Personal: Phoenix Rising, Part 1 ♥

phoe·nix

noun

Definitions:

1.  (in classical mythology) a unique bird that lived for five or six centuries in the Arabian desert, after this time burning itself on a funeral pyre and rising from the ashes with renewed youth to live through another cycle.

2. a person or thing regarded as uniquely remarkable in some respect.

Phrases:

rise like a phoenix from the ashes — emerge renewed after apparent disaster or destruction

.....

I never thought I would live past 18. 

When I turned 18 back in 2014, I tried to end my life. I had been suffering from panic attacks for years with little to no help from medical “professionals” (I am a little jaded now). I was just starting college, and I was being severely bullied on campus and felt alone, hated, and unwanted. I ascended the steps of the library and went out onto the highest balcony, sliding the glass door closed behind me. I stepped out into the cool night air and looked out over the campus, taking in the grass, the globe statue, and the lights glimmering on the classroom building. No one was out and about. It was quiet. 

I don’t remember looking over the railing to see how far the fall would be, but I know it was high enough to cause extreme injury - if not death - when I landed on the unforgiving concrete below. I considered how to jump to maximize my chances of ending it all in one fell swoop, but I paused in this thought process. Something made it come to a halt. 

I believe now that it was God. I became a Christian in July 2010, but as the years went on, I knew I had been wading in doubt in the midst of the bullying, the gossip, the deliberate shunning, the panic attacks, the depression, and the screeching voices in my head. 

I stood beneath the moon a bit longer before I backed away from the possibility of jumping and headed to my dorm room. I climbed the ladder to my top bunk and sat in the dark, the tears once again coming. I looked up the number to the Suicide Hotline and my finger hovered above the dial button. I tapped it but hung up out of fear before even two rings could go off. I ended up calling my fiancé, and then my mom. She came and got me the next day and took me to the hospital. 

To condense this story and not re-explore the pain too much, I suffered once again from being, in my opinion, dismissed by doctors. I was misdiagnosed twice and consequently put on the wrong medications that did not address my true condition. From 2014 to 2017, I was thrown into more pain and agony due to the wrong medications. In 2017, I was finally diagnosed with Type 2 bipolar disorder. 

Truthfully, I did not take the diagnosis well. I was scared and angry. I was not well-educated on exactly what bipolar disorder was, and therefore believed it was something sinister, something beyond awful. That fear only furthered my self-loathing and drove the roots of the belief that I was a monster into my mind and heart. 

I felt that I walked alone, completely isolated from everyone and everything around me. I felt disgusting, undesired, and worthy of death. I believed all of these things despite the fact I had a loving and supportive family, a boyfriend-turned-fiancé, and I even finally had friends. Best friends, in fact. 

I had never had any real friends with who I felt I could share anything and everything with: what was on my heart, my favorite songs, my deepest wishes, my darkest thoughts. I finally gained this type of friendship through my fiance starting in 2015. 

First, I found a beautiful and true friendship in Tyler's roommate, James.

And from there, I gained more friends. A different friendship also started beautifully but began to turn bad, even dangerous, as the years went on. It finally ended in 2019 following a very disturbing encounter between him and me. 

I was devastated when it ended. But from that gaping hole that I believed would never heal came abundant joy. 

Finally, my saving grace dawned. 

2019 was a painful year. I believed, like everyone else, that 2020 would be absolutely magical. It seemed like a lucky number, the start of a fresh decade. 

But of course, the façade of a ‘New Year’ being distinct in its own right, disconnected from the past and time and pain, is simply not true. 

2020 has been, to say the least, tough. It has been full of uncertainty, fear, disillusionment, disconnection, and loneliness. It has been tainted with unrest, riots, killings, suicides, racial injustice, and illness. Of course, every single year contains these types of events all around the world, but it has never been quite as highlighted and broadcasted as it has been this year. 

Leading back into my own little thread of life, 2020 dawned with me having a breakdown. I was suicidal, scared, and somber. I reached out to my text group consisting of my fiancé, Tyler, and best friends - James, TyWag (also a Tyler), and Wyatt. I poured out my fear and heart as the moonlight shone down and mixed with my tears, and the inky darkness pooled in my heart and pumped through my veins. 

Tyler was at work. My friends did not live close. I laid down on my bedroom floor and imagined the world as it spun, the billions of people out there, the sun and moon in their courses, and how my overwhelming pain was just a blip in it all. 

And then, my phone chimed. 

Wyatt was coming over. 

I sat up in shock. I began to sob. 

I couldn’t believe it. 

No one had ever done that type of thing for me except Tyler. 

Wyatt asked for Tyler's permission if he could come to see me, and I crawled my way off of the floor and to the shower, attempting to wash the tears away and have some semblance of freshness about me when he arrived.

Wyatt texted me that he was at my house, and I descended the stairs to retrieve him.

I giggled nervously to him that I could not believe he came, and I felt a mixture of joy, fear, and pain overwhelm me as we made our way back into my bedroom. 

I turned to face him but froze when I noticed his expression. 

It was serene, full of compassion. His eyes were kind, his mouth slightly quirked in a knowing smile.

“You know that you can cry around me, right?” 

“Yeah, of course!” I replied, attempting to sound perky. 

He slightly raised his eyebrows and slowly began to open his arms for a hug. 

I immediately broke back down into rib-racking sobs and threw myself into him. 

There was nothing but comfort within his embrace. 

He stayed and talked to me for hours, occasionally wiping away my tears and hugging me tight when he saw I needed it. 

I realized after he left that he was the big brother I had always wanted, dreamed of, and prayed for. 

It wouldn’t be until months later that the connection was made that he embodied a character I had created a decade earlier as a coping mechanism. 

Before that connection occurred, Wyatt encouraged and loved me through many more ups and downs. I frequently went over to his place and cried my heart out to the point my eyes swelled, my shirt was soaked through with sweat, and I felt fully exhausted from the amount of pain I had ejected from my mouth in words, skin in sweat, and eyes in tears.

He managed to get me to quit drinking in late May and to be brave enough to go get bloodwork done and to change my medications in early June. The medication change was an incredibly painful experience, but I managed to make it through and was better for it. 

Finally, Wyatt encouraged me to begin writing again. 

Through this, I re-discovered an old tattered notebook from 2010. Within it, I found many characters that I had created, stories I had written, and plot outlines I had scrawled and abandoned.

But out of them all, I remembered two in particular.

Chase and Avery. 

(to be continued in Part 2)

♥

Image source: Phoenix (a manga series by Osamu Tezuka)