The Void

Some days it was just too hard to get up and face the day. I would stay in bed with my eyes closed hoping it would all go away. The constant lump in my throat, the tears poised just waiting, the desperate sadness. Nothing could break through the fog of misery I lived in following my breakdown.

And then came the pills.

In truth the medications didn't break through the misery but rather they suppressed it. Suppressed everything. Eventually, when my health care professionals (don't get me started on what I think of them using the words "health care" in describing what they do) decided they had me on the right blend of chemicals to "fix" my faulty brain, I became a blank page. I didn't feel miserable anymore. I didn't feel anything most of the time. Sometimes the anger broke through but I had a pill for that! Mostly I felt numb. Not miserable or depressed but also not happy, excited or enthusiastic, not anything much at all, good or bad.

Within the void I didn't care enough about my life, my family and friends, to try to resolve anything. And so bit by bit my life fell apart around me. I distanced myself from my friends and family. I did as little as possible with my son and I fed my marriage of 10 years to the dogs. In my mind it was over. Instead of working to resolve our problems I was willing to throw it all away. And we came close, extremely close, to the point of no return.

At some point I started to question the medications I was taking. But nobody was interested in helping me get off them. Not until I went to my GP with the ultimatum "either you help me get off this stuff or I'll do it on my own". I think he saw how determined I was and so agreed to help me. It wasn't an easy or quick thing to do but once I was off all of them I actually began to care about what was happening to my world.

I started to doubt the path I was on. I wanted to save my family if it was possible. I didn't want my son to miss out on seeing his dad. I didn't want to put him on a plane once or twice a year to visit and go through the trauma of constant goodbyes. And I didn't want to be alone.