Free All That Is Bitter and Sweet by Ashley Judd Page B

YWCA in Ashland, Kentucky. She gave me a book I still have and treasure, with pictures of an animal on one page and a child doing the yoga posture named for that animal on the companion page. I would practice the poses because it was fun, especially on rainy days when she did not take me to the pool, and I dabbled in it over the years. I started a regular practice in 1994, while I was living alone in New York and performing in Picnic on Broadway. It was a bad time for me. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t shake the relentless despair, I was eaten alive with anxiety, and I was desperately groping for some kind of psychic relief. I intuitively took myself to a yoga class. In the practice, I was seeking restorative poses, the ones in Mamaw’s book, like the child’s pose, turtle, and rabbit. They soothe, nurture, and hold the body safe; they are calming to the nervous system—things I surely needed.
    The yoga was indeed wonderful for my body and spirit, and the meditation was momentarily calming, but neither was the panacea I’d hoped for. Once more, in the fall of 1996, depression took me down a dangerous path. This time, instead of insomnia, I couldn’t seem to sleep enough. My mood was desolate, and I couldn’t stop losing weight, no matter how much I ate. I attributed most of the exhaustion I felt to a busy work schedule. After the Broadway show, I’d been filming steadily, often working back to back on productions that, however exciting, were also wearing. A Time to Kill opened in the summer of 1996, I had gone straight into Norma Jean and Marilyn , and Kiss the Girls had just wrapped when my baseline mood deteriorated so badly I could do nothing to hold ground.
    I was going out with Michael Bolton that fall. Although we dated for only about six weeks, he made a poignant impression on my life. In October I accompanied him to Austria, where he was performing at the Vienna State Opera. I had some clothes fitted before the trip, and by the end of the short stay, they were hanging off me. I slept all day long in the gilded hotel room. Michael would go to rehearsal in the mornings, and I would be waking up when it was time for dinner. I attributed my lethargy to jet lag. Michael proved to be a compassionate and gentle friend. He never tried to push me or shame me; he just left me to my own process. Days later, I began to wonder, Why can’t I get out of bed? Where does the time go? Then, by the grace of God, I somehow remembered a questionnaire I had seen in a doctor’s office waiting room. It was a checklist for depression. Things like “Persistent, sad, anxious, or ‘empty’ mood. Unexplained weight loss. Feelings of hopelessness, guilt, worthlessness. Thoughts of harming oneself. Hyper- or hyposomnia …” I didn’t know if I identified with everything, but I identified with enough.
    At last, here was an explanation, a name, an actionable thing: depression!
    Inspired, I moved faster than I had in days. I practically clawed my way to the telephone to call a therapist I casually knew in Franklin, Tennessee, to suggest a doctor who could prescribe medication. Franklin was the closest thing I had to a fixed address. I had been essentially homeless for the past three years, after the house I’d been renting in Malibu burned to the ground in a wildfire, with all my possessions inside (except Mamaw’s pearls, which I had thankfully been wearing at the time), while I was on the Ruby in Paradise press tour. Because I was constantly working at the time, I was living out of hotel rooms, rented homes on locations; and between jobs, because my farmhouse restoration was a long-term project, squatting either at Mom and Pop’s or at Sister’s.
    As soon as I returned home and dropped my bags in my mom’s guest room, I went to see the psychiatrist my therapist friend had recommended. I remember feeling incredibly vulnerable in this strange new setting as I shared what I knew then of my story. I waited expectantly to hear her