The Scar
It’s late November—almost a year from this exact weekend—and I’m standing in a hotel bathroom, crying.
I traveled to Indianapolis with my parents and grandma to attend an event for COPS (Concerns of Police Survivors). The organization focuses on helping families who lost loved ones in the line of duty. Uncle Joe, my mom’s brother, and an Allen County Police officer, became one of those lost loved ones in February 2017.
The organization’s annual holiday gathering was held in a hotel conference room. If you were related to a fallen officer, they paid for your hotel room for the night and covered the cost of your dinner—a conglomerate of pork and steak, sides, and blueberry cheesecake.
We showed up to the dinner a few minutes early to get a spot. There were two other people at our table, a woman and her daughter. The woman, like my mom, had lost her brother a few years ago. The woman and my mom instantly connected over their shared loss, but my mind started to drift to that day in February when we got the call. It moved past the caravans of people that came to our house, the funeral that followed, and the insane number of chocolate-covered strawberries I ate from various Edible Arrangements, and it lingered on my grandpa—and the first time I’d seen him cry. No parent should ever lose their child. The thought lingered at first. Then, it stuck. I became more conscious by the moment that he wasn’t there with us, that we were less than four weeks away from our first Thanksgiving without him. These events always made you conscious of your loss, I just didn’t expect it to carry other losses with it.
I started to feel suffocated. The words the woman was saying felt like they were in another language. I tried to eat my dessert, but I couldn’t stomach food. The soft chatter around the room felt like a background track to the pounding thoughts in my head. I was vaguely aware of a soft touch on the leg from my dad and an Are you okay? I fumbled out the reassuring words, but the longer I sat there, the more consumed I became with desperation. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I needed to get out.
I excused myself to use the restroom and barely made it to the counter before I started sobbing. I grabbed paper towels and used them to mop up the flowing tears. I pulled out my phone, and I started reading our text messages.
“You, Joseph, and Kristen are the apple of our eyes, and we love you so much. No need to reply, just know how much you all are loved.”
I looked into the mirror. My eyes were bloodshot. The tears I missed with the paper towel hung on my cheek.
I wish you were here, Pawpaw.
***
The thought of depression never crossed my mind. I can’t be depressed. I’m fine. I’ve never been depressed before; it’s not just going to randomly start in my 20s.
These thoughts run through my mind as my head is resting forehead-down on my desk. My eyes aren’t even closed. I feel tiredish. But that’s impossible, I just took a nap. Like an hour nap. On a Wednesday night. I have stuff to do.
Still, I stare at the desk. I feel exhausted, zapped of all mental and emotional energy. I wish I could say this was the first instance, but it’s been happening all semester long. Now, it’s October. I can’t afford to be sidelined. I need to push through. It’s the busiest academic month, and I can’t fall behind.
But, what’s the use? What’s the point of all this anyway? Another stupid essay for another stupid class so I can work a 9-5 for the rest of my life, hopefully go on some cool vacations, and then die. Life. Yay.
I wonder if I’ve always felt like this, this sense of hopelessness. Maybe it was always lurking beneath the surface, covered by a facade of optimism.
I know that depression runs in my family. My grandpa, after enduring the jungles of Vietnam, was diagnosed with PTSD and suffered symptoms of severe depression for years.
I’m normal, though. Right?
But I haven’t felt right since the day Pawpaw passed. I don’t want to admit this to myself—let alone anyone else—but a part of me died that day. The Zeb I was before is dead; he’s not coming back. I saw brief glances of him this summer in London when an entire ocean separated me from the problems I left behind in the States, but he disappeared as soon as we touched back down in Fort Wayne. I thought I’d find him in Bloomington, but he’s gone. All that’s left are memories and pages of words written by someone who feels like a stranger.
I wish I could rid myself of these feelings. I’ve experienced grief before, but never like this. Maybe I dealt with it better as a teen. I feel stranded here, staring a whole into the wall. I twist Pawpaw’s gold ring on my finger. Left. Right. Left. Right. I haven’t stopped wearing it since I got back from London. It feels as though it’s part of my body, a physical manifestation of the connection I still feel with him. If it never leaves my hand, he never truly leaves me.
I’d be lying if I said it was just these moments at the desk that I feel off. When I’m out with friends, I am constantly thinking about when I can go home. I struggle to stay invested in conversations. I’m an extroverted person. I love being around people. But now, I just want to be alone.
When I’m alone, I admit the things to myself that I can’t tell anyone else. I admit that I sleep for as long as I can and constantly take naps to avoid being awake. I realize that I stare into blank word documents and feel like a failure. I see myself taking long showers and know that as I sit on the floor of the bathtub and let the water run over me, I’m hoping it will wash away these feelings. I observe myself making excuses to avoid going to events or hang outs because I know I’ll just spend the time thinking about how empty I feel inside, removed from the joy I once possessed.
The worst part: I can’t tell anyone.
Whenever people ask me how I’m doing, I put on the smile and answer with an enthusiastic “I’m good!” I can’t share with them my real feelings. They know me and love me because I am usually a positive person. I have my shit together—or at least I can act like it. I can be strong for them when others can’t be. I can sit for hours and listen to their issues and, when the tables turn to me say, “Oh, I’m doing fine. Thanks for asking.” If I start to reveal how severely depressed I am and how I can’t bear to be awake because of the thoughts that consume me, they might leave me. I may isolate myself, but I don’t truly want to be alone.
***
It’s been over a year since my episode in the hotel bathroom and the severe depression and grief that gripped me that fall. I wish I could say that I’m completely better now, that the former version of myself returned this summer, but I can’t. I don’t think I’ll ever be that person again—as much as it breaks my heart. But I guess that’s part of being human: constantly becoming a new version of ourselves.
As the days got darker this fall, I caught myself slipping into the same patterns. I started taking more naps and sleeping longer, sitting on the floor of the shower and letting the water run over me, and staring holes into the wall in front of my desk.
But this year it has been different.
I’ve decided to talk to people around me about how I’m feeling. I’ve became more open about the struggles I had last year and the depression and grief that controlled my life. And, when I’m feeling at my worst, I push myself to get out of my apartment, to sit at a coffee shop or to hang out with a friend. It doesn’t always work, but it’s something.
I wish I could say that the fear that I’ll lose myself again to depression and grief is gone, but it’s not. I think the scar might always linger, fading a little more year by year. I keep seeing these graphics about how grief doesn’t ever really diminish, life just grows bigger around it. Maybe that’s true. And, maybe, deep down I don’t want the scar to disappear. Because, as much as it pains me, it also reminds me that I made it through once, that I’m stronger than I think.
One of my professors told me once that our only response to trauma should be to say, “Fuck you, trauma.” We use words to regain our power over the things that haunt us. He also told me that, “Love doesn’t erase pain, the best it can do is give it a better meaning.”
So, I wake up every day, aware of the scars that I carry. I say “fuck you” to trauma, and I use the memory of the grief, the love that remains, to give my pain a better meaning. It’s not much, but it’s a start.