Emotional Sh*tstorms of Grief, Holiday Anxiety and Winter Blues

It’s taken me a long to write, mainly because it’s hard to summarize emotional shitstorms of a certain magnitude. Number 8 on the richter scale, or whatever. This winter has been pretty blue and crappy even before Holiday anxiety set in, and quite a bit has happened. Sh*t, that is. Good things have happened too, but the sh*t is hard to ignore. Especially when life continues to fling more at you AFTER you’ve already slipped in a pile of it and landed face first. I don’t know if I’ve ever written this colourfully in front of you guys, but sometimes the best summary of emotion is a vehement expletive. That’s been happening to me a lot lately.

So let’s look at my sh*t list: (Why am I using an asterisk? I don’t know…I think it somehow feels a little more polite.)

#1 Winter Blues Burnout

I hate winter. You might already know that but if not, voila. Quebec winters suck and all the snow we didn’t get before the Holidays decided to fall within one week and remind us of who’s boss. I think we get it! Anyway, I hate everything from the cold, to the bulky clothing required to endure it. Most of all, I hate the lack of light. I don’t have Seasonal Depression, but the seasons still impact me. I’m too young to hate winter this much and definitely too broke to do anything about it. Yay!

Anyway, autumn was nice and I handled a few ‘brushes with breakdowns’.

“Thank you so much for this great honour, I never could’ve done it without my psychologist. I just want to thank everyone in group therapy for tolerating my bullsh*t, really this award goes to you guys… blah blah blah.”

Yeah so I was functional and stable for a record breaking (counts the seconds) – just kidding. A few months. Maybe I got sloppy and forgot that I shouldn’t do certain things: things that don’t send ‘normal’ folk spiralling out of control but for me are basically looking for trouble. You know those things. Going to bed at 10. Working enough hours to pay the bills. Crazy stuff like that.

So I guess I did too much. Again. You’d think I’d learn, but nope. Not me! So I fell into a deep burnout, and when I say deep, I’m talking the Mariana’s Trench. This was a new low, even for me. I could barely write or make Christmas cards during my two consecutive stays at crisis centres. Everything was an enormous effort, beyond previous depressive episodes, burnouts, etc.

I was self-destructive again which is why I thought it best to stay at a centre for a while, and I still wasn’t ready after the first. I hurt myself there and had to go to the hospital where the on-call psychiatrist did an evaluation. With a lot of convincing, he thankfully allowed Mia and I to leave. He also set up a plan to start getting me off of Effexor, which as some of you might know, is a f*cking nightmare.

#2 Effexor Withdrawal

I keep telling myself that getting off Effexor will be worth it, but it SUCKS! Both in the centres and since, I’ve been experiencing really crappy symptoms of withdrawal. First an on-off imitation flu, then irritability, mood swings weirder than the ones I’m accustomed to, disorientation, nausea, loss of appetite, and everything you can imagine on the southern end of things. We don’t need to get into that. I’ve been tapering off extra slowly because it’s my third time trying to stop this medication, and three is enough!

Oh and I still haven’t spoken with my psychiatrist. Why? Because he didn’t respond to my request for our appointment to be done by phone. (I was in the centre and too far away.) When a new appointment was finally scheduled, it was for the last week of January. Not that my health is important or anything or that 3 months isn’t way too long considering recent events.

#3 Holiday Anxiety

I wanted to be with my family for Christmas but I was super rundown and didn’t feel any more ready to leave the second crisis centre. The time was up anyway though and hey, the real world doesn’t stop when you do. Neither do bills, which is a huge bummer, and sick leave payments are slow.

My lack of motivation for making Christmas cards turned into anxiety as the holiday approached and I finished them at the ‘11th hour’. Why did my inability to make cards bother me so much? Because my homemade cards are a tradition and while nothing felt the same, it was a desperate attempt to cling on to ‘normalcy’. Hahahaha.

Anyway even though things were simplified and I didn’t have three Christmas dinners like last year, the tiniest decisions and logistics felt like calculus. I was happy to have been home for Christmas though, especially considering the worst sh*tstorm that was about to hit.

#4 Grief and Loss

I don’t want to write much about this because it still hurts too much. In time, I might write a tribute as I’ve done before. For now, here’s what happened.

On Boxing Day my boyfriend and I had brunch with his mom, and after that we went to his apartment. On the 28th, my dad asked me to come home because it was very important. I knew something bad had happened but never expected this.

I write a lot about Mia, my Psychiatric Assistance Dog. But we have another dog…Piko, our incredibly sensitive, smart, and loyal family dog. When I got to my parents, they told me he was gone. Piko went outside as he always does, but this time he didn’t come back. We live in the forest and Piko grew up in it. 6 years old, a pro hunter, always stays on the property and always comes back when he’s done or as soon as he’s called. Except this time.

Houses are popping up everywhere, which means we have even more deer. We also have coyotes now, on the other side of the mountain. We can hear them at night sometimes but they’ve never gotten close. After putting up signs everywhere and combing through pretty much the whole forest without finding anything, it seems like they might have gotten to him…even though it was 11 a.m. in broad daylight. We don’t know for sure. I wish we knew something. Had found something. Anything. But Piko is gone, because he would be back if there were any chance that he could.

Pain

Piko is the final straw. Burned out, anxious, depressed, and then…heart just ripped out. I can’t even describe it. The pain is ridiculous. A new level that I dreaded and avoided thinking about. I thought I knew pain. I’ve felt so bad that I’ve attempted suicide. I’ve woken up from those attempts. The pain of losing him is the new worst that I have ever felt. I’m going to stop here. It escalates badly.

Moving Forwards, Somehow

I’m obviously not alone in my pain; my parents have been hit incredibly hard. It feels way too quiet at home now and there’s a hole everywhere we look. Mia feels it too. Somehow we need to keep going, even though we’re all fighting battles and dealing with grief. I think we need to go through it together and alone, if that makes sense.

I’m lucky to have my Assistance Dog Petition to focus on, even though it’s very difficult to stay motivated, encouraged or optimistic. It’s hard to do most things, until a little glimmer of courage and impetus that I need to act on immediately. These fleeting periods have to count because the petition closes for signatures on February 21st. I’m really worried about not reaching the minimum of 500 signatures. We have 231 and only 32 days remaining. I’m sharing it everywhere and as much as I can but it’s hard!

Here is the link to the petition if you’re interested in supporting the cause. Please feel free to share it with anyone else who might be interested! Even if you’re not personally interested, I would love it if you could send it to anyone you know who might be. Social media makes things happen but not for me because I’m minuscule. So if you’re in Canada, any help would be much appreciated! Thank you 🙂

https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4588

https://www.noscommunes.ca/petitions/fr/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4588

How were your holidays? How are you handling winter? What emotional sh*tstorms have come your way?

Take care everyone!