it’s funny how things can change…

oh wow, only 8 days since my last entry and it feels like a lifetime has passed. more like a hellish eternity. i’m no expert and while i mostly have my own personal experiences to inform my judgement, i am fairly attentive to people, places and situations around me. so i don’t feel too far off in saying that i think i may have had a nervous breakdown or some sort of mental breakdown. what i’m really struggling with right now is identifying "cause and effect" because this seems to be what my therapist (HN) is pushing me towards, as well as this book i’m reading (mind over mood). and what i’m feeling frustrated with is the fact that unless you’ve been there, you’ll never know exactly what it feels like to be ‘depressed’. i know it’s a really personal thing, and of course that would mean that it varies from person to person. but the main thing that resonates for me is that you don’t always need a reason to be sad. sometimes it just happens with no forseeable cause. for example, HN is keen to link my stress at work with my fatigue, moodiness, irritability etc, but i feel like it could just as easily be the other way around – if i wasn’t so moody i’d probably be able deal with work stress better – afterall, i tend to be someone who thrives under pressure and gets the most accomplished when i’m busy and driven.

the last time i saw HN i told her that the past week had been really trying at work and that my mood was low, i was irritable and just overall in a crap mood. over the past couple of weeks i had started crying again and that’s a big red flag for me because ever since i started taking anti-depressants i seem to have lost the ability to cry.. it’s not that i have become a zombie but i even had a problem being able to cry at my grandpa’s funeral. the feelings are there, but they seem to be trapped in my head and expressing them doesn’t come as easily. i’ve found it increasingly easy to fake the most important feelings needed for daily survival (pleasant and polite for work, interested and witty for friends) or else i’m sure to be barraged with "what’s wrong????" all day long. it’s not hard to do this, i’ve had a lot of practice both in school as well as working in customer service. i like to be quiet, but that’s not always possible. i can politely small-talk customers all day long, but the ‘me’ in my head is simultaneously imagining drop-kicking the clueless people who float in and out of my store. i guess to sum this up, i feel like i’m lacking personal identity, but to be honest i don’t really care!!

