Breathing underwater

For most of my life, I have felt like I have been living like a piece of wreckage floating at sea – with no direction, no purpose, no meaning. It has been that way for the most part of my life because I suffer from a condition that hindered me from living a normal life. A condition that impaired me mentally and emotionally. I could tell you what it is, but the problem is that my condition comes in multitudes, in variations of the same disease.

I’ve been living like a piece of wreckage floating in the sea with my head barely above the water, and my feet have been flailing and thrashing underwater struggling to keep my whole body afloat.

And I am sure that you are familiar with the feeling. Do you remember being a kid, when your parents or your swimming coach was teaching you how to swim? They assured you countless times, don’t worry, we won’t push you over the pool. But then they do, and then you’re left on your own. They watch you as you fight for your life, gasping for air, hoping to survive the nightmare.

Imagine that feeling stretched on for years.

But I won’t bore you with the sad details of my life – how I got there, who drove me over the edge, what caused me to deteriorate as time passed by and as my life flashed before me in the blink of an eye. At this point, all of those things don’t matter to me anymore. It is a distant memory for me.

What matters to me now is how I managed to escape my personal hell.

Maybe the word escape is a bit too much here. I haven’t quite yet escaped. I am still here, drifting at sea, only now I am drifting along a gentle, tranquil current, at least. No longer fighting it. No longer feeling a need to fight it.

I can only call what happened to me a miracle, although most of my friends would insist that it took a lot of effort, patience, and diligence on my part to arrive at where I am now.

My life changed when I allowed myself to feel. Everything. I was never one to outwardly show my feelings – never one to actually care for myself and for others – but at one point during the summer of 2015, I just let myself let go.

I allowed myself to breathe.

I allowed myself to breathe, in spite of the fact that I knew I was sinking deeper and deeper underwater.

And when I finally did, I cried. For days. If I’m not mistaken, it was four consecutive days and I was so dehydrated, but I holed myself up in the bathroom anyway, crying. I couldn’t stop myself, and I cried for no particular reason. I called my friend over the phone, and in between sobs and hiccups, I told her, I can’t stop crying. I don’t know why. She listened on in silence, helpless. No one had ever seen or heard me in such a state.

Then one day, I woke up, eyes tired and bloodshot, hair unkempt from not showering for days, and I didn’t shed a tear.

I didn’t wake up with a smile on my face. But I stopped crying. For some reason, that was comfort enough.

And there was something else that was different:

I could breathe in the midst of the chaos.

That was one thing that I was never able to do in my life – to breathe freely, without inhibition, without anxiety and without worry of my lungs collapsing.

Until now, I still don’t know what exactly changed. All I know is that I stopped crying over the fact that I was trapped in the middle of the dark, dangerous sea. And when I accepted that fact, the sea didn’t seem so scary and ominous to me anymore.

All I know is that after that incident, I could breathe. For the first time, I could breathe underwater.

How many can say that about themselves?

Everything else gloriously fell into place after that. However so lost I was, I managed to fix myself up. I could sleep soundly again. I could bear the taste of food in my mouth. And eventually, I found myself a job that I absolutely love.

There’s a line in one of my favorite songs by Tegan and Sara that goes: “You won’t get better till you’re worse.” I sincerely believe that now. Maybe you have to sink a little deeper – sink until you hit rock bottom – to realize that there’s nowhere else to go but up.

So destroy everything you’ve ever had, and build yourself back up again.

Jebbie currently works as a Math and English learning coach at The Ultimate Learning Accelerator (TULA) and as an individual contributor for When In Manila. She loves writing fiction, nonfiction, and the occasional poetry. Aside from teaching and writing, she also enjoys fashion design and photography.

Want to share your story on FIRSTS? Check out our guidelines here!