Help

I was screaming.

Lying on the dance studio floor, lights out, next to a dozen other students, screaming as loud as my lungs would allow for my lost mother, father, sister and brother.

It was my sophomore year of high school and my best friend Harper had talked me into my first-ever audition for the Fall dramatic play, “I Never Saw Another Butterfly”, based on a little girl’s experience at the concentration camp in Terezin. To the surprise of many, and yet mostly myself, I landed the lead role: Raja Englanderova.

It became a defining moment in my life.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve had a hypersensitive heart.

Long ago, when it rained, I used to tape plastic containers over the top of the ant hills that formed along the walkway to our house. I didn’t want them to drown.

And when another experienced a loss, it felt like my own. I mourned, as if I had known them well, too.

I felt deeply but was mocked, shamed and criticized for it.

They thought I wanted attention, when all I ever really wanted was to lend my oversized heart.

To reach.

I ended up leading two more plays in high school and when it came time to graduate, I asked my drama teacher to write me a parting note.

And what he said has never left me:

“Give to the world your deeply felt heart.”

Well, World, here it is!

Drowning. Funneling. Spiraling out of control. Down the tubes I go.

This is something that happens to other people, not me.

I’m highly self-aware. I go to counseling. I write about my feelings. I am immune.

Or am I?

How far down must we go before we reach out for help?

I hit my lowest point a few weeks ago, when at 1 AM, I looked out to the water and wondered what would happen if I just slipped in quietly, and disappeared.

It’s hard to admit, even harder to type, but that thought went through my sleep-deprived brain. Followed immediately by the remaining tiny fragments of my healthy mind reminding me that by doing so, I was only transferring my hurt and pain to my loved ones.

So instead, I wrote. I typed out my deep, dark thoughts on a sticky note in my phone as I entered the fifth hour of non-existent sleep and waited for morning to come and save me.

How far must we go before we set aside our pride and shame and liberate ourselves by calling it what it is?

I’ve suffered in silence but now, I am reaching out. Recognizing I cannot do this alone. Holding the hands of others who suffer and holding onto those who lift me up as I sink.

Making it through breakfast. Making it to lunch. Making it to dinner. Through bedtime. Until Midnight. Repeating until I rise again, from my bed, from this darkness. Reclaiming my stride, my identity and my purpose as a writer, wife and mother.

I Rise. I Rise. I Rise.