Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer
One day I couldn’t get out of bed. I just couldn’t. It wasn’t a choice. I couldn’t have gotten out of bed if the fucking house was on fire. I couldn’t move. I didn’t feel paralysed, I was paralysed. Jake was talking to me quietly and gently rubbing my shoulder. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. I think he was talking a foreign language, but I know he wasn’t. I slowly came to realise I was crying. Not sobbing or anything, just lying paralysed in bed crying an endless stream of tears. I didn’t have the energy to even care enough to want to die.
He finally called in sick for both of us to work and called our doctor. He dressed me in tracksuit pants and a jumper, put an arm around me and pushed me towards the front door. I shuffled my feet as an automatic response to his leading, but couldn’t have actually moved of my own volition to save my life. Literally.
The next few weeks were a blur of assisted showers, tasteless food and regular pills. After my 3rd visit to a therapist called Julie in as many weeks, I felt somehow lighter and moving was easier – not like walking in a swimming pool like it had been.
A month after that, Jake cooked my favourite food (burgers) and we sat in front of the box watching hours of ‘The big bang theory’. I laughed for the first time in what felt like years, but had only been a couple of months. That night we made love for the first time in months too, and I remembered why I loved it so much.
From a dark pit of nothing, I felt a nudge of hope, a feeling from afar that things would be ok. It was like the hint of pre-dawn light, you can’t see the sun yet, but you have good reason to believe it was coming really soon.
I finally called my family and friends, and as best I could told them why I’d been ‘off the radar’ for a few months.
It’s strange now to reflect on that. I’d spent years reading everything from 1000 page self-help books to one line Facebook posts about how to tell who your real friends are, and how everyone thinks they have the answer.
If I’ve learnt nothing else, I’ve learnt this – there is no one way to be a good friend/family member. There is no magic formula. There’s a shitload of ways to be a total arsehole of course. Most of my nearest and dearest were amazing, loving, supportive, funny, silly, caring, and basically just there for me. There are no words that convey how much that support meant, but I’m still here, happier every day, and I guess that will have to be testament enough that they’re awesome.
So, various ways to be awesome: cook food, suffer long miserable phone calls into the night, shopping trips, shows in the city, send cards with beautiful messages; send packages full of ‘feel good’ stuff; make time to just sit and drink coffee (even when you’re really busy), Skype when you’re too far to visit.
And if you haven’t heard from someone for a while, try to understand that reaching out can sometimes be the hardest thing.
I know some people reading this, or similar stories like this, that don’t get it. Or won’t get it. Or choose not to get it. Those people who think the answer to depression and anxiety, is to ‘get over it and get on with it!!
Let me say this; the chances of getting through your life without someone you love (be it spouse, child, sibling parent or true friend) having depression or anxiety virtually nil. So good luck. I mean it. You’re going to need it, and so are they.
Jake, you’re the best thing that will ever happen to me. Every love song is about you, every love story about us. The last few months have been really hard, the hardest of my life, but I’m finding my way back.