What You Don’t Know

Sarah Ann Glen
Jul 23, 2017 · 6 min read

A few of you know, but most don’t, that I have not been well lately. Not at all. In the interest of making myself known to those of you who feel like I’m humorless or aloof or disinterested in others I should explain a little bit about what has been happening.

This last fall I entered an intensive outpatient program, but I truly should have been hospitalized. A few times over the previous months I had been incredibly close to committing, or at least attempting, suicide. But I knew we couldn’t afford a hospitalization, so I lied and said that I wasn’t actually thinking of hurting myself.

The lie was necessary. We are already in so much debt and we live paycheck to paycheck as it is. And the reason is me. I haven’t been able to work. I haven’t really been able to do much of anything. A hospital stay would have crippled us, and we were already hurting.

But in order for this story to make sense, I have to go back a little bit. I won’t go back to my childhood and talk about how my parents didn’t understand me. I won’t get into the details about how I was suicidal by age six. And I don’t want to harp on about things that I know are a downer, so I definitely won’t get into the disaster that was high school.

I will begin with Solano College. That was when things were pretty good. I was happy. I was an honor’s student at Sonoma State University, and I was involved in the theater at Solano first as an actor, then as a dramaturge and assistant director. I loved it. I was good at it. I was in my element. But it wasn’t to last. There were a number of reasons, but those aren’t important to this tale.

The problem came afterward. I have always had trouble making friends and keeping in touch with people. I’ve always kind of thought of myself as better than most, but worth less than everyone. If that makes sense to anyone. I always assume that reaching out to others is an imposition on them — that it’s rude to make overtures, that it’s best to wait and see if they call or text or message. As some of you might guess, that leaves me with very little in the way of social attention. That’s my fault.

I do reach out on occasion, but I worry so much about whether I’m annoying or stupid or nerdy… I never quite know how to talk to anyone. And it got worse as time went on. After Solano, there were a few people that I had known that I wanted to keep in touch with, but I didn’t know how. I tried, but I failed on many levels. Some of them are still around. Bless them for their patience. But mostly I just got “abandoned”. Or so it seemed to me.

You see, for several years I had been dealing with my depression by taking SSRIs. These meds can work wonders, and they had been keeping the worst of the depression and anxiety at bay. But after a long while, I began to notice that I could not longer feel anything. I didn’t dance or sing anymore; I didn’t feel empathy for others; I never felt joy or excitement. I just. felt. nothing.

I had quit in the middle of getting my Bachelor’s degree in Business to change majors — and universities — to English Literature. Why? Because I realized that I wanted to be a writer. I spent an additional three years working toward a different degree. I exhausted my grant money. I had tens of thousands of dollars in student loans. And now I couldn’t feel. Which meant that I had no drive, no ambition, and — worst of all — no imagination. I simply couldn’t write. I had nothing to say.

So I did something drastic — as anyone with a chronic emotional condition can tell you. I quit my meds. I had been on them so long that I didn’t know if they were even helping me anymore. They were certainly making me numb.

That’s when things got weird. Really weird. For a little while I felt okay. I started to enjoy music again. Movies were inspiring me and I got some of my imagination back. Creativity. It was wonderful. But only for a moment.

Then the mood swings. The anxiety that I couldn’t control. The terrible rage. I just couldn’t keep my emotions in check at all. And then one day, while I was in the car with my husband and my kids I completely dissociated. I can’t truly describe what that felt like for me. The best I can do is to say that it felt like I existed just a few inches above and behind my head. Like I was floating, but tethered, to my body. Nothing around me, including myself, was quite real. And it was fucking terrifying. Fucking. Terrifying. I cannot begin to express the terror of slipping away in real time. I knew I needed the meds, but I was so afraid of the numbness.

I went back to the doc and he said that I must have been on too high a dose. He gave me a script for an amount so miniscule that it could only be administered in liquid form — the kind you give to disturbed children. And for a while, that worked as well as one might expect. That is to say: not much at all. I was moody. I was irritable. But I still had the horrible side effects — the lack of ambition, creativity, interest, libido. I was a shell again. And I had nothing to say in my misery, so I stayed away from people altogether. It made my “best friend” decide that I wasn’t worth knowing anymore.

I hadn’t been ghosted in a long while, but it brought back a whole host of delightful memories and insecurities. I’m still struggling with those. I used to be the type of person who just stared at the leaves in the trees in utter amazement at the amount of evolution that went into making something so delightfully green and wonderful. But now, I had nothing to say to anyone. And no one cared enough to ask what the hell was wrong with me.

I feel like I’m rambling, so I’ll try to get back on track, here. The point is that I was not well. Not well at all. And finally, through the added stress of moving, a shortage of daylight hours, and losing more people I liked, I had a complete breakdown (not for the first time in my life). I told the doctors a little lie and they let me go to the outpatient program instead of the hospital.

It wasn’t an immediate cure for me. The fact is: I needed to get my meds sorted, and all the life skills coaching and breathing exercises in the world were not going to fix my problem. Gods, I wish they would have. It took a few more months to get that worked out. I ended up in the ER a couple times with related issues. But the point is — I found something that works. I found something that helps keep me from the worst of the demons without too many horrible side effects.

So I am back! I am able to write, to sing, to dance, to hope, and to dream. I don’t dislike any of you. I am genuinely the kind of person that loves everyone, no matter how much I hate them. I may not have been much fun (still have trouble being fun — it’s a family heirloom), but I can joke again. And I can care about things and people. I can grieve for the loss of a friend who didn’t think I was worth helping because it was too much effort. I can look forward to the next thing in my life, which I now have the confidence to expect will be stellar.

I look at my life as it is and I realize that I have spent the last several years waiting. Waiting for things to get better, unable to do anything to take control of those things. And I am filled with regret. I am 37 years old. I spent at least the last eight years in a holding pattern just trying to get better. That was the prime of my life. And I have to weep for the loss of it.

But I refuse to give up. I will not be the cautionary tale. I will not be a statistic or a cliche… well, I actually like cliches. They make for wonderful ironic humor. But I won’t sit here and wish that I could just be like everyone else. I am not. I will never be. And thank the gods for that! I can tell stories and move mountains and create worlds. I can take my life into my own hands once again and plan for a future that doesn’t rely on anyone else’s charity or pity.

Wait… what was the point here? Right. Writing! I am a writer again. A thinking, feeling, creating being with stories upon stories to tell. Now, who is listening?

Sarah Ann Glen

Written by

Writer, actor, and lifelong learner of random things.

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