A Letter To The Coach Who Outed Me As A Depressed, Suicidal Person.

**Note**It was the summer before my final year in undergrad. I was 21 years old. Looking back, I have trouble putting myself in the shoes of my former self. When I see memories of that time, I am outside myself, simply an additional person in the room, a bystander. Perhaps it is still too painful to relive everything I was feeling at that time. I cannot make myself vulnerable to experience those emotions that I had at that time. I know that eventually I will have to seek out professional help about this. Again, I cannot make myself vulnerable enough to do so at this moment in time. Every August, I am reminded of the person that I was, because that was when a suicide attempt forced me to own up to my depression. I am reminded of the friendships that I lost simply because I couldn’t face the people that I’ve hurt. I am still so guilty and ashamed. I am reminded of the Coach that told my old cross-country team that I had tried to take my own life, as if it was joke…***

Dear Coach,

I had reached out to faculty members from ***** University because I am currently fundraising for a race I am doing in autumn. As I went through the entire faculty & staff directory, I skipped your name because I couldn’t bear be in contact with you again. I’ll never forget the feeling of disappointment and betrayal I felt when I was told by my old roommate/teammate that she had heard you telling the entire team about my suicide attempt and my hospitalization.

Even now, 6 years later, my insides still ache at the thought of it. The feelings of embarrassment and of shame I felt knowing that everyone knew. I had hoped to keep this intimate secret of mine to myself, but you had robbed me of that. I’m sure (at least I hope) you didn’t know the magnitude of the situation. I know you didn’t know that this was one of several suicide attempts that I had made over the past decade. That’s right, I had been dealing with depression since I was a little girl and I had been keeping it to myself this whole time.

You had no right to tell anyone. Not a single fucking person. Do you understand that? How is the proper way of dealing with someone’s mental health issues? I was petrified of returning to school. So I didn’t. For two years. For two years, I was so ashamed and embarrassed that I lived in a depressed fog because I didn’t know how to live now that I had failed to take my life. I didn’t know how to return to a place where everyone knew my deep, dark secret. It would have been nice to know I had the support of my coach.

I hope that since all of this happened you have taken some sort of course on how to deal with these things in a more respectable fashion. I often think of confronting you, but I know that I probably won’t. I have visited ***** since I graduated (yes, I returned to the same school years later and finished my undergrad (= ), but I have been too afraid to even go to the Recreation Center where I know your office is. I often hoped that you would apologize to me, but I don’t really think about it much anymore.

Despite everything, I genuinely hope that you are doing well. I hope your sons and wife are all healthy. I read about your achievements as a coach and how well your team is doing and it makes me proud to have been a part of that institution.

Take care and be well,

N.

I Cannot Be Your Everything

You come to me with your frustrations and sadness.

You need a shoulder to lean on and cry on.

You are hoping for someone that lifts you up

Who can listen while you vent.

I cannot be this person for you.

And I need you not to take it personally.

It’s not that I don’t want to help  you.

It’s not that I don’t care.

It’s not that I somehow enjoy your sadness.

But I can barely keep myself afloat.

I am struggling, while I tread water, trying so hard not to drown.

Don’t you know that if you put any weight on me

it’ll make me that much more unstable?

I wish I knew I way to convey this to you

Without making you worry,

Without making me seem insensitive.

We’ve been through all of this before.

I know I put you through hell.

I cannot bare doing that to you again.

Please don’t mistake my inability to handle any of this for aloofness.

I love you more than words would ever express.

But I cannot be your reason for living.

I cannot be your crutch.

I cannot be your everything.

Depression as a Person

She comes and goes and she pleases.

I’ve never invited her in but somehow she has the key.

She shows up unexpected and refuses to leave.

She drags me to the floor and pins me down so I can’t move.

She calls me every name in the book.

She tells me that I’m ugly and disgusting.

She somehow knows every insecurity of mine and points them out on a regular. basis.

She keeps me isolated so that I cannot see my loved ones.

She makes me think that my loved ones don’t actually care about me.

She calls me stupid and I believe her.

She prevents me from doing things I once loved.

She tells me I will die alone.

I hope she’s not right….

A Short Rambling About Future Love, Self-Love, and the Concept of Rescue

Future love, I will admit to you that I am scared to meet you.

Perhaps it is just because I am a selfish person. But I am not willing to lose a part of myself. I don’t want to stop running, practicing yoga, spending afternoons in the library because a new person has entered my life. I also feel so fragile and afraid because I am working so hard to make myself strong again. My depression is quite strong these days and it is at times debilitating. I think back to myself from a few years ago, when I used to be so confident and outgoing. Or maybe I just thought I was (?)

I’m afraid of love. I’m afraid of finding a man who quite literally takes my breath away. I’m scared of the butterflies in my stomach I feel when I’m about to see someone I’m romantically interested in. I’m terrified of being vulnerable, both emotionally and physically. I shake at the thought of sharing my deepest, darkest secrets with you.

I’m worried, future love, that you’ll change your mind about me, like so many other men have done before you. I don’t want you to stray me from the life path that I have already decided, but I don’t want you to think that I don’t want you here…

There is quote from one of my favorite songs that says, “My biggest fear will be the rescue of me me. Strange how it turns out that way…”

In a way, that’s how I feel about love. By finding a person that will love me, I will be rescued from my own loneliness and self-loathing…

But I know that this is incorrect. My “rescue” should be the moment that I fall in love… with myself. It is the moment that I forgive myself for my actions. It is the moment I let go of the pain that I have caused others and the pain that I have caused myself.

