Losing someone you love is one of the hardest things a person can go through. It isn’t easy. It shouldn’t be easy. It isn’t fun. It’s not something that you jump for joy over, and there’s a reason for that. It is an end. And endings are scary. The uneasiness associated with death is logical, as are fears of the dark, deadly creatures, heights, and other things that make us feel so terrified.
But death isn’t the worst part. I think the grieving may be worse. It always has been. As a person who feels guilt over just about every unfortunate occurence, grief and the guilt associated with it have always been hardest for me. Well, that and the asthma attacks that I have from crying.
So, now I’m grieving. Grieving a loss that I expected, but didn’t. One I should have prepared for, but refused to. One I had convinced myself would never come.
Xander died. Actually, he was euthanized this afternoon. He wouldn’t have died today except that my dad and a vet decided that this was the best thing for him. I’m not mad at them. Like I said, I take on the guilt over everything. I’m mad at me.
On Saturday morning, he woke up and he was so lethargic. My perky little boy, who never acted his age or his species, was tired. And I was worried. I knew he wasn’t feeling well. He wouldn’t eat at first and he was so cold. So, I covered him up in a blanket, held him, and fed him some peanut butter. I figured that if PlumpyNut could save the lives of starving children that peanut butter could save my baby’s life. And it seemed like it worked for a while. He wouldn’t eat any of the dog food. He would drink any water, but he acted like he felt a little btter.
Before I fell asleep last night, I picked him up and curled warm, clean blankets around us and held him while we slept. When Gretchen woke us up at about 6:45 this morning, his back legs weren’t working. I thought they might just be “asleep” from being curled. They never started working, so my dad and I took him to the vet.
Because it was Easter, our family vet wasn’t open, so we had to go to the local emergency clinic. While we were there, I continued to hold him as much as I could. I only took a couple of breaks. I kept nuzzling him and telling him it would be okay. I thought it would be.
The vet tech gave me some hope by saying he had reflexes in his legs, but the veterinarian dashed those when he said they were just reflexes and that he was paralyzed. He started trying to explain it to me, which I guess he felt he needed to do. My dad asked what they could do. When they discussed how we didn’t have much money, the vet and my dad had a bit of a silent understanding that they were going to euthanize him. Somehow, I wouldn’t let myself understand that agreement, so when the secretary came in and had my dad sign a body disposal form, I pretty much started screaming. Xander go stressed out, and the secretary told me to calm down so that he wouldn’t be so stressed. I tried, but I felt like someone was ripping my heart from my body. It hurt so much. I just cradled him and cried as quietly as I could.
They offered me the chance to be with him when the drugs were administered. I couldn’t do that, and that made me feel worse. I couldn’t remember him in that kind of writhing state that euthanasia causes, but I felt so bad making him die alone. I still do. I keep seeing his eyes as the tech took him away. He didn’t seem to understand, and I feel like I just committed the worst sin a human being can ever commit. I let them kill my baby, and I don’t know how to get over that. I was supposed to love him and protect him, and I didn’t protect him. I couldn’t trade his life for mine, and I wanted to so badly. I wanted to save him so much.
I just can’t imagine my life without him. We’ve had him since 2001. He was here when I was going nuts and had no one outside of my family to talk to. He was here when I felt better physically, and he protected me when I felt worse. He was with my mom when she tried to kill herself, and he tried to keep the paramedics from hurting her that day. He’s the one who always would sit with me during the storms, no matter what. He always tried to perk me up, and he was the only one who really could sometimes. He made me smile more than anyone else, and now I’m crying so much. I’m crying and reacting the way that I did when Granddaddy died. I felt like I lost everything that day. And now I feel worse.
I just don’t know what to do.
I want him to come home. I want to hold him. I want to pet him. I want him to be here so much, and he’s not. And I just don’t know how I’m supposed to move past this. I’ve lost pets before, but this is so hard. It’s so painful, and I don’t know how to deal.
(via Mayo Clinic medical information and tools for healthy living - MayoClinic.com)
This is a PET scan of the brain of a person suffering from depression and someone who isn’t. The increase of blue and green colors and decrease of white and yellow ones show the decreased activity of the brain caused by the depression.
