Four years ago this week.
It still resonates with me today, though maybe not as deeply or as penetrating into the depths of who I am. But it's there.
It was the gauntlet that I decided to run. Instead of running away from the truth this time though, I was running towards a hopeful solution. Once 4am hit, a phone call came from a friend who I still don't know how they knew I was so desperate from across the miles, it was either live or die.
Live or Die.
I hadn't slept through the night. all the doubts and darkness of depression had become such a close friend that they came in and persuaded me to fester in my thoughts and to find all the darkness that was in my soul. I was grieved over my humanity, and was at the end of what I considered this feeble life I had lived.
I've written about the events that led up to that morning before, but today it's actually somber and sobering to be driving the same drive that I drove four years ago. It was in the light that was breaking through that I first talked to a kind voice that assured me that I wasn't alone. The voice that led me to talk to someone who was able to help deal with the issues.
But in pure Chad stubbornness, I said I still had to go to work. I had to do my job. I had to do the drive to Athens. The plan was that I would check in throughout the day, do my route, do the meeting I needed to do that night (it was rental season), and then head back to a safe place with a dear friend who would help make the decision on whether I needed to get further help or if I was ok.
So I drove. It wasn't a dark day, but the mood felt much like the rain that's lightly hitting the windshield today. Sometimes I've let my own stubbornness get in the way of health, and during the day I kept trying to find ways to talk myself out of really getting to the root of the problem. I cowered at the thought of admitting again that I was broken, that I couldn't manage life alone, that I wasn't strong enough, wasn't good enough, that I was a failure. But I knew one thing from early on in my life, that I was able to keep pushing on. I knew how to keep moving.
Only four people knew what was going on that day. Myself, my counselor, Mike and Earl. And inside I didn't know if I had the true strength of character to really make it through. I lashed out at a coworker who asked a question that I just didn't know how to answer. I would go from one school to the next weeping rivers of tears in between. Trying to find some reservoir of peace that was just cracked and empty inside.
About halfway through the day, I found an old country church and I went inside and sat and prayed. I won't say that I'm the most religious person. I have faith, but I also have doubts. All I know is that the same power that saved my life that morning was being prayed to. But God I still don't understand. Just that there was some large spiritual presence that day.
There is a quote that goes "not all who wander are lost". I had been wandering a long time. Still have parts of my spirit that are finding their way. But on that day four years ago I found that I can climb the mountains. All that power inside me that was used just to try to get by could now be used for actually seeking answers and finding the path that made sense for me.
I drove throughout the rest of the day not quite a zombie, but as a man who was holding it together - knowing that the next checkpoint lay ahead. That the end wasn't near, but maybe the beginning.
More tears, more miles ahead, but I still drove on.
That night I spent in a place I had never dreamed of. A place that still scares me, with all the hurt and pain that flowed through it. To see the inside of an institution where intellect and logic are thrown to the wolves and sanity is not even in attendance can take even the strongest hearts and break them.
Hospitals are for the sick, but they should always be a place that we try to move people out of, not have people stuck permanently within their walls. Amidst the noise and all the commotion, I knew that I was going to be able to find my path. A small voice of steadying calm came, and I knew that I had reached as low as I could ever be. And in those moments I knew this was just my first climb up Mount Hope.
