a rainy day isn’t climate change
I’m back at group therapy for my first session in the new year.
Spoiler: most clients in an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) with some form of anxiety and/or depression don’t exactly love the idea of ringing in a new year. In fact, I would even go as far to say that the majority of my ‘Mental Health B’ group felt immense dread as this holiday approached.
As expected, my New Years Eve festivities were no less than traumatic.
Apart from the looming divorce, strained family relationships, and a new puppy that I love but can’t leave alone for more than 5 minutes, there was also this ever-present desire to no longer be “here” that even the cheerfulness of the holidays couldn’t contain.
And as a disclaimer (that I logically know isn’t needed yet emotionally and socially feel is required): I do have a good life. My basic physical needs are met, I have a home to go back to every night, and apart from my own urges, I am safe. I recognize how significant of a privilege it is to be able to isolate the deficiencies of my mental and emotional needs because the physical, financial, and otherwise external ones are taken care of.
Even mentioning my “rainy days” reeks of the same out-of-touchness that a dog’s sigh has when he’s “tired.” Like, I wish I had the luxury of being dog tired, for the literal reasons that puppies are ever tired for.
So as much as I can, I get it. My rainy days, for some, are actually nice weather days for those who live in a perpetual state of hurricane season. So when I say I had a rainy day, please know I mean this relative to my overall, otherwise overcast or sunny days.
That being said, NYE and New Years Day were what I would describe as a rainy day during tornado season: sporadic, unpredictable, with moments of quiet and calm—until it wasn’t.
I’ll spare you the gory details because, despite its mass popularity, I’m not interested in trauma dumping either for pity or for storytelling purposes. What I will say is that as the clock struck midnight, ringing in 2024, instead of clinking champagne glasses with friends or sharing a kiss, I was trailing an ambulance which carried a friend who had relapsed just 30 minutes prior.
A rainy day doesn’t mean climate change.
While this short and punchy phrase almost certainly would’ve made sense to me if I had heard it even just a week prior, the meaning it held on this particular day was heavier than I could ever imagine.
See, I’ve been a client in this IOP since October 13th, 2023. There’s nothing particularly significant about this date, except the fact that it marks the day I made the explicit decision to focus on my recovery from self-harm (SH). And since this day, any time that my life has spun into chaos (which, believe it or not, has been a relatively significant number of times—though those are stories for another day), I have reverted back to my old patterns of SH.
Now, I would be remised if I didn’t mention my progress in this area, as the frequency, intensity, and duration of my own relapses have significantly improved since my start date.
My biggest win though?
NYE.
I didn’t do it.
I didn’t SH.
And that’s what I needed. I needed to know that amid chaos, I am okay. That even when people around me are celebrating (literally), I do not have to punish myself for not doing the same—and I am okay. And that a temporary, time-bound moment of mayhem does not equate to a lifetime of it.
The unspoken truth in there being “calm before the storm” is that it also exists in the aftermath.