Remember this image whenever anyone tries to blame your depression on being lazy or wanting attention. Remember this when they give you a hard time time about how you behave or about your not being as active as you once were. Remember this when they tell you that you’re somehow weak.
Depression is not your fault. Depression is a real health problem. It isn’t made up. It isn’t something people do because they’re lazy, selfish, attention-seeking, etc. It is not a weakness.
It can happen to anyone at any point in their life. It is a serious problem.
If you have depression, try to find someone who can help you. If someone you know has depression, try to be supportive.
The Glee episode last night featured a comment by one of the main characters that suicide is selfish. It isn’t an uncommon utterance. In fact, if you do a simple search on Google with the words suicide and selfish, it returns 10.5 million results. So, clearly, this is something that many people either believe or think is absolutely ridiculous.
Different people handle the topic in different ways. One comment that I found contained the following statement: “I think it’s not only selfish but it’s the last punishing blow to the living. It’s the easy way out of dealing with the turbulence that is life! We are left with so many unanswered questions.” Apparently, this person doesn’t want someone to commit suicide because it is just too cruel to the living. I guess that it is simple to put your own feelings ahead of those of someone who is so depressed that they see no other way to deal with their pain than to end their own life. I mean, that’s a very typical thing, to put your needs before those of someone else. What’s weird is that that attitude is not considered to be selfish, even though the “survivor” is not thinking about what the suicide victim has been going through, what pain might be causing them such agony, and just how desperate or lonely the person might be feeling. To me, it seems selfish to say, “You’re punishing me by killing yourself.”
A religious website had the following: “When one has no hope does not know God or have faith, suicide becomes one of the greatest acts of selfishness.” I don’t get it. Does that mean that if a person who commits suicide is an atheist that they are being selfish, but if they are a Christian or practitioner of another religion that they are now less selfish? How does their spirituality or lack-thereof determine if the act is selfish or not? If God exists, do people really think that one of God’s posse is keeping up with which suicides occur among those who are church-going and which are among those who lack faith? It seems like God would have bigger fish to fry. (And, no, that wasn’t some lame Lent-oriented pun.) God shouldn’t want anyone to suffer needlessly and, despite what some religious organizations seem to think, I don’t see a loving God as being one intent punishing people for being sick.
A user from the Experience Project’s website stated, “I don’t think its selfish to be angry with a person who chooses a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” That disregards a whole segment of society. While some who are suicidal are only temporarily depressed, there are so many who have a mental health issue that might be considered terminal because it will be with the person for the remainder of their life. For example, if a schizophrenic ends their life, then they are using a permanent solution to resolve a permanent problem. The statement also disregards the intensity of the pain that the person, regardless of the nature of their problem, is going through.
And, as always, children seem to have the best understanding of the world we live in and the problems we deal with. As a first grader, this person had lost her father to suicide and heard people at his funeral asking how her father could hurt her family in such a way. Even at that young of an age, she realized, “he didn’t do this to us. Instinctively, I knew.” So how is it that kids can understand that suicide is not an act of aggression against friends and family? How do the rest of us not understand that?
Suicide is not some simple choice people make because they are lazy or they don’t care about others. Suicide is the choice of someone who feels that their life has lost that little spark that made it worth living. Suicidal ideation is a horrible thing to go through. To feel suicidal is to feel like your very core is being sucked out of your body by a high-power vacuum and no matter what you do, you can’t hold onto it and you know that you can’t save yourself. It’s almost like being in the ocean with no life preserver, no lifeguard in sight, and no ability to swim. It drains you of your hope. It drains you of any joy you could have in your life. It makes you feel like your family, your friends, etc. don’t care or shouldn’t care or that they would be better off without you. And to write it off as the act of someone who doesn’t think about what others will go through is to thoroughly misunderstand the act itself.
EW.com recap of “On My Way” (x)
That was out of line for him, though I was a bit too pissed at that moment at the “it was selfish” angle that Quinn took on the attempt.* I think that Kurt’s “who’s had it worse” thing was kind of handled by Will’s speech on how everyone has a different breaking point.
* It seems selfish of people to focus on how they’re hurt by someone else’s attempt/suicide. People who commit or attempt suicide are in massive amounts of pain, and they just want that to stop. I get so sick of seeing and hearing people call suicide selfish. Maybe if they cared more for their depressed friends/lovers/family members, then they [the complainers] wouldn’t be hurt by a possible attempt.
