Sun Will Rise

I wanted to die just a handful of years ago. Writing that makes my hands shake and my heart race. The idea is so disparate from the smiley, Midwest persona I give off, and I’m scared to even tell you more because somehow discussing it makes it feel even more real. Will you see me differently now? Will the rest of my words hold less weight in comparison? Only now, in hindsight, can I see that my mental health struggles are part of my story but not my entire story.

By now you might be wondering about my dark side. Everyone has one. Kelly Clarkson even released a song called “Dark Side” that wasn’t quite the hit it should’ve been (#Justice4DarkSide), but it was proof that even Queen Kelly has some demons. My dark side comes in the form of depression and anxiety that rear their ugly heads quite often. As a lover of reality television, I typically enjoy the type of shade that comes from the mouth of a Real Housewife, but there’s another kind of shade in my life that’s more difficult to endure; there’s a pitch-black cloud that drifts over me and covers all the light every once in a while that I’d be remiss not to talk about with all of you. Never was that cloud darker than a fateful drive to “the happiest place on earth.”

When most people talk about mental health, it’s often through language like light and dark, and sun and clouds. By now we should have a better way of describing the inner turmoil one goes through in life, but we don’t, or specifically, I don’t. I find the easiest—and best—way is through the type of words that you would find in the journal of an emo mid-aughts teen who wore Nightmare Before Christmas clothes year-round, so bear with me here. I’m a generally happy person, but there are times in my life when the anxiety and depression seep into my everyday existence and crushed me, most recently just a few weeks ago, but it’s been happening on and off for years, with one particularly no good, very bad experience.

I first struggled with anxiety when I was nineteen years old. That’s a tough age for anyone, but I was stuck in the closet in small-town Ohio. Up until then, I ignored my sexuality or swept it under the rug. Sure, at fourteen, the hand-me-down jeans I wore to sneak into Cruel Intentions were forced to accommodate a boner anytime Ryan Phillippe showed up on screen, but I was able to convince myself that I was straight. By nineteen, I was having much more trouble convincing myself. Side note: I know I’m gay because I was able to spell Phillippe right on one try, while accommodate took me three tries.

The anxiety started when I realized I would either have to come out of the closet or live a life of lies. As I bought myself time, the anxiety started to manifest in physical symptoms. My skin began to break out, my blood would itch, I couldn’t catch my breath, and panic attacks started becoming more and more frequent. Eventually, I made an appointment with my primary care doctor when a skin rash developed. The doctor checked me out, asked me just a few basic questions, did some blood work, recommended a therapist that I did not see, and diagnosed me with anxiety before I left the exam room. He prescribed me some pharmaceuticals and sent me on my way.

By the time I turned twenty-one, I thought I had the anxiety under control. At twenty-two, I officially came out of the closet to friends and family, and I assumed my struggles were over. I would get the occasional panic attack, which I learned to treat with a low dose of Xanax, but other than that, I felt in control of my emotions. Spoiler alert: I wasn’t.

January 2015 was when I hit my low point. That’s when depression entered the group chat. I’ve experienced sadness before, but this was something new, and it was unfathomable to me. When people talk about depression, they often use it as an adjective to describe a rough breakup period, or a time of despair. It’s often thrown out into the wild during any old casual conversation…

“I’m sorry, we don’t have french fries, but I can get you a side salad.”

“Ugh, no fries? I’m so depressed.”

I’m guilty myself of throwing it around without meaning it, but I’m here to tell you that depression is so much more than a lack of fries. It’s debilitating.

I think back to that time and I try to put the puzzle pieces together to see the bigger picture of how I got to be the way that I am. I wonder if the depression was always in me, dormant and waiting to say hello, or did a string of events cause some sort of a mental break? I’m still working on figuring all this out, so forgive me if I’m leaving certain things vague. All I know for certain is that 2015 is when my life outlook changed forever, and I’ll never forget the day it all came to a head on my way to, of all places, a theme park.

Leading up to that January, I had some setbacks. I had just lost my grandma and, like I mention in another chapter, I held on to a lot of guilt about not seeing her toward the end of her life. I was also struggling to find work and was leaning toward giving up chasing my dreams. Nothing was working for me professionally, and top of all of that, I was also twenty-fucking-eight, which I read is a historically difficult year to go through. Regardless of this (Lemony Snicket) series of unfortunate events, I suddenly found myself struggling in a way I wasn’t prepared or equipped for.

