Ten Years On

"If I can just get to the kitchen."

These are the words I remember going through my mind ten years ago this past Friday on my 28th birthday.

If I could just get to the kitchen, I reasoned with myself, I could get a glass of water and some codeine down me and get back to bed. If I could get back to bed, I had a hope in hell of riding out the menstrual cramps that were lacing through me with a ferocity I had never encountered before.

At that time in my life, I'd become accustomed to losing my life for a few days to the haze of hormones, painkillers and bone numbing fatigue that was my monthly period. But this day was different. This day, while I sat doubled over on top of the toilet, it felt like someone was running a knife back and forth across my lower stomach.

If I can just get to the kitchen...

The next thing I was aware of was my breathing, the forced, wet, heaving of air that I began to sense ricocheting off the floor and across my cheeks. I was on the floor. My head was on the floor.

I was on the floor and I could taste blood.

"Get up." was my next thought. I have to get up and get to a phone.

I recall blinking my eyes, getting my bearings, having the sense of myself come back into my body the way it only ever does after I've fainted and my brain's rebooted. I somehow managed to sit up and prop myself against the wall. I saw my cat Mojo in the hallway just outside the bathroom staring at me, unblinking and unnerved.

I somehow got myself up, grabbed the phone and got back to bed. I called my folks and let them know what had happened. Despite being a 40 minute drive away, they were the best choice because they had a key to my apartment and that meant I wouldn't have to get out of bed.

And they were my parents. If there was ever a time I needed my parents, this was it.

"It's not pretty." I remember saying on the phone and I was glad I did, that I had prepared them. I woke when I heard my parents at my bedroom door. I felt Mojo's paw on my shoulder and realized I had fallen asleep with him doing the exact same thing.

I turned and looked up, the blood now congealed all over my forehead, my right eye almost swollen shut. I saw my Mum brace herself as she looked at me, physically stifling the urge to react to what she was seeing.

She came up to me and had a closer look, cradling my chin in her hand, settling my spirits with just a look.

"Right." she said, "I'll get a washcloth."

About seven months before this, I had left my previous mind numbing job in the investment industry. I had been giving an electronic day timer as a gift and shortly after starting my new role, I made an entry in the month of April that said "Quit job and pursue acting."

I had started a job in July at a consulting firm and within three days knew I had made a terrible mistake. I worked to make a living and had now moved to a company where peopled lived only to work. I had been seduced by more money and a well tailored interview process that had made the job seem more exciting than it was. I'd ended up in a well paying version of high school, and the cool kids got to decide whether I got a raise or not.

I'd be damned if I'd go cap in hand back to my old job, so one day as I lay in the bath tub, I felt a wave of relief go through me when I finally acknowledged that what I was doing just wasn't my bag. I'd hang in until the end of March, get my RRSP bonus and then quit. My body had other plans and quit for me instead.

For months I'd been working through an escalation of bad sleep, fatigue, sadness and relentless anxiety. Despite everything, I made myself keep going through sheer force of will. What's ironic in retrospect is that I was so hard on myself during this time. I kept telling myself I was a loser, a weakling, and yet it took smacking my head into a bathroom floor to finally make me stop.

The whole experience bestowed on me a fatalism I've never quite shook since. It showed me how easily your whole life could be changed in a heartbeat. I went from auditioning and holding down a full time job to feeling triumphant if I was just able to get out of bed and stay up for more than three hours. The first three months of recovery were hell. After sixteen months of rest, antibiotics and iron supplements, I was able to return to work, but just barely.

After months of trying to get well while being refused benefits by my insurer, I had eventually conceded defeat, decided I would rack up the debt I needed to rack up and just focus on rest and recovery. I had to get my life back.

And I did, but I can honestly say that it's only in the last year that I've felt like I finally lifted my head up right off that bathroom floor. Ragdoll wrote recently about how trauma can undermine your confidence and I think that's very true. I went from an anxiety laden existence of perceived trauma to having the real thing to contend with. Illness and loneliness are the most eviscerating of couples.

For a long time I felt like I had accomplished nothing. More accurately I hadn't accomplished what I had envisioned, but I've realized that doesn't mean I don't deserve some credit. Many things have changed for the better. Ten years ago I didn't own my home, didn't have a loving and stable relationship, didn't have a job that required some creativity, didn't have my brood of cats, didn't have the energy to do theatre, didn't have a healthy body, and didn't have the strength to keep up with a workout plan. There's been inevitable casualties along the way. People I've loved have died or have no longer desired my friendship. Plans didn't work out. Betrayal and disappointment litter my life as they do any other.

But I have still accomplished. I'm still standing and more importantly, I'm starting to climb again. Do I have further to go? Of course I do. The journey to ourselves is ongoing.

This morning, an incident popped into my mind that I hadn't thought about in nearly 30 years. My family and I had gone up north to stay at a lodge for a week. One day we went horseback riding and at one point in the trail, my horse decided she wanted to gallop. It was my first time on a horse and not having any skills in this area, I eventually got thrown right off.

Fortunately I had no broken bones and though shaken up, I was no worse for wear. My mother stopped me as I headed back to the horse. She thought I should walk. She said to me later that she thought I was very brave for getting back on and riding the rest of the trail. I realized this morning that at the time, it simply hadn't occurred to me that not getting back on the horse was an option.

I think I'll always want to have inside of me, that nine year old that's going to get back on and ride the rest of the trail.