Ah, that glorious commercial. You know the one, everyone knows the one. I also feel like everyone knows someone who knows someone whose grandma was the actress in it. That commercial was among the regular lineup of commercials that would regular on Cable, many of which I still quote to this day. (Gerber Life grow up plan, anyone??)
That marketing team managed to create an idea that was an instant “I will be quoting this twenty years from now and everyone will get the reference” commercial. I mean, a commercial about something as dire as an elderly person falling, that is so terrible it can instantly trigger an eruption of laughter? Genius marketing. Still, I wonder if I was the only person that was ever slightly…unsettled by the commercial as a kid. I remember watching and thinking, “imagine just…. falling and then just… not being able to get up? Imagine having to rely on a button that you carry around your neck, and then people rush to come find you on the ground?”
Isn’t the idea a little unsettling for everyone though? Isn’t there a part of many of us that loathes the idea of getting old or having to rely on others? I remember a conversation that I overheard two older men having in the office of a hotel I used to work at one night:
“As soon as the incontinence starts, I’m out,” one man lamented to the other. The other one agreed and continued to explain that he is planning on quite literally taking his own life, before he gets to the age where he has to rely on people for his care. His running plan included driving his car straight into a wall. Now, it seems fairly obvious that the idea an individual would rather take their own life than have to rely on others is ridiculous. Clearly, there is absolutely no shame in it, and everyone should feel worthy of receiving care and relying on others. The problem is, when I apply that same logic to myself, I find that I could sympathize with that hotel back-office conversation quite easily. Why is it so hard to accept help on behalf of ourselves? Why is it so difficult to admit the need for it?
I’ve always hated the idea that there is something “wrong with me” or that I “need help.” I was a sick baby for the first three years of my life. I was born with a rather severe case of a disease and had heart surgery at an early age. This meant, I grew up with this being the story of my life. It was never just “Cassie’s getting so big, is she starting preschool soon?” It was often women in hushed tones asking my mother, “… how is she?”
I despised the idea that there was something inherently different, or “wrong” with me, but I also felt that there was. While the disease that I was born with was impossible to hide, the other sicknesses that I had were not. I just didn’t want to bring any attention to them, and I had no idea what they even were. So, I grew up, keeping everything that felt wrong buried inside.
As a young kid, I would be sick to my stomach every single morning, and every single night. While my siblings and I watched reruns of Who’s The Boss with my mom before bedtime, I’d be counting my pulse and obsessively watching the clock tick. I would double check that my mother would wait to go to sleep, until I had fallen asleep each night. I would beg my mom to go to sleepovers, but with a pit in my stomach, I’d really hope that she would say no. I would go to those sleepovers, and as the others peacefully slept, I’d tiptoe over the marshmallows of sleeping bags and blankets, to go hyperventilate over the toilet at 3AM. I was six years old when I had the worst panic attack I have ever had, to this day. All that I thought had happened was I almost died, but somehow didn’t.
I also had constant headaches. After school, I would cry and put hot washcloths on my head, not knowing what else to do. I hit a point in my elementary years, where I couldn’t play with my peers the way I used to; I couldn’t even entertain conversation anymore. Instead of going out to recess excited, I began to stand there feeling empty, often alone, waiting for the bell to ring. By middle school, my ability to socialize dwindled to nothing. I had no friends, and what’s weirder is that I couldn’t bring myself to care to. I would walk into the building of my junior high, and tell my cousin whom I walked with, that it seemed there was a “dark cloud” that hung over everything, and I’d say it seemed impossible to believe I would ever get through the day okay. Bless her heart, I remember she’d listen and then comment about how she didn’t do her math homework. Then, clutching our backpack straps we’d march on towards school.
I needed help. Truly, I needed it badly. Unfortunately, I did everything but get help. I kept quiet about it all, believing that it would be scarier to say what was happening to me, than it would be to just deal with it. I denied that there was anything wrong, feeling that I wouldn’t be able to bare the shame of the admittance that something was. I dealt with it through survival mode. Throughout all of my high school years, I never once focused on friends, on clubs or social life. I simply couldn’t… I had to pour all of my energy into making sure that I kept my head just above the water so that I didn’t entirely drown. I never got asked to prom, and I never asked anyone to prom. I never hung out with friends after football games or was crazy about boys. I could count my friends on one hand (I’m not even promising I’d use every finger) and I’d occasionally make myself hang out with one of them, in order to maintain a life that appeared to be somewhat functional and humanlike.
I’ve spent my life on the floor, literally and metaphorically. I have spent the last 21 years of my life no better than granny who is face-to-tile on Cable television. The only difference here, is that granny had enough guts to press the button. Granny admitted that she couldn’t get up, that there was something wrong… and of course she should! She damn sure better! There is absolutely no universe in which granny should be man-down without sirens sounding in a matter of minutes! Me on the other hand…. I’m fine! I like the tile! I’m on the floor because I’m relaxing. I’m fine! Ask my Instagram algorithm… I just need to meditate more and get more sunlight!!