A wave of sadness came over me, and the world seemed a little darker. I felt alone. I wasn’t actually alone, mind you. My immediate family lived in Ohio and I resided in California, but they were always a phone call away, and I had really wonderful friends and a boyfriend who loved me within walking distance. Unfortunately, when I would think about those friends or family that loved me, the depression would morph my memories of those people into graphic novel–style villains. In reality, they were still in my corner, but the depression manifested itself into hallucinations. I couldn’t see the kindness in my best friends’ eyes, I couldn’t believe the support that came from my boyfriend, and my parents looked like monsters to me, even just in memory. It might sound like I’m being metaphorical, but in my case, I would close my eyes and when I would think of or picture those people closest to me, the depression would visualize them in a different way than I had ever thought of them before. Even the memory of my dear grandma would be completely distorted. I knew they were all there for me, but the disease convinced me otherwise. Depression doesn’t want you to see good, it wants you to see the world as a dark and scary place, a place you no longer want to be a part of, and those feelings snowball. Depression is like a tiny dark cell in your body that multiplies faster than you can catch it.

Initially I didn’t even want to get out of bed, struggling even to make it to the shower every day. There would be days in a row where I wouldn’t leave my bed. When I started to notice this negativity sweep my body, I did everything I could to fight it off. I worked out harder, I meditated longer, drank herbal tea. Sounds silly, but if I had even once heard something was “good for mental health,” I would try it. I was fortunate enough to have the resources to do these things, but they weren’t a cure-all. Regardless, it was too little, too late (#Justice4Jojo). The cell had multiplied, and I couldn’t control it anymore. That was when I realized I had to learn to understand the depression so I could live with it.

I noticed around that time that I was also scared of the way my mind was working. I was self-aware enough to know that I wasn’t well but unsure of how to go about helping the cause outside of those commonly known tools like journaling or acupuncture. This fear caused me to want to stay exclusively in what I call my safety zones, or places I was familiar with: my home, my gym, my grocery store. If I traveled outside those safety zones, I was in a constant state of panic that I would somehow crumble to dust. The anxiety was now working in conjunction with the depression…two pieces of shit doing everything they could to ruin my life.

When I finally admitted I had a problem, I told my boyfriend, who thought it would be a good idea to go to Disneyland. Lol. We live close by and that, in the moment, seemed like a great place to be to fight off the feelings inside. Maybe forced happiness isn’t the best idea when you’re at a low point, but whatever, they have chocolate-covered peanut butter balls you can buy at Pooh’s Corner, and I was desperate, so we hopped in a car and made our way to Anaheim to see Mickey Mouse. About ten minutes into the car ride, I began worrying about being away from those safety zones I told you about.

I looked out the window as we were driving, and my eyes were seeing the other vehicles on the road smashing into us and driving off the freeway to a free fall. I looked over at my boyfriend for some comfort, and he looked evil to me. More hallucinations. Remember in Batman Begins when Scarecrow sprays that fear gas and suddenly Batman’s face morphs into a crazy, claylike shape? That’s what I was seeing, minus a supporting turn from Katie Holmes. Just writing about it still makes me feel uneasy. I had never heard of this type of symptom before! My imagination saw darkness where there was light, and once these thoughts came into my head, I couldn’t stop them. I was self-aware enough to know that the cars weren’t actually driving themselves off the freeway and that my boyfriend loved me more than anything, but that’s what I was seeing. Crashing, one by one. Evil all around me. And knowing what you’re seeing is not reality can cause a lot of hysteria. My breath got heavy and fast, and I felt my chest collapsing while I rode passenger. If you’ve never experienced a panic attack, I hope you never do. It’s sort of like when you stand up too quickly and your line of vision gets blurry, but you also can’t catch your breath and it feels like you’re dying. THEY ARE NOT FUN. I tried everything to stop the thoughts and slow down my breathing. I put headphones in my ears and did a ten-minute guided meditation on my iPhone, which calmed me down enough to not feel like I was going to drop dead on the spot.

My boyfriend pulled into a gas station and got out of the car. I can’t remember if I told him to get out so I could have some space or if he just did it instinctively. All I could do in that moment was focus on my breathing and let one inhale lead me to the next exhale. “Deep breath in. Hold it. Breathe out,” I said to myself. Repeat. “Deep breath in. Hold it. Breathe out.” I continued this until my heart rate steadied. One time I read that a normal resting heart rate is 60 to 100 beats per minute in adults, so when my heart is racing, I say, “Fifty-nine BPM,” over and over to myself. I’m not even sure it’s medically accurate, but I visualize my heart beating just a hair slower than average, and when I calm down enough to feel like I hit 59 beats per minute, I can move forward. I don’t actually measure my heart rate, although I should, I simply use it as a mantra to calm me down. Something to focus my thoughts and clear the swirling vortex of thoughts in my head.

