Between Two Worlds · Anonymous Diaries

Walking Through the Dark, Held by Light

Three chapters written from the in-between — between peace and fear, between Umrah and an unfamiliar city, between holding on and letting go.

Chapter 1

What Was She Feeling?

Ever since she returned from Umrah, something had felt off. There was a strangeness she couldn't quite name, a heaviness that wasn't there before — or perhaps it was always there, and she was only now feeling its full weight. Why did it feel like she was getting sick again? The thought alone terrified her.

She was scared to go back to Greyfield. Scared to think about work, about routines, about the ordinary rhythm of life that once felt manageable. She was scared to live — and she didn't fully understand why.

The Blur of Blessed Days

The three days of Umrah in Makkah and Madinah had passed like a dream. There was no time to think about anything else, no space for worry or fear. They ran on just a few hours of sleep each night, their days filled with Salah and du'ā, their hearts occupied only with seeking Allah's forgiveness and asking for what lay ahead. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else could reach them in those moments.

It felt safe there. Purposeful. Clear.

The Weight of Return

Now, nearly a week after their return, it still felt surreal — like she was suspended between two worlds. She had to go back to Greyfield that day, and she wasn't ready. Not even close.

Her throat was sore. Her body felt weak. She felt sick — physically, yes, but also in ways she couldn't articulate. And beyond her own struggles, her mind was weighed down by worry for a friend. The burden her friend was carrying was heavy, and knowing she was in pain while feeling powerless to help her was crushing in ways she hadn't expected.

The Weight He Carries

Then there were thoughts about him. Someone who was constantly working to keep the family afloat — carrying burdens that most people never see, managing responsibilities that never seemed to end. May Allah reward him for it all. May He ease his load and grant him strength for every silent sacrifice he makes.

It was painful to watch him go through his day. Managing his own overwhelming schedule, then turning around to manage the kids — their needs, their routines. She could see the exhaustion in his eyes. She could see the weight settling on his shoulders, day after day.

The Fear of Falling Again

And then there was the fear that gripped her in the quiet moments: what would happen if she got sick again?

She had been feeling it — that familiar sensation of drowning mentally. The pull downward, the struggle to keep her head above water. She tried to fight it, tried to pull herself up, but her arms felt heavy. Her strength felt borrowed, temporary, like it could slip away at any moment.

A Prayer in the Midst of It All

So she turned to the only place she knew to turn — to Allah.

She didn't have answers right then. She didn't know why coming home felt harder than she had expected. She didn't know why the peace she had felt in those blessed cities felt so far away now. But she knew that healing takes time. That faith isn't about having all the answers — it's about holding on even when nothing makes sense.

So she held on. And she prayed.

Between Two Worlds · Anonymous Diaries

Chapter 2

What it meant to surrender — and what it gave back.

The Ashford House

The Decision

She remembered being admitted to the mental health facility — the Ashford House. It was a place she had never wanted to go, a place she had hoped she would never need. But desperation has a way of stripping away pride and fear, leaving only the raw need for relief.

She just wanted to feel better than she did in that moment. Better than the crushing weight that made it hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to exist. So when her psychiatrist recommended the facility, she listened. She was warned it could be a long wait. Beds weren't always available, and the need was always greater than the capacity. But her doctor believed it might be what she needed when outpatient treatment wasn't enough anymore.

Falling Apart at Work

At the time, she was still working at a publishing house. Or at least, she was trying to. She felt like she hardly worked, hardly spoke. She showed up to meetings but sat in silence, her mind too foggy to contribute anything meaningful. The tasks assigned to her got done — somehow — but she was operating on autopilot, going through motions she could barely remember.

She forgot things constantly. Asked the same questions over and over again, unable to retain the answers that had just been given to her. She could see it in her colleagues' faces — the confusion, the concern, the growing awareness that something was very wrong. She looked inefficient. Unreliable. Lost. And she was.

Checking In

When the call finally came that a bed was available at the Ashford House, she took disability leave from work and went. She remembered checking in — the paperwork, the intake questions, the surrender of personal belongings. And strangely, she remembered feeling alright about it. Not hopeful exactly, but resigned. Accepting. This was where she needed to be.

