Posted by Adam on November 29, 1999, at 1:17:18
Going to see family for the holidays is sometimes a bit of a mixed bag, and I often return home feeling ambivalent. As luck would have it, this Thanksgiving was nice. Maybe it’s not luck, but progress. Much has happened since the beginning of the year. There have been many more open discussions, many more things revealed, many hurts that are hopefully in the process of being redressed. Sometimes things are tense. But improved, greately. I wish I knew them all better (my parents, esp. my father, my siblings, alike and also very different than me). I do love them. I found a sample box, sitting in a drawer, empty but for some reason not discarded: Celexa (citalopram HBr). I wondered whose it was. I want to be told without asking.I went searching for an old textbook I couldn’t find, discovering in the attick old boxes filled with junk I had accumulated long ago. In one was a bag of letters I had forgotten I had saved, many from friends since neglected. I found some from an ex-girlfriend I had dated off an on even lived with for a while . Often the tone of the letters was conflicted, sad, cautious. One letter struck me like a blow: “I keep hoping something will trigger a revelation...It hurts to see you hurting so and to know I can’t do anything about it. It hurts to think that if these issues were resolved, we could (if you wanted) have a wonderful, intimate relationship on several levels...Whatever happens, I just want you to be happy. I love you.” I was 23, she 22.
A simple message, repeated many times by someone who waited long for me to grow and to be able to express again even some of the joy we both felt when we first got together. Nothing in the end could be helped; there simply wasn’t enough of me to give back what she needed. And, as feelings of self-hatred and despair seemed to grow, I sometimes couldn’t help being angry, even when her frustration was meant to heal and not hurt. “I’m opening a door for you,” she said once, “and you won’t go through it. Why?” So it ended. Nothing, really, was saved. I thought I had discarded every momento. I couldn’t bear to be reminded.
I wanted to forget, but I guess I didn’t. And the process of healing, both of my depression and my family, only makes some of the memories of the things I cannot heal more poignant and even brutal. Something got stirred up again, and maybe it needed to be. I drove home tonight tired from a day hike with my parents, my mind open to old images, voices. I had a memory of her sleeping. As corny as it sounds I did just watch her sleep sometimes, and thought she was the most beautiful creature on this earth. She exceeded me in every respect.
It’s times like these that are so difficult. I look back and cannot help feeling such a sense of loss, of things marred or ruined by my illness. I do feel so fortunate to have finally found something that works. But also there is very deep sadness and regret that I could not have found it sooner. I missed many things. I realise I miss her. I miss her so much. I cried half the way home. And there’s nothing I can do. I wish I could go back and tell her how much she meant to me. I lost the dearest thing in my life, and I fear it was to depression. It just killed me. It just kills me.
I’m sorry. Brevety was never my strong suit. I guess that, perhaps, some of you might know how I feel, or have felt. I’m crying as I write this. I can’t help it.
poster:Adam
thread:15903
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991123/msgs/15903.html