WARNING: In this post, I talk about some pretty dark thoughts and the loss of a child. If you feel like you need something lighter, I will totally understand. If you feel like you want to feel less alone in feeling guilt, because honestly, you are not alone, read on.
It’s weird. I started this Substack to process all the stuff that is going on in my life that I was scared to tell the people closest to me. Yes. This seems counterintuitive. Think about it like how people are often meanest to the people they are closest to.
Only this time, it is with sharing deep pain. You would assume, or I would assume that I would hide this pain from strangers, people I don’t know, or will never see again. And on the whole feel most comfortable with the people closest to me. But it doesn’t work like that for me. I mean, in some ways it does, with some things, like farting. Are there things that you can’t tell the people closest to you?
It is not their fault. It’s not my fault. I have been conditioned to feel a certain amount of guilt for bringing other people down. But a weird cascade of events has tipped my mind off the tightrope of sanity that it has been resting on. And my therapist said I had to tell someone or check myself into the hospital.
Guilt was something I thought that only religious people, mainly Catholics had. Guilt is feeling bad over an offense. That you did something that you regret and as a result, something negative happened. Guilt is tangled with embarrassment and shame, perhaps starting with blushing, gazing downward, and the habit of biting one’s lower lip. I bite the inside of my mouth, sucking the skin in between my molars, gently swaying back and forth.
“We did the best we could with the information we had at the time,” has been my mantra for the past 3.5 years.
This recent disconnect from reality, my descent, started when my dear friend had a miscarriage in a country where I could do nothing to help her. It was not her fault. My grandparents had to be moved into a home. My husband told me that the reality of life was people die, which is not new news. We disagree on the future we want together, yet still love each other. A co-worker, who I love, expressed some criticism of my actions, and I fell. Down. Into this place that was harder than I remember, though I remind myself frequently how lucky I am when I am not in it.
Depression can be triggered by lots of things. I didn’t realize that the quilt was one of them. As the guilt spiraled into an abyss of longing to end my life, I could only blame myself. My perceived failures, to be there for the people I loved, to take care of these people, became overwhelming and I couldn’t concentrate on anything else.
I knew that other people were judging me. I could feel it. I compared myself to other people and their lives, both good and bad, but both lead to guilt. I could only see the pain of existence, and it had turned everything into a hardship that I had to escape. I knew I had a real problem when I started actively planning to take my life. But then the concern for M - what would happen to my love?
How do you know if the level of guilt you feel is proportionate to your actions or life events? How guilty should one feel? I read an article that in Scotland they are voting to decriminalize drug use. That using drugs is a cry for help - not something that one should feel shame about. I could understand the exquisite pain that would warrant drug use last week.
I am lucky. I am so lucky. I see a psychiatrist every week. When I confessed to her my plans, we made a med adjustment that day. I began taking a super small dose of Seroquel, and it saved my life. I don’t think I am being over dramatic. That morning after the first dose, I floated above my body in bed and felt the first will to get out of it for weeks.
Some people call it magical thinking. That the feeling of having hope, finding joy, locating beauty. I call it delusional thinking. Pain throbs throughout the experience of being alive. It is being alive. And it is a construct. I need delusional thinking, the type of thoughts that tell me that things will be ok. Even though, as my partner put it, “we all die someday.”
We drove past a sign on the way home yesterday that read, “Babies feel pain at 12 weeks.” As we passed, I remembered it would have been the due date of my baby. No one thought to remember. In some ways, I didn’t want to remember. But I did. I miss her.
I remmeber falling into depression around the time when it was my lost babies due date. And I had no idea it was related to that, I had no real legitimate reason, some small things all irrelevant. Later realised that it was that time, and probably related to it.. my body new and reacted 😔 now reading this I thought maybe it’s a thing ?
Thank you for sharing Carissa. Big hug <3