At around 59 beats per minute, my boyfriend got back into the driver’s seat and we made the ridiculous decision to continue our drive to Disney. LOL again. I wanted to go home, but I pushed through because he was doing this for me, and we were closer to the park than we were to home. Did I mention I’m not great at decision-making? Once we entered the grounds, I put on the happy face that was expected of me, but beneath the surface, I was in a living hell. There’s a picture of me at the park from that day, in front of the big, magic castle, smiling in my DuckTales shirt next to my loving boyfriend. Anyone would look at it and think I was having the time of my life, but when I see it, I remember the pain and fear that existed behind my eyes. I remember the hallucinations and the panicked breath of the drive to Disney. It was like that movie Inside Out, only my little cartoon emotions were running around headquarters like chickens with their heads cut off, all the while sirens are blaring.

Early on in the visit, my boyfriend excused himself to the restroom and I cried to myself, wondering how I would make it through the rest of the day he planned. I was both scared and sad. An older woman saw me crying as she waited for her husband to finish up in the restroom, and she asked if I was okay. I put my sunglasses on and told her I was just so happy to be there. I pretended the tears were of joy, and I got away with it because she didn’t know the difference between my sad eyes and my happy ones. There are only a handful of friends I’ve had in my life for years, and they know my looks so well that they would’ve probably known how I felt before I knew how I felt. That’s the beauty of a long-term friend. I somehow tricked everyone into thinking I was having a good time that day, even the camera, but inside I couldn’t wait to get home, back to my safety zone.

Later on in the day, I excused myself to the restroom, where I locked the door and forced myself to throw up as a way to control emotions that were uncontrollable. The only other time I felt semi-normal was when we rode on Space Mountain, a roller coaster that is superfast and mostly in the dark. I normally hate rides, but something about the speed and lights off made it feel like the outside world was catching up with the way I felt on the inside. As soon as it was over, the tiny relief wore off. Nothing else I did helped, not the corn dog I usually find so satisfying and not a wave from Goofy himself. The pain that day was so strong on the inside that despite the beauty around me, I simply no longer wanted to live inside my body.

I hit my low. People who suffer from migraines often get something called postdrome that happens after the main migraine, kind of like a migraine hangover. I think of that theme park visit as my low point, but the trauma lingered. The immobilizing darkness and hallucinations lasted about a month longer. I wasn’t healed after that month, but I was starting to notice some changes in my mood.

This all led me to (finally) seeing a therapist, which was the final piece of the puzzle on my road to recovery. I should’ve done it sooner. She taught me that those thoughts I was having on the way to Disneyland of the cars on the freeway were the depression trying to normalize suicide. Up until then, I thought my depression wasn’t bad because I didn’t ever explicitly think of killing myself. I figured the feeling of not wanting to live was somehow unrelated because I hadn’t thought about explicitly inflicting pain upon myself. Turns out, it all just looked a little different than what I expected. In a weird way, I was trying to cover. I convinced myself that suicide never entered the picture, even though deep down, I knew that it did. Sometimes our bodies and minds try to protect us by making us forget our own stories. Plus, depression is able to twist realities in ways you could never anticipate. Ever since that trip to Disneyland, I’ve spent so much time learning about my brain and doing everything I can to keep that rain cloud away from me, and it hasn’t stopped coming, but it comes less frequently. Sometimes I can keep it in check holistically, and other times I need a boost from prescribed medication.

Detour

The previously mentioned Queen Kelly Clarkson has a song for everything. I mentioned “Dark Side,” but she also has hits like “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You),” and “Invincible,” and “Piece by Piece,” and countless others to help someone when they’re down. Her discography is inspirational bop after inspirational bop, alongside a steady stream of angry breakup tracks, grocery store anthems, and gorgeous ballads. One of the lesser-known non-singles is a song called “The Sun Will Rise.” It’s not quite the earworm that something like “Since You’ve Been Gone” is, but it’s a cheesy midtempo bop that I play when I need some inspiration. She sings alongside Kara DioGuardi, and the lyrics move me every time. Even if you don’t like the music, you might be able to appreciate the beautiful words.

Just like a longtime lover, the dark times don’t come as frequently as they once did, but they still come. I’ve accepted that depression and anxiety will always live inside of me. However, I now have the tools to cohabit. Anyone who comes into my life, for the rest of my life, will also have to reconcile with the demons that forever reside in my home. When I close my eyes and only see dark clouds, that depression monster, I remind myself that blue skies are beyond those rain clouds and a light will shine again. I’ve pushed them away before, and I’ll just have to keep doing it again, and again, and again, and again, and…

I can keep going because I know the sun will rise even when the dark of night feels tangled in time. The sun will always rise.