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THIS DARK PLACE WILL SOON HAVE LIGHT SHINNING INSIDE
The girl that greeted everyone with a beautiful smile and even the biggest and tightest hug has been in dark place in her life for over a year now. She’s covers the heavy bags under her eyes, the tears that she shed, the breaking out of pimples with a face full of makeup. She hides the T-shirt and some shorts with maybe a beautiful blouse and some pants or even maybe a dress and pair of heels. She’s hides herself as being the depressed girl she is to show people she’s the most happiest girl when we all know she’s NOT!
Time Heals Everything
It was 1991, I remember because my mom got this t-shirt that said “I survived 1991”. That was a pretty big statement for her because she had been in and out of mental hospitals that year. It would start with the crying and the banging on the wall, it made me scared. I could hear it, my mother behind the closed door screaming how she couldn’t take it anymore. I was 12 years old, about to turn 13. My sister and I lived with my grandmother during these episodes. I’m 36 now. The depression didn’t just effect my mom though, depression effects everyone around you.
The stress of what was happening to my mom was too much for me. I’ve told this story to a small handful of people but have never written or spoke about it publically. I remember sitting in the tub and wanting so badly for the pain to just go away. Turning the emotional pain into physical pain was the only way for me to show just how much I was hurting.
I go to WPIC of UPMC for my treatment. Over the last 3 years they’ve had a patient contest to design the NAMIWalks T-shirt for the WPIC team. I entered all three years and won the first 2 (they used an employee submission last year). This is my first entry - I wanted to show how bipolar disorder affects people’s families so the little faces around the figures are family members.
The Search
Do you ever feel your emotions physically? It might be a pit in your stomach or a tension in your back. It calls out to you, like a siren blaring, “something is wrong”. A month or so ago, I had this pit in my stomach that would not go away. It felt like a sustained, subtle panic attack that lasted several days, perhaps even a week. I couldn’t understand what it was telling me. To run? To stay? Which thoughts should I follow? Which were trying to be helpful and which were feeding this feeling in my stomach? I tried many of my usual coping skills to make it go away: running, meditation, sleep, talking it out. Nothing was working, which indicated that it was something deeper.