When all you want to do is die. When staying alive takes every ounce of energy you have and all vitality is gone. When you want to take your own life but just don't even have the energy to do it. When your greatest desire is to fall asleep and simply never wake up, but sleeping often feels impossible because you're also afraid that you may actually get what you want.
Life doesn't just feel empty. It feels dark and void. It feels pointless. You see no good in being alive, yet feel you must go on with it anyway. You hate every moment you're awake and you are dying inside, slowly painfully dying.
I could say that I’ve been there, but that’s not the whole truth. In reality, I revisit that place so very often. I used to think I was in a bad place, but when I end up there now, it’s even worse. I no longer just feel the pain of the present, but also of the past. I have PTSD and it causes me to have flashbacks and re-experiences of traumas I’ve lived through. There are nights I can’t get to sleep because the past shows up like a movie across my eyelids every time I close my eyes.
No matter how much I just want to end it all, I know I never could. I could never do that to my husband, the one person who has always stuck by me and never once made it about himself. He tries so hard to be whatever I need in any given situation, even when that need changes moment to moment. When I crumple on the floor because the dog won’t listen or a jar won’t open, he takes care of it and lifts me back up, both literally and figuratively.
Sometimes I can go months without falling into this cavern, but I always end up back in there. I am broken. But there is still some amount of hope in me. It’s the size of a mustard seed most days, but it’s there nonetheless.
