Content Warning: Depression, Suicide Mention
I was in Central Park the other day, accompanied by the love of my life, traversing the soft grass and tree-held evening sun-rays, and I realized that the anniversary of my termination had passed me by without notice. This four-year mark, March 8th, had traditionally been a time of negative reflection for me, a date upon which my depression would pin me down and scream its wordless obscenities into my self. But now, as I was enjoying a beautiful evening with an even more beautiful person, I realized that I had completely missed the date, and that its significance had quietly evaporated.
I distinctly remember the immediate aftermath of my termination on March 8th, 2019. After spending the weekend with my parents, I returned to my apartment in Kalamazoo, initiating a search for a new job. Depression, freshly validated by the termination, had taken over me completely. My mind and movements slowed to a crawl, and my thoughts withered within the fragmented time.
The Monday after, March 11th, I was in the local coffee shop with my laptop, with the intent of applying to a massive amount of jobs. I half-heartedly applied to a handful before my half-heart disappeared, submerged within the waves of self-hatred crashing against me. I sat there, sipping the last dregs of my latte, quietly drowning amongst the rustic tables and overhead lo-fi soundtrack. Eventually, I packed up, got back into the Coitus Carriage, and drove home, the weather harmonizing to my pain with cold rain, dark clouds, and blowing winds.
This existence continued for a majority for that year. Eventually I found a job, a temporary position at a fiber manufacturer, but that naturally ended after a couple of blissful summer months. Once September came around, I started seeing a therapist, as my search for a job became increasingly impossible, mired by the self-hatred and insufficiency that enveloped my existence.
It was then, in November of 2019, when my mental health had reached its lowest point. A long-standing job interview, complete with multiple rounds of different interviews across the city of East Lansing, sent me an automated rejection letter, a dispassionate rejection after a long month of polite conversation and suffocating suits. I had, in my fractured mental health state, placed a large yoke of expectations upon this interview, weighing it down with the impossible task of somehow healing me, validating me as employable at the very least.
After receiving this aggressively passive rejection letter, I distinctly remember facing two choices, as my depression consumed me entirely, and I began drowning within its dark waters with a superlative intensity. I looked at my phone and at my bottle of amitriptyline. As I continued to drown, my options shrank to these two, to either call my therapist, or to never feel anything ever again, to take the ultimate exit from my physical and mental pain. For reasons that are still somewhat unclear to me, I took the former option, calling my therapist and telling her that I had hit rock-bottom, lying upon the sandy sea-floor in the ocean of depression, with little hope that I could resurface. She made me an appointment for the morning on the next day, which I kept, and we began working on my swimming techniques, discovering ways in which I could escape the dark saltwater, to ascend out of this quagmire of self-hatred.
Now, about three-and-a-half years later, I am walking in Central Park, holding hands with the love of my life, building a life with her in the City That Never Sleeps But Does Take The Occasional Siesta. My mental health, under which I still suffer, has never come close to the absolute depths of November 2019. I remain eternally grateful to my past self for choosing the former option, for seeking help as opposed to taking the ultimate option. Here, in the golden rays of city-sun, in the arms of my wonderful girlfriend, I am determined and excited to live a full life, my regrets melting away and leaving a passionate enthusiasm for the future. This is healing, this is progress, this is me no longer regarding March 8th with the significance of a suffering mental state. I have ascended, and I believe I will continue to rise above that which haunts me, and live not just for the people who love me, but for myself as well.
This is so heartbreaking to read. I am eternally grateful that you made the decision to call your therapist. I love you so very much. Always.