I have noticed others posting blogs, relating their thoughts and feelings on the past year, and figured it might be therapeutic for me to do the same. It is 12:20 AM on the 3 of January 2011, and sleep still eludes me. I have spent the past week going to bed at 3 AM and waking up around noon, sometimes even 1 in the afternoon. To say at the very least that my day/night schedule is off would be an understatement. However I am resigned to the fact that I will go back to school exhausted as per usual. With the same general attitude which comes off as angry and upset, but is actually just me trying to stay awake. Tomorrow it will be me trying to stay awake, while completing care plans and learning all about the wonderful world of insulin and its administration. Oh the joys of life.
As sarcastically as I am about school, I have to remind myself how blessed I am to be where I am now. Only last year I was desperate to get into this school, to have these opportunities, and now that they're actually here I find I'm mostly fatigued and highly in debt.
But lets start at the beginning, shall we? I spent all of 2010 unemployed. Though I'd rather not talk about the why or how, or where my money for every day life came from, I will talk of other things related to it. The fact that I have lived at home has helped immensely.
In January I went through a 3 week CNA course and passed, in March I became certified in the state of Indiana to work as one. It is what helped me decide to finally pursue a career in nursing. It is what finally pushed me to go to Galen.
However, CNA school lasted only 3 weeks, and the rest of my time was spent in a largely sedentary, if not vegetative state. My day used to consist of waking up at noon, watching Jerry Springer, Maury, and then Steve Wilkos. This lasted for months, every day. By 3 or 4 I would watch Reba or Wife Swap. I hung out with few, and found shopping for household items to be the most exciting part of the week. I was sloth, and I was content. I did not realize until June how much I ultimately hated what I had become accustomed to.
In March I went to Florida for spring break. My family stayed with my grandparents, and we vacationed to Bush Gardens and the beaches around St. Petersburg. There were a lot of bad times, lots of fighting, but with everything else I look upon it with a sense of longing for the good moments that were had. I miss it now as my grandparents are about to travel back down there for the next three months. At one point I entertained the thought of attending the Galen in Tampa, but such thoughts are dreams at best, and a fools dream at worst.
In April my beloved came down for several weeks, he left on June14. I hesitate to write much at all on that subject as it only brings me pain. The time we had together was great, however it is the knowledge that he is lost to me until next summer and remembrance of the good times we experinced that causes the most damage. We had a lot of fighting, as we always do, but when reality hit us that he had to leave, we realized how silly we were to fight and argue when we only have so little time given to us. We both became the unexpected victims of food poisoning. Leaving out the gory details, we were laid up in bed for 3 days with diarrhea and vomiting, he worse than I. When you are at your worst is when you know how much you love and are loved..and we were the sickest we'd ever seen each other. But by the end of his stay we were hit with a heavy blow. He found out he had to leave two days earlier than expected. Two days were cut from us, two days we needed, two days we yearned for, two days I would have done absolutely anything for had he let me. I would have paid so much money, even plane tickets to give us that extra day. But I was denied it, and it is up there in the top 5 worst moments of my life.
That next week was hell. My mom took a week off from work, mostly for her own vacation, but she ended up taking care of me. Monday he left, and Monday I was inconsolable. I knew only that I did not want to be home, I did not want to smell him, remember him, and go home and him not be there. To go home and be reminded that he should be there! That he should not have left me so soon, because in my mind we had two whole days left to us. I remember so much so vividly that day. I remembering staying with him as long as possible at the airport. I remembering kissing him goodbye, hugging him, trying not to run after him. And I remember watching him until I could see him no more, then turning my back and leaving without him. Afterwards we went to the eye doctor, then home, then more shopping. I did everything I could possible to stay away from the house, away from the last place I felt whole and truly happy. My mom did her best to oblige me. I don't much remember Tuesday, I think I helped my mom rearrange her closet. I think it was Wednesday we spent all day at the hospital because my grandpa had a cardiac scare. I spent all day hiding in the hospital, reading a Charlaine Harris book, trying to forget my woes. I feel safe in hospitals, almost as safe as I feel when I hide inside the pages of a book. A second home, a safe place away from the misery I felt. I remember going to Olive Garden and Lowes on Friday I think. I remember not being able to eat anything at all until the day we spent all day in the hospital with grandpa. I remember losing 5-10 pounds from the depression of it all. I remember mainly sadness, lack of appetite, and the love of my family.
But I mention it in depth because its what I can remember most clearly. So clearly that today the vivid memories still sting, still bite at me as if they were the monsters from childhood that I feared. It is when my depression and anxiety worsened to the point where I finally began seeing a therapist again. But before we get ahead of ourselves...
After Nick left I was a complete wreck. I battled the second worst depressive episode in my life. I hate summer, it always worsens my depression. The heat was oppressive, the sunlight blinding, I loathed it. And it made me think of cooler places, nicer regions where the sunlight was not so blinding and the heat not so oppressive. Back in Canada where my love had returned to, where I have so many wonderful memories. And the depression bit at me harder, the ache so much greater. I had few things to look forward to during that time. One was a future with Nick that we talked about constantly and planned for. A wedding, a move to be together, and reassurances of our mutual feelings. Over and over again I had him reassure me, over and over again I made him plan with me our marriage, our life, our future as the only coping mechanism I felt I could grasp, the only thing that would comfort me. And of course, the week-long vacation to the lake, the family reunion, and starting school at Galen.
