Gradually, though, the fog took over, and I could not reach through it. A natural introvert, I was living what should have been the happiest time of my life. I was able to stay home with my son, we had rented a small home on the edge of a small town, and I had all the time I wanted to write. I was living my dream. But along with that place on the edge of small town life and living the dream, I was also more isolated than even my introverted self could handle. I had relocated 2000 miles from my family to marry and raise my own children. I knew no one in this small town, and I had no child rearing experiences of my own or others to lean on. I had no support system. It seemed to me I should be strong enough to handle these conditions. After all, isn’t that what loners (what I had always considered myself) are good at?

But the fog came anyway, and more often, until one day it never went away. It numbed not only my communication with others, but my feelings, as well. Joy, excitement, pleasure…all were numb or unreachable across that fog of sorrow and depression.

I tried to take breaks from the baby when my husband was home from work…but the fog dulled even my interests. So I just got in the car and drove whenever I could. There was a highway loop – or half of one – around the area where we lived, and I would get on that highway and drive and drive, and try to think my way out of the fog. What was wrong with me? How could I fix it? It was tremendously important to me to fix myself somehow. And yet, with all the willpower and faith in the world, I could not do it. And so, lost in the fog, my reason slowly eroding and my faith unshaken but somehow not enough to pull me back up, I sank lower and lower in depression.

Like a drowning person, the more I sank, the more I panicked and struggled to fix myself. Some call depression a “selfish disease.” I do, too, but it wasn’t the selfishness of wanting all attention on me. This “selfishness” was an increasingly desperate focus to fix myself so that I could function and raise my family. The more I struggled, the deeper the fog became, and the more often I needed to go for a drive.

The further into despair I sank, the more worthless I began to feel. I could not fix myself, and how worthless was that? What kind of a life was it for me? For my husband? For my son? Did it even matter? Did I even matter? And if I didn’t matter, why should I even be taking up space on the planet at all? I began think through different ways of committing suicide, and found one that seemed like it would work.

As I drove around that loop, I began to focus on the upcoming overpasses. Each night as I would come upon one, I would aim my car at it. I would accelerate, talking myself into just hitting that concrete wall and crushing the car and myself within it. Each time I would swing the wheel away at the last minute. What a loser I was, I thought. Can’t even follow through on killing myself. Each night I basically played “chicken” with the inanimate overpasses. I don’t know how long this went on, with my resolve and my beratement of myself increasing after every failed attempt.