Entry 33: Down

I'd been surrounded by depressed family members my entire life, including a bipolar stepmother and sister. My father had also suffered through a depressive episode after a bad business deal left him bankrupt, forced to remortgage our family home. In spite of Mom suffering mental illness herself, she'd not been sympathetic, as he sat in the corner of the living room, unable to lift himself from the recliner.

Somehow, I'd been spared the depressive gene, and I was grateful. Sure, I'd experienced a few down days due to boys, hormones and problems at home, but it wasn't the type of down that made me sob for days, unable to function in day to day life. But then Mom died, and suddenly I couldn't cope, and "down" turned to depressive, and depressive to a mental breakdown that took almost a year to recover from.

As for losing Dad, I was okay until I wasn't. I'd stayed strong through that loss, but it hadn't been the only one, and now I had time to reflect and mourn... and feel sorry for myself. I'd gone from being down to depressed, and I couldn't seem to fully pick myself up. It scared me feeling this way again, but I knew that I could fight it and eventually win, it was just going to take time.

“Time heals,” I’d been told over and over after Mom died. I’d scoffed at such a cliché line, but now it resonated with me on a much deeper level. That was all I could do—let time carry me through the pain until it lessened. And as for all the memories, I had to trust that time would eventually allow me to look back on them without the ache of what could have been. Time had rescued me before, and it would again.