Facebook, the devil.

 I saw on his facebook that he is in a new relationship and it re-opened everything. I think I am almost at the point where I will delete him. I know that everyone says I should have deleted him earlier but I wasn't able to... yet. I will get there. If I am truthfully honest, I wanted to keep him as a friend so that he could see that I was having fun and he would get jealous and want me back. That he could see what he was missing. But it backfired on me and instead, that is what I saw on his page.

Here is my potential letter to him if I decide to delete him off facebook. I don't want to just delete him without saying anything.....

It has been almost six months since we last talked. That has not been because I haven't wanted to, but because I knew you didn't want me to.

I am past the stage of wanting and needing to know why. Of trying to figure out how I could have changed things, how if I had tried harder and not been so jealous, or of why you didn't love me anymore.

A huge part of my heart still belongs to you and always will. We fell in love quickly and with unfortunate timing. But despite everything, I still love you and always will. As cheesy as this may sound, but if somewhere in our futures we meet again, maybe it will be right then.

All I know is that it is killing me seeing things on facebook about you moving on. Getting a new job in Halifax when you were so adamant about not leaving the one you had in the fall. Getting into a new relationship when I am still trying to imagine you not in my life. I don't fault you for any of those things, it just re opens my wounds every time I see them. So right now in order to help me heal, I am going to have to delete you off facebook. I didn't want to just delete you and be done with it. I don't think you deserve that. I hope that in a few more months, I can re-add you. That it won't hurt as much to see you in a new relationship or with pictures of her or whatever. I really truly hope that I can get to the spot you are at. Where you don't think of me or seem upset about us at all and have moved on.

I love you and hope you are doing well.

An eraser please...

Im having a hard time tonight. It's one of those nights where every little thing morphs into a huge deal and the one idea that is playing a freaking marching ban symphony in my head right now? That I will never talk to Dr X again.

I will never truly know what is going on in his life (you can only gather and then catastrophise so much from Facebook stalking). Conversely, he will never know what's going on in mine. I didn't get to call him up and share the excitement / fear of starting a new job. I don't get to hear about his dog, or his brother, or if he ever did work at the ski hill this winter.

It's been too long since we last talked (last text: January 3 2012) so I can't drop him a casual email, plus I'm not even sure I am healed enough.

Then my mind jumps to the question, how do I get there? Is the reason I am holding on to him because I still love him? Would I take him back a second time I I ever had the chance. The answers to those questions just make me feel like I haven't made any progress.

How can I erase him like he has erased me?

Kick in the throat

I have been doing much better. I got a haircut, my meds are working, I've started a new jobs, make more plans with my friends, and even developing (dare I say it) a little crush on someone. Then BAM! My throat swells up, my heart beat races and I feel like I did back in December. For me, panic attacks don't just pounce. They creep up quickly. They start with my body tensing up. Then I begin to hold my breath. Then my pulse races. Then I panic and it seems that I can't calm down. Then the tears come. Hard, fast, intense.

I looked on Dr. X's facebook. Yes, I still have him on there. Even though I have blocked him so that he doesn't pop up in chat or on my newsfeed, I know that it is just self-inflicted torture to keep him on there. However, I just don't feel like I'm strong enough to delete him totally from my life. I will get there and I am getting there... just not yet. I haven't really been upset about him for a few weeks now, so I thought I was in the clear.

Then today I saw that he has a new page advertising his new chiropractic clinic. Well... great for him. Then I see that it is not in the small town that he was originally working in but in a city. Wait, what?

Dr. X has been canvassing this small town clinic for four years before he graduated. He made connections and was guaranteed a job there when he graduated. THAT was the reason why he left Ontario he said. That was the reason why he did not pursue a job where I was living. When I was debating moving to his province, he said that even if I moved there, I wanted to live in the city while he worked/lived in the country and ti would still be long distance and hard. ...BUT NOW HE MOVED TO THE CITY ANYWAYS.

