Surviving A Dark Night of the Soul

Credit: Excerpt from my book, The Dictionary of Missing Time

Dark Night of the Soul

Definition

The “dark night of the soul” is a term that goes back a long time. It is a term used to describe what one could call a collapse of a perceived meaning in life…an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness. The inner state in some cases is very close to what is conventionally called depression.

Really what has collapsed then is the whole conceptual framework for your life, the meaning that your mind had given it. So that results in a dark place. But people have gone into that, and then there is the possibility that you emerge out of that into a transformed state of consciousness. Life has meaning again, but it’s no longer a conceptual meaning that you can necessarily explain. Quite often it’s from there that people awaken out of their conceptual sense of reality, which has collapsed.

Eckhart Tolle

Stage One—Initial Crisis

Christmas Day was the beginning of a shitstorm I didn’t see coming. It was the coldest day in forty years, with temperatures far below zero, though there was very little snow on the ground. Upon awakening, I felt unusually cold, but headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Nothing came out of the spicket; I would soon discover that the pipes were frozen. So much for brushing my teeth. I ran downstairs to find the furnace, although still functioning, was not able to keep up with the frozen air assaulting the house from the outside. I was at a loss as to what to do—I began calling repairmen, but it was Christmas Day, a historically shitty day for me anyway.

I drove to Killian’s and quickly told him what was going on. I was probably going to need a place to stay; however, he advised that he wasn’t ready for a relationship. We had been seeing each other for over a year and half, but he still wasn’t ready for a relationship. It was obvious that he wasn’t lying in this regard. There was no Christmas present—not even a ten-dollar item—at his house for me. Either I didn’t mean enough to him to warrant a present, or we had very different value systems. The reality was, if he couldn’t financially afford a ten-dollar present for his girlfriend, he couldn’t mentally afford a girlfriend on any level. Pissed beyond measure, I drove to my daughter’s house to exchange presents.

I thought I had outdone myself on the presents, but not everyone agreed. The long history of shitty Christmases continued. Arriving home, I discovered that water was flooding my kitchen. I ran into the basement to shut off the water, only to discover that the ceiling in the basement had collapsed. This was a clusterfuck of colossal proportions.

This additional stress was more than I could take. There were delays with the publisher for my first book, I was still unable to find a steady-paying job due to the misdemeanors on my record, and now Killian and I were breaking up. Add to that the background anger over stagflation and the poor political climate, along with an ever-increasing lack of girlfriends with whom to vent, and I was reaching my breaking point.

Stage Two—Loss of Direction and Hope

While the relationship with Killian had already started to sour, he was part of my routine. In the span of twenty-four hours, I was forced to move into a hotel, as my house was uninhabitable, I lost my boyfriend, and I still had no job. I had even recently distanced myself from the girlfriends whom I knew from when I was still using. Without a boyfriend to motivate me, girlfriends to vent to, or money to get out of the house, and with all the background anger, I began to sink into a depression. Every facet of my routine had been upended. The further I sank into the depression, the worse my situation became. I was missing meals, ignoring my medication schedule, and no longer taking my mental health strolls around the neighborhood. I could no longer quilt in the hotel room, I lost interest in my writing career, and every attempt at applying for a job was met with a resounding no. The further the routines in my life slipped away, the deeper the depression—once unmedicated, I began to lose my grip on reality, sanity, and hope. I began to malfunction on all levels. I knew what I needed to do—I needed professional help. I called 911 and asked to be taken the nearest “department of mental hygiene.”

Stage Three—Emotional Rock Bottom

Hopefully, this will be the last time I ever get pink-slipped to a hospital because of a deteriorating mental state. Last thing I remember was being in my kitchen and having what seemed like a seizure. I was jerking involuntarily, unable to control my muscle movements, and screaming that Killian was coming to kill me. That he was hunting me down as a serial killer would. In the month leading up to the breakup, he did seem to give off a creepy serial-killer attitude, which was one of the many reasons for the breakup, but I was also unmedicated. . I was no longer trusting my judgement however on anything. I was gaslighting myself.

I was somewhere in Youngstown, Ohio, in a “behavioral health clinic” for a nervous breakdown. I had been feeling the nervous breakdown coming on for months. So many events led up to the hospitalization—adjusting to living alone for the first time in my life, adjusting to sobriety, adjusting to unemployment, and adjusting to empty nesting. Plus, I’m going through a breakup.

This was, by far, the worst institution I had ever been in. I awoke on a cot—it can’t even be called a bed. No blankets were allowed, and the pillow was plastic. One wall was painted pea green to break up the monotony of the room, but to no avail. The bathroom didn’t have the kind of fixtures that you find in a home. The whole space was devoid of sharp objects, like screws or nails, that could be used to inflict harm on yourself or others. The windows had bars over them to prevent escape. The room heater vacillated between extreme heat and no heat at all. I looked over, and my roommate was retching into a garbage pail.

