I am finally back to the place where I am able to write. This is a little backstory on my absence.
On Wednesday, September 2nd, my mom was taken by ambulance to the hospital. The initial tests cleared her to go home but one of the ER doctors listened to my mom’s insistence that there was something wrong. Turns out my mom had had a heart attack at some point and more extensive tests resulted in the placement of a stent. When she was released the following Monday I stayed with her pretty much around the clock until the weekend.
Then I hit a wall. I was not in a place either physically or mentally to put two thoughts together. I felt like I needed to finish what I had gone through a month earlier and not just insert a previously written post to fill the space. But there was such heaviness. I gave myself grace for attending to the things I needed to, but I surely missed working on my blog and the interactions I have because of it.
I am grateful for my many blessings. In this space of time my mom celebrated another birthday, and I, one year without drinking.
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My friend, Kathy, and I usually talk on Wednesday evenings. It started as a sort of hybrid Al-Anon meeting. We’d select readings on topics that addressed our situations. Sometimes we’d dive right in to our issues at hand.
We had only spoken briefly the week prior so that I could get the name of her counselor. I felt too drained to talk that Wednesday.
When I saw her name come across my phone on Tuesday, August 4th, I figured it was important. I was still exhausted but my “need” to feel needed seemed to give me the energy I didn’t have just moments before. (That sounds a bit like a “red” flag. I guess I need to address that line of thinking at some point.) Initially I thought I was doing her a “favor” by answering, when the truth is, she was the one that gave me what I needed. Kathy could tell immediately that there was something wrong.
I shared what had been happening over the past several days and included additional thoughts that had been weighing heavily on me. I had seen coverage of the Lindsay Clancy trial where it was revealed that she had called the suicide hotline. Because she didn't say that she had a “plan” it wasn't deemed appropriate for her to get emergency care. Yet look what happened not so long after.
Because I was in a vulnerable place already, I was obsessing about stories of others who struggled with depression and where it had led some. Would it be the same me for? I wondered if others who had felt despair similar to mine feared telling anyone how deep their pain was before they took the next step and made a plan. I pondered, “What is that line?” What is the “just” before, the “there”, the after?
Part of me wanted to share all of this. I felt like if I said it out loud, it would help me process these terrifying thoughts. I also wondered if sharing this in my blog might name a fear that others could identify with.
I thought about all of the steps that I had taken since April 2025. How the reality of navigating my depression was increasing. That I was learning important lessons from the hard things that I wouldn't have chosen and couldn’t imagine that I could get through but had. Questioning that there couldn’t possibly be more. Yet accepting that the lessons were never going to stop.
My thoughts kept returning to my mom.
I feared what sharing this would do to her. Would it cost her peace of mind if she knew how deeply I hurt and how frightened I was of what might come? What would it cost me? Would I, in essence, create a self-fulfilling prophecy where I couldn’t escape my own words once spoken out loud? I mean I’m not making this stuff up. It is real and it is debilitating but at least at this point, it’s not all of the time. But this sequence of episodes in such a short time held a new kind of burden. And if I put it out there, I mean really shared where my head is, would it help me or make my reality worse?
When Kathy and I hung up that night I had decided that I was going to keep it to myself. I wasn’t ready to take the risk. I would just leave it by sharing what I had learned that Monday in late July in post #28.
Yep. That was what I was going with. That was Tuesday.
(The conclusion will appear on Thursday. This post was already long enough.)
Is there a fear that you haven't named out loud?
#fear #painful #unpredictable
