Have YOU Ever Felt Painfully Alone?

You just lost your job, your spouse ran away with someone else, your cherished childhood pet crossed the rainbow bridge or some other deep tragedy has struck your life. Suddenly, it takes every ounce of energy you can muster to pick your head up off the pillow. No matter how much you try to talk yourself into moving, you literally cannot find the energy to make your joints work. Life has lost its joy and you find yourself utterly, painfully alone.

Life has a way of knocking us down when we aren’t prepared. Just when things seem to finally feel stable we are struck with unforeseen circumstances which propel us full force into the depths of painful despair. (To be fair, who plans for tragedies anyway?)

Not Just A Bad Day

Depression is more than just having a bad day or two. You can’t just talk your way out of it or pull yourself through it in a short period of time. In the depths of depression, it’s hard to see yourself as anything other than horribly, painfully alone without support or help. There could be a full room of support people with nothing else to do but pull you out, and you would not recognize them as being helpful or caring.

Depression comes in two forms: clinical and situational. There are medical reasons for clinical depression. It can be caused by hormone fluctuations, side effects of different medications, or other physical medical conditions. Situational depression is based upon situations in our lives that have caused us to fall into the pit of despair. Clinical depression often reacts well to medication. Without making lifestyle changes, there isn’t as much hope for fixing situational depression.

 Felt Like Quicksand

There was a point I walked in those shoes. I have PCOS which can be a cause of clinical depression, but I never found myself drawn deeply into the hole of depression for any clinical reason. Mine was situational, caused by the loss of a cherished friend. When it hit me, I felt like I was pulled down by quicksand with no way to escape. Friends and family surrounded me, trying hard to pull me out in any way they knew how, but it wasn’t enough. In my own head, I didn’t see their assistance as caring. I still felt like I was painfully alone with my thoughts and despair.

When I was fully in despair, it felt like being buried in a deep, dark pit. I could almost smell the earth around me as it covered me with a comforting, deadly blanket. Emotionally, I felt numb. The pain was so intense that I had turned off ALL emotions. There was neither love nor hate, neither pain nor joy. I just “was”.

One day blended into the next. Days passed into weeks. Life was automatic routine, almost robotic. I cried until the tears dried up and I couldn’t cry anymore. Then I sat with myself wishing I could cry because at least crying helped me feel a little better.

Wrote Out Pain

Being a writer, I wrote. I wrote out my pain, over and over again. Sometimes I wrote goodbye letters to my friend. Or, there were angry letters, explaining how much I felt painfully alone since he left. Writing was healing.

I should have gone to therapy. It was suggested but I blew off the idea. Trusting someone else with my pain was not something I felt comfortable with. Not even the people in my closest circle knew my deepest, darkest thoughts and pain.

About two months later, and a lot of writing and crying, I came through and found my way out. While life wasn’t all sunshine and ice cream sundaes yet, there was color where I had only seen black and white before.

Never Again!

Once I was out of the pit, I swore I would never allow myself to fall that low again. I would do anything within my power to avoid feeling the depths of that darkness. When reason returned, I recognized all the effort my friends and family had put in trying to save me. They loved me enough to go to great lengths. Why hadn’t I seen that?

There have been other times in my life when I have come close to the edge of that endless pit of blackness. As dangerous as it is, there’s a soft comfort in the pit. It’s safe from people, from stress, and from life. However, it’s also a block to love, to happiness, to all the joys that life also has to offer.

It seems to me that the pit grows wider and wider. More people are falling in and not able to find a handhold to pull themselves out. Even when there is a human rope strong enough to rescue them, they aren’t willing to grab the hand that is offered. It’s not that they don’t want to. They can’t see the hand, even when it is right in front of them. There is complete darkness in the pit.

Blind Faith Is A Requirement

To get out, sometimes we have to reach out blindly and pray there is a helping hand waiting, looking for us to save us. Until we draw every ounce of strength we have and put our hands out to be rescued, we will remain in our darkness and despair.

I’ve been in the pit, and I was rescued. It is my intention to do what I can to help others who are still floundering around in the darkness trying to find the color in their world again. I have begun a new project to try to help those people living in the gray world.

YOU Can Help

If you’ve been there, you can help me, and all submissions are confidential. I am interested in YOUR experiences with depression and despair. If you have been there, what did it feel like? Describe your version of the pit. Or maybe you felt like you were drowning instead of being buried.

Or, if you are an artist, share with me your artwork depicting how you felt. How does “painfully alone” look?

Poets, your work is a wonderful cross between writing and art and I would appreciate any poetic submissions.

Don’t Hold Back

I am considering putting them all together into a special book. Anything goes when it comes to our emotions. Darkness speaks a language of its own. And only those who have been to the depths know how to speak it.

Please don’t hold back. When you share, you can help others who need to be pulled out. You can be part of that human chain with hands outstretched, trying to grab the hand of someone trying to save themselves.

Email me at thewriteempath@gmail.com. And keep your head up. You AREN’T alone. I’ve been there, and I want to do anything I can to keep anyone else from falling in.