The last chapter of Maura + Me
An essay on the exhaustion of life with serious mental illness and the last installment of Maura + Me
Hello Beautiful Human,
It is somehow already the last day of June. I keep trying to catch time like the fireflies that dance in our yard each evening yet I keep coming up empty-handed. I think this is how time passes in our increasingly digital world. Fractured by incessant emails, notifications, news stories, and video clips, time is scattered like the mosaic of flickering beetles jitterbugging on my lawn.
But I don't think time has to be experienced in this frenzied way. Actually, I know that is the case for I have lived the slowness –
Walking with my sister, nephew, and mom just last week, I felt every step I took and every gaze Waffle adoringly gave me. And just last night, I had the same feeling while eating cheeseburgers and pesto pasta with my neighbors seated on a gusty front porch while we laughed about the absurdity of our little town’s traffic patterns. Again I felt connected on the random weekday evening when I helped a friend with her chicken coop as we laughed for absolutely no reason at all and also during that swim I took with my mom and the girls last week where we giggled like children at the unexpected chill.
Yes, I don't think time has to be the blur of chaos and hyperproductivity that we have created, for recently I have lived the purity of living it in presence and connection.
And so, this last day of June, before I share the essay I failed to share last week due to a fugue state and then, the final chapter of Maura and Me with you all, I begin my quest to slow time down with all of you.
Yes, today, I begin to celebrate the truth I have known since I was a very little girl.
Recovery is better together. So much better together. And when we do it together, time slows, our body eases and breath fills us to the brim.
So today, taking full ownership of the great irony of using zoom for this, I am announcing the (re)kick off of…
Solidarity Salons – hour-long storytelling and support community gatherings devoted to healing out loud together.
Our first 2024 solidarity salon will be Sunday, July 7.
It will be free.
And I’d like you all to help me decide the time:
Now, here is that piece that I did not send out due to an unexpected fugue state…
I keep putting myself to bed before 5pm
I keep putting myself to bed before 5pm.
I keep forgiving myself for it too.
I’m exhausted, after all.
I’m so very exhausted.
I texted with a friend last night — a mind warrior like me.
We talked about how mental illness just sucks and how we both cried randomly earlier that very day — me at a gas station — them while grabbing a sandwich.
I told them I don’t know why I even cry anymore.
It just all feels like too much.
And the truth is —
It is too much.
The appointments, the pills, the therapy workbooks, the prior authorizations that never go through, the endless calls to the insurance company I pay thousands for coverage that never seems to apply.
And the symptoms.
All the symptoms that don’t go away no matter how perfectly I do all the things to tame them.
Yes, it is too much.
Now, I know I’m not supposed to say that.
I know I’m supposed to live hope and gratitude and all my silver linings.
But holy heck.
I’m so tired of fighting so damn hard to find them.
Of course, I know this is only a season.
Of course, I know and repeat often — every storm runs out of rain.
But I’ve lived this for twenty years — shouldn’t I be out of tears by now?
And as I ask that, in the back of my mind, I also ask myself the very question so many ask of me —
Will you ever actually get better, Kate?
Will these symptoms ever go away?
And what lingers longer and nags ever stronger is the truth I know in my panging heart, in my cresting tears, and in my dysregulated ever-quaking body.
Serious mental illness doesn’t go away.
We manage it.
We find the silver linings in the middle of its hurricane.
And we talk to friends who get it and get in bed before sunset.
But no — it doesn’t go away.
The only thing that could ever do so is to treat me — to treat us — like it doesn’t need to.
Yes, the only thing that could ever truly change the prognosis is to accept me — to love me — to make me feel like I belong in all my darkest seasons.
And so again, I get in bed.
Because the fight to change myself and this world is exhausting.
So very exhausting.
And until that fight becomes one about how the world can change instead of how much harder I can fight to make my pain more palatable, I think that’s okay.
Yes, I think that’s okay, indeed.
Solidarity Stories
If you would like to share your story — or a glimmer, big little victory or recent hardship — we would love to hear it. You can do so anonymously by sharing it here.
A note before the final chapter
It has been a true honor writing this in front of you. Your kindness, love, and support have been guiding forces over this last year and I honestly could not have written this whole book without you here reading my words.
So, thank you so much for being here with me as I bravely, boldly and oh so unabashedly shared Maura and my story.
And now, without further ado, the final chapter.
As with recent chapters, this chapter is only available in full to paid subscribers. This is done because I need to convince agents and publishers that my work is worthy of a paid book deal and that serious mental illness really is a subject people will pay to read about. So, if you are able, please help me get that book deal by becoming a paid subscriber today.
That said — and I truly mean this — if a subscription is currently untenable, fill out this form and I will add you no questions asked. I mean it. No questions asked. Being read is an honor and a true gift. And I am absolutely not here to create any more barriers in this already broken system.
The Speech
A new shift of nurses welcomed me brightly as I walked into the unit, the optimism draining from their faces immediately as they took in my disheveled appearance – hospital scrubs hanging off my underweight body. Trash bag of soiled clothes in hand. And the trails of that one dab of mascara smeared all the way down my puffy, tear-stained face.
No more words passed between us thereafter. There was nothing to say anyway. So I exchanged my ruined clothes for my pills without a fight or usual quick-witted remark and shuffled off to bed where I wept myself to sleep.
A few hours later, I awoke with a start to find Maura straddling me in raucous giggles.