 after my appointment, i had pool. it’s a weekly thing and like most things that i once enjoyed, i try to get out of it as often as i can. when i do go, i drink quite a bit, this generally gets me loosened up. i went overboard. i drank copious amounts of alcohol. i bought round after round of tequila and whiskey shots for myself and my opponent – a 60+ year old man. i was having a riot, i was on top of the world and i won my games… i could tell that the few ppl who were left in the pool hall were thinking ‘ok, let’s wrap this up’ it was, afterall, a tuesday night. my opponent and i were having a blast, but he was clearly wasted and had to get home to his wife. so i guess i left. this doesn’t happen too often but i think i blacked out, or whatever it’s called when you ‘time travel’ and lose blocks of time from your memory. i don’t remember paying, i don’t remember saying goodbye and i only start to remember the walk home at about a block away from my house when i have a giant lump in my throat and can’t hold back the tears any longer. i got into my apartment and i remember throwing up quite a bit and sobbing (not related).  i’ve only ever felt like that a few times in my life and it’s hard to express.. i felt so utterly hopeless. i was bawling but i couldn’t pinpoint any one thing that was making me cry. the alcohol obviously intensified my feelings. i felt like a maniac. i couldn’t sit still, i was pacing around my apartment feeling like i needed to do something but i didn’t know what it was. clearly this is very vague but i just felt so trapped and upset. i definitely felt close to hurting myself. i didn’t know what i was capable of and i felt out of control. i didn’t trust being alone with myself (which is one reason i don’t mind working a lot, because i’m not often at home, alone with my thoughts). i called 911 and was crying (probably incoherently) into the phone saying that i drank too much and i couldn’t breathe. i was totally panicking. i guess i passed out and i don’t remember  much of the next while, except that there were a lot of people in my apartment, i was carried out on a stretcher and my neighbours probably got quite a show – i was drunk and hysterical and it was only 11pm. i had an oxygen tube-thing in my nose but i was crying so much that it didn’t help much. my eyes were so swollen by the end of the night that i could barely open them. i can remember saying sorry over and over and a really nice paramedic said nice things to try and calm me down. at the hospital i just layed on a bed for hours crying. i probably passed out a bunch but i do remember hearing pieces of convos around me although i faced a wall and never opened my eyes. a girl was brought in and had to be strapped down. apparently she had a razor blade. i heard the nurses talking about her like she was some kind of crazy psycho (maybe she was.. but still) and various other commentary about ppl who came in and out. after that i felt even worse, like they were probably judging me the same way.  a nurse gave me a shot of gravol and then said she needed to take blood for tests. not being a fan of needles i freaked out and told her that the problem wasn’t in there, it was in my head. basically i was just left alone for a few hours and i eventually calmed down. i sat up and tried to get out of my bed because i needed to use the washroom and desperately wanted some water. i clearly was not in the right state of mind, but come on — why wouldn’t anyone think that a drunk person would need water.. it had been hours. i would have asked but i was totally intimidated by the bitchy nurses.. i felt either invisible or got looks of absolute pity (not the good kind). i asked to go home and they made me wait another half hour to talk to the doctor. he asked me why i called 911 and i lied and said i thought maybe i had alcohol poisoning and was having a panic attack. he mentioned that maybe i was at risk for hurting myself and asked about my pills (someone grabbed them, my keys and my healthcard). i told him that i was unhappy and that i had a dr’s appt and he asked that i let you know about this "incident". i really felt that he was being patronizing … no one there understood, to them i was a stupid drunk girl. so i was discharged and they called me a cab and pointed my towards the door. being half drunk still, i went out the wrong door and stood outside in my sock feet and t-shirt waiting for a cab. i didn’t have any money to i had to leave my plastic bag of pills with the cabby as collateral as i went inside to get my wallet. going to the hospital and leaving again was truly agonizing. i am  grateful for the one nice paramedic who talked to me and tried

to calm me down. and i’m glad i wasn’t left to my own devices because i really felt out of control. when i got home i drank a few glasses of water and then went right to bed. like the good worker robot i am, i knew i had to get ready for work in just a few short hours. i probably got about 3 hours of sleep and i when i woke up i looked like hell. my eyes were completely swollen, it actually took effort to keep them open. I had to work from 10am – 11pm that day and i could barely keep myself together at work. clearly ppl could see something was up but they steered clear. once again i trudged home and i didn’t even make it to my apartment before i was crying again. if i thought that the night before was brutal, i can honestly say that without the alcohol, those feelings were 100 times worse. i think this is the closest that i’ve ever come to suicide. i litterally could not stop crying into the wee hours of the night. i didn’t know what to do but laying in bed and ‘sleeping it off’ just wasn’t an option. i felt like all signs pointed to suicide. i knew i should call someone but in the chaos of the night before i couldn’t find my phone. i felt like the fact that i couldn’t find my phone was a sign from the universe to just kill myself (i know that sounds crazy). when i did find it, i called my brother back home, but he didn’t answer. i called the guelph/wellington distress hotline, and it was busy. i just felt like it was inevitable, that if i was meant to live, it wouldn’t be so difficult. i don’t really remember what i did after that, but i eventually calmed myself down and went to bed. again, i woke up a few hours later for work but it was worse than the day before. i kept having to go down to the basement or the washroom because my eyes would fill up with tears and i couldn’t hold myself together. i lasted about 3 hours and then wrote an e-mail to another coworker asking her to teach the class i had the next night (imagine me infront of a group of 7/8 year olds!) because i felt like i was having a mental breakdown. and then i just left. i told my manager i had to go home and he said ok because he could see i was upset. i had written a little to do list and left it beside my computer because i didn’t intend on going back the next day. i cried all the way home and paged my dad at work because i didn’t know what to do and i needed someone to tell me it’s ok that i left work. see how well i’m trained? i need an ‘adult’ to give me affirmation for putting my mental health above my job. my dad asked me what was making me sad and i told him the truth – i don’t have any traumatic experiences that trigger this, i am simply upset by everything and nothing at the same time. he tried to give me some "happy thoughts" by talking about coming home to the farm for christmas (i have grown to hate christmas, but i didn’t tell him that). he asked me if i wanted him to leave work and come and get me but i said no… i’d figure this out on my own. tis isn’t the first time i’ve flipped out and gone home, except that when i did this a few years ago, i lied to the world and said that i had to go home suddenly because of a death in the family. he’s called me a couple times since then, asking me not to "do anything crazy" which i’m sure is code for suicide. i didn’t tell him about the hospital.

