‘Cutting Holes in the Blanket’

Artist Keunhoo Park

Cutting Holes in the Blanket

In 2022, through the encouragement of a doctor, I started going to therapy and taking antidepressants.

I remember the light coming in through the window had that glow of an October morning in Atlanta, the chill starting to creep in, like a five-year-old tiptoeing down the stairs in footy pajamas on Christmas morning, ever so slightly, ready to dart back up at the sudden sound of a groggy parental voice, so it is with all weather in Georgia.

In Dr. Zweig’s office, I sat, ready to get some answers on why the extra-strength melatonin and magnesium combination was no longer working, why I was finding myself suddenly awake at 3 in the morning and only able to go back to sleep after thirty minutes or an hour.

Her dark brown eyes looked into me, her face serious but kind, 

“I am going to give you a prescription for a melatonin, stronger than the one you can get off the shelf, and if this doesn’t work, I want you to go to a psychiatrist because what you’re describing is a classic symptom of depression.” 

In some ways, there was relief because this made sense. My emotional health had always been a little jagged since my accident; though, I had been too busy to really notice and take stock. Now, things made more sense. If it were true, and I was experiencing depression, at least I could blame this wrinkled emotional state on something, something that was fixable, and not just an objective detail of me and who I was, something essential the nature of myself.

Though, it was also hard. I have perseverance to a fault, and all my life, especially after my accident, if I faced struggle, I just buckled down, worked harder.

Failing my freshman Core class at Oglethorpe? Wake up at 4 am, so I can read the text twice and focus even more on school. 

Struggling with graduate school? Push the wake up to 3:30 and remove almost all other parts of my life that did not revolve around graduate school,

Fighting to keep my high school teaching job while getting my master’s in teaching? Push the wake up to 2:30 / 3:00 and use all available time to focus on work. 

And my depression only grew stronger, fingers tightening, and instead of prying its grip from my throat, I accepted the choke and sought the answer out of its grasp was through success with work.

Though, the hardest part was the impact on my faith. 

When I was dealing with my depression diagnosis and what to do, I met with one of the pastors at my church, and I’ll never forget the wisdom he gave me, over a tilting metal coffee table outside Café Au Lait one morning before work, 

“Will, the bible calls us to be the light of the world. Depression is like throwing a blanket on that light. Therapy and medicine can be like scissors cutting holes in that blanket.”

Now, all these years since my car accident where my brain experienced the physical trauma that led to the chemical imbalance in my brain, I have but one regret: I wish I picked up these scissors sooner. 

I struggled greatly in college with my depression and what I did with my internet consumption to battle this darkness. I regret my focus on myself, as I battled to find the light. I regret that I had this blanket over my light for so long. I regret that I thought my darkness was a part of the light. 

I was not living out my faith as I should because I was focused on pulling at the threads of the blanket, hoping it would fall off, rather than cutting the holes necessary to let the light out. 

I spent many stressful nights watching things I should not watch, spent my days focused on my grades as an idolator at the golden statue of success. “If I can be successful in school, at work, then, I can take this blanket off,” I thought. If I can achieve, then, I can love myself. Then, I can love my life. Then, I can be a light. 

However, the blanket just grew heavier and heavier, creating fissures and cracks in the bulb. Then, like a slow, steady, Spring rain, not all at once, with the help of therapy, Prozac, and prayer, the holes started to appear, and the light stared to glisten. 

Every day is not perfect, and the blanket is still there, but the big difference is that I have the scissors now, and though, sometimes, I forget about them, and though I think the blanket is starting to thicken, I still have the holes of before, and as anyone who is treating depression can tell you, having some holes in the blanket, no matter how small, can be a monsoon to a sprouting plant in the midst of a desert. 

If you feel it is not righteous or feel it is weak to pick up the scissors of therapy and medicine, let me tell you that I too believed this lie. 

However, these are the scissors that help you cut the holes to better shine your light. 

I experience God more, hear him more clearly, and I believe shine his light more effectively. 

About two weeks ago, a member of Cru, a Christian group on campus, came up to me and told me that students wrote letters to professors who had a significant impact on their Christian Walk. 

Then, I received such a letter. It was such a beautiful thing to get, to know that His light is shining through these holes in the blanket. 

The brighter his light shines, the more holes begin to appear. 

Though I know this blanket will not be fully removed until the life and the world to come, the more I use the scissors to better shine His light the larger the holes in the blanket become. 

Will Carter is a Lecturer of English at Kennesaw State University. His memoir, Getting Better, which covers the first seven months of his recovery after suffering a brain injury and a stroke during his senior year of high school, is published by Running Wild Press. Will had been published in His View from Home, Brain Injury Hope Magazine, The South Florida Poetry Journal, and more.