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Confession
thejanechord
Diaryland
notifylist.com
2003-03-03
10:13 a.m.
I’ve noticed a particularly bothersome trend in my journal recently. With all the people I know who read my journal, I think I’ve been inadvertently censoring more than I would like to censor. This bothers me. The point of my journal is to allow myself time to think on paper (or on the computer, as the case may be), and, when I’m censoring what I say, it’s not doing anyone any good.
My journal is one of the only things that I care deeply about, and, I believe it, in its essence, has come to define me better than anything else in my life. As I’m continually searching for definition of myself, I find it unfair to have to censor things that I would otherwise like to say. Everyone I know should be aware of how much my journal means to me. The simple fact that I’ve kept a journal for so long should attest to that clearly. Just because my journal is online doesn’t mean I should have to censor myself. The whole point of my journal was to be honest for the benefit of myself, my friends, my family, and everyone else out there who feels the need to read something having largely to do with depression.
That said, today I’d like to talk about my older sister. I don’t talk about my older sister much because she and I really don’t keep in touch very well. I don’t keep in touch with anyone very well, though, mostly because I find life too draining when I’m simply trying to keep my own head above water. Every moment of my life feels like one more second before I finally drown -- drown in the constant, belligerent, fastidious horror of everyday occupation.
One of these days, life is going to kill me.
In any case, my older sister has been dealing with a serious problem in recent months. You see, at the end of last May, when Rob and I were on the road in the big truck with all our shit, moving our lives from Georgia back to Boston, my older sister’s best friend was killed in a car crash. This wasn’t just your ordinary friend, either. This was the sort of friend who grew up with you and shared all of your best and worst times through adolescence only to continue to be your closest friend even through miles of separation and years of only an occasional get-together.
This girl was a family friend, too, so my entire family was friends with this girl’s entire family, and now all interaction with this family brings with it a certain degree of discomfort and uncertainty. I have done all that I can to completely avoid this situation because I know that getting into it will affect me in a highly negative way. Thus, I have done everything to try and forget that the accident ever happened, and the only effort I have made to support my sister’s pain was to send her a copy of my favorite book and to write her a letter specifying that I thought she should see a shrink if she wasn’t feeling better within six months.
Ten months later, she’s unable to sleep and she’s telling my parents that she wishes she was with her friend when she was killed. My sister is going through a miserable episode of depression. I called her yesterday to see how she was doing, and she sounded so distant and removed from herself that I know there is definitely a problem. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do to help. I spend my life trying to write for the benefit of anyone who would like to learn more about depression, I offer help and support to people who e-mail me with similar problems to mine, and I can’t do a damn thing to help my own sister.
My parents asked me after the accident if I wanted to know the details of what happened exactly. I told them I didn’t because any explanation of a fatal car accident would only have made the pictures in my head increasingly vivid, and that was certainly not necessary. The night after they told me, I awoke every few minutes all night long with bloody visions of battered corpses intertwined with sheets of metal and shards of glass. This is not altogether uncommon for me, though. It just came at a bad time because I was in the middle of a thousand-mile road trip, and the last thing I wanted to think about was fatal car accidents.
Luckily for me, I was able to forcibly push the visions aside with the help of three prescription medications and the constant, conscious reminder that this girl was not MY best friend, and I shouldn’t think about it as though it was. I should be glad that it wasn’t my best friend, and I am. I should be glad I’m not going through what my sister is going through, and I am. But I neglected to face the fact that my sister probably needs more support than the simple book and letter were able to offer.
From what I understand, she has recently seen a doctor about her inability to sleep, and the doctor gave her a medication that she refuses to take because “medication makes her feel drunk.” Understanding this because my mother says the same thing, I can’t help but think that if she would just keep taking it, it wouldn’t make her feel “drunk” anymore, and it might even help her in the long run. She’s thinking too short term.
I wish there was something I could do.
I love my sister, and I would do anything to be able to help her. Yet, I think there was nothing that could’ve been done for me when I initially needed help from my struggles with depression. It’s clear to me that my sister needs to see someone regularly and be on constant medication probably for anxiety, but she’s too stubborn to give it a chance. What more can I do? The more I suggest, the more she’s sure to resist. So all I can do is sit and worry and continue to be thankful that it wasn’t my best friend.