(Source: azulalikesgirls)
I had my appointment on Tuesday with the BOTOX doctor. (He’s just another neurologist in the practice with my neurologist, but he’s younger and has apparently been schooled in the use of toxins for neurological issues.) It was interesting. Actually, it pretty much sucked. I have a hard time with appointments for just about any kind of problem. I end up making light of problems, even if they’re nearly crippling me. This time was no different.
He asked me how many days I have headaches. I told him 20. He asked how many were severe. I told him 15. The truth is that I have headaches more often than that and that they are severe more of the time. I didn’t tell him this because my mind was doing this kind of warning thing, where I thought that if I told him the truth that he would think that I was just a drug addict.
Well, apparently, my answers were so off that he was “worried” that I might be having rebound headaches. He was still planning on submitting the paperwork to my insurance to get the BOTOX injection approved. He wants me to go off the Tramadol to prove that I’m not suffering from medication-overuse headaches. Since I’m not using the Tramadol as often as I do the Zanaflex and the Flexeril, and because I still have some Tramadol from October, I really don’t think that is the issue.
I was a bit annoyed by the speculation that I might be overusing pain medicine. I get why he thought that. I mean, I was making weird jokes, which I blame partly on my tendency to make light of my health issues and partly on my having taken 2 Flexeril earlier in the day. I also told him that I was having pain in my neck, was on Effexor for depression, and had trouble sleeping. Of course, I’ve been on the Effexor for over 10 years, and I have had a lot of trouble sleeping throughout my life. I also told him that before my current medicines I’d had problems with Migranal and Imitrex. He didn’t know that I had problems with Migranal because I have bad reactions with caffeine. He also didn’t know that the Imitrex bad reaction happened the very first time that I took it, and it wasn’t a rebound headache. It was more like serotonin syndrome. Anyway, for those things, I’m not that annoyed by him.
I am, however, annoyed that this man couldn’t be arsed to look at the damn file or any of the tests and notes done by my neurologist. I’m pretty damn sure that if you have a chart in front of you that has recent MRI and EEG results, as well as God knows what other tests my neuro has done over the past several years, that you look at that chart. Otherwise, why have a chart?
Anyway, to prove that I’m not overusing my pain medicine, I am going to be switching from it to Elavil. That makes me a bit uncomfortable since I’m also on Effexor, which he hinted that he wanted to take me off of. (If he tries, I may have to resort to some violence.) He also suggested that I get my eyes checked, because he thinks I have a lazy eye or something. He checked my eyes, doing the movement test first (and stalling forever at the upward part at the end) and following with an external examination of my eye test, which he ended up triggering a massive migraine. (The left eye didn’t take long, but he seemed to be obsessing over something about my right eye. He ended up getting extremely close to me, with his hand on my face, and it seemed like he was looking at the right eye for about five or six minutes. My photosensitive eyes didn’t like this, thus the migraine.) I was not happy to leave an appointment about headaches with a worse headache than I’d come in with.
I’m not exactly sure how to structure this post because there are so many things I want to talk about, so if it is a little more flighty than usual, then I apologize.
I guess first of all, I should talk about Christmas. My parents and I had our Christmas meal with Nana on Christmas Eve so that my aunt didn’t have to see me or threaten violence against me. I cried almost the entire three or four hours that my parents and I were there. I managed to almost have an asthma attack because of the crying and I messed up my internal system by getting so worked up. (My temperature shot up, I started getting sick, etc.) So, it wasn’t all that pleasant. I felt bad for my grandmother because she’s almost 80 and she’s got a lot of health issues going on, so having to have separate Christmases was tough on her physically and mentally. (She has a lot of anxiety issues, so this whole situation has upset her quite a bit.) I also felt bad that I couldn’t even fake a smile or a good mood while we were there.
When my mom talked to Nana about how Christmas Day went with my aunt, uncle, cousin, cousin-in-law, and cousin’s son, she said that it wasn’t a really festive occasion. Apparently, my cousin’s son went through Nana’s house looking for me and was sad that I wasn’t there to play with him. I almost cried when my mom told me this. I missed him, too. He’s the one person that I have missed every second of this whole non-communication between my aunt and me thing. He’s just so awesome and thinks differently and is so smart and creative, so being around him is always fun. I feel like he’s a kindred spirit.