I had been burying my emotions for years. After an appointment with my therapist, I cried, really cried, for the first time in six years. Six long years since I was truly in touch with my emotions. In those six years, I had gotten divorced and sold the family home, my father had passed, and I got sober. I started a new job, moved away from my hometown, and went through two breakups. Both of my daughters got married, and I had a long-lost brother return to my life., the brother that had previously entered the Witness Protection Program. I became an author, quit my part-time job, and lost more girlfriends than I can count right now. There were many positives and negatives, and the deconstruction of my external life, was triggering a deconstruction internally. This time though, I will make sure I reconstruct things in such a way, that I never hit a bottom again.

It was a very a tumultuous six years, and I never shed a tear until I felt on the inside that it was safe to give in to the tears. Once I started crying, I cried for three days straight, sobbing so uncontrollably that I couldn’t get out of bed, feed myself, or even shower. The nervous breakdown, or breakthrough, was long overdue.

It’s so disorienting to be institutionalized. I was given no more respect than a sock whose mate has been missing for months. The lack of respect was palpable. I wasn’t given the respect a dog gives a tree. Anger and despair rushed in quickly. How long will I be here? What about the people who are counting on me? Why did my daughters get the bad luck of having a mentally unstable mother. Enveloped by shame and guilt, I was sober, so I couldn’t drink the emotions away. This too shall pass. It might pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass.

I had obviously been given no medication as my brain was as clear as a bell. The lights were dimmed in an attempt to keep the patients sleepy and subdued—it clearly wasn’t working. I could hear the screams of the other patients. Some had foul mouths, some were speaking incoherently, and some were just shrieking.

How did I get here? I don’t mean just today; I mean when did my life take this severe and dramatic turn? I had graduated with honors when I earned a master’s degree. I had climbed the French Alps. But in addiction, I’m either the king of the hill or in a trap house, and this felt like a trap-house situation. I was sober—I just needed to find my happy medium when I got out. My middle ground—living neither in poverty nor in excess. I was long overdue for a true, fundamental change in the way I lived my life. I couldn’t keep doing what I had been doing. The lack of self-care, chasing money, clothes, and Killian, not ever putting myself as high of a priority as I needed to. This place feels like a county jail. The hysterical patients, the aggressively obtuse nurses, the lack of supervision. My shit will get so straight when I get out. I am never getting locked up again.

The anger continued to brew. I had clawed my way out of poverty. I had sacrificed for my education, my kids, my ex-husbands. And, still, this genetic time bomb had gone off, and I’d been discarded by society. I was being treated no better than clothes on their way to Goodwillthat discarded sock. No, when I get out, my shit will never be out of line again. The last time I had been that determined was when I earned my master’s degree. And if my roommate tells me one more time she failed a drug screen because she ate poppy-seed bagels, I’m going to scream.

Stage Four—Waking Up to the Truth

Lying there next to my roommate, who had the drug-riddled bagels, led me to examine myself on a deeper level. Through sobriety coaching and therapy, I was becoming aware of my issues and the baggage that I had picked up from unhealthy relationships, starting with my parents. My father always threw money at a problem instead of trying to solve it. Check—I do that too. It leads to rescuing-the-victim and people-pleasing tendencies. In active addiction, I was the perpetual victim, but would switch to a rescuing victim, and then a persecuting victim, depending on the situation. I had picked up bad relationship habits from my marriage to David, like abusive tendencies. The relationships with Frank and Killian were so short, because of my sobriety. I couldn’t stay sober with Frank, and with Killian, I was clear-headed enough to pull the plug as the red flags started flying.

It’s impossible to escape the transfer of these bad habits sometimes. As with checking into a hotel with bed bugs, there is no chance of leaving unscathed. My mother and father had a rescuer-saver dynamic. That’s odd—David, Frank, and Killian were all relationships with the rescuer-saver dynamic. All three of these men gave me less than the bare minimum in a relationship, just like my father. My adult relationships were simply reenactments of my parents’ marriage. Ugh—that’s a hard pill to swallow.

Was I easily going into relationships, or did I just not expect anything at all? Did I not expect anything because I didn’t even know what I wanted? I called Killian every name in the book, but I myself am a walking red flag, at least right now. I had been avoiding commitment since that first kiss in sixth grade.

Although I hadn’t taken a drink in three years, I hadn’t yet achieved emotional sobriety. I hadn’t fully grieved all that I had lost. I hadn’t confronted the dark sides of my personality, as I was still on my pink cloud. I hadn’t yet right-sizedright sized my ego and still hadn’t overcome the shame of my downfall. The emotional cost of breaking generational cycles is far larger than I had anticipated, but I am still betting that it’s worth it.

