Do I start with THE AWESOME BAND?
Do I start with the hugely long backstory, as I so often do?
Do I explain that May has been Mental Health Awareness month and that the Band wants to bust some stigmas?
Do I just say it?
I am the face of depression.
In my head, depression is a huge canyon. There's my life before I acknowledged it, on the one side, and it's littered with nightmares and panic attacks and fantasies of suicide. In college, I fell all the way to the bottom of it while I finally dealt with being molested as a kid, family issues that aren't mine to tell, getting pregnant the first time I had sex, the subsequent abortion and an experience with a "friend" that just crossed the border into date rape territory. I started cutting, bingeing and continued with my high school faves of drinking too much and making myself vomit. I spent time in therapy, crying, writing, punching pillows and talking to amazing friends, and I got better. I climbed part of the way out, then fell in love with my first husband, who became very emotionally and verbally abusive. I fell a lot closer to the bottom again. Then I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and went back into therapy. I nodded when my ex threatened to leave. I wrote. I threw myself into teaching. I made even more amazing friends. I eventually met Hot Guy.
I eventually made it to the top of the canyon. I'm on the other side. I thought it would be all sunshine and roses here, but it's not.
Sometimes shit happens and the canyon beckons, telling me that I don't have to face anything, that I can just sleep for 16 hours a day and make myself bleed. That it will be easier to feel a generic self-hate than to acknowledge what's really going on in my head. Sometimes I still binge. Sometimes I still smoke. Sometimes I still drink too much. Sometimes I don't even notice the roses. And then I realize that I'm on a ledge in the canyon and there's climbing to do.
Every day that I am honest and aware and gentle with myself takes me farther away from the edge of the canyon. Every day that I am comfortable in my own skin takes me farther away from the edge of the canyon.
I am terrified to post this. I am afraid people will feel uncomfortable with me. I am afraid people will judge me. I am afraid family members will be ashamed of me. I am afraid that I sound crazy when I talk about the canyon. I am afraid that certain people in my town will read this (not that they read my blog now, but who said fears had to be rational?) and be even snottier to me than they already are.
I also know that this is the only way I can build a wall between me and the canyon. Of course, the canyon will still be there. Depression is something I'm always going to have to live with. But every barrier I put between me and the canyon will help me to not fall in again.
So I'm coming out. Because shame is like a mudslide straight into the canyon.