Broken Compass or No Compass? Pt. II

Hey Friends,

I don’t want to draw out a follow up to my last post. Thank you to those that read it. I wrote that post late Friday night/early Saturday morning. I scheduled it to go live at 10am Monday. Initially it was scheduled to publish at 10am Saturday, but I postponed it twice. The reason for that being I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to share what I had been feeling. Theres only so many times I feel like I can write the same thing. How many times can I write that I live with depression and that I’m currently drowning under a wave of it? How many times can I write it, and how many times can you read it? At the very least it’s repetitive, and the very most, its just downright miserable. Needless to say, that is not at all what I want my blog to be about. But I do want my blog to be open and honest about who I am and my life. With that comes unpleasant truths. And I want to say now that I appreciate having this space and outlet, and how much I appreciate all of you that read my blog and share what you think and how you feel. Human connection has always been a saving grace all my life.

And that is what inspired the previous blog post. I have written in the past how depression had me isolate myself. I had a few close friends, and a couple of best friends. I have also written how when my depression was at peak levels, and I was suffering with an immense broken heart, that I was dealing with that alone. If you’re like me, you might be wondering how someone that has best friends could experience depression and a broken heart without their bff’s. I mean, isn’t that one of the things your friends, especially best friends, are supposed to be there for? Well, even if you don’t feel that way, that was the reality for me. However, I have since done everything I can to forgive those people, move on, and restart those friendships. While they weren’t good friends to me, I hadn’t been a good friend to them prior to my rock bottom. We all had our reasons for it. It is for that reason, that I had spent the better part of the last year trying to rekindle those friendships and relationships.

I realized pretty quickly that rebuilding those friendships was not going to be easy. Perhaps they were all still upset with me. Perhaps they weren’t upset with me, they had just stopped caring. Perhaps they had outgrown me. There was also the very real possibility that they were “too busy”. We’re all adults, and my friends are far more successful than I am. Which in turn does in fact make them much more busy than me. However, just based on their social media, they were not too busy. They just didn’t care to see me. I didn’t really let that discourage me. I still reached out to them, checked in on them. I let them know I wanted to see them (once it was warmer out – I don’t go out during winter). They all said the polite things, “yeah, sure”, “just let me know when”, etc. But then, just when it started to get a teensy bit warmer, Covid-19 hit. Now all of us were staying home. All except my RN friend – and thank goodness for her bravery and commitment. Despite the fact that we’re basically no longer in each others lives, I will always be proud of her and thankful for her being on the front lines. She was without a doubt, someone that made a huge difference for countless people and their families.

Slowly, I began to accept that the friends I once had – no longer wanted to be friends. Of course, that does not apply to everyone. In fact, I can think of several people off hand that did step up and offer their friendship. I will always be grateful, and I will always do everything in my capacity to return their friendship. But yeah, it really hit me about two weeks ago how I had indeed lost those friends. For over a year, I had been the one to reach out to them every single time. I had been the one to check in on them and see how they’re doing (something none of them did for me, but I was overlooking that). I was the one consistently putting in the effort – and getting nothing in return. I even spoke to one of them about this last week, about how no one was there for me when I was suicidal and broken hearted. And you know what? That person didn’t even deny that. Which means that they too knew they weren’t there for me. Just because you say to someone, “I’m always here” or “You can call or text me whenever”, does not actually mean you are there for them. And I swear, if that is not the laziest form of friendship, especially close friendship, then I don’t know what is. I have decided that I will never again accept that kind of friendship. You (and me) are not after thoughts or by-products of thoughts and feelings. From now on, I will only accept friends and friendships that are intentional.

Leading up to my post from Monday morning, all of the previous week had been really rough. While on some level I knew I had lost my once close and best friends, it wasn’t until last week that I really accepted it. As you can imagine, it hurt like hell. I had also found out the week prior that my daycare would be reopening end of July. In addition, my mother and I had gotten into a few arguments recently, both of us being extra harsh at times. That stress, and fear of knowing I’ll (most likely) be called back to work, combined with the pain of once again feeling isolated, put me in a really dark place. I do not want to say it happened really quickly. No, it had been brewing for a while. It was just the final straw.

I am not someone that outwardly shows when I am in pain. At least not mental and emotional pain. So all of last week, I had to sneak in my daily breakdowns. But, daily breakdowns only help but so much. I decided to write the blog post stating how I was currently feeling. Again, I wrote that post late Friday night/early Saturday morning. After I wrote it, I shut my phone off. My phone is such an easy distraction, and I needed to just focus on what I was going to do next.

By Sunday afternoon, I had decided that I was going to check myself into a psyche ward. I looked up what to expect when checking in. I weighed my options if I didn’t go. I was all but certain that I was going to check into the hospital Monday morning. My only reservation was just how safe it was to go based on possible exposure to Covid-19. It may seem odd that I was once again feeling suicidal yet worrying about contracting the virus. Thinking about it now, that’s actually a good thing. Suicide ideation had returned, but I still didn’t want to get sick. I still didn’t want to possibly die.

Around 8pm on Sunday, I noticed my dog wasn’t doing too well. I have two dogs. One of them is my Chihuahua, and he’s 13.5 years old. He’s diabetic, blind, deaf, has gum disease, and is confirmed to have Cushing’s disease as well. He’s a hot mess. But with all things considered, he’s actually doing pretty well. All credit to my mom, she’s done one hell of a job taking care of him. We started him on a new medication this past Saturday. He was fine, no reaction. And he was fine all day Sunday. But around 8pm, he was really wobbly. More than usual. Around 8:30, he threw up. Which is not something he does often. By 9pm, I noticed his ears were freezing (which is the exact opposite of how his ears normally feel). He ate a bit of food, and by 9:30, he threw it up. Over the next two hours it was just keeping an eye on him. Around 11:30 we decided to call the emergency vet near us that was open 24 hours just to get some advice. The doctor we spoke to recommended that we bring him in just to check him out. We got dressed and took him to Pet VEG in Hoboken. And just like that, I went from knowing I was going to check myself into the hospital, to only thinking and caring about my boy. Thankfully, we were only there for about 25 minutes. They checked him out, said he was stable and gave him anti-nausea medication. We brought him home, and he’s been fine ever since.

Caring for him forced me to snap out of myself. I can’t stress enough how thankful I am that he’s okay. Losing him is never going to be something I’m ready for, but especially not in the state I was in. I am also thankful that I was forced to focus on him. Stepping up for him (and my mom) helped me push through this wave. Obviously, I’m still struggling and figuring out what to do next. I am not ruling out checking myself into the hospital. I’ll never rule that out. But at least right now, I do not feel the need to go. I’m going to keep up with my daily journaling. I am also going to give healthy eating and exercise another shot. Proven techniques that help battle depression. I made an appointment with my doctor for next week to talk about what other options I have for antidepressants (and I need refills for Prednisone). I am moving on from the bonds that I know I have lost. I am going to remember to be kind to myself. I am going to focus on the people that have shown that they want to be in my life. As mentioned before, human connection has always been my saving grace. I’m not sure if my compass is broken or if I do not have a compass at all. I really don’t know. I just know what I can do. Perhaps if I once again focus everything on what I can do, I’ll have some positive direction and get over this current wave. This isn’t over. I’m just giving it another shot.

I’m still trying to save myself.