Nana said that my aunt asked how we handled Christmas without them. When Nana told her that I cried almost the whole time, my aunt said that that was good because I hadn’t made any effort to apologize to her. Okay, that isn’t true. First of all, I actually did write a “letter” via Google Docs and sent it through my uncle’s email address with a note for him to please give it to her. While the apology isn’t a complete acceptance of the alleged wrongs that I’ve been accused of committing, it is an apology for what I did do; a request that she cease this anti-Janet “campaign”; a request that she learn a little bit more about the physical and mental health problems affecting my mom, Nana, and me so that she could understand the context of the posts I write; and questions about why she made comments to my mom suggesting that I should be kicked out of my house, that I was a bad daughter, etc. Anyway, the apology is the best that she is going to get. I would’ve sent it to her personally on Facebook but she blocked me from sending her messages after I sent the message chastising her for not contacting her sister (my mom) after the June 2011 hospitalization or any of the hospitalizations/surgeries. I can’t do it via the phone (fear/anxiety issues), face-to-face is out of the question, I don’t have her personal email address, and I just don’t think sending a letter is practical. I would post the apology letter on here, but she doesn’t actually read this site, so it wouldn’t do any good.
On Christmas, I wasn’t just upset about the downfall of that particular relationship. I was also upset that my maternal grandfather’s only surviving sibling had unfriended me on Facebook, as had one of his kids. These were two of my favorite people in the family, so being unfriended saddened me. And part of me wondered if my aunt had anything to do with it. I hate being paranoid, but it was weird how they unfriended me shortly after she had posted something on each of their walls. That thought/paranoia, plus the knowledge that she keeps badmouthing me to Nana and (when my mom calls her) my mother, made me very frustrated because some of the key issues with being Borderline are the fear of abandonment/rejection and intense and unstable relationships. I think anyone who knows me in any way, shape or form could cite any number of examples that I will go to a near breakdown state whenever things change, relationships end or near an end, I start feeling unappreciated, and when I feel alone, unloved, or unwanted. So, when I was crying on Christmas Eve, I was thinking about the familial implosion, possibly killing myself over it, and how I was somehow a horrible human being. That’s not the kind of thinking that one should have at any time, but it is especially bad during the holidays. And that thought process and the pain that it caused makes it harder for me to come up with a way to apologize over any of this or keep quiet about how I feel. I don’t want to excuse my (sometimes) bad behavior, but I want my family to understand where it comes from.
(BTW - When my aunt tried to lay all the blame on me for this, Nana wouldn’t have any of that. She told her that she [my aunt] was to blame, as well, and that she was the one who wanted the family split up. She’d also told her off on the 23rd when Nana mentioned that she had to fix the table for our lunch and my aunt told her not to worry about it with us because we “weren’t used to eating at a table” anyway. )
Aside from the Christmas tear-fest, I was going to share whatever the results were from my MRI and EEG. I went to the neurologist’s office yesterday, but (after waiting an hour and a half) I was told that the neurologist had just left to attend to an emergency at one of the hospitals. In a small way, I was upset over not finding out the answers, but I would rather not know what was wrong with me than know that my neurologist might have wasted time with me that he could’ve spent on someone who was truly in need of his help at that moment. (And I know that neurologists are not exactly doctors who have soft-fluffy-type emergencies.) Anyway, my neurologist was supposed to call me sometime later in the day yesterday. He didn’t. He still hasn’t called. I could call them, I guess. The only thing I do know from the appointment yesterday is that I had lost another 6 pounds, in addition to the ~50 that I’d lost in the last year.
Oh, I finally had my T4, TSH, LH, and FSH tests done yesterday afternoon, over a month after they were originally ordered. The woman who did the test asked me if that was my husband in the waiting room. I silently gagged and told her that that was my father. She told me she was glad because she had been mad when she thought he was my husband because he should know better than to be with someone so young. In a way, I understood what she meant, but it was kind of weird to have someone say that kind of stuff. I mean, she doesn’t know me, so what was she going to say if she had been my husband? How would she have gotten around her disgust? And is saying that kind of thing a good idea when you’re sticking a needle into someone? (It could cause someone to tense up and cause veins to ‘disappear’ in someone who, like me, is a hard-stick.)
