Today I am filled with nervous anticipation. Today I am also filled with hope. Today is the day that I fully take back control of my mental health and begin my journey back to life. I have lived my whole life numb in some capacity so I am definitely scared. I can’t tell if the person I have become is a side effect or if that person was yet to surface. But when you no longer become yourself, in fact unrecognizable where do you go next to face the facts?

Can I ask you what you would do if your live in boyfriend was sleeping with your best friend. I mean the both of them lied to me. Straight to my face. I will never forget that day. My life. My hopes shattered with no future. I was already suffering from depression and I turned to alcohol first. Seriously though what do you do when your girlfriend picks you up to take you for a birthday lunch and tattoo’s only to for her to get a phone call an hour later saying I am already done bring her back. She had moved him into her house after kicking out her husband. HE TOOK EVERYTHING except for my bunny and kitty (which he had locked in a small cage) and the cinder block coffee table. I had no phone to call my mom and cell phones weren’t even a thing. He took the mementos from my dead grandmother, grandfather and even the fresh water pearls my auntie gave me for my birthday. I couldn’t tell anybody what happened to me. He was popular in the town and I was trash so I had to limp back to my parents like any 19 year old would do.

I sat in my moms rocking chair for two weeks. I couldn’t eat, sleep, I just drank. Not even alcohol. Just water. I felt so sick to my stomach that I could trust somebody in that way. My whole life was in that apartment. The night the affair began I also will never forget. He was mad at me for something and she seemed so much cooler. He left me upstairs with his two loser buddies and he went down to bang her. I knew what happened. The guys finally admitted it. When we got home he made some BS excuse to drop off his buddies but he went back to be with her. On a side note my shark that I had since I was a young girl was found dead in my aquarium. What did I deserve to be lied to like some trick. I kept the house clean, laundry done, food cooked. Why wasn’t I enough. All those things I would think about and I would just cry. Then there was the trauma at 13 but who really medicates a 13 year old. Well back then we didn’t. Not like we do now. Where we get wrong in our diagnosis is our understanding of a girls young love. We would do anything to be loved by THAT one and we lose a piece in ourselves doing so. There isn’t a thing I wouldn’t do for that man. Even now I think about him and my blood boils yet my heart remains cold. I forgive him in some ways and in others not at all. All he had to do was tell me but he lied about it for weeks.

After two weeks my dad dragged me to the doctor and complained about my depression. She won’t stop crying, please do something with her. All I wanted them to know was that my heart was broken and I just couldn’t see past that. I wasn’t suicidal, god no, but at times they made me want to escape their prying eyes and judgments. I laugh now thinking how crazy emotional I still am. Well can be, I do have a big heart. It just happened. My prince charming turned into a toad. Give me a second to rewrite my happily ever after now I have to retrain seeing his face. The doctor with a heavy hand gave me a prescription for 10 mg of Prozac. Ha what a joke that was and I can tell you why you shouldn’t medicate the heart broken. You see the medication designed to treat a chemical imbalance couldn’t mend a broken heart. I ended up blacking out and grabbed enough and was going to slice my own wrists. As my Dad came towards me to take the knife out of my hand I lunged at my Dad and said, “come on and try it old man I will gut you like a fish.” This is not how I feel or how I ever felt. This was the medication talking so I quickly came off. Periodically Dr’s would prescribe me meds when I would enter into that dark depression realm that one enters for no reason. Every single time though I would come off of it too scared of what could happen.

Coming out of the trauma of how my son was delivered you have to prepare yourself to fly through some hoops. What I mean by that was that my baby was extremely tiny. Under 3 pounds to be exact. I made the mistake off saying out loud that I was scared that I would break him. What they heard was enough to use against me from taking him home. So I laid my head in shame and went to their counselors and played the prescription game. In their mind if I couldn’t be trusted then maybe I should be medicated. That’s how I found myself to be on 300 mg effexor, 125 mg zoplicon, and 1 mg of ativan. Now how is that for being numb? Being numb isn’t the problem but I do prefer to feel. Like I said to the Cannabis Dr yesterday we just had a really bad year. Our friend overdosed, one had a heart attack, our grandfather died, grandmother and mother in the hospital, guinea pig died, dog has cancer, dog had poisoning, my baby bird died, I mean don’t these things happen to other people and do they need to be medicated too? I cry when I am sad and I smile when I am happy but some times I black out and I know it is from all these medications. Crying in her office I thought oh god now I have done it. They will be back at my house before I am to take my child. I wish I didn’t say anything. Through tear rimmed eyes she looked at me and smized. Well as much as one can do in that moment. She had very kind eyes. I feel comfortable and confident with my mental health in her hands. Today is the day I take a gradual step down on my meds to see if the grass is truly greener on the other side.