Five Years

"My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare..."

Icicles and Cast Iron by Robert Zunikoff

CN: ideation

I haven’t finished writing and posting anything here since last year. December was a blur. January was one of the worst mental health months in my nearly 22 years of recovery. It feels both scary and liberating to admit that. Between the political landscape and the massive destruction caused by the fires in Los Angeles—my hometown, where so many people I care about lost their homes—I reached a point of paralysis.

It felt—in my brain, in my body—like the world was collapsing in on itself. And I didn’t want to be here—to witness it.

I kept thinking about the David Bowie song “Five Years,” particularly these lines….

News had just come over
We had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us
Earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet
Then I knew he was not lying

I heard telephones, opera house, favorite melodies
I saw boys, toys, electric irons and TV's
My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare
I had to cram so many things to store everything in there

I just wanted out. It’s the same feeling I had as a child and a teenager and a young woman when I reached for those exits—be they men, or heroin, or shopping, or self-harm. My children are what kept me tethered here last month. But barely. When against the wall, my brain is quite good at convincing me that my existence is more harmful than beneficial…. to everyone in my life—my friends and family, my husband, my children, to strangers on the internet.

The benefit of nearly 22 years of recovery and years of mental health support is that there is a difference now. I have some tools to make it through those moments. And I know how to say something. I was able to admit to my husband, my friends, my therapist, and my psychiatrist that I was struggling, that my mind was at war with itself, and that I had to sit on my hands for minutes at a time to just….. stay.

As is always true, my feelings shifted. The fog began to lift, and I could see ways forward, ways out of that paralysis—through civic engagement, connection rather than isolation, and finding and holding onto every small piece of joy. 

I don’t really know why I am sharing this here. Partly, I feel the need to explain my absence, and partly, maybe you’ve been struggling too, and it helps to know someone else understands. 

Regular Ask Erin posts will resume this week (which is good because my inbox has never been so full). Enough about me; how are you? Where are you finding joy?