A Taste of Despair

Warning!

This post is not happy-fun-giddy, laugh-out-loud funny, or insightful by any means.

This is a true story and it is very dark and depressing.

Please! If this will damper your holidays or ruin your mood DO NOT READ THIS.

Come back to it later or skip it all together. I won’t be offended.

It was December 25^th. Brother had gone to his girlfriend’s house Christmas Eve to spend happy-fun-Christmas-time with them and Shake’n’Bake had been picked up by her dad at 8 that morning.

The two of us had gone to his mom’s house to spend Christmas lunch with them, then all of us were supposed to drive up to his aunt’s house for Christmas dinner.

We made it through lunch.

He had kept me hidden in the basement watching movies I didn’t want to see... almost hiding me from his family. His mom had given me a tour of their house and when she asked him for help with the horses I came outside too.

Then he bummed a cigarette off her.

It wasn’t the cigarette itself, it really wasn’t. It was the fact that every thing he said to me he had gone back on. Every promise had been broken, every noble statement had shrivelled up and died, and I knew in that one instance that he was not going to even try to be my baby’s father.

The depression hit hard and it hit strong.

I barely functioned through the gift opening and then I realized that I still had to drive to the middle of nowhere to visit his aunt... and I couldn’t do it. I knew I was in a serious funk, a spiral of destructive thoughts and empty blackness, and I also knew I couldn’t ruin Christmas for a bunch of strangers.

I pleaded sickness and left.

Driving home was the longest drive I have ever had to do. Tears were pouring down my face so much, that I could barely see the road.

‘Who cares,’ I thought, ‘I could die right now and it would be better.’

I thought about Shake’n’Bake and I knew that she was safe with her father. I knew I would miss her terribly, but she was still only one and would barely remember me. Barely know the ache of a dead mother.

I thought about the tiny person growing inside me and I knew that they would be better off if they weren’t born. I knew that they would be miserable being with me and that it would be better to end it all now.

And through the streaming tears I saw telephone poles whizzing by, and I wanted to turn my car into one and die.

I released the wheel and mimed turning it into the poles.

Several times.

I don’t know how I made it home in one piece, but somehow I did, and I was so alone.

Brother wasn’t due back until the next day, and neither was I really.

For the first time in my life, I considered abortion. The thoughts racing through my head over and over again were that I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be raising two little girls and dealing with everything else life had to throw at me, while being with someone who was so unsupportive and fake.

I started calling Abortion Clinics.

Not one was open because it was Christmas.

I called the Crisis Hotline and told them that I really needed to speak to an Abortion Counsellor – someone who could tell me if I was making this decision for the right reasons – but no one was available... it was Christmas.

I wasn’t about to call my dad and ruin his Christmas with my super-depression, my family has had enough with mom’s Christmas hatred.

So I resigned myself to crying. I lied in bed and sobbed. I sat on the couch and sobbed. I curled up in a ball on the kitchen floor and I sobbed.

I was empty and lost and hurting so badly, and there was no one there to help me.

I had just gotten off the kitchen floor and moved back to the couch when I heard the key turn in the door.

Brother had left his girlfriend’s house and come home. He had no idea that I was there, and he had no reason to come home at all that day. The house was supposed to be empty, yet he decided to leave the warmth and joy of his girlfriend’s Christmas celebration and bum a ride home.

All he would say?

“I felt like you needed me.”

He saved my life that day, coming home when he did.

The doctors diagnosed it as antenatal depression which means pregnancy induced. It got better and eventually disappeared but I’m not sure if that was due to my pregnancy progressing (hence the hormones changing) or due to me taking control of my life again. But what I do know for sure, is that the turning point was when Brother came home unexpectedly Christmas Day, to a supposedly empty house, because he felt like I needed him.

And so, I would like to say, that my Brother is a great man. We helped each other survive growing up, he shows so much affection to my children, and I’ve watched him grow into a smart, powerful man. I know that he is going to do great things in his life and I am excited to be a part of it.

Brother,

Thank you for making me soup when I was sick, babysitting my children, teaching me about computers, and waking up early with me every Christmas morning.

Christmas is a time of year that I think of you often. I remember decorating the tree together, talking for four hours every morning before we could wake the parents up, and laughing about Grandma’s walking farts.

I love you so much, and I am grateful every day for all the things that you have done for me.

Merry Christmas Brother!

With love,

Sister.