So I did it, and then...

So I have been confused and depressed and lost and tired and suicidal and sick with myself. This familiar old me. This powerless, desperate, worthless me that I thought I had shaken off in the past few years. This me comes back, and I am listless. Tired. Stale. Stified. Dead.

As I was driving home from school tonight, I kept thinking. Not again. It cannot be. Life cannot be this bad. This cannot be all there is. I was more determined. I wanted to feel better. I needed to feel better.

So I sent out this email to many loved ones after I got home tonight:
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Dear loved ones.....

It is not usual that making a decision would take me so long and render me feeling paralyzed; yet, here I am, feeling extremely powerless, frightened and confused. So, I thought to call out to you. I need
some help, some feedback, something to help me feel more grounded instead of feeling like I should run and hide. (Yes, I have been feeling bad, but, hanging in.)

The decision itself is not so complicated: should I go back to the counseling center where I started to do a two-year traineeship, or instead find a full-time job where I could make some money and get hours for future licensure? I am going to be in school full-time for the next two years, and I also need to have 750 face-to-face client hours before I graduate. Student loan is not going to cover all the expenses. I must work.

The center: no pay, excellent training and supervision, a good mix of different presenting issues
from community clients for me to get hours, familiar environment and colleagues.

A job (don't know where yet): money, potential hours and not-so-great on-the-job supervision and training (usually at my level I'd have to do case management, and the training would focus on that rather than psychotherapy.) Most likely single population--meaning that I'd probably end up serving a
particular set of issues (like DV, substance abuse, or homelessness.)

I have been offered by the center to return without having to go through any application process. I have found a couple of potential leads for jobs that I don't really want. I cannot seem to make a decision.

I feel scared for some unknown reason. I find myself sinking into depression. I do not like where I am,
but I have lost touch temporarily with my guts. Should I go for emotional survival (the center) and
try to make ends meet somehow, or physical survival (a job) where I can somewhat rest assured that I'd not end up homeless? (I know I won't; it's just one of my greatest fears being in the U.S.)

I need your feedback, if you have any. I'd appreciate it. I'd update you once I make a decision, if you are interested.
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And in five minutes, I got my first response from my aunt.

I broke into tears when I read her reply. She asked me if I could accept a loan from her to help me out. I replied that I am not there, and I started to cry before I started typing that reply.

I really needed that. I needed to hear someone say, "Yes, I'd help you," when I least expected to hear it. I started to cry so hard that grief seemed to pour out from my eyes, and with every ounce of my being I wept.

I am still weeping.

It's actually the first time in a long time that I feel alive, that I feel good about being alive, that there is some meaning to this random existence of mine.

There's gotta be more to life if I could feel like this right now. This was why I got into this field in the first place:

"Look, help is on the way."

One way or another, don't we all need to believe that help is on the way? Do we not all instinctively cry out for our mothers and Gods when we truly despair? Do we not just know to pray? Do we not all start to grieve the parts of us so afraid and fearful once we feel that warmth? Is that not what healing is? The moment of being with unconditional love inside of ourselves?

I was so scared, and her love allowed me to see it. Don't we all need to at least arrive at some sort of internal safety before we allow ourselves to actually feel and experience our wounds? Don't we all fear death, even just emotional death? So we hold on to the pain and tell ourselves that it doesn't exist until someone or something loves us enough to show us that it's okay to be fragile? That it's okay to be ourselves and we would still be loved?

I was so scared. So scared that I'd shut down unconsciously and stay in torture.

I was so scared. This recent experience triggered such deep pain. The recent experience triggered the primal, youthful memories where I remembered the world as an unsafe place, that help was never going to come.

It never came, and I needed it so. It never came and she died right in front of my eyes.

The help that I needed never came, so I stopped asking for it, even though I had never asked for it--I was too young to know how.

And so all I remembered instinctively was that it never came, no matter what my brain says, I have been so scared.

So scared.

It's a fear unspeakable. It's a fear that paralyzes. It's a fear that drives me to insanity and want to give up this life. It's a fear that I'd be violated, assaulted, hurt and wounded, and help would never come. No one would even know that I needed it, and no one would ever care enough to know.

And I'd be so scared. Silently, painfully, unspeakably scared until the noise of that fear becomes so loud that I just want to escape from this life to make it stop.

Oh it feels so bad. It feels so bad. I cannot stop crying right now since it feels so bad. It's horrible. It's horrible to feel that scared. It's horrible to feel that scared. It's just horrible to feel that scared. It's just plain horrible. I am so sorry; I hear myself say to myself. I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I am so sorry that you feel so horrible, and so lonely.

Yet, I don't mind so much now to have had felt so horrible, for the worst of it had passed.

The moment of true lethality ceases as soon as we are capable to feel our feelings. I know this. I have lived this. I have lived this for a long time, and I will continue to live it.

But, for now, I just know that something is making me cry. I just know that this something that is making me cry is no longer just sheer pain, and I cry.

Thank you, God.

Thank you.