...outpatient knee surgery was worse.
When you're a teen still living at home and have any type of sickness, ailment, surgery, etc, you don't have to worry about rent or food or pets or a job. You have your parents there to help you in every aspect. As a 26-year old enrolled in an intensive master's program, with an internship, a part time job, a pet, a boyfriend and occasionally friends, you find yourself with a lot that has to be handled or put on hold to have a surgical procedure.
Almost two weeks ago I had my meniscus and my ACL repaired. I was blessed to be able to stay with my parents and call their cellphone at 3:00 am when I needed help going to the bathroom or have them help me bathe. The week was mentally and physically challenging as they are staying in a house where my bedroom was up a flight of stairs. I often repeated "Super Mary! Super Mary!" (I blame the pain meds) to encourage myself as I grunted along every painful step and even more often could be found calling for a parent to help me with what seemed like every task. It was a tough week but I made it.
I had no idea that the second week would be the worse...
Sunday evening I found myself in my apartment alone and Monday morning I woke up feeling the most lonely and hopeless I have ever felt.
As a future clinical Social Worker, I am well versed in the signs and symptoms of depression. At my current internship, I work mostly with patients who are living through depression, anxiety or some cruel mixture of both. I've found myself several times dishing out coping skills to deal with these symptoms and am embarrassed to say that I've found myself on more than one occasion thinking "well I'd be depressed if I was in my pajamas all day, why don't they just take a shower and go outside?".
At the beginning of this week, my Dad challenged me to ask the Lord what He wanted to speak to me during this time. Here's what I know: I hope to never have more empathy for those with depression than I have this past week. Maybe I'm being melodramatically (c'mon we know I usually am!), but this week has been one of the darkest I have ever experienced and I've had to walk through several dark experiences in my life.
When Monday morning hit, I couldn't get out of bed. I was frustrated because my mind wanted to get up and go to class and resume activities but my body just couldn't. I was lonely because I had to struggle to fill my ice machine for my leg and it hurt to stand long enough to prepare myself something to eat. I felt like a failure because I realized that I came back to be by myself too soon, I should have stayed another week and let me parents continue to help me. But I wanted to come back and now I didn't want to admit that I had made a mistake, that I wasn't yet at a place to take care of myself. My best friend brought me lunch on Monday, despite not feeling like having company at all, which is highly unlike me.
Sunday evening, Monday and Tuesday are like a dark blur to me now. I felt so incredibly hopeless. After exhausting almost every penny to my name to pay towards the surgery and cover my rent for the month, I was left with barely a penny to my name and a broken down car. I felt like I would never recover because even when my knee healed, how would I have transportation? How would I go to my job or internship? Where would I find the motivation to finish the semester?
During these dark couple of days I had no appetite, I slept a great majority of the day and had no desire to leave the house. I felt incredible hopeless. I could tell that my boyfriend, Robbie could see it on my face and that my parents could hear it in my voice that I was slipping away into a dark place.
Eventually, I crawled out of bed and decided to go back to stay with my parents. I'm so grateful for a boyfriend and parents who dropped everything to get me back into a healthy place. It took me a couple days in a loving home with sunshine and homecooked meals to emerge from this terrible funk but as I emerged, I gained some valuable nuggets to take into clinical Social Work with me.
Through fire I had to put into practice coping skills that were realistic not only for a client but for me. I began to understand how much energy it takes to even get up off the couch when depression is on your shoulders and just how much of a challenge eating or stepping outside becomes. I am blessed that my episode has an ending as I will eventually fully recover, somehow I'll have transportation again and life will continue but many that suffer depression are plagued with this true illness.
Depression is an illness.
I hope to never have days like this week but I'm grateful to have the opportunity to laugh at some of the coping skills that we learn in the classroom that would never be feasible for someone battling this disease. I'm also grateful to crawl through the coping skills that actually work.
I don't know how everything will work out after all this dust settles, but I'm grateful for a best friend, a roommate, a boyfriend and parents who reached into the pit and encouraged me to get out.
I may not have a cent to my name or a running vehicle, but I have people who love me and a Creator who died for me. I'm going to be ok.
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