Life Inside

She met many people there — other patients fighting their own battles with minds that had turned against them. Some were quiet, withdrawn into themselves. Others talked constantly, their thoughts spilling out in streams that didn't always make sense. They were all there for the same reason: they needed help they couldn't find anywhere else.

The doctor kept trying different medications, adjusting dosages, switching from one to another when nothing seemed to work. The side effects piled up — nausea, tremors, a fog that was somehow different from the depression fog but just as thick. She hardly slept. The facility was never truly quiet, and her mind wouldn't settle anyway.

She walked the halls most of the time, pacing the corridors because she couldn't sit still, couldn't rest. Staff would find her wandering at odd hours and gently redirect her back to her room, back to bed, though sleep rarely came.

Witnessing ECT

Then she noticed one of the other patients receiving ECT — Electroconvulsive Therapy. She watched her before and after her treatments. The change wasn't immediate or dramatic, but it was there. She seemed lighter somehow, more present. She talked about feeling like a fog had lifted, like she could finally think clearly again.

When her doctor recommended ECT — explaining that she wasn't responding to any of the medications they'd tried — she said yes without hesitation. By that point, she would have tried anything. She was that desperate for relief.

The ECT Sessions

She had many sessions of ECT. She couldn't recollect exactly how many — the treatments themselves affect memory, and that period of her life existed in fragments rather than a clear timeline. But at least six, she thought. Maybe more.

She remembered the first one most vividly. The preparation — the IV line, the anesthesia, the assurances that she wouldn't remember the procedure itself. And she didn't remember the treatment. But she woke up with blood on her lips. She had bitten her tongue during the seizure, despite the muscle relaxants, despite the precautions.

It was frightening and surreal. But it was also, somehow, a small price to pay if it meant she might feel human again.

The sessions continued. Each time, she would wake up disoriented, with a headache and gaps in her memory. But gradually, something began to shift. The unbearable weight started to ease. She could think a little more clearly. She could feel something other than despair.

A Necessary Chapter

The Ashford House was one of the hardest chapters of her life. But it was also necessary. It was the place where she finally got the intensive help she needed when everything else had failed. It was where she learned that sometimes survival means surrendering control, admitting you can't do it alone, and accepting help even when it comes in forms you never imagined needing.

The Need for Relief

She felt like she needed ECT again. Not just to feel better — but to feel numb. To feel anything other than the relentless, gnawing anxiety that had taken up residence in her chest and wouldn't leave.

She felt jittery. Her thoughts raced but went nowhere. Her body wouldn't settle. There was a restlessness that wouldn't quit, a constant vibration under her skin that made her want to crawl out of herself. She couldn't sit still. She couldn't focus. She couldn't find peace.

Remembering Ketamine

She had had her ketamine treatment back home a couple of months before. She no longer had anyone there she could call her own anymore. If she had anyone back home right then, she would have travelled immediately for a ketamine treatment. The kind that had helped her before. The kind that lifted her up when she couldn't stand on her own two feet anymore.

She remembered those treatments — sitting in the quiet clinic room, the IV line placed carefully in her arm, the slow drip of medication entering her system. Within minutes, the crushing weight would begin to lift. The constant noise in her head would quiet. The world would soften around the edges, and for the first time in what felt like forever, she could breathe.

It gave her a euphoric sensation. The images that came were dreamlike, almost trance-inducing. It wasn't just the physical relief during the infusion. It was the days that followed — waking up and realising the darkness had receded, even just a little. Ketamine gave her windows. Brief glimpses of what it felt like to be herself again. It reminded her that relief was possible, that her brain could function differently, that she wasn't permanently broken.

The Isolation

But she didn't have that option right then. She was here, in this in-between space, feeling herself spiral and not having immediate access to the interventions that had saved her before. It's one thing to feel this way when you know help is a phone call and a short drive away. It's another thing entirely when you're far from those resources, trying to hold yourself together until you can get back.