I will admit that as another song so rightfully puts it, “it’s no surprise to me I am my own worst enemy. ‘Cause every now and then I kick the living shit out of me.” Do I actually kick myself? No. But the damage I do to myself mentally far surpasses any physical damage I could inflict upon myself.

I have never had anyone utter hateful remarks to me quite like I do. I can criticize a wide variety of attributes, both physical and mental, that sink me deeper into this depression.

Why do I do this to myself? Why do we do this to ourselves? I know I’m not the only one. Comparatively, I know I cannot be the dumbest, ugliest, fattest, slowest woman on the planet, but the way I talk to myself in my own head begs to differ.

I have a difficult time resisting the urge to compare myself to others. Most of my good friends have their own houses or own their own condo while I own no space of my own. I live in my mother’s apartment and I don’t even have a car. But then I remind myself that I just spent the past year and a half of my life living in a foreign country getting my master’s degree… something that none of my friends have. We all have different paths in life, I remind myself.

Do I want a house here in Chicago?  NO

Do I want an apartment in London? Yes

Then shut up, I tell myself.  You’re time will come.

I have always been a late bloomer.  I’m a bit younger than all of my close friends.  I graduated from my undergrad a bit later than everyone else, because I took some time off because of a bad depressive episode.  I lost my virginity a few years later than my friends.  And so on.

I must tell myself (and I’m sure there’s some of you that can relate), my time will come.  My time will come.  For now, be grateful for the things around you that you do have.  Be grateful for your amazing support system  Be grateful for friends in multiple continents.  Your first future love should be yourself.  Rescue yourself.

Who am I to argue?

Some days I feel insignificant and it’s a feeling that I cannot shake.

I feel insignificant like the empty pages at the end of a novel

or the fringe of a scarf that serves no purpose.

I feel unwanted like an email forward

or advertisements you hear on tv.

I feel undesirable like dust that gathers on furniture

or belt holes that do not serve its owner’s figure.

I feel unnecessary like warnings on hot to-go cups

and beach fronts in cold climates.

I know I don’t belong here,

but I don’t know where else to go.

I wish I knew how to shake this feeling,

but there’s a part of me that thinks I have no choice.

Who am I to argue?

If I were to write you a letter….

If I were to write you a letter, I would tell you that I don’t hate you.  I would tell you than I’m not over you yet, though I really wish I was.  I would say that I hope you’re doing well and that I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.

I would mention that occasionally I see you in my dreams, and when I do, I wake up happy that at least I got to see you.

I would tell you the things I miss about you.  I miss the way you would brush my hair away from my face.  I miss the feeling of your hands on my body, the way our bodies intertwined.  I miss your lips on mine and your hands in mine.  I miss the way your eyes looked into mine and those incredibly long eyelashes of yours.  I miss our walks in the evening, underneath the starlit sky. I miss how you would pick me up in the rain.  I miss our nature walks in the woods.  I miss our in depth conversations about everything and anything.  I miss sharing secrets with you and you sharing them with me.

I might say that I play mental videos of us together.  This offers me solace, but at the same time makes me sad because they are only memories.  I know I need to stop this, but I can’t figure out how.

I might mention the fact that I still think the world of you, even though you’ve been ignoring me for the past 4 months.  I truly think that I’ve learned so much from you, and I will always be grateful to you for that.

If I were feeling especially open, I would tell you that I don’t think I’ll ever meet someone like you.  I can’t imagine having so much in common with another human being.  I would mention that nothing has ever made me feel safer than when you held me in your arms.  I would say that I don’t know how I’m going to ever trust another man.

I would ask you if you truly meant it when you called me beautiful, or was it just something to say.  I would ask you if you were being honest when you said that you thought that I was an amazing person.

Tearfully, I would ask you if it is easy not to speak to me… if it’s easy to pretend like I don’t exist.

I would ask you if you thought of me when you listen to music we shared together, or movies that we watched together.

Foolishly, I would tell you that if you ever needed me, I would be there.  That there’s nothing you could do that would make me stop caring about you.  That even though you treated me badly, you are a human being and therefore are deserving of love.

Lastly, I would tell you that I hope that you treat the next (or current) girl in your life better than you treated me because I wouldn’t want anyone else to feel the way I’m feeling.  I would implore you to open your heart and tear down your walls.

What does depression feel like?

Sometimes it shows up unexpected.

Sometimes it appears out of nowhere.

All of the sudden there is this cloud over my head.

The cloud is visible to only me

and it’s effects are only felt by me as well.

As it starts to rain,

it causes tears to escape my eyes.

I have no control over these tears.

I feel cold and alone, regardless of where I am or who I’m with.

I feel unloved.  I feel ugly.  I feel worthless.  Useless.  Friendless.  Too fat.  Too  skinny.  Too pale.  My teeth are too crooked.  My eyes don’t match up properly.  I’m too slow.  I’m not smart enough.

A laundry list of imperfections materializes in my head.  I am silently attacking every fiber of my being.

I want to be with people, yet I want to be alone.  I remind myself that the people that I care about most are an ocean away.  Sometimes I just want a hug from my mother, or my best friend, or even him (though he doesn’t care about me anymore).

I feel that the longer I stay away the sooner people will forget me.  I wonder how long it will take for them to forget me completely.  How long until I return to Chicago to find I no longer have friends and I no longer belong.  I think about the one who recently left him.  I can no longer blame him.  The last time he saw me, he looked deep into my eyes for what seemed like hours.  He must have seen the truth.  I am not good enough for him.  I am not good enough for anyone.  I am not as kind as I’d like to be.  I am insecure.  I am imperfect.  I am no good.