Where to Begin…
I can’t begin to explain what has happened to me over the last six months. Here I am, watching Marvel’s Jessica Jones—still kicking. So I will try but first I will back track a bit.
So, when you are a single mum of one, who writes eight full length novels in three years, including two anthologies that I managed whilst moving house. Who passes medical exams with flying colours and works two days a week and simultaneously did blog tours—that’s normal right? Then at the same time you start writing nominated poetry, run a business on the side where you make a sell goat milk/olive oil soap and cosmetics and still read a novel a week, walk your dog every day and cook dinner most nights of the week—that’s completely average, right?
The fact is I knew it wasn’t normal.
If there were more hours in a day I would have done more. I barely slept and I wasn’t tired. I had ideas, I had motivation and I was bubbly and painstakingly depressed all at the same time. I couldn’t seem to reconcile the two sides of myself. In fact I struggled my whole life to balance them, often instead opting to just withdraw.
At the beginning of the year I was sad.
I had realized that my behavior often cycled from depressed to over-excited. I knew I wasn’t like other people but finally my investigations on Google lead me to learning about Bipolar disorder. I took my mother along to a G.P appointment and explained myself. My G.P agreed that I was most likely somewhere on the scale. I am a Naturopathic student so I refused medication and instead researched natural treatments.
Apart from that the year had started out O.K. I had gotten a new job and now I understood that I was—depending how you looked at it, exceptional. What made me different and misunderstood also made me special.
And then I had my heart torn out, by the roots. I’ve been in hospital. I have been thrust back into the dating world and I have finished, under a great deal of distress, eight years of study. In between I have been dumped, bullied on facebook, been a passenger in a taxi fender bender and had to run a store with no experience—when it rains it pours!
I had held things together for so long and when I unraveled, I collapsed.
My anxiety skyrocketed. I had palpitations and high blood pressure. I couldn’t function.
I was placed on medications.
I went through every emotion. I suffered complicated grief, I wanted to die. Somehow I pulled myself up from the hole I was in—Even though I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t write, I couldn’t concentrate…even my handwriting became atrocious. My head was elsewhere.
I was sure my dedication to self-indulgent pursuits such as my career had driven him away. I fought my depression by finding someone new and that gave me something, a life line, to cling to—something to dull the pain.
I cried, nonstop. I cried every hour. Then every week and eventually, just every month. I weaned myself off medication. I watched my diet and exercised. I soldiered on, despite being dumped a second time by a new guy, again for another woman.
Unfortunately that has not been the worst of my problems. Just when I felt like I was getting it together a trip to the doctor’s office revealed something amiss. The same day I was tested for cancer (which I do NOT have, thankfully) and sent for an ultra sound.
The news was that I had a large uterine fibroid, an non-cancerous growth in my uterus and to top it off two cysts, one on each ovary (one quite large). The Doc said all things considered, I was doing very well, and then she insisted, quite intently, as I looked at her with tear filled eyes, that if I needed anything stronger than vitamins, I only had to ask (Hint, hint).
That was not all. Apart from waiting to be cleared for cancer (a precautionary step), I was faced with the thought that I might not be able to have children. Something that started to weigh heavily as I considered the fact that I was dating men who potentially wanted families of their own, men that I could potentially no longer offer a family to. (Not that I was having much luck in that department).
At the same time I was trying to finish my final assignment and then my ex started to cause a disagreement about child support, as if dealing with his new GF wasn’t hard enough. I had to call him out on his lies. Stress.
-Think that’s all. You are wrong.
My doctor suggested I get a CT scan. Again, just as a precaution. However the results were that I had two more large fibroids (wow, a whole collection).
I’m on a public health waiting list to be seen by a hospital gyno. Unfortunately it’s going to be a long wait. (At this point I am just thinking how great I am going to look in a swimsuit this summer, not).
In the midst of this I found a guy I really liked and he liked me. We went on a great date, he even opened doors! He reminded me of my dad, being that they were both Taurus’ and hard working. I imagined a life with a husband on a farm with puppies and goats—But he stopped calling. A whole week later I’m still not sure why.
So that puts an end to my dating life. I have finished study. The year is almost over and I have not finished my book series. But I’m still kicking. I thought I had had all I could take –but I’m a survivor.
I get up, wash my face, eat my breakfast, take my vitamins. I went on a shopping spree, treated myself to new shoes and laser hair removal. I hug my daughter and my dog.
I had to ignore the haters. I see a psychologist. I had to remind myself that I’m great. That it doesn’t matter what happens to me because happiness comes from within. I have a pretty nice life, even if I don’t have my own family or a boyfriend who loves me.
In the past I was someone who kept a lot to myself but I have not weathered the storm entirely alone. A part of my survival tactic has been to tell people about my rollercoaster and they in turn have listened. I thank them for letting me over-share.
My close friend and I have agreed that they should stop saying that everything will get better. Others have told me that next year will be my year. Break a leg.
I spent yesterday with my family. As I lay on the trampoline with my ecstatically happy niece, I told her all men are nasty liars. She said “Except one.” And I frowned and replied, “No, all of them,” and she again said “Except one.” So I asked who she meant? And she replied “Pop”—meaning my dad—and I had to agree that she was right.
I really do hope whatever doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.
I don’t fight things that I can’t control anymore. I believe that good things will come. Like always it’s hope that keeps me going. I will not self-destruct, I am stronger than I thought.
Time to get back to writing.