I’ve had health problems basically from pre puberty.

It started with insomnia and anxiety at 10. (but joint issues since toddler hood that no one but my dad really noticed) Then depression was added in.  After puberty everything started to compound. My joints started truly going to shit. I couldn’t dance any more. I gained a lot weight. ( because of my own mothers issues with weight no one saw that as a red flag. But she was in her 40’s NOT 15 ) I started to grey in my face, the insomnia became chronic. I had never been a good eater, but I was now existing on Nature Valley granola bars and cranberry juice. Agoraphobia came into the picture and I didn’t leave my house for months at a time, except to sit in the car while my mother got groceries.  I home schooled throughout all this.  A bright spot that helped me for a time not be suicidal (or not suicidal per say, but empty) was my niece’s baby hood. She lived with us and I lived for her.

The brain is amazing folks.

I was so so sick. I  knew I was so sick. I was so tired of being sick. What people who have never been depressed chronically or sick chronically seem to not understand is, how some days are still great and some days are too much, and you want it all to be done and over.

Because of stuff in my family, and my issues with not being able to differentiate between my burdens and the carrying of everyone else’s, I knew I would probably never actually kill myself because I could never do that to my father or grandfather.  It would have ended them.  So, I was just in existing limbo. There are huge chunks of my teen years that I really don’t remember anything, except maybe one event of some kind.  Anxiety does that.  You are existing on what feels like pure adrenaline and so the senses are heightened but nothing is stored in your memory banks.  I was two personalities. I was sunshine to my friends. While the real me was stuck in a vacuum, feeling perpetually tormented.

Things started to get a little clearer when I was around 18. I had a new friend, who was true sunshine.  Myspace came into being and I made some real friends that I could be real around. I met and became friend with Mr. on there.  My parents finally realized that maybe prayer couldn’t solve everything.  Maybe I was actually sick with something.  I started seeing a herbalist who made magic potions that took away the grey, (which was from heavy metal poisoning) and made the insomnia more tolerable. But the depression and anxiety were still there.  I was only seeing a Herbalist because the Dr. I had at the time was an absolute dick who only saw my weight as an issue and wanted me to portion control.

Tell me, how do you portion control granola bars?

By now I was 19 and seeing Mr.  He would come for visits while on Uni breaks and I would live off of air/anxiety/passion I had never felt in my numb body, and scared the ever-living shit out of me.  Mr. himself was more broken than me in ways I never thought imaginable.  He was recovering from PTSD from being nearly beaten to death by his brother, and in the process of being diagnosed with Aspergers and OCD.  Our relationship was the chaos of a Neutral Milk Hotel song or a story in Transpotting minus all the heroin.  We clung to each other with all our crazy; determined that somehow we would make it and come out normal (?) on the other side.  Or at least a resemblance of right side up heads.

At 19 1/2 I tumultuously moved to Toronto. Living in a tiny room, in a tiny bed, and me getting sicker and sicker and Mr. also getting worse. It was the worst time of our lives.  My grandfather killed himself.  I have still not recovered, but it didn’t end me.

20 and I was married. Things started getting better with Mr. and his stuff.  I got much worse mentally, then physically. The worst ever. And that is saying something. Mr. started hiding all my razors, and got me two cats. Went off the pill because research told me it might be making me crazy.  It was, started to get better immediately.  Started to look into hormone issues and a possible rare sleep disorder.

21 and I got a real Dr.  I was diagnosed with a bunch of chronic issues. The main one being not making Progesterone. Which was the Domino that started it all.  Was told that because of that and all the massive damage of years of no Progesterone was basically infertile or severe risk for miscarriage.  Mr. continued to get better.  I continued to live in the bad habits of just freaking the fuck out when things were too much.  Mr. continued to love me, anyways.

22 and we move back to my hometown.  Things really start to improve.  Still having freak outs bi-monthly ish.  Mr. still putting up with it.  Go on an anti-depressant that works for all of three weeks then makes me sick as all hell.  Go off it with the worse withdrawals in the universe of withdrawals.  Come out with great compassion for addicts.  Start to feel really good, cut out wheat and feel even better.  Things are good.  Really, really.  Still hate this damn town though.

22 1/2 and I feel ‘different’. Continue feeling different while playing the “omg, am I pregnant?!” game in my head.  Except instead of being all, “No of course not crazy woman.” Which usually happens, I think. “Yep, probably.”  I do a stupidly expensive digital test and it proceeds to tell me what I know.  Numb/Surreal/Tingly are simultaneously felt.  Mr. is happy.  I am cautiously.  Dr. is ecstatic.  Tells me my body is healing itself.  That phrase is very foreign to me.  This body and I have no trust.  This brain and I have no trust.

23 and my last grandmother dies.  I am heartbroken.  Truly.

23 and I am still pregnant. Still married.

It looks like our heads may be on right side up.

We are still clinging to each other, but now because our bed is too big and we don’t like it.