This bothers me every single time I see it, because my first thought after reading it was “The person knocking was the last woman on earth” and my second thought was ‘He isn’t the last man on Earth at all, as what else could stand upright and know the human custom of knocking on doors. If it was anything else it would break the door down. Even if it was a vampire, they can’t be let in unless you invite them.” Not scary at all.
Well, yes, but the fear of the unknown comes into play, if you’ve been alone for a very long time, and are certain you are the last person on earth, and the door knocks, i don’t know about you but i would first think “holy shit what is that???????????????” than, “holy shit there is another person i’m not alone!”
I think as an optimist, I would definitly think “Holy shit there is another person I’m not alone!” ESPECIALLY if I had been alone for a long time. I would forgo reasoning and caution and throw open the door with relief. Even if the though of a scary monster or some other unknown crossed my mind I would still think ‘Maybe they’ll take me to other people. Maybe they’re keeping them somewhere” or I’d think “Maybe they’ll kill me. Good. I don’t want to be lonely anymore.”
well said, and i would add that most monsters i know, and i know a few, wouldn’t knock before running in and kill, eatting, and or fondling you. just saying.
My point exactly. Aside from vampires, but they have to be invited in to do anything. Werewolves and other such creatures would just break the door down. Zombies wouldn’t have the brain capacity to knock. Aliens wouldn’t know what knocking on doors even was (most likely). If it was Death himself, again I would just say “Thank goodness I won’t be alone anymore”
Well if we play but the rules that i run by, the threshold would protect from zombies and vampires (these being magically created, as what else would make any undead not be able to pass a doorway), werewolves, depending on the type yeah sure, and aliens….i don’t do aliens….so..lets move on to death..death can some “a-knocking” as it were. the fear from this is mostly because you were certain of the content of your world, you were alone, there was nothing else, at least nothing else human, out there, and now there is something outside your door, you don’t know what it is, but it’s challenging your world view.
I was not thinking of voodoo or magically created zombies I was thinking of zombies created by radiation, electricity or some kind of virus. So they would not be bound by the threshold. I think I’ve seen so many horror/post apocolyptic/thriller movies that have happy endings I would just think that I was the hero in the situation. I just thought, since the character is the last man on Earth perhaps the knocker could be an ape like in Planet of the Apes. So, again, not scared just happy like ‘Oh my god, a talking monkey. Maybe they have people in cages. I can see people. Maybe I’ll see a half-naked Charlton Heston.” I understand why it SHOULD be scary, I just don’t feel it.
eh, see, that makes me think of the i am legend movie. i hated the happy movie ending, and loved the book’s ending, which is where i am going with this. there isn’t always a happy ending, and the woman you think is hope for the survival of the human race is just a vampire trying to kill you to stop your genocidal daylit raids on the new apex predator of the planet earth……spoiler alert?
Total spoiler alert, but seeings as the book came out in 1954 and the Vincent Price movie came out in 1964, I can forgive you as I should have found time to read/watch them. I realize there isn’t always a happy ending, for example the Planet of the Apes Saga ended badly, however I look past this and think of movies like I am Legend, Super 8, 28 Days Later (disregarding 28 Weeks later) etc (Even Shaun of the Dead) Again, these movies have made me an optimist when it comes to these kind of horror stories, especially since I always cast myself as the hero who will not die, or the hero who will only die when they know for absolutely sure they are the last ones left and there is no hope.
this is assuming that you are the last one alive because of something you did, not because of just genetics or, say, walking dead, you just wake up in the hospital, the only living guy around for a pretty far distance, not because you fought and survived, but for no reason at all. you can take hope if you fight and win, but if just it happened, then there is nothing to really take hope from at all.
Hope can always be found. There doesn’t need to be a source.
What if there were no monsters, no aliens, no supernatural creature? What if you were really alone and the knocking was just your mind? If you became so depressed from being completely alone, you might become psychotic and the knocking could be from that.
(Source: kamyrawr)
