#I'm still passively suicidal but I'm still fighting to survive and get by and provide for my critters | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mammawolff · 7 years

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I'm going to apologize now for what might turn into a long post, as I can't remember how to do a read more on mobile. So. It's once again Bell Let's Talk day. Now I realize that maybe, last year I was in a better position mentally, financially, and healthier than I am right now. But, that's the thing about mental illness. It's a daily battle. So. Let's talk. I don't think I've ever actually told anyone my full story. I was diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety when I was eight. This was a very poor time in my life. I was in the office of my school every day, for one reason or another. Funny thing about schools. They all claim to be against bullying, but they only notice the physical aspect. A rotund child defending herself against verbal attacks? Clearly she's the bully. Unfortunately, I grew accustomed to being anxious around figures of authority because of these childhood encounters. I'd stop trying to defend my actions to these adults who weren't listening, and instead clam up and cry. And clearly, crying means I feel guilty and therefore I'm the attacker. Yeah. My school was pretty fucky. Add onto that it's small town, uni-religious, and fairly cult-ish in their actions. My family, having just moved there with no family established, got the brunt end of a lot of attacks. Weird ass elitism at its finest. Anyways. During this time my home life was pretty shit, too. My parents divorced when I was four, and we moved to this town two days before my fifth birthday. My mum was determined to cut our father out of our lives, so we didn't actually get to see him until I was 6, almost 7. Also pretty fucky. My mum wasn't the greatest mother around. Yes, she put a roof over our heads and fed us, but she was very quick to attack us verbally & physically, and if she thought we were lying about something she'd beat us til we told her what she wanted to hear. So, my dad became somewhat of a god in my eyes. Guardian angel, shelter from the storm, something unattainable for a very long time(to 5, 6, 7 year old me. A year and a half ish is a very long time for a kid). Eventually, he was able to take us every weekend. He bounced from house to house, job to job, but he provided what little child support he could spare and he always made sure to have a house with at least two bedrooms, so we'd always have a place. I tried so often to tell him what the combination of mum & school were doing to my tiny brain and body, but I never had any idea what abuse was, as a definition. I was terrified what mum might do if she found out I tattled. She'd already kept us all away from dad for so long, how long could she do that again? So I stayed silent. When I was 8, I met with my school's guidance counsellor. I had only a handful of friends who weren't terrified of me(I grew tall and wide pretty fast), my grades were shit(even for elementary school), and I was always late. Not to mention those daily visits to the principal's office. He's the one who prompted mum to take me in, see if all this stress had caused something to fuck up in my brain. Spoiler alert; it did. So, I was put on Anti-D medication. Anti-A's didn't come into play until later. Unfortunately, my body apparently absorbed and adjusts to new medication very, very quickly. By the time I was 10 I was taking handfuls of pills morning, noon, and night, just to maintain this facade of normalcy. Unfortunately, the bullying and abuse was continuing. My grades didn't superbly improve, my school behaviour issues barely subsided. But, the pills continued. I couldn't even tell you what they were or what they did. Mum took care of all that. But, I can tell you one thing, my short term memory problems started when the drugs did. I know it's too late for me now, but man I'm still kinda pissed at past me for not speaking up. Grade five was a shift for me. Negatively. I had a highly abusive teacher, bullying was at an all-time high and three of my friends deemed me too weird/sketchy/uncool to play with any more. My dad had to move into a townhouse and out of the farmhouses he'd been occupying for years. He had to get rid of the dog(Sonia) who'd been my best friend for well over a year. Soon after, we had to get rid of Queen(cookie), a dog we'd gotten from my friend's dog's second litter. I couldn't go riding any more(we kept my dad's landlord's horses and cows on the property), and I could no longer help on the farm. My weekend salvation was at an end. About the only freedom I had left was if dad took me flying. I made him take me up for hours, some weekends. I remember bawling on my morning walks to school with my friends, because I hated my life so much. My mum made the doctor ease up my prescriptions(a good thing, honestly), but she didn't ease up the abuse. Neither did my teacher, or the bullies, and I no longer had my beloved animals to keep me sane. I mean, we had Taffy, but she was always Brad's dog. One morning there was a speeding car who I knew couldn't see us down the road. I think my friends knew exactly what I was thinking because they stopped and just hugged me until the car passed us. I was 11 and suicidal. To help me transition off the farm, dad bought me riding lessons from a local Parelli instructor. These helped. I finally had some sort of release again, and best of all I could ride throughout the week, not just the weekends. These ended too. My instructor's lease of the land eventually ran out, and an oil company came in and bought the land. I was 13 when this happened. Still being forced to take drugs, and go to a psychiatrist (who broke client confidentiality so I stopped going and mum stopped paying). When I was 12 I found Wicca, and started turning away from the Church I'd been raised and baptised into. By the time I was 15 I'd fully turned away but still went, to appease my dad. Anyways. I started riding with another instructor and when I was 15 suffered a very traumatic fall, that screwed me up mentally, and I couldn't bring myself to get back on a horse until just last year when I was 20. Amazing what happens when your hormone levels mostly balance out eh? I was still kind of suicidal throughout all of this. Nothing that I would act on, but I kept thinking, "if I were to die, it wouldn't be so bad." I moved in with my dad when I was 