Facebook very helpfully told me I had a mental breakdown six
years ago. It wasn’t obvious, as it was
just a picture. But, it is a picture I
took when I was feeling lost. I had quit
my job and got on the next bus out of town.
I felt destroyed as a human being.
My depression was at one of it’s worst (it would get worse almost a year
later but it was rough). This post made
me laugh in a way, but sad in other ways.
That was my life.
I don’t want to dwell on that. That was a rough year or two in my life. I made bad decisions and ended up in a bad
place. We have all been there. We move on.
I have spent the last couple hours thinking about that. I took a depression/anxiety/drinking test for
school today. Obviously, I don’t have anxiety
or a drinking problem. It also said I
don’t really have depression. I had been
thinking about reducing my anti-depressants again this spring. I think with that knowledge under my belt, I will
try.
My life today is pretty much perfect. I just finished two years on my second degree
program, and for the first time in my life, felt like I fit in. I have made amazing friends in that program,
and I am sure that they are lifelong friends.
Those of us that made it through still smiling at each other are meant
to be. I am so thankful for everyone!
I am about to start a practicum that could challenge me to
my very core. I am a little nervous, but
also excited and proud. If I am able to
excel at this practicum, I could have a job with the ministry for a while. This would play well into a FASD role in my
future – a program which I have just started another course for. Ideally, I could end up doing a couple years
with the ministry and then do a practicum for FASD and be perfectly
qualified! I feel entirely ready to
start this role. And if it doesn’t work
for me in the ministry, well, I still have a BSW and am about to embark on an
amazing journey.
I made a decision to make things work with Nick in
October. We are about a month into
living together, although it has been a little gradual as I have been out of
town. Nick and I obviously have some
things we need to work out as we have never lived together or even close enough
to have our lives entwine. We are
falling into a good routine. Sometimes
we have communication breakdowns, but we are working through them. A month in and it feels like the right
decision. I am settling into
Quesnel. I have bought a resident pass
at the swimming pool. The course I am
taking for FASD has a project where I have to commit to change during the
course. Nick and I have decided to make
healthy living our goal, and we are doing it together. I can’t think of a better way to start our
lives together than becoming more healthy, together. We will be doing exercise together (or at the
same time – I will go to the pool and he will go to the gym in the same
building sometimes). I am happy to see
this being forced on us in a good way!
I learned the other day that my problems from a decade ago
where maybe all in my head. I hated the
girl I was in Wells, but from the sounds of other people’s experiences of
Wells, mine were nothing to write home about at all. I hated myself for whoring around a little
that summer. I blamed myself for
exposure to HPV and hence cervical cancer.
In my head, everyone knew what I did, and I was important enough to
remember. Nick’s tattoo artist is a man
I knew in Wells. When we were introduced
last week and I said we knew each other from a summer in Wells, he drew a
complete blank. At some point in the
night, talk of Wells came up. I listened
quietly as the group talked about their own escapades. There was talk about the couple having sex in
the pathway on a tarp; of naked group bathing; the intense amount of drugs, and
the random hook ups. These are not my
memories of Wells. I know there were
drugs, and I remember witnessing some hook ups.
I did not see the majority of what they talked about. This made me feel a little better. No one knows the girl that had a rough
summer. Everyone else has very similar,
if not more, of the similar experiences.
When I told Nick this, he asked how I possibly did not see the same
Wells as what the young people of Quesnel know about. He asked what my experience of Wells had
been. The question was left hanging –
what did I feel so bad about? This has
been an interesting development in my world.
Hopefully that means I can finally move forward from that as well.
So yes, Facebook, I had a mental breakdown six years
ago. Since then, I have been to Ghana
twice, got a CELTA certificate, taught in China for a year, finished (almost) a
BSW, and found a man that while we don’t have a lot in common, I think is worth
fighting for. And this girl, who had a
mental breakdown a year ago, is in a great place!
Thanks to those of you who stuck out the last six years, and
those of you I picked up along the way.
You are so wonderful and I love you so much!
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