietly for a while.

            

“This was such a wasted day.”

             

Adrian looked over at me, but I didn’t meet his gaze “What do you mean?”

            

 I grimaced. “I called in sick. I stayed home from work. And I didn’t do anything all day. I didn’t clean anything; I didn’t ride my new bike; I didn’t talk to anyone or look for a job.” I shook my head. “All I did was watch Netflix.”

             

“Sounds like a pretty good day to me,” Adrian joked.

             

“It wasn’t.”

             

The smile faded from his face. “I know,” he said again.

             

“It’s like this day might as well not have happened,” I lamented. It felt like such a tragedy, throwing away a day like that when life was so short anyway. The guilt was collapsing my chest from the inside. I felt like sobbing.

             

“But it did happen.” I scoffed, but Adrian continued, “no, listen to me! It did happen. You were alive today. You woke up; you walked around; you breathed the air. And you felt sorrow. That’s life.” He shrugged. “Not a very glamorous part of life, maybe, but life just the same.”

             

I didn’t say anything, just listened.

“And you know what?” he said. “Your life has a finite number of unhappy days. This was one of them, which means you have one less in the future. Because you were unhappy today, that means you don’t have to be unhappy tomorrow, or the next day, or whenever.”

“You don’t know that,” I argued. “The rest of my days could be unhappy ones.”

             

He paused. “Yeah, maybe,” he admitted. “But I don’t think that’s gonna happen. I think your life is going to be a happy one, in the end. Not because of any statistics, or philosophy, or logic; just because of who you are." He shifted in his position on my bed. "You are the kind of person who tries to bring good things into the world, for yourself and for other people. You aren't perfect, but you try to be, and I think that sort of thing gets rewarded in the long run. You're the kind of person who makes sunshine. That's why I think there are better days ahead for you. There have to be. You'll make 'em that way.” He smiled. “I have a good feeling about it.”

I thought about that for a while. I turned and looked at him, watching me with those deep, dark eyes, and a bit of his faith touched my heart. My lips turned upward softly, of their own accord. “I have a good feeling about it, too,” I said.

             

He grinned. “Yeah.”

             

“Not today, though.”

“No,” he agreed.

“Today I’m miserable.”

             

“Right.”

"Today I don't even want to be happy."

"I understand."

             

We looked at each other, and it seemed almost unnecessary to speak.  “But maybe tomorrow,” I said.

He nodded. “Maybe tomorrow.”

And that, my friends, is hope.