The 2006 Crash
By 2006, the silence between us had become deafening.
We weren’t fighting anymore. We weren’t even really talking.
From the outside, our life looked ordinary. Two kids, an apartment, a husband who worked hard, and me keeping everything else moving. But inside, I was crumbling. The weight of holding everyone together had left me drowning in ways no one could see.
From my 2006 journal:
“I feel invisible in my own home. It’s like I don’t exist unless someone needs something from me. I’m so tired of trying. I don’t even know what I’m holding on for anymore.”
It hadn’t happened overnight. It was years of exhaustion, years of pretending things were fine, years of hoping love would be enough. But hope doesn’t fix the cracks in a marriage.
I kept waiting for him to turn toward me, to notice I was slipping. Instead, he turned further away. He wanted freedom, not responsibility. I told myself if I did more, loved harder, complained less, maybe it would be enough. But it never was.
From my 2006 journal:
“I hate this house. It feels so big and empty, like it swallows me whole. I walk from room to room and wonder if anyone would even notice if I disappeared.”
The depression settled in slowly, and then all at once.
Some days I barely recognized myself.
I wasn’t the young mom who used to laugh at little things.
I wasn’t the girl who once believed love could conquer everything.
I was just surviving.
And even that felt impossible.
From my 2006 journal:
“I want to disappear. I keep thinking it would be easier for everyone if I wasn’t here. The thought scares me, but it also feels like relief.”
That year, the darkness swallowed me whole.
I couldn’t smile through it anymore. Couldn’t pretend. Couldn’t carry it all.
And one day in 2006, I tried to end it.
Not because I truly wanted to die — but because I couldn’t imagine living like that anymore.
It’s hard to put into words what it feels like to reach that edge. To feel like you’ve lost yourself so completely that ending it feels like mercy. But I remember the quiet after. The deep awareness that something had to change, because if it didn’t, I wouldn’t survive.
That crash — as terrifying and painful as it was — became a turning point. It was the beginning of the end of my marriage. But it was also the first faint whisper of the beginning of me.
If you’ve ever reached the edge of yourself…
If you’ve ever felt so invisible that disappearing seemed like the only option…
If you’ve ever faced the darkness and wondered if there would ever be light again…
Please know — you are not alone.
With heart,
Rebecca
