Things I Need to Say

I keep writing here because I am trying to help myself. I keep writing here because if I am not successful in helping myself, maybe what I write will help some one else. Today I can not see the sun and I am week and feel like I don't have the strength to drag forward to find it any more. I am broken and there is no fixing me. And now I know that I am doing the one thing that I never wanted to ever do. I am hurting the people I love, afflicting them with my sadness.  Through all of my life time of depression , one thing is a constant, that I will be OK. That I will live through this so that I can do it all over again the next time. Same old darkness, just another day. No matter how much you hate it, and how badly you never want to go through that again, you will. Over and over again.There is no real fix and there are no radical new medical treatments for depression and anxiety. None for PTSD either. The only tool available to you is knowledge friend. Go out and educate yourself. Google the hell out of the Internet, ask questions, talk to your therapist or mental health provider. What? You don't have one?! Get one and do it fast, cause you can't walk this road alone. Your gonna need all the help you can get if you want to live any kind of quality life. I know you what your thinking, you think if you you seek out a mental health provider well, that's just like seeing a shrink right? That means I'm crazy right? No it does not mean your crazy. And there are way to many misconceptions about therapists out there, way to many. So lets go there for a minute. Let me tell you what I know about counseling and therapy.

Knowing

What am I knowing you ask? Not near enough, I say. But I know some things and I have a thirst for knowledge of all things that can not be quenched. Every day I am hunting for answers, for something to feed my brain. I can never shut it off and sometimes it causes me damage. I think to much and when I have nothing to keep me distracted, my head fills with things that damage the heart and lead me in to the darkness of depression. For those who don't know, I suffer from chronic depression, anxiety attacks, and PTSD, (post traumatic stress disorder) I have been in therapy for a long time, years and years. Coupled with numerous different anti-depression drugs and anti-anxiety drugs. I even had to take pills to sleep sound so that I could sleep with out dreaming because of hellish nightmares that plagued me every night. I mean hellish. I would often wake up in a cold sweat crying and screaming. Terrified and some times not fully awake, I would be combative in total survival mode, literally fighting for my life and difficult to wake up. I rarely remembered the dream. I hated sleep and would avoid it any way I could, and dreaded the fact that sleep would come sooner or later, but it would come and there'd be nothing I could do about it.   My childhood was life threatening and I thank gawd I won't grow up again. But on another more positive note, I blame no one for that not even those who are grossly guilty! I have learned so much about mental health and nervous conditions in my quest to fully understand my own conditions that I could just about be a therapist! The truth behind all of this is that no matter how much I know or learn about my own conditions, I will never be completely free of them because there's no cure and no magic fixes. This used to piss me off. To realize that so long ago when my life had just begun, some people took away my innocents for there own greedy, selfish needs. They stripped me of everything that I was going to be and gave me a new future, one that was filled with pain and sadness and anger. There would be darkness and despair and confusion. Every single day would be a true struggle just to ex hist and make it to the next. They left me with an over whelming fear of everything especially people and removed my ability to trust anyone. I still hate to be touched. Hugging is hard but I am learning how to accept it. I still can't relax around people and have a hard time around crowds even if I know who they are. I fear unfamiliar places and don't go far out of my comfort zone but I have been working hard at stretching out the comfort zone perimeter. I can drive paces by myself and even stay over night but I lock my doors always and I make a point of keeping my distance from strange strangers, dealing with as few folks as I can and as little as I can. I learned long ago to read people. Their body language, their faces and expressions. Even their words because every body has their own language and you know nothing until you can speak and comprehend their language as well. I can see that this blog entry is gr owning in to a two part deal so I will cut it off here and c u in part two at another time. Soon though.

