Back in January, I made a resolution to regularly post updates about returning to therapy. For reasons I’m about to get in to, I have been haphazard as ever, but first let me begin with a preamble:
After a heavy, dark, scary bout with depression two years ago that resulted in a suicide plan, I finally decided to try anti-depressants. In my desperation to not die, I hoped that medication could at least keep me out of the deep, deep, dark, dark, deep, dark place. Maybe the right pill could silence the voice that whispered nonstop, “But why not give up? Just give up. Why not? Why not? WHY NOT?”
Well. Ha. The medication did in fact work. I don’t think about ending things every day (though sometimes I still do), but the anti-depressant also effectively closed off my ability to access the intensely beautiful, intricate, vast eternal universe I so loved and often escaped to. Gone with it are all of the characters and creatures I used to talk to and create with. Basically, it sealed off a chumongous chunk of my heart.
In addition, my ability to dissociate and immerse in that softly welcoming place has all but vanished, leaving me in exile. I’m wandering in a barren, empty landscape with no maps or familiar landmarks to guide me. It’s a bleak, rocky nothing, and I’m flashing back to The Neverending Story even as I type this.
Be careful what you wish for, my friends. I don’t want to die, but it is now so very hard to live.
Because what is the point, really? Everything we contain within us, all our hopes and dreams and inner characters and worlds, they go away, just like we will one day go away, and I’m just so tired all the time. All the fucking time.
Soooo… major life changes happened back in September of 2025. I quit my beloved journalism job due to creative and ethical differences between me and the company that purchased our newspaper.
During that time, my beloved stately gentleman cat, Dexter, was slowly succumbing to stomach cancer. Right after I started a new job at Texas State University, he died in our arms on October 23. With all of that going on, I visited with my wonderfully supportive doctor, Mia, and she suggested I contact a new therapist in town.
Counselor Shay specializes in transitions, particularly in woman who are experiencing peri-menopause. Also, bonus, she has a background as a nutritionist, which Mia felt would be helpful, given my control issues with food. I don’t have an eating disorder; it’s an eating order, and I acknowledge that it’s all about control.
I booked an appointment with Counselor Shay. We hit it off, and I’ve been seeing her ever since.
Then my Mom died.
You know that scene at the end of The Labyrinth, when Sarah leaps from the stairs and all the scenery blows apart as she falls. That’s where I am right now. A constant state of freefall.
Now here we are in the present day. My Mom died the day after my Dad was released from the hospital with an acute kidney infection. Her passing revealed to us all of the quiet struggles she and my Dad had been facing with his physical health for well over a year. He’d been in and out of the hospital eight times since August. He had multiple appointments each week for his kidney (he only has one) and his heart (which is in AFIB).
Four days after Mom’s memorial service, Dad went back into the hospital with pulmonary embolisms in his legs and his lungs. If we hadn’t gotten him into the ER that day, the doctors told me he wouldn’t have survived the night.
No. Absolutely not. We could not lose my Dad so soon after losing my Mom. That just was not going to happen.
So I quit my sweet, fun, brain-engaging job at the university to become a full-time caregiver for my Dad. At first, we really didn’t know if he was going to pull through. In addition to the overwhelming grief he felt for losing my Mom (they were together 55 years, y’all), he was dealing with huge medical issues that required all of his energy just to survive.
Flash forward to nine weeks after my Mom’s passing. I’m proud to report that my Dad is upright and mobile. He’s been working his nonexistent butt off (for real; he has no more body fat left). He’s been off of his oxygen for a week. He’s one appointment away from being dismissed from home health care and physical therapy. He’s still 75% blind, but hey, that’s the least of his worries.
Which is unfortunate, you know? At least he’s only going blind. What kind of world is this, anyway?
And that brings me back to the original purpose of this post. I haven’t been posting about my therapy journey because life just came at us like a fire hose, and I am only just now getting back up from that flood.
I am still depressed, and the inner world to which I used to retreat is closed to me. Part of me wonders if it’s because I haven’t slowed down long enough to try finding the door. Another part of me wonders if I’m unable to search for it because I am needed here in the real world.
Either way, it’s loud and bright and painful here, and it’s taking its toll.
I’m tired. And I’m trying. And I hope I can hang on long enough to find my way back home.