Prolly best to listen to while reading this post. Honestly, if you CAN listen to it, you should. It’s an excellent song:
Nothing could’ve prepared me.
They could’ve told me that I’d been depressed and I still wouldn’t have expected that walking into my apartment, I’d see just how depressed I’d been. I confirmed my fears with Ben, who explained that my house had ALWAYS looked like this.
It was an epic fucking disaster – and not just because I’d been in and out of there for the past 5 months. Certainly, the hairballs and fur on the rug were from the cats who’d been, I can only imagine, expressing their displeasure at my absence. Or perhaps it was just 5 months of cat hair untouched by a vacuum.
Either way, I wanted to scream.
They tell you to make sure you’re wearing clean underwear every day in the off-chance you get struck by a bus and require an extended recovery far from home. You don’t want the doctors to see your stanky underwear now, do you?
(the toe-tapping guilt trip is, as always. implied)
But they DON’T tell you that you should prepare your home the same way. And I think they should.
It’s the same feeling – magnified about 3,927,383 times. If you get hit by a bus unless you’re on Grey’s Anatomy or happen to be a place where a bazillion doctors operate, the paramedics are the ones who’ll be seeing your stanky underoos. And if you’re in particularly bad shape, you’ll have those puppies torn off you like BAM.
But your home? The place you live? The direct reflection of you? That’s a little different and a HELL of a lot more telling of a lot of things. Including ones mental state. Which is what I learned when I came home.
No doubt that my life had been in shambles more times than not after I moved out of Dave’s house, but I hadn’t realized just how bad things had gotten. And how horrifically depressed I’d been. I could only see that once I came home, well, happy.
Life notwithstanding, I’ve got a lot to be UNhappy about:
I lost my dream job after my second fall – they just couldn’t give me any more time off. Despite being massively hurt, I understand completely. That means, though, that I have to find a new jobity-job by the end of April – which is always a tremendous stress. I’m living on such a fixed budget, I can’t even pay my bills, which are, naturally, mostly medical now. Bills are, by nature, a big stress to me, and not because of the money. Even when I have money, the act of paying bills freaks me the fuck out. I’d moved away from St. Charles for a while and have to move back to be closer to my family, so if this – God forbid – happens again, I have local help. St. Charles happens to be wicked expensive, so I need to find a decent job. More stress.
Once again, I have to start over from scratch. While before this would have led me down a sinkhole self-loathing, I’m absolutely fine.
Inexplicably, I have the coma to thank for it.
When the doctors told my parents I was a goner (which may or may not be my memory filling in the gaps – I was lucid during the coma, just in another reality. I spent most of that time trying like hell to get back to this life), they were visited by a psychiatrist who suggested, as a last-ditch effort, ECT.
Because they had nothing left to lose, they agreed to ECT. Shock therapy. Y’know, the highly controversial medical procedure used to treat major depressive episodes and treatment-resistant depression?
Before you skip to the comments to tell me why this was a Colossally Bad Idea (capital letters, of course, implied), let me make this clear – I am NOT getting into a debate about the relative merits and pitfalls of of ECT. It was absolutely the BEST thing that’s happened to me.
Why? I can hear you screaming into your computer from here. Why o! why are we not going to have this debate?
Because it fucking woke me the fuck up. I snapped out of that fucking coma like WOAH.
And because I was told it was a miracle that I woke up, I have a new lease on life. I’m happy. For the first time in a long fucking time, I’m truly happy. No longer dark and twisty.
But don’t worry, Pranksters, I promise I’m not going to turn into a person who has inspirational quotes at the bottom of my emails. My handwriting may have changed completely since I woke up, but my blog will not suddenly become one of those “look at my perfect life” blogs. Those still make me want to fling poo.
My house is SLOWLY getting back into shape. (Because my second break and subsequent repair were far more invasive, my ability to bend down and pick heavy things up has been compromised). I updated my resume and started the job search yesterday. Things are progressing – albeit more slowly than I’d like – and I’m taking it one day at a time.
And for the first time, well, ever, I’m trusting that things will work out the way they work out and that’s that. I’m no longer fighting The Universe about things I cannot control.
It’s just time to let go.
———
So, now I’ve caught you (sorta) up to date on what’s been going on with me, what about YOU, Pranksters? I’ve been gone a good long while and I assume your life has drastically changed as well. Pull up a chair, grab a Vicodin-chip cookie, and tell Your Aunt Becky all about what’s been going on with you!