I’ve had a lot of proof to show how fine I was. You can ask the yoga mat I got my mom for her birthday which she never used, so I claimed it as my own and committed to a daily practice doing Yoga with Adrienne. You can ask my neighbors, who have watched as I have gone for daily walks around the neighborhood my entire life. You can ask my mother who worried when I’d go for runs at 10:00 PM, booking it down the street in order to beat the spiral I’d feel starting in my brain when it got dark. You could ask the weights that I started lifting, the hole in the weightroom from when I accidentally slammed one through the drywall. You could try one of the healthy-snack recipes I have down to a science, or quiz me on my knowledge of mindfulness, meditation, and chakras. I did everything to try and beat the sickness in my brain. It never worked. Sure, I gained some great healthy habits, but the sickness continued to rule my life.
After I graduated high school, I began working full time, while being enrolled in college classes. I grasped to these things as a way to distract my mind, as something to cling to. When I have to be up and about every day, I’m miserable, but I can numb it out. When I get a day off, my brain spirals. I can’t socialize, I can’t follow through on plans with friends. I feel dread in my body at the thought of every appointment, every social interaction. I try to show up and support my family in their occasional activities, but my gut is in a knot the whole time. If I white knuckle my way to any event, I’m the last to arrive and the first to leave. I hurt people around me unintentionally, as I shut everyone out. I’ve been a shell of myself my whole life, but before I can get help, I throw on business casual clothes, put on some mascara, and show up ready to throw my brain into work. It’s been a lifetime of me doing this cycle. No matter how much I try during the day, I still cry myself to sleep every night. (Cue the audio of Kourtney Kardashian: “Yeah that’s totally normal.”)
I guess it’s taken me 21 years to come to the conclusion that to get back up, I have to admit where I am at, and where I’ve always been. This realization came to me the other day, and I felt myself squirm inside at the thought of having to waive a white flag and just accept that I need help. It felt… unsettling. Those old familiar feelings of shame surrounding having needs came back up to the surface. Suddenly, I could hear the static coming off of the boxed TV in the basement of my old house. I admitted it:
I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up.
I’ve even TRIED to get up. So hard, so many times. I just need help to get there. It’s easier to not have to look at my own shit, but for the first time in my life, I’m forcing myself to sit in it. It’s uncomfortable. When I can’t latch onto distraction, I realize how eerily dark things really are. So, I’m taking care of it. I’m talking about it. I’m booking appointments and having panic attacks on the way to them. I’m showing up anyway. When a doctor uses the word depression, I’m not squirming away. When they use the word medication or therapy I’m not immediately shutting it down. This healing is not soft, not sweet. It doesn’t feel enlightening or supernatural. It’s really hard. I’m right in the middle, deep in the thick of it.
I’ll let you know if I find a medication that doesn’t make me feel like I’m suddenly asexual, clinically insane and unable to sleep. I’ll keep you posted if I get to the point where I don’t question how I’ll make it through life on a daily basis. I’ll surprise us both if I end up being able to be vulnerable enough to try therapy, instead of venting it out to my walls or bedroom ceiling. (Between the weight mishap and my trauma dumping I think the drywall in my house needs therapy more than I do).
I know in order to get back up, I have to admit the truth about where I’m at, and where I have always been. I recently stumbled across this Notes app brain dump that I wrote years ago in the midst of depression. (I’m obviously not planning on submitting this in a poetry contest, but I read it and felt it depicted depression in a brutally honest way). I wrote:
The twisted world
Where music makes you sick
And movies become painful
Anything feels like a kind of ache
My head hurts consistently
I see myself in the mirror,
But I’m twisted and gnarled
I accept myself but sure as hell,
No one else can
Besides maybe mom.
In the twisted world,
Where everything is dread
The pit in my stomach forms
At the mere thought
Of the simplest of interactions
Everything good
Everything ever
Is unappealing
So I try to drown it out
With music, or food, or TV
But I can’t get anything
Not a drop of good
So I guess I’ll drift off to sleep
Maybe a slight relief
That is, if I can get some.
I’ve known the deepness of my struggle for some time, but I’ve never admitted it like this before. I know I need to admit it to myself, and to others who can help. Denying how bad it is, has never gotten me the help that I’ve needed. This surrender is new, and it feels unknown. I have found myself walking a dark and hazy path for so long, that for a while I didn’t even believe there was any light available. I don’t even need light - just something that isn’t so dark. So, I’m putting in the work, just to see if there is. How lucky am I to be able to try?
I just really, really hope I get to a place where I feel okay, even if I have to white- knuckle my way there. If by chance, you’re somewhere similar to where I am, I sincerely hope you get there too. We’re in this together.
Xx
Cass
Ps - Does anyone else miss Cable?