Was oddly enough the best day of my life.
It was the day I woke up exhausted from being in the hospital the night before. I almost gave up on myself. I almost ended the pain I was causing myself to feel. I almost left my daughter without a mother.
As I laid there in that cold hospital bed with my sister and best friend sleeping on the stiff chairs next to me, and seeing the nurse who was in charge of sitting in the room with me for the exhausting eight hours to monitor my every move, I realized it was time for me to get my shit together.
It was lab work after lab work, vital signs after vital signs, CT scans, EKG’s, and worst of all, drinking pure dark charcoal. It was asking repeatedly when I could go home because I have a daughter I should be with. Never have I felt so ashamed of myself. Then the questions started running through my head: Why am I here? What led me to this? Why can’t I just go back home? I had made a mistake, a momentary lapse of reasoning which could have led to permanent damage to many of those I love the most, when all I had wanted was to be numb and emotionless. That is when I realized that all the pain I was feeling was temporary and not significant enough to end my life.
When I woke up in my own bed that next afternoon I had never felt so relieved to be alive. All I wanted was to see my little girl and hold her tight in my arms, never letting her go.
That’s the day I tried to live for myself. I decided I wanted to be alive. I decided enough is enough and made some important changes in my life. And guess what? I am so glad I did. Glad I tried. Glad I fought. Because I have never been as happy with myself as I currently am. I finally let all the sadness, doubt, and guilt go. I decided I was going to change my life and I began to realize the only person who could make me happy was myself. It all started with myself.
When it comes to explaining myself I am an open book. I’ll tell you anything you want to know and I am not ashamed of my past. I usually look at everything in a perspective of “lesson-learned.” People often ask me “why are you so depressed? you’re beautiful, young, with a healthy baby girl and a great job.” Well the answer is not that easy to pinpoint or explain. Trust me, if I could I would. The depression is just there for no exact reason. It’s as if I was kidnapped into my own harsh mind while trying to break free. I would constantly lay there in bed wishing I wouldn’t wake up and have to face the day. I constantly hated myself for feeling that way, which would only make the depression worse. Trying to fight off the thoughts of my daughter being better off without me was a horrible battle to fight within myself, considering that being responsible for another human being is supposed to make you want to live. What I dealt with was not easy. So I fought, and must continue to fight, with the terrible thoughts in my mind.
I have never realized how much mental health is as important as psychical health until I had to experience what I experienced, when I felt what I was feeling everyday. I had been forcing myself to smile when all I wanted to do was cry. I had to find out for myself and now I am celebrating life.
If you’re feeling like you can’t escape the darkness in your head, please get help you need for yourself. Fight the battles you need to fight. Because you are worth it. Keep your head high and keep going.
Love, Krystie.
