Let's hope for the best

Chapter 41: Rock bottom

The first few weeks after our breakup, were the worst.

The unbearable fear that Theo might not be ok, and the frustration that I couldn't do anything about it.

The repeatedly unfulfilled hope that he would answer my texts, eventually.

The inability to accept the idea that I was never going to see him again.

Or that I was never going to fully understand why.

The guilt for not having noticed that something wasn't right with him, before it was too late.

...

I couldn't eat- I felt my stomach wouldn't take it.

Jasmine, my brother, and my sister, had to check on me constantly.

In around 1 or 2 months, I had lost around 10 kg.

And I was already pretty thin to begin with.

...

I couldn't sleep- my ghosts wouldn't let me.

Eventually, I started seeing a therapist, and I started taking sleeping pills, and anti-depressants.

Lots of 'em.

And finally, I slept.

...

Sometimes, I couldn't simply exist.

It hurt too much.

It was all coming back to me: all my years battling depression.

And now, I thought, dying would be so good. I had nothing to live for anymore, anyway. Everything that I had loved, was gone. Everything that I had hoped for, was no more.

Sometimes I looked at those sleeping pills, and they were so, so compelling.

To just take the whole bottle of them: and my sufferings would be over...

Then, I cried my eyes off; I scratched my legs until they bled, I dug my fingers into my flesh so deep, I tore it off.

I kneeled on the damned carpet, and I scratched the damned sofa, and I screamed, because I did not want to kill myself.

I wanted to, but I didn't want to.

I valued life too much now.

I just wished I could stop feeling the pain.

And then, I called some suicidal-prevention helplines.

I spoke with them for hours, sometimes.

I knew those: I was not a newbie to suicidal thoughts.

I knew a thing or two.

When I eventually felt better, I called Jasmine. Or my sister. Or just, someone.

I talked- I didn't tell them all. Just that I wanted to talk.

And then, when I had come down from it, I got up.

I dried my eyes, and I took a shower.

I slipped on my scrub, and I went to work.

....

And when I work, I'm focused.

I forget my own personal life.

When I work, there is just work.

And in those weeks, work saved me.

It saved my life.

....

And my old friend, the period, had come to visit me again.

It appeared, I was not pregnant: and I should say, thank goodness I wasn't.

Unluckily, my friend had missed me so much, that it didn't want to go away.

I took up my pill again, but it wasn't working.

I took anti-coagulant drugs, but they weren't enough.

My gyno said I had to be admitted to hospital, but I didn't want to.

...

I had, eventually, stopped writing to Theo.

I felt guilty, as if I was abandoning him.

But rationally I knew, it was useless.

He didn't even read the messages.

I gathered that if he ever changed his mind, and wanted to hear from me, he had so many unread messages, that he was going to have reading material for weeks to come.

I had written it all to him, and there was nothing more that I could say.

...

Sometimes I thought- and I still do- that I would have suffered much, much less, if I had been diagnosed with an incurable illness.

You might think it is disrespectful to those who have, but it is true.

Every one of us, is different:

to me, death is something I can take.

Pain, is something I can take.

Knowing that Theo chose to abandon me, out of the blue, without ever feeling the need to even open one of my messages.

That... no.

That, I could not take.

....

After breaking up with Theo, I had hit rock bottom.

All the fears, and the intrusive thoughts, and the depression, and the sense of uselessness, and even disgust for myself. The sense that my life had no meaning, never had, and never will.

All the bad feelings that I thought I had long left behind me, were all coming back, full force.

But then, as they say:

When you hit rock bottom, then, the only way to go, is up.