15. I was sick of mum's bullshit, we fought violently every day. She'd already kicked my favourite brother out of the house, my sister was almost as bad as she was(she's 9 years older than me and to this day acts like I'm still 10 years old. We've never been close). A plethora of reasons. Mostly being, I was tired of her verbal and mental attacks. The physical stuff mostly ended once I hit 5'7". Definitely didn't happen after I was 5'10". I moved in with dad, quit my prescriptions, came out to him as pagan, then promptly fell in line and went back to church(which I'd quit at mum's) in order to protect myself. He would kick me out if I so much as lit a candle. So, I practiced in secret. My gods were(and are) very understanding and very supportive. Dad's God did not want me in His church, but tolerated me. This was pretty dark time. Me moving in with dad dredged up more custody battle bullshit. But, my relationship with my mum started to get better, sort of. I'm 21 now and we're only just on good speaking terms for more than 48 hours at a time. Then I got Angel. She was pretty much perfect as a puppy. House training was kind of difficult, she proved herself a friggen genius with the turkey incident, but she was mine. She knows exactly what I want, how I'm feeling, what I'm going to ask of her. She's perfect. (Cherub's a rotten little shit but she's still just a puppy and I haven't found the right job for her just yet.) Then, four of my newfound friends died. Car accident. I know I've recounted this story many times so I'll spare the details. But this threw me into a massive identity crisis. They didn't know the real me before they died. Danae looked up to me as a role model, and she didn't know I wasn't Mormon. I was pagan. I had to tell everyone. That Christmas (time ish), I came out of the broom closet again. Only this time to everyone. My "Mormon Moms," as I called them, insisted I was still me and they still loved me. The less accepting wanted to ban me from the graveyard. I still get hassled from their families, if they see me going down. But, a certain member of the community stood up for me. I'll be grateful to him forever. My dad was confused and hurt, but so long as I kept going to church he'd let me stay. Mum still insists it's a phase. I started going back to my hometown for school (only ten minutes away), and connected with my friends again. Then my paternal grandpa died. I never got the chance to say goodbye. Not even a funeral. He visited me, and my aunt and my cousin, but that still hit me extra hard, as it wasn't even 10 days after the 1 year anniversary of the accident. I started to slip again, fast. Dad got a job out east and had left me to move the rest of our things into storage, and I moved back in with mum. This is when I discovered I get severe depression when I have to move. Yay. I discovered my car's engine will cut out once I get to 198km. There is a stretch of road between the two towns that is very long, and very straight, with a sudden swerve to the right and a very steep drop in the road into a gulley. I convinced myself if I could get to 200km before that swerve, I would let my car fly off the cliff. I watched the needle drop closer to the speedometer's limit, noting exactly when the engine cut. I tapped the brakes, and got my car under control before the turn. Cursed myself for being a chicken, then for being so stupid. Angel needed me, if no one else. Half-assed suicide attempt no. 2. School sucked, but for some odd reason my childhood bullies apologized to me and tried to make amends. I accepted and we moved on. Mostly. I guess. Throughout all of this my depression was(and has been) a heavy weight on my shoulders. A darkness at the edge of my vision. Pretty much the only thing that truly lifted that lifted that was Anna. Though I had found new friends on the internet through dA and the ridgearound(love you guys), it was never really at bay. She was really, really, REALLY the only thing that brought true sunlight into my life. The day she was born I cried tears of joy, and thought she was the most perfect creature ever. I still do. She is beautiful. Graduation year brought me Anna, a boyfriend who turned out to be creepy and manipulative and abusive, and the start of my cutting addiction. I fucked up a few months ago. Before that it had been years. More fights with mum. Robin Williams passed and I lost hope for a few months. That was not a good time. He was always a role model to me, because even as a kid I knew what battles he was going through. He made me laugh when no one else could. He showed me that even with my shitty brain, I could be successful. I could fight this. Then he killed himself. I finally moved to Ponoka. Pretended to be an adult. Got cherub. Changed jobs. Found(ed) a coven. Lost Dee, and Anna. She's alive, don't worry. But she's no longer in my life. The horses helped so, so much with my depression. I refuse(d) medication because I can manage my condition, usually. Unfortunately that job ended in part because the mental stress had brought on my depression full force, and even my boss noticed I wasn't happy. So I left and started my MT course, where I am now even broker than usual, even more stressed than usual, and even more depressed than usual. This isn't even every aspect of my depression but it's the main points. Throughout this now 11 year journey, my depression and my anxiety have been with me. They've changed and grown and forced me to change and grow as well. I often wonder how different things would have been had I not refused meds so (relatively) early on. Too late now. But, my point is, I'm still here. I'm still fighting. My survival tactics have changed. When I was 11, what stopped me so many times was "tomorrow is another day" and "what will tomorrow bring?" Now, it's just sheer stubbornness. I'm going to finish my MT, I'm going to get out of debt and I'm going to flee into the middle of the prairies with my dogs and my reptiles and get myself a horse and a plane and I will never step foot in a city again. Just watch me. It doesn't get better. That slogan has never rang true with me. It just changes. You change, and your illness changes as well. But I guess, in some ways, it does get easier. You force yourself to see in colour, to take the bad in every situation and go "at least it isn't _____." And every now and again, you look back at your eight year old self and allow her to cry, because sometimes you need to.

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