Once upon a time, life was normal. I was a regular young woman with regular ambitions. I had a few friends, and although I was never a party-animal, I had a reasonable social life. I kind-of-but-not-really knew what I wanted to do with my future. Nothing was cast in concrete, but I did have something loosely resembling a plan.
One day, all of that fell apart. The events that led to the undoing of my life as I then knew it are not important. Let’s just say that things changed. I went through some experiences that completely changed the direction of my life. Although the events themselves were not always positive, they did ultimately lead me down a path to becoming a stronger, more resilient person than I might otherwise have been.
These events did, however, leave me emotionally raw. I ended up with a propensity to depression that has plagued me several times over the years. Sometimes the depression hits abruptly, as if someone has thrown a switch in my head. Sometimes it creeps up so gradually that I don’t even notice it until I wake up one morning to realize that it’s there.
The depression is always bleak and frightening. When it’s there, I feel as if I am trapped by myself in an emotional wasteland. I have this sense of having to travel over inhospitable terrain where no-one is able to reach me. Outwardly, I go through the motions of existence. I get up and go to work, I parent my children, I keep in touch with people enough to avoid letting on that something is wrong. But on the inside, I am barely making it from one day to the next.
In the end, though, I have a natural optimism that gets me through. Even when I am in the midst of my darkest hours, I operate under the belief that no matter how bad things might be, they have the potential to get better. And somehow – after a few days, a few weeks or a few months – I emerge from my emotional wasteland. I start to feel the sunshine on my face again. I notice the colours around me, and I hear the laughter of my children.
This week’s Indie Ink Challenge came from Sir, who gave me this prompt: Write about the character trait of your that’s the most frightening.
I challenged Michael Webb with the prompt:You are walking in the forest and you trip over a wooden box. You open the box and find…
Hey Jess , i hear you ,thanks for sharing .xxx
And thank YOU for being the most amazing friend ever!
You write very… bravely. Often after I’ve finished reading one of your posts, my first thought is, “It was brave to write that.” It’s very impressive.
Thank you. When I’m trying to decide whether to post something like this, I always think that someone else might be going through similar stuff. And maybe that person will read my post and not feel so alone.
Me, too. And your reply to Kurt is why I spent a fair amount of time writing about going through my own ordeal with depression. Explaining it to others helped explain it to myself, even though on an abstract level I’d since come to understand the whys and the weherefores.
This was a wonderful answer to the prompt.