Holding On

So she held on. She got through each hour, each day, knowing that help existed even if she couldn't reach it that instant. She reminded herself that she had survived this before and she could survive it again. That the treatments that had helped her before would be available again when she got back home.

She reached out to the people she could reach — talking to her friend and her husband, to anyone who might be able to help with any kind of support. She didn't suffer in silence, even when she felt isolated. She made her struggle known, because that was the first step toward getting help.

Between Two Worlds · Anonymous Diaries

Chapter 3

A cold February night, a hotel room in an unfamiliar city, and the slow realisation that presence — the kind you take for granted — is everything.

Alone in Greyfield

It had been weeks since she had last seen a hotel room. The past month had slipped by in a blur of storms and holidays, days spent safely tucked away at home. But now, on this cold February evening, she was back in Greyfield — and she was alone.

This was her first time returning here after Umrah. The blessed journey felt both recent and distant, as though it had happened in another lifetime. During those five sacred days, she hadn't been able to take her medication. Not all of them — just the one that mattered most. The one that helped her sleep. The one that kept her depression carefully wrapped and contained, like a beast on a short leash.

Five days without it during the pilgrimage. She had survived that. She had come home and gratefully resumed her routine, swallowing the small pill each night with a sense of relief. But tonight, as she sat on the edge of the hotel bed, she realised with a sinking feeling that the bottle was still sitting in the bedroom closet at home. She had forgotten to pack it.

Another five days. Five more days without the medication that kept her tethered to normalcy.

Her thoughts drifted to her friend, and immediately, the panic set in. It always did when she thought about her. The weight of responsibility pressed down on her chest, heavy and suffocating. She felt responsible for everything — their happiness, their struggles. She felt the weight wrapped around her shoulders like a heavy blanket.

She was not brave these days. Everything scared her. The future scared her. The present scared her. Even this hotel room, with its beige walls and generic artwork, frightened her in a way she couldn't quite articulate. It wasn't too big — objectively, it was a standard size. But lying there in bed, waiting desperately for sleep to claim her, it felt vast and threatening.

And if a hotel room terrified her, the thought of an apartment was unbearable. An apartment wouldn't be like this — temporary, transient, with housekeeping coming to make things right each day. An apartment would be permanent. Hers. A space she would have to fill with her own life, her own choices, her own loneliness.

The irony wasn't lost on her. She had manifested this, hadn't she? She remembered dreaming about it, writing about it in her journal, imagining what it would be like to be alone with her thoughts. She'd thought she wanted solitude. Independence. Space to breathe. But this wasn't what she had imagined. This felt nothing like the peaceful solitude she had envisioned.

It wasn't that she spent all her time with her people when she was home. She didn't need constant interaction or conversation. But she liked them around. She needed their presence in the next room, their voices drifting through the house, the knowledge that she could walk down the hall and find someone — anyone — to anchor her to reality.

L. came to mind — her friend who was always talking about getting away, taking "me time," escaping to some quiet place where she could be alone with her thoughts. She used to understand that feeling. There was a time when she had felt the same way, when the idea of solitude had seemed like a luxury rather than a punishment.

But somewhere along the way, things had changed. She had changed. The thought of being alone no longer held any appeal. The fantasy had curdled into something frightening and unwanted. How quickly things change. How swiftly we can go from craving something to fearing it, from running toward something to running away.

She pulled the hotel blanket up around her shoulders and closed her eyes, though she knew sleep wouldn't come easily that night. Five days stretched ahead of her like an ocean she would have to cross without a boat. But she had crossed it before, during Umrah. She had survived those five days in sacred spaces, and she could survive these five days too.

Tomorrow, she would talk to her friend again — and that would remind her she wasn't as alone as this room made her feel. She would get through the work that needed to be done, one hour at a time. And she would keep searching for a way back to the place where her people were.

For tonight, though, all she could do was lie there in the semi-darkness, listening to the hum of the heater, and trust that morning would eventually come. She whispered another prayer into the silence — for safety, for strength, for the courage she seemed to have misplaced somewhere along the way.

The words felt fragile in the empty room, but they were all I had. And perhaps, for tonight, they would be enough.