While Nick was here I got my acceptance to Galen. I spent most of one whole day working on my paperwork to begin school at the end of July. It was one thing I knew I would have to help me recover, to help me feel like I was working towards some goal that would result in our combined future. I had to have it there, ready and waiting before the fall, before he left and I could not focus on it. And after he left, as I said, I had school to look foward to. And I had the lake. The lake that I have been going to all my life, even when I was only a fetus in the womb my family vacationed there. It is truly a second home, a safe haven, and a place for healing. And when I truly began to feel better, if only slightly.
But I was and am not truly healed. I think the combined losses, the little deaths I go through every time Nick and I part ways, have begun to build and build and have resulted in a hurt that may never truly heal. Throughout 2009 and 2010 I had been dealing with depression and anxiety, primarily anxiety and worsening OCD. I have a long history of mental illness, eating disorders, and self harm. My anxiety and depression was exacerbated after Nick left. Even when Nick was here, my anxiety was so terrible at one point that I was examined by a therapist (at my doctor's calling) and it was highly suggested that I begin intensive outpatient therapy, group therapy. After Nick left, I realized I truly did need more help than I could give myself and began going to therapy.
Much of my issues, besides Nick leaving, revolved around returning to what I had been before April. Sloth, doing nothing all day long, and being empty. It hurt too much for words. I did not want to be alone, to be alone was for me one of the scariest things at that time. I begged to go to work with my mom, to have someone hang out with me, to be with me, to not be home and to not be alone and to not return to what I had been. It was terrible. It took me months to be able to be alone again. It wasn't until school was in session for several weeks that I began to be ok with being alone. But the weekends..the weekends were terrible and mostly filled with full blown panic attacks for no reason. I remember one day my dad left to go away for a few days and all I could do was cry, because I felt abandoned again. Because it was another tiny death and reminded me only of Nick leaving and I felt truly, and utterly alone. I could not stand to be separated from anyone or anything. When my mom went away to Vegas later that year I was a little better, but still felt the same feelings as before when my dad went away. So I did the only thing I could do and pretend she hadn't left at all.
At the end of July school began. My days were filled with class Monday through Friday usually lasting from 8 AM to 3 PM. I felt no anxiety at school, I felt like my old self. It was only at home that I felt sad and lonely. School became my solace, my happy place. Until I got to the point where I could be home, alone, and felt the separation anxiety fade away. It took what seems like ages looking back to get the a point where I truly felt better again. And now I realize how far I have come. Maybe it was September or October, I don't remember. But I know since this second quarter began I have felt very little of what I described above. Even this week we've had a vacation for the past 10 days, and my only bad day was Tuesday where I felt anxious because I had nothing to do.
Now I have a purpose, now I have a plan and something to take pride in and look forward to. July and August were filled with getting used to school, making friends and allies among my academic peers. September and October are most unmemorable except for my birthday and my mother's on October 20 and 28 respectively. Oh and Chase and Dad's birthday in August of course. November my cousins came to stay with us as we hosted Thanksgiving. December we celebrated Christmas Eve with my maternal extended family. Christmas..the gifts were great, but I would have preferred more family time, and I was a bit of a drama queen for it.
The Wednesday after Christmas, the 29th?, we went to my cousin's bar to celebrate just being a family, with my mother's extended family. Monday I had had my annual PPD skin test performed, and I was having it read Wednesday. It came back positive and I had to go to the hospital to get a chest xray. I still have the bump from my reaction. My xrays came back negative, thank goodness, and I have to say I'd rather have a short xray than this bump in future tests. Since I was negative in January (2010) I had to have been exposed in one of the last 3 clinical settings I was in. I know which one I'd like to blame the most. Anyways, I took that day to get as buzzed as I've ever been, and played some pretty damn good pool, at least according to the guy who hit on me.
New Years Eve was quiet, just as I like it. I watched 300 with my mom, which resulted in me giggling like a girl throughout most of it and mom stuck between horror at what she was seeing and disgust at my giggles. Afterwards we watched Dick Clark count down to New Years, but I ruined it with laughter. I laughed at Dick Clark and couldn't stop, and I don't feel one bit bad. I see people in much worse shape every day after a stroke, I feel bad for them, not him. It may be hypocritical, it may be terrible, but its how I feel. And if you don't find humour in the bad things, it makes it so much harder to function as a nurse, as a healthcare worker.
New Years Day we threw a surprise birthday party for my maternal grandmother. we all ran into her house at once on January 1st. She had no idea. I was sent out to the car to get something for my mom and when I came back in she was in tears. I didn't know what to do. The only thing I could ask myself is what would I do if she were my patient. So I gave her as much as a hug as I could manage with a box of hair product in my arms, and urged her downstairs, where the rest of the family was. In my 22 years, I have never seen my maternal grandmother cry in my memory.
I guess New Years Day is not 2010, but for some reason I felt I needed to write it down, as if it were in some small part the ultimate end to 2010.
I don't know if 2010 was a good year or a bad year. So much good happened, and so much bad. Little deaths and new beginnings. I wasn't stressed from work as I was in 2009, I became an Indiana certified CNA, I went to Florida with my family, I had 7 wonderful weeks with my first (and hopefully last) love, I realized through heartache and despair how much that love meant to me, I found help for my anxiety and depression, I began school and by the end of 2010 was almost half way through to my LPN certification. There were heartache and tears, depression, anxiety, and suffering, but there were also some of the best moments of my life, some of the times where I felt most alive. I started a career path and I've learned some hard lessons. 2010 was worth it, and I like to think I experienced so much more good than bad, even with the freshman 20 I put on.
Forgot to add: My cat (Tabbitha) got heart worms, was sick for months and nearly died. It appears as if she will make a full recovery and is doing great at the time of this blog.
And I was banned from Mystic Wicks.
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