that day i called a co-worker who’s available to work extra shifts this month and asked him to cover my shifts for this week, i know that not having a paycheque will be rough but the beauty of working two jobs is that even without the 40 hours at wyndham, i still have 24 hours at dollarama, so that will cover my rent etc. in a brief conversation with a manager letting her know i wouldn’t be in this week, she asked why. i’ve alluded to being depressed recently as she and her husband are seperating because of his recent depression which destroyed their marriage and caused them to lose their home. i know that she’s generally an understanding and practical person, but i’m not sure how sympathetic she is towards the ‘depression excuse’. i’m sure she and others are thinking, "what has she got to worry about? she doesn’t have the stress of a family, kids, home, business, car, etc" i can’t imagine going back to work. the main difference between wyndham and dollarama (which i still go to almost everyday) is that i am left on my own to work on my tasks, if i don’t want to talk to anyone i don’t have to. i get paid almost the same amount as wyndham so i don’t feel at any disadvantage when i’m working there – when it comes down to it, i work for the money, not because i like to work. in any case, they’ve asked for a dr’s note (which i feel isn’t necessary since i covered my shifts) but if it will validate my absence to them, then fine. it might also be nice to shed some light on why i was acting the way i was. i’d hate to have them look back on me as a wacko.

i’ve been reading the book (mind over mood)  and doing the exercises and while i am still struggling with the environmental cause and effect link to behaviour, mood etc… i am continuing because it is clear that i cannot cease to be. i have to do something. my main feeling right now is indifference. honestly, i just don’t care. when i look forward, i feel bleak. normal things like owning a home, getting married, having kids.. no longer appeal to me. even fun-sounding things like travelling the world don’t do it for me. i do feel fairly pessimistic sometimes, thinking about the future in general, but generally i don’t care anymore. HN said something about trying to find the old, bubbly me that is "muted" but i couldn’t care less about resurrecting that personality or creating another. i don’t have the desire to regain interest in old hobbies or make new friends or bond with existing friends. i feel like i’m just living day to day and i know that it sounds horrible and ungrateful but i don’t really care to be anymore. i kind of feel like i’m in purgatory.

these past few days have kind of melted together. i’ve been finding it hard to sleep at night.. but there are other days when i can barely get out of bed. i listen to the radio non-stop because i definitely feel like if there was silence i’d have to fill it. for the first time in a while, i don’t feel like eating so i’m not doing much of that.. but i am trying to make myself drink water because i don’t want to make anything worse by starving my brain. i haven’t cried in a day or so, so i guess that’s a good sign. if i reflect logically over the past few weeks, and force myself to identify stressors which may have led me to lose my mind, i’d put work at the top. after careful thought i’ve decided to quit my job at wyndham. i’ll be submitting my two weeks notice along with the dr’s note (if you’ll give me one). i’ll work the rest of my scheduled shifts until the end of the month and then in january i’ll just be working part time at dollarama. no job is worth my sanity and although losing a large chunk of income and my health coverage will be new for me, i’m almost looking forward to doing less in general.

so that’s that. i wrote this because i can’t sleep, and instead of wasting your time by stumbling through an teary explanation i thought i could probably use my time wisely for the first time in a while and organize my thoughts.