5-month résumé gap, advice? - 5 months and counting

I have been out of work for 5 months and worry about the gap. I would rather hear the honest version than the polite one. I am nervous about being filtered out. Did anyone get past it?

I listed the volunteering and course under the same dates and kept the explanation to a sentence in the cover letter.

Thanks for writing this out. I went through something close to it last year, and it got easier once I kept a simple log of every call and form.