Day Twenty-eight: Adrenaline

Note: This is a continuation of a 2-part entry and is a continuation of my story. Please click here for part one. To read the entire 31 Days series, just click on the tab above to access the index page for the series or click here to go straight to Day One.

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The next day I awaken and the dark fog is still there. The emotional anguish is still very present and this despite Gray having stayed home from work to make sure I am safe and his allowing me to sleep in as late as I like. I just don't want to endure this anymore. I fight with this darkness all day long while the big girls are at school and when Gray goes to pick them up from school, it is all I can do to not get in the other car and leave. Instead, I lay in our bed and go back to sleep. Pendragon calls, as promised, a little while after the girls are in from school. I tell him that I am still struggling with suicidal thoughts and urges and I just don't want to do this anymore. We have an appointment the next evening and he asks if I think I will be okay until then. I answer honestly that I don't really know, but maybe. I tell him that I am still struggling with wanting to leave but that I'm fighting it. He asks if I think I need to see him this evening instead of waiting until our appointment. Even though good sense would say, yes, I do need it, I find myself telling him that I will wait. I am not thinking clearly or I would have been more honest with him, but I don't even realise how bad it is.

I fall back asleep after talking to him and Gray wakes me up around dinner time, wanting to know if I am hungry. I tell him no and he says okay, that's fine and says not to worry about getting up, to just rest. Something in my face must speak to how completely exhausted I feel even though I have been asleep on and off most of the day. I lay there, drowsing and waking and after a while, decide to get up for a little bit. Gray and the girls have finished dinner and are getting ready for bedtime prayers. I join them for prayers and help Gray get them tucked into bed with kisses and hugs all around. After this, I go back into our bedroom and sit down on the bed and sigh, my emotions so taut that I am on the verge of tears. 

These thoughts of just wanting to end this once and for all are tormenting me and I cannot seem to break their stranglehold on my brain and I feel so weak that I have no energy for fighting it. The fog that has been choking me and keeping me so deeply immersed in this dark and lethal place is just as heavy as it was when I left home yesterday evening, intent on ending my life. As I sit there, I suddenly know that I cannot fight it any more. Gray tries to talk to me but I ignore him and go into our bathroom, contemplating my next move. I don't have any means to accomplish the task but I could easily procure some once I leave. I decide that I will get dressed and just leave. No goodbyes. No hugs. No kisses. Just leave and do this thing. I am numb to all rational thought and in such intense pain that it is blinding me to seeing anything but suicide as a way out of this pain.

I come out of the bathroom and grab my bra and clothes to get dressed. I put them on before Gray fully realises what I am doing and I am walking down the hall and downstairs when I hear him behind me. I grab my purse and keys and am almost to the front door when I hear a loud sob from behind me and I turn to see Gray standing there in tears. He is beside himself and I am angry. Why won't he just let me go? Just let me end this once and for all? Can't he see how much this hurts me? He begs me, "Don't go. Please..." and I tell him that I can't do this anymore, that I just want to die and that he would be so much better off without me. It is all the things that I have said for months every time I have been feeling pulled to this place and all of them spill out of my mouth like so much water through a dam.

I am crying from pain, frustration, and anger and I just want him to let me go already, but in one swift move he grabs our swivel office chair, positions it in front of the door and sits down in it, blocking my path. He is crying and in misery, trying to keep me here and knowing that I don't want it. My anger bursts into full bloom and stokes his frustrations and worry and anger. Before we can stop ourselves, intensely heated words fly back and forth and he wounds me so deeply with his words that my anger grows and suddenly I find myself hurling things across the room at him -- a TV remote, one of the big girls' shoes, a couch pillow, a package of diapers that happens to be sitting near my feet. I knock over GB's little jumperoo which twangs and whistles and makes monkey noises in response to the motion. Something in hearing those noises deflates the white hot anger in my chest and I sink into the sofa and start sobbing and saying, "I'm sorry, I'm so so so sorry...." over and over and over again because it is all I can think of to say. He is sobbing and soon crosses the room to sit beside me and we hold each other and cry and apologize for all the words and I apologize for throwing things at him.

Once both of our tears subside, we talk for quite a long time and I realise that the heavy blinding fog that held me so captive has finally dissipated. I tell him that I think something about getting so completely angry is what finally woke me up and shook it loose from my brain. It is, I say, a bit like a person whose heart has stopped receiving a shot of adrenaline or a shock from a defibrillator. Gray comments that I probably had a fair amount of natural adrenaline running through me in the heat of the moment. As he says this, I realise that I am shaking a bit and I tell him this and agree that he's probably right. He pulls me close and we sit like that for a long time, talking and then kissing and making up. The making up goes on a bit longer behind closed doors and the both of us fall into an exhausted slumber, holding one another close as we slip into sleep. It is the first time in many months that I have fallen asleep so easily and had a night where my dreams were benign and actually allowed me to get good rest.

The next morning I wake up in the exact same position I fell asleep in which is so unusual that I wonder if I moved at all in the night. I actually feel somewhat rested and not as totally wrecked as I normally do. Gray gets ready and leaves for work with my assurance that whatever was pulling me down so low is nowhere to be found today and that I got decent rest last night and actually feel a tiny bit more like myself. I also remind him that it is my normal appointment day with Pendragon, so I will have the opportunity to bring to light whatever vestiges of darkness that are still lurking and which may make themselves known as the day goes on. I promise him that if I need him, if things start to get bad, that I will call him. He tells me that he is trusting me to keep that promise and I appreciate that trust, even if I don't feel as though I deserve it. With one more kiss for GB and one for me, he heads out the door to work and the little bear and I are alone.

In the days that come after this, I begin to wonder how many more of these visits to the edge I can endure before my will to keep going is weakened to the point that it breaks and I step over the edge. Although in the past, I would have kept this to myself, I actually give voice to this fear when talking with Pendragon and Gray and Chez as well. I mention this to our parish priest when I go to confession one Saturday afternoon and he reminds me of a prayer I have said probably thousands of times in my life -- the Our Father. He counsels me to recall and meditate upon the part of the prayer that says, "give us this day, our daily bread." It does not say "give us bread for every day in the future" or "assure us that bread is forthcoming forever." It is a statement of trust that God will provide not only for our physical needs (like "bread") but that He will provide the grace we need each day to live our lives and follow Him. These words are hard for me to hear and harder still for me to apply, but Father K gives me the task of both earnestly praying the entirety of the Our Father and reflecting and meditating on this particular phrase as my penance. It is a hard thing to do, but out of obedience to Christ and in submission to the authority of His Church, I do it.

I would like to say that this is a miraculous salve that heals all my woundedness or that it creates some deep peace within me that quells my anger with God, causes me to be aware of His presence once more, and restores the joy of my salvation, but it doesn't. It does stick with me though and I think of it many times in the days and weeks that follow. Sometimes it comes to me when I am standing at that edge and helps pull me back again, sometimes it makes me want to hurl myself over the edge all the more, but somehow, with all my mixed up, muddled feelings about God, it stays with me and perhaps, for now, that is enough.