I’ve been transferring over my blog entries from Diaryland. I wish there was a way to do this without hand-inputting the posts, but if there is – I haven’t found it yet. I’ve managed to import February – June 2001 in the past two hours.
Man, 2001 was a doozy.
2001 started with the death of my Grandpa Zehms. Though Grandpa’s death was heartbreaking, the events in precipitated were what really started the year off with a bang.
After my Grandpa’s funeral I drove back to Michigan with my Aunt Sally. Sally spent the better part of our 8 hour drive telling me all about her life-long battles with depression and how much better she now felt because she had finally found a therapist that was helping and anti-depressant drugs that seemed to work.
I’ve always been one that believes in therapy and psychiatric drugs to kick-start therapy. It’s just that I never considered that I might be in need… until that trip. After listening to Sally for hours it dawned on me that I could really use the help of a therapist… maybe even some anti-depressants.
That all sounds rather hopeful, but it was anything but. I found myself in a bit of a state of despair because it finally dawned on me just how unhappy and miserable I really was. I got home that night and bawled like a baby in my roommate’s lap.
Within a day or two I called Compoopuware’s employee assistance program. Thank god I wasn’t suicidal because they were anything but helpful. They were apologetic mind you, but, in the end, they couldn’t help me. They had just picked up the Compoopuware account and weren’t yet authorized to actually help the employees in any way – though they later sent me a CD in the mail about humor in the workplace.
If only it had been that simple.
Having never actually dealt with the mental health system I had no idea where to turn. The only therapist I knew was my roommates and that just didn’t seem wise. I called a couple of places with no luck – most told me they needed a referral, one sounded disgusted at me because I wasn’t suicidal and one wanted me to check in as an in patient, so I hung up the phone before they could get any incriminating information out of me. Somehow I managed to book an appointment at a local hospital’s branch and ended up with Maxine.
I lucked out, big time. Maxine was the first therapist I went to and she worked for me. I know that doesn’t happen too often. Maxine worked with my primary care physician to diagnose me with severe clinical depression and anxiety disorder. It was also Maxine that helped me discover that the “dizzy spells” I had been suffering from for over five years were actually panic attacks. Within a month I was taking Paxil.
I wish I could say it was all better from there, but as Maxine told me, it often gets worse before it gets better. I spent a month adjusting to the Paxil while my panic attacks escalated out of control. I was afraid to drive my car. For some reason I had an insane fear that my car was going to fly off the road and hit one of the retaining walls on 696. It got so bad that I finally had to resign myself to the fact that if it happened there was just nothing I could do about it.
Eventually it did get better. The panic attacks subsided and Maxine and I really began to work on “things.” I found myself, for the first time in my life, actually happy with who I was. It wasn’t all daisies and sunshine… anybody who goes through therapy knows that there is a rubber band effect where you slingshot from one extreme (no self esteem) to the next (extreme anger) and eventually find yourself back in the middle. I lost a few key friendships in that process – Patty most notably – while I tried to figure things out.
A few months into therapy I was really starting to feel good about myself. I was stepping my way through relationships with men – first by getting rid of The Basement Dweller, a platonic, but very toxic relationship to Ian, who was a “safe” male friend with no romantic involvement, to Mike who was a great man, but unavailable (and therefore pretty safe) to Bryan, who was a good man and available. Getting involved with Bryan was a giant leap of faith – in myself more so than him.
It was a good, healthy progression.
While all of that was going on I lost my job at Compoopuware. It was a blow, but I can’t imagine how much worse it would have been had I not already started on a journey of self-discovery.
I ended up spending the summer working part time at AIDS Walk Detroit. Though the lack of money was really scary, the part time work really enabled me to focus on myself and building my relationship with Bryan. As a bonus, I discovered how much I felt at home in the nonprofit arena.
At the end of the summer I found myself really starting to rid myself of the things that were dragging me down. I quit my involvement with The Internet Cult (Quixtar – I had been a member for a while) and lost a few friends (Ian, mainly) in the process. I also started to really examine my relationship with my roommate, Bonnie.
Bonnie and I had been friends for almost 16 years, but I was starting to discover that I took more benefit in hiding behind her very full and outgoing personality that I actually took in being her friend. I had spent years playing second-fiddle to her and I started to lash out as I wanted more of the spotlight for myself. It was, understandably, very confusing to her and I came off as more of a bitch than someone trying to “find their way.” It changed the dynamic of relationship forever to the point where we just don’t have a relationship anymore. In fact, I’ve seen her twice in the past two years and we live less than a mile apart.
By fall of 2001 I was dating Bryan steadily and we decided to move in together. I also found a full time job and began working at theNonprofit. Though Bonnie and I were progressively headed down a very rough road, everything really started to fall into place.
It was a whirlwind of a year.
