I haven't written much this year.
I haven't been well.
Part of the subtitle of my blog is "confessions," right? So here's my confession to you: I'm clinically depressed. And I'm frustrated at myself. Because I feel like I have no right to be depressed. I'm privileged. I'm loved. I'm intelligent. I've got a lot going for me.
But, this semester, it's gotten to a point where I feel entirely out of control.
I'm not eating well and have lost weight. I am still sleeping, fortunately--it's been my one constant escape. In fact, when the doctors have asked me if I'm having suicidal thoughts, I've told them no, but all I want to do is continually drug myself and sleep. Because when I start sinking into that blissful unconsciousness, I don't have to think. I can let the sleep make my mind a blank, at least for a little while. But, of course, you have to wake up sometime. And it's as painful coming out of unconsciousness as it is blissful sinking into it.
I've stopped caring about things that used to matter to me. My school work. Organization. Cleanliness. Order. The dishes in a pile in my sink. The 18 page history research paper with the due date that kept looming. Learning my lines for the production I was in. Some days it was all I could do to swing my legs out of that bed and onto the floor.
Perhaps it's not so much that I haven't cared. Because I saw the dishes piling up and the approaching due date for my paper and I whimpered. But I haven't been able to bring myself to do anything. I've been paralyzed.
It's terrifying. Because I'm a rather articulate person who can sit here and write to you all my symptoms and tell you what's wrong and what's not getting done and what I should be doing and even the steps I need to take to get them done but I can't do them. It's distressing and terrifying and disorienting. Because this is so unlike me. The Type A, do-it-all, on-top-of-things, over-achiever. I don't know who this person is anymore.
And that is why I'm taking a Gap Year.
To go home, rest, get well, get some help, and re-learn how to function.
I want to work a simple job that I don't have to think about after I clock out. Go home and curl up on the couch between my parents when they watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune in the evenings. Be able to go to family get-togethers and cookouts and birthday parties and visit my grandparents on sunny afternoons. Read dozens of books I've always wanted to read and put together puzzles and work on projects around the house. Dig my sewing machine out of its box and learn some new tricks and maybe make a few things. Hang out with friends over coffee and lunches and drinks. Learn how to cook and bake some new things. Wear pretty blue dresses and savor mom's pot roast after church on Sundays. Maybe start writing that novel to be finished someday when I've got just a little more life behind me. Maybe even get a jump-start on the MLitt thesis I hope to turn in, eventually.
And maybe, just maybe, tackle some of the BIG QUESTIONS. When I feel up to it. But have some breathing room in which to do it.
And the plan is, in a year, after some rest and regaining some stability, I'll come back and try to give the rest of my Master's degree a shot.
Someone stronger than me might stick it out and get through it and be a better person for it. But this is me. And I'm small. And, lately, I feel just a little too fragile to get through the day. And I love and miss my family more than even the lump in my throat can testify, most days. What's right for one person isn't right for everyone. And whether or not it's "right," this is my decision. For now. None of us knows where our lives are going. We can only take the steps that we feel are best in this moment. That's the why. I'll be home soon.
