I owe you all an apology. I am sorry.

I also owe you a thank-you. Thank-you from the bottom of my heart.

On saturday night i sent out a message on Twitter asking for help. It came out of the blue and was probably unexpected and scary. It was scary for me. I owe you an explanation.

As you all know i have had my problems with depression and anxiety. I was diagnosed as bi-polar in 2006. I was even hospitalized. I have been mostly better since then. I have had my struggles. I have had both joy and sadness in my life in all their intensities.

This has been a very difficult year for me. The end of a marriage, coping with being single and a single mom, buying a house and having it burn down and then having a diagnosis of cancer in my mouth.

All the stress has been rushing at me.

In the past month or two i have been slowly losing my grasp on reality. My heart has been slowly tightening and i have been pushing people out of my life. It is what i do. I push away and pull into myself. The push me/pull me of depression. Walking through my days in a haze, masterfully putting on my exterior mask of "just fine."

And i guess it wasn't okay. I wasn't okay. I was coping by occupying my time with kids and work. Avoiding being alone. I never wanted to be alone. Alone is when the heart crushing sadness took over.

On saturday night i was meant to work. I had the kids at their dads house. I had made no plans.

I had made no plans.

Then i got called off work. I knew, i felt it deep in my soul that this was not going to be a good night. This is when, if i was a reasonable person, this is when i should have called for help.

Instead i locked myself inside my house and a deep mania took hold of me. To the outside world all was fine. I watched a movie. I spoke on the phone with my ex-husband (shane). I downloaded some music. Then i spoke with shane again, sometime around midnight. We had a fight. I was hurt. I felt intensely guilty. Ashamed of who i was. Who i had become. How it had all slipped away and here i was alone, slightly drunk and desperately sad in my room on a saturday night.

I went in the bathroom and took a handful of sleeping pills. I didn't even think about it.

I didn't even think about it.

Then i looked in the mirror and asked myself "is this what you really want?"

"no."

That was when i turned around and took the rest of them. They went down in a chalky, messy choke. The power and speed in which those drugs overtook me was intense. I went back to my room and grabbed my phone and it was out of batteries. That is when i turned to Twitter. And i'm not sorry i did.

As i fell into unconsciousness i truly thought i was going to die. In a split second a flurry of thoughts went through my head.

you are a fucking idiot
look what you have done
people will be mad
my kids
my kids
my kids
it doesn't hurt right now
you're an idiot

This is when the internet saved my life. It sounds dramatic. It sounds silly even. I know that many people have judged me over the past few days. I have heard and read what you have said. Part of me agrees. But, truth be told, i reached out to my friends. The people who have stood by me through thick and thin. Have been there to listen to me cry through words and keystrokes.

The following 48 hours are a blur of sleep and love. Shane came and got me and swept me into his home, our old home, our family home. He held me while i slept it all away in the quiet sleep of a heart repairing, a mind preparing to come back and fight. It was the most intensely i have felt cared for and loved in a long, long time.

And then i opened my computer. And there it was. Hundreds, hundreds, of letters and messages from people worried about me. Instead of guilty i felt cherish. I cherish each and every one of you that sent me thoughts. I cannot even begin to respond to all of you and i am still not ready to talk on the phone.

But, please know, i heard it all and i am so thankful.

Thank you.

jess

i am so tired of this loneliness

then answer your phone asshole.

i can't. i can't.

i don't know what to say. i'm afraid of what i might say.

he said you're making it hard for him

there is nothing i can do about that. all i can do these days is sleep, work, parent and sit in my bed and participate in this endless void of both heady and lowly banter. i don't have the mental capacity to even begin to address those words, the audacity of them.

you put your angel wing necklace on again

i need it. i feel at the end of my rope. i can't take another single thing.

i still have so many things to deal with before life becomes, even remotely, normal. i don't even know what normal might look like anymore.

i did kick parenting ass today. that was a start. and i took some vitamins. and i bought some decorations.

i am not going to blow this holiday season off. i am going to make it lake house awesome. all cinnamon and pine scented.

the phone is ringing. you want to talk to this person. answer the phone.

i can't.

We really do feel alone. We really do.

Over the yummiest soup, looking out at the lake, i wondered how far i could swim before i would drown.

It becomes a habit. This holing up. These days of offices in bed. The connection to all the people making you feel cool one moment and like a total failure the next.

I have this annoying habit of developing huge crushes on musicians. Something about words and music and feelings. With books and writers it's the words, not them. I have crushes on books, stacking my favourites beside my bed. Giving them loving looks and caresses as i fall asleep.

Those things you said about me were very mean and hurt my feelings.

I'm surprised when people want to be my friend. It surprises me and sometimes i leap in their arms and beg them to never, ever leave me. Other times i push them away by never answering their calls or requests, saying no to get-togethers and invitations. I'm surprised the friends i do have tolerate me. Especially when i call them or show up at their door in tears in the middle of the night.

I'm surprised how many of us are alone.

I'm thinking it's probably a good thing i didn't end up being a stay-at-home mom to four school aged children.

Although i have had more days with sick kids around than not since school started in september, these days when i am home alone for five hours? I go stir crazy.

I think i don't know how to be alone. I know i don't know how to be alone.

I have friends that lunch, and yoga, and hike. Sometimes i think i should be doing those things. I should be climbing mountains, drinking wine over raunchy conversation, teetering around in high heels and put together bodies.

I should have friends. I joined Bitches Who Brunch knowing full well i would never, absolutely ever, show up.

I am socially inept. I am exactly what people think of when they hear about women who spend their days on twitter and facebook. I am a geek.

Geek sounds too romantic.

I am the living, breathing picture of social anxiety.

I can get all up in your face on the internet because i don't have to talk to you. I don't use any live chat applications, i rarely answer emails, i log in to skype in the very wee hours of the night to talk to one person. I never go "online."

I am alone, i choose to be alone, but i feel paralyzed by being alone.

Not quite sure yet if i'm going to do NaBloPoMo this year. I have a heavy heart surrounding NaNoWriMo and PoMo because of losing my novel three years ago, 36,000 words in. It still haunts me. Words that were lost, that poured out of me that dark november, gone forever.

Anyways, today i am feeling a little better. I have had a few days to digest my news. It took awhile for my body, my heart to remind me that i am, indeed, still healthy. That i'm not going to die. It's just going to be a pain in the butt (and mouth) for a few months. Then i can move on. It's just another hurdle. I am getting very strong legs from all these hurdles i have been jumping.

Surely good things are around the next bend.

I've been listening to Sigur Ros. It's somehow grounding me and letting my dreams come back out. I can still dream.