I was discharged from the hospital and returned home. Almost immediately, friends started showing up. But not to help—to continue to ask for favors. After informing them that I was in such bad shape that I could barely follow through on taking care of myself, they became angry and belligerent. I realized just how superficial and transactional these relationships really were. As I was hitting an emotional rock bottom, they just kept showing up with their hands out. Me, me, me—what about me? This rock bottom forced me to put an end to people-pleasing forever. I said no to more people and favors during this time than I had my whole life. Painful, but very necessary.necessary. . I wasn’t being difficult. I was now difficult to manipulate. There’s a world of difference between the two.

Like the story of David and Goliath, it’s the smallest of issues that brings me to my knees. But were they small issues? The unsuccessful search for gainful employment left me feeling no more valuable than chum in the water, and my mother’s shadow was inescapable; but at least I finally knew why—my relationships were merely reenactments of her marriage. She married a guy who had one foot out the door, and I involved myself with men who had one foot out the door. I’m not nearly as ready for a relationship as I thought. As Killian was smacking sunburns, it at least made me aware of what needed to be addressed and purged before this reconstruction.

Stage Five—Spiritual Study

As down on myself as I had been, I began to feel incredibly blessed. My sobriety stayed intact throughout this spiritual desolation and emotional bankruptcy. My home was warm and comfortable, and my daughters were top-notch kids. And I didn’t lose all my friends, just the opportunistic ones. Quilting as a mindfulness activity was very satisfying and a great creative outlet. My volunteer work was my way of giving back to a planet that had given so much to me. Yes, I’m terrible at relationships, but I need to count my blessings more often. If I can’t appreciate a coffee and a doughnut at rock bottom, why would the universe bless me with more than that?

My spirituality is still shaky, but I do find that I’m naturally aligned with Buddhist principles. Three years into sobriety, and I’m still taking it one day at a time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, as they say. And the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I decided to enter a period of extended celibacy before I messed with any more heads, hearts, and souls. My problems haven’t disappeared in sobriety; they have only revealed themselves, but at least I’ve stopped running long enough to address them.

On the plus side, my work ethic has improved by one thousand percent, my finances are falling into place, and my home has never been cleaner and more organized. Transfer addiction seems to be subsiding as I’m not shopping or overeating as if they were my job. This is nothing more than a run-of-the-mill nervous breakdown due to my nervous system being dysregulated for so long. The never-ending merry-go-round of fight-or-flight, freeze, and fawn led to fatigue and finally a near-catastrophic flop.

My life now is decluttering—after a lifetime of over accumulating over accumulating and overextending, my simplified life is more fulfilling and peaceful. Giving myself permission to rest is both necessary and important. Not every day has to count. Self-discipline has been cultivated to a degree that hadn’t been there before; this has allowed me to realign my priorities and goals in life. When you’re on an airplane, they instruct you to put the oxygen mask on yourself before putting it on others. I’m finally doing that because, when I don’t, everything falls apart.

Drinking had drowned out my voice in my relationship with David. Even though I was no longer drinking, that toxic trait didn’t simply disappear. During my drinking career, I was stuffing my feelings even further down—a recipe for disaster, to be sure. I was still learning to communicate my needs and boundaries. The relationship between David and me was death by a thousand paper cuts, and I was allowing that script to enter my other relationships as well. I was punished for being assertive, and I was punished for being agreeable. If I’m going to be punished regardless, I’d rather be punished for being assertive. Once I found my voice, I didn’t let anyone silence it.

Stage Six—Authentic Living

Embracing my eccentricity is the only way to live in peace and alignment with myself. Embracing my identity comes with fewer problems than running from it. But I sensed I was over correcting. Going from extreme people-pleasing to no fucks given, from too impulsive to overly cautious, from overly agreeable to difficult, from party girl to nearly Amish. I’m still course correcting and trying to find the happy medium, but at least I’m self-aware enough to know what needs to be addressed. I’m self-disciplined enough to know where to direct my focus, motivated enough to act, mature enough to take accountability. Now, I’m focusing on genuine relationships.

It’s been said that the opposite of addiction is connection, and addiction interferes with the connections that we desire. The three narcissistic men in my life conditioned me to hide my authenticity, the very best parts of me. Never again. Once I feel I can’t be authentic around you, it’s time to bounce permanently, and early on. At least with Killian I was able to recognize what was happening inside of seven months, instead of twenty-two years, as with David. Progress, not perfection. This isn’t my first narcissistic rodeo, though. It’ll be a good two years before I feel like myself again. But I won’t ever be this version of myself again, and that’s a good thing.