I chose life

Writing seems to come easier to me when I am “up”, or happy, or angry, or defiant. Anything, but sad. And the last few weeks have been sad, although I would not be able to tell you quite why. The past few months have been spent trying to find ways of filling my days.

In a way it is easier to gain acceptance when you are crazy. When I was at the height of my depression and suicidality, all that people expected of me was to stay alive. I did not have to perform well at school, in fact, I did not have to attend school at all. I did not have to look for a job and I did not have to have a plan for the future. All that people wanted from me was to not kill myself. And seeing as I am sitting here writing, I succeeded.

But in a way it is almost harder to gain social acceptance now. People are okay with you not having a life when you are experiencing mental illness. But now that I am doing better and appear “cured” to the outside world, I can feel the pressure to be “normal”. To study, to have a job, to have a career, to have kids, to at least have some sort of a life plan. And every month that I stay home, not studying, not working, not being pregnant, I feel more and more inadequate. Almost wishing I could go back to being depressed and hurting myself, so that people would say “good on you for still even being here”.

It is not that I have not tried. I have attempted to find work as a nanny or babysitter. I have tried to fall pregnant, so that people would be okay with me staying home full-time and I have explored study options, but it all seemed too overwhelming. So instead I spent the last few months at home, sometimes only leaving the house to see Jay.

But somehow, between Jay, my husband and my close friends, I pulled through, and when I found out I was still not pregnant after almost a year of trying to conceive, I chose to explore other options for next year.

After a lot of talking and thinking, I decided to apply for the Diploma in Counselling – Children & Young People. I received the application pack last week and I have started gathering all the required documents and references. If everything goes well, I will hand in my application this Friday and I will then have to wait to be called for an interview.

But there was one thing nagging at the back of my mind. The contents of the bottom drawer of my nightstand. In that drawer was at least four years of careful collecting, stashed safely in empty coffee jars. My emergency exit, should I feel the need to.

In those coffee jars were 401 capsules of Efexor (an antidepressant), 268 pills of Quetiapine (an antipsychotic), 31 pills of Amitriptylene (a highly toxic trycyclic antidepressant) and a whole assortment of other antidepressants and tranquilizers.

Like a true borderliner, I was a master at manipulation. I knew just which symptoms to fake, what stories to tell, how long to wait before asking for something stronger as the current drugs were not working. I knew how to walk in to a doctor’s surgery, telling him I was new in town and looking for a new GP, but that I would like an introduction consult first, before enrolling in his practice (which of course, I never ended up doing). You would be surprised how many GPs are willing to prescribe you powerful psychiatric drugs, without knowing any of your mental health history and without having looked in your file, as long as you play the part of depressed young female well.

And even though I had not added pills to my stockpile for over a year, I found it almost impossible to part with my security blanket.

This posed a moral dilemma for me. How could I sign up for a Counselling course, while still holding on to my self-destructive past? How can I encourage young people while I refuse to let go of my emergency exit?

And I am aware that no-one at my course would know I have all these pills at home and there is no reason why anyone should ever find out. But I would know. And the closer I got to finishing my application forms, the more deceitful I felt.

Jay is very aware of my stockpile. But he has never pushed the issue. Every once in a while he might bring up that subject, but for the most part he leaves it up to me. Over the last four years he has said a few times he would like me to get to a point where I feel I can give my pills to him, or hand them over at a pharmacy.

And over the last week I have slowly come to the decision that it is time. That I am ready for a new chapter in my life and that that also means I will have to give up hanging on to this emergency exit. Because I have not been truly suicidal for years, yet knowing I had a way out, should I want to, felt comforting. But it is no longer needed as I chose life.

I chose life when returning to school two years ago. I chose life when I said “I do” to my husband. I chose life when we decided to start trying for a baby.

I chose life.

So on Monday night I gathered every stashed pill bottle in the house and emptied them all on the living room floor. As I saw my four years of hard work and hundreds of dollars spent on prescription fees and doctor’s visits, I felt sad.

I felt sad for the young girl that once felt so hopeless she thought she would never live to see 21. I felt sad for the young woman that felt so powerless that the only times she felt in control was when she was conning the medical profession into prescribing her drugs that she never planned on taking. I felt sad for the young wife that, despite her great life, still felt she had to hang on to her carefully collected stockpile of pills.

After reminiscing for a while and taking one last photo of my stash, I put them all in a bag, ready to take in to Jay the next morning.

As I made the one hour drive to Jay’s house in early morning traffic, I went back and forth between feeling ready to hand my pills over to him, and being very aware that once I do that, there is no going back. It would take years and years to get prescriptions for all those drugs.

I think Jay was pleasantly surprised by my gesture. We had not discussed my stockpile for months, so he had not expected this. As the session wore on we explored what my stockpile meant to me, symbolically. How this really feels like a new chapter in my life. This was also the first time I heard Jay express real concern about my stash of pills. That there had been a few times where he had been really worried about my safety, as I had left his office crying or stomping my feet. He knew I was not suicidal anymore, but he was scared what harm I might do to myself on impulse. I had never really considered this. That I might cause someone I care about worry or concern by hanging on to my security blanket.

I held on to my pills until the last possible moment. As I got ready to leave at the end of the session, I finally handed Jay my full bag of pills. He thanked me.

As I walked out, I felt a tiny twinge of regret. There was no going back now. I spent my drive home in silence, not wanting to hear the happy chatter of the radio. I felt slightly more grown-up. I felt like I was slowly letting go of that rebellious, defiant and deeply unhappy teenage girl.

And coincidentally, a few hours after my session with Jay, I got a call back from a lady who interviewed me for a position as an after school care program supervisor. It is a new program, with only five kids at present, but they are hoping to get more children in soon. The lady told me she called to offer me the job. She said that as soon as I had left after my interview, the kids had run up to her to tell her to pick me, because they liked me best. I accepted the job with a huge grin on my face and I will be starting next month.

It was as if the universe understood how hard letting go is for me and that in return I now have a part-time job, doing what I love best, working with children.

Yes, I choose life.

Thank you for reading.

Yours truly,

GI