History

"That can't be good," I murmured as I settled the laptop on my tummy and looked at the referring website on my SiteMeter page. I squirmed uncomfortably against my pillows as I skimmed the comment, blinking with no small amount of surprise that someone disapproved of me so vehemently. Then I waited for the inevitable reaction. The shaky hands and sick stomach, the hot embarrassment and bleak dread of what horrible thing might happen next.

I frowned when nothing happened. Held out my hand and waited for a tremble that never came. Closed my eyes and searched for a stomach cramp or headache, finding neither. I wasn't upset, I realized with a sense of awe. Bemused, I realized I remained stuffy and a bit sleepy from having coughed myself awake multiple times, but I was otherwise right as rain.

"Huh," I finally said, getting up to brush my teeth and head downstairs, settling with my work laptop and habitually switching on the news so I could listen while I read my devotional, checked email and reviewed my calendar. I took Chienne for a nice walk, folded the rest of my laundry, showered and dressed, then left for work. Some 10 hours later, I knocked on a door and peeked around the corner at a worried colleague.

"What's going on?" I asked gently and listened as he told me. I nodded and frowned and sat thoughtfully after he finished.

"I struggled in grad school," I confided. I frowned as I tried to remember my first year of graduate study clearly, having been nearly 10 years ago. (Goodness - I can't believe that's right.) "It was so much harder - different pressures, higher standards - and it all felt so terribly important. I had problems."

I nodded when he asked if I could elaborate. "You could say I was pretty self destructive," I decided. "I'd skip class. Sleep all the time. Not answer my phone or email. I just wanted to be alone - to try to escape the constant feeling of impending catastrophic failure. It would last for days - rarely over a week, but generally just around that time frame. Then I'd get better - I had good friends who would catch me up and cover for me - and just wait for the next episode, I guess."

I shook my head when he asked if I got better. "Well, eventually," I corrected myself. "I'm here now and I'm sometimes still surprised I'm well enough to do this job." I grinned at him. "This morning? I got up and something unpleasant happened. A couple of years ago, it would have sent me back to bed and I would have spent a day or two thinking about how I was a horrible person and the world was filled with vicious, miserable creatures who were out to get me. I would have cried and been terribly angry and played it over and over and over in my mind until I was exhausted. But today, I got up and came to work. I took meetings and phone calls. I was busy and productive and happy. And I'm sort of ridiculously proud of myself for it.

"But," I continued, "I was unwell - off and on and to varying degrees - until my late 20s. I tried medication and didn't like being that kind of person so I stopped. I tried therapy and it was so miserably hard that I stopped. But I found environments where I could be sick and still function at an acceptable level. I always found one person who I loved and admired and who would - for some reason - decide to take care of me when I couldn't do it myself.

"Eventually, Friend urged me to get help. She said it was OK to take the pills and good to see a counselor and was so accepting of me yet insistent that I help myself that it became a feasible solution. And I guess I grew up enough to let go of the worry about being that kind of person and understand that sometimes important realizations are miserably hard. And I'm better now - nowhere near perfect, but better than I was."

We talked a bit more and I promised to pray and reached to pat his hand. I paused before reaching to open his door, turning to watch him from across the room as he slumped in his chair, worry making him seem much older and more fragile than he is.

"Tell her," I requested, "that it's OK to be scared and overwhelmed, angry and sad. That people - some really good people - have felt just that way before. It's not her fault - perhaps there were some questionable choices and there are places where responsibility should be taken - but there are also factors beyond her control that led her to this awful place. Tell her," I said, blinking back tears and remembering lying curled on the bathroom floor, alternating between moments of blessed blankness and of suffocating pain, "that she will get better. That when she's ready, she'll find something - medication or counseling or a different career path or new coping mechanisms - that makes these weeks something that happened in her past and not something that defined her future.

"And," I finished, "remember that my parents cried too. They worried and visited and tried desperately to help me. And now they get to know that I have work that gives me purpose and pride. I laugh and cry and think and love. And they still worry, I'm sure, but not that I haven't gotten dressed all week or that I won't answer the phone. Know that this will pass. That she'll be fine. And, until then, if there's anything I can do, I hope you'll let me know."

Then I came home, feeling conversely heavy with the knowledge of suffering and bouyant with the hope of recovery.