The Deep Dark Sadness

Depression is a huge part of my life. I hate to admit that. The commercials for all those different drugs that they say help with depression and anxiety, you've seen them.....? They say millions of Americans suffer from some form of depression.  Then why do we all feel so alone if there are millions of us?! Couldn't we all gather together and just wade around in our deep dark sadness together? Then at least the loneliness factor would be answered, right? No. Where then, does the answer lie? I know that I didn't fall in to this deep dark hole in my heart by consuming a bunch of pills, so what would make some one believe that the pills would fix me and my sadness? I sometimes see the answer to the question but it's so far away beyond my reach that I often give up and accept the cold familiar feeling of it all and slip down into it with out a fight. There have been times that I just woke to find myself there already. I don't know who I am at that point and there is no will to win and no logical explanations as to why I can't just walk it off. For those of you out there who don't have depression or anxiety or maybe you just don't know what it is, there is no way you can ever truly know what that's like, and it doesn't matter how well I describe it or any one else describes it either.

I have been in therapy for years and taken many,many different types of meds to try to help myself, at times, attempting to save my own life. In my opinion, the feeling of being all alone is the worst part and the hardest to deal with. Over the years, I have had some good therapists and have made huge strides of success in my life. But there is no cure, and I am reminded constantly that I will never be %100. That what happened to me as a child and the genetic pool that I come from stole away my right to a normal happy life with out therapy, medication, and The Deep Dark Sadness.

Being Alone

Today I am alone. I have always been alone. I can be in a room filled with people and yet I am still alone. There is nobody out there that thinks that I am number 1. No one that I can tell my pain or my pleasure to and not a single person who I could ever truly trust. I find comfort in animals who do not judge me or anyone. Their love is unconditional. They never lie or cheat. They are faithful and loyal not because you asked them to be but because it is built in to what they are. I can't remember ever being let down or disappointed by a pet. My dog has never bad mouthed me to the other dogs. He has never hurt me either. I don't expect he ever will. Knowing this, I should have just been satisfied with me and dogs tiny existence, but I was not. Now I am paying the price for trying to be a part of the world of lemmings and oh does it cost much. Feels like having your heart and soul ripped right out of you slowly and with as much hate and despise as there ever was. People are vicious and cruel. They all have one focus and it isn't a good one. Knowing this should have kept me safe, but it did not. So if I survive this, and I am pretty sure I will, so that my chances of suffering some more are much greater, I will embrace "ALONE" and stay within the comfort of it's darkness forever. I don't need anything from the people, and the love that I once had for them, the care and the hope and anything from my heart, is gone with the heart that has been ripped from me. Leave me alone, don't come near and never ask me for anything again because I don't have it you have taken it all.  

Dog-The Spirit Who Walks Beside Me

A dogs life is far to short. The breed I love the most is statistically given about 12 years of life. Like people, not all of those years are going to be quality years of life either. Age makes us all weak and vulnerable even dogs.
12 Years seems like a long time when you bring home your new puppy who usually starts his or her life with you at about 6 weeks of age.  I have never had a bad dog, quite the opposite! All of my dogs have been beyond special in so many ways. By the time they reach their golden years with me they have completely integrated their lives with mine and we are one. We don't need any verbal communications, as we are already reading each others minds. He/She just knows. I am aspiring to be a dog trainer, but I can't help thinking that it may not be that I am a talented dog whisperer but that the breed I have chosen is a talented people whisperer! They are so very intelligent. They are emotional and deep beyond any one's expectations. Not to mention loyal and faithful to the end even if the end is bitter.
Strangely enough, these characteristics came with the package man created to be a bloody and violent spectator sport tool. Designed to perform and please his master, in the art of fighting he has a heart of steel and the endurance to go on and on. He has natural pain tolerance unlike any other dog breed and he is infused with far more tenacity and vigor than the other breeds as well. I will never own any other breed, but that's not to say that I don't love all dogs because I do.
I consider all the dogs I have loved to be gifts from a higher being that saw fit to send those spirits to walk beside me on all my journeys and through out the coarse of my life. And I can not thank that gawd enough for such a great gift. I can not imagine my life without a dog in it.