The repose of sleep refreshes only the body.  It rarely sets the soul at rest.  The repose of the night does not belong to us.  It is not the possession of our being.  Sleep opens within us an inn for phantoms.  In the morning we must sweep out the shadows.  ~Gaston Bachelard
 

As I touch my fingertips to the keyboard, poised to write the hardest experience during my bout of depression, I sit here verklempt. It is difficult because I lost a dear friend to the very thing that even still plagues me on occasion. A very beautiful person with a soul that ran deep and whose gentle way touched many people. As the tears fog up my vision, I nearly struggle with how to begin this next portion.

I don't know the trigger that transitioned my depression from painful to extreme. I can only guess that perhaps, after beginning anti-depressants and abruptly stopping St. John's Wort, my body went into heavy withdrawal. Either way, the depression became much worse.

Nothing changed with my feelings about life; I still worried about getting a job, still fretted about my direction, still only looked forward to a few things. What did change, however, was my sleeping pattern. Ever since the depression began, I always had trouble sleeping. Anxiety always startled me awake. But I slept. Sometimes with the help of herbal remedies, once with the help of Ambien. Somehow, even if for a small bit, I slept. But soon I became afraid of sleeping, of feeling the anxiety stab at my conscious. I told myself, "You aren't going to sleep..", thus training myself not to sleep.

I remember now that the doctor offered me, along with anti-depressants, a prescription for anti-anxiety medication. I have no idea why I didn't take it. Perhaps I felt as if wandering through life drugged out of my mind was a terrible thing. I didn't know that some anti-anxiety medications didn't cause the drowsy side effect. There were even some that weren't addictive. Had I known then what I know now, I definitely would have heeded her advice.

I went a full week with little to no sleep. And it was the most painful experience of my life. Had I been able to sleep well during the brunt of the depression, I would have become well quicker. That, I firmly believe. The lack of sleep I experienced drained my emotional capacity to think. It frustrated me to no end; the fruitless attempt to sleep, only to wake up five minutes later, completely and utterly drained... of everything. The internal screaming one goes through, the -audible- screaming that one voices when going through such an ordeal. The willingness to do -anything- to sleep. Even take a multitude of pills just for an hour or two of solace. This lack of sleep is utterly and completely different than the lack of sleep parents often experience when having a child. The unfortunate many who battle with insomnia have -nothing- pleasant to wake up to; not the sleeping face of a newborn, or the cry of a smaller entity in need. Nothing. It is the most empty experience I have ever faced. The constant murder of sleep due to the vengeful stabbings of anxiety was just.. too much to handle. I was deeply afraid of closing my eyes, deeply afraid of not being able to sleep, deeply afraid of feeling that anxiety again. Your soul aches and yet it's too tired to fight; you're exhausted, but you just can't sleep. No matter what you try. You begin to feel desperate. Incredibly desperate for something that you took for granted your whole life. Your eyes are too tired to cry anymore. Your brain too muddled to think. You simply have nothing left. And this is all on top of depression. On top of the loneliness and despair. On top of the isolation that you feel even from someone whose trying so hard to help you.

I remember walking to a bus stop and sitting on the bench in the bitter cold, crying so hard, and watching the cars drive by, asking them out loud as if they could hear me; "How is it that -you- can be normal? How is it that you're not afraid to even be outside?"

The last day of that horrible experience was the day before Christmas Eve. It was a day that I had had enough. I was so desperate that I was contemplating just ending it all. Taking all the pills in the cabinet and just being done. I was that desperate. I didn't care about anything else. I called a suicide hotline. I told them what I would do. During that conversation, it donned on me that I needed to call my doctor. So I did. Without seeing her, she phoned in a prescription for an anti-anxiety medication. Minutes later, I was down at my local pharmacy to pick it up. I think she saved my life.

Never before had I understood why others commit suicide. Then and now, I do. I understand. I understand the pain that others go through and the desperation to feel 'normal'. Feeling 'normal' is such a sacred state of being to those who are depressed. 'Normal' is what we all hope to be. Of course suicide isn't right. Of course it isn't the way out. But I -understand-.

I didn't know then that things would get better. Much, much better. Had I not survived that day, I know now that I would be missing incredible things, incredible victories and triumphs. And a beauitiful life.

Things always seem to get worse before they get better.