THE DEPLORABLE BED
My bed: I stare at it with disdain and disgust.
My bed: a symbol of my lack of functioning, so much lost time, so many lost months and so many lost years.
The bed that I hid in instead of playing with my kids, instead of being productive, instead of cooking meals,
instead of doing, instead of being.
So much loss and sadness is wrapped up in those blankets that lie on my bed. My bed was my safety and my escape from the mental pain that burned in my heart and in my soul. My bed was my world of pretend and escape.
So much guilt embedded in the mattress. Guilt of spending so many hours in that bed, of hiding away and all of the things that I could have been doing, should have been doing when instead I lay for hours entwined in my sheets, too blunted to think, too paralyzed to do what I shamefully let go of.
I knew in my head that I had everything to be grateful for, everything to be happy about, and nothing to complain about. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t be like everyone else, like all the other moms and wives and daughters. They were all normal. They cherished time spent sleeping in their beds, playing and frolicking in their beds, reading to their children in their beds.
I look at my pretty bed, with its fluffy sheets and pretty pillows, and all I see is hate and regret.
Why did it take so long for me to find a way out of my pain. Why did I waste so much time? Why didn’t I realize that the pain and anguish was not normal?
I still hate my bed. It still reminds me of the magnitude of my loss. I now know that I have an illness: Depression. The medications and the therapy help me to see that I no longer need to be covered in cement, that will keep me glued to my bed. The therapy and education helps me to live the way I choose to. But I will never get that time spent in that bed back. It is gone and now I must accept that and move on. I must let go of the curse that my bed brought to my life, and realize that I’m not to blame. I needed help and I hid that need from everyone that I was able to hide it from. I never knew to ask for help, and those around me didn’t know how to help me. I was a good actress and most people never knew my secret that I kept so well hidden. Only me and my bed knew the depths of despair.
I am now getting help and I am “normal” again. I will always look at my bed and remember the losses, but I will move forward. I share my story so that others don’t feel shame. So that others will get help and others don’t lose as much of their lives as I did. It may not be a bed that rules their lives. It may be a bottle, or another escape. For me it was my bed, and although I will never love my bed, I am learning, with help, one step at a time, to love myself again.
Thank you to my therapist and for allowing me to share and to grow.
Anonymous
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