I feel like someone punched me in the throat when I saw that. He didn't even stay at that small town clinic for more than six months after he started. Its just more evidence that I wasn't that important, that he really was all talk and no action. He said he HAD to stay in that small town.... but if he left less than six months later, clearly it wasn't THAT imperative that he stay there. He could have come back to Toronto. He could have made more of an effort to be with me.

It fucking still hurts. I thought I was getting so much better and it STILL FUCKING hurts.

That I Would Be Good

How do you know if antidepressants are working? How do you pinpoint growth and recovery?

You start to feel like there is a light at the end. You don't wake up every single morning hating yourself and missing him. Sure, i have those days that eat away at my insides. Those nights where my mind races in a blind panic. Those little reminders of being single, unemployed and not where you wanted to be. But then I realize those aren't happening all the time anymore. I might go a whole day feeling a little more like my old self.

You start to look after your appearance again... I went to the hairdresser for the first time in months today and have started swimming again to get back in shape.

You begin to make plans and look forward to things you used I enjoy. I bought tickets with my friends to go to bonaroo this year... Something I've always wanted to do.

I still have some off days and nights aren't good for me still but I am slowly becoming, piece by piece, stronger.

Lean on Me... Except when I'm struggling to stand

I feel like the worst hypocrite ever.

I lean on my friends all the time for support and I am always there for them. I strongly value dependability in my friendships. One friend of mine in particular, B, has been with me since DAY 1 of my dark times (that catch phrase has a nice ring to it, no?). He lives in a different province and we met when I was living abroad in England. We communicate via fb and phone but haven't seen each other in person in a year and a bit. Anyways, he is/was also going through a tough time in his life. He got out of a messed up relationship and had work troubles. I have always been fine with counseling him when he counsels me. But the past few times? I really don't want to.

I want to be selfish. It's horrible. I don't want to talk him up and cheer him up about how great he is. Its so hypocritical because *I* want people to do that to me!!!! In the end, I do cheer him up and talk to him when he needs me but I just feel so lousy after it. Like it brings up all my insecurities and depression issues whenever we talk. I find him helpful when I'm upset, but yet when he tells me the same things I tell him, I get fed up. And to top it off, he always says he feels bad for "dumping" it all on me. :(

Now I'm stuck. I do want to help him and be there for him, but I don't want to get annoyed. How do I do that? How am I there for someone when I can barely be there for myself?

A Spoon Full of Sugar...

After two months of realizing that I wasn't feeling any better and after going back to therapy, I decided to go on medication. The big scary world of anti-depressants.

The medicines:
- Cipralex, daily, 10mg (daily) - anti-depressants
- Vitamin D & a multi-vitamin (daily) - for general health
- Xanax, .25 mg (as needed) - for anxiety
- Lorazepam, 5 mg (as needed) - for anxiety
- Ziploclone, 7.5 mg (as needed) - for insomnia

In addition to medication, i am doing talk therapy. When I went to therapy last year to deal with the Dr. X stuff, I worked a lot on CBT and with the book Mind over Mood (VERY recommended for those with anxiety related issues). This time around, it is more "talk" wise... getting everything off my chest, crying a bit, generally just telling somoene how I'm doing. I don't know if its as helpful as it was last year... but its better than nothing.

The results (so far):

I have taken Xanax for about 2 years and Lorazepam for 10 for my anxiety. I take them on a as-needs basis... which has obviously risen in the past three months than when I am normally experiencing episodes of anxiety. I started on Lorazapam because i used to just have trouble with sleeping in unfamiliar places. I don't use it that much anymore. Xanax is for when I have panic attacks and they help me calm down and (if I am focused and remember to: work on a CBT sheet).

I have been on Cipralex for about a month and I don't know if they are working or not. They say it takes 4 -6 weeks before feeling the full effect. I am becoming a bit more motivated (I swam laps last Wednesday for the first time in three months) but I'm still not "better". I have been told that they are like a brace or cast... they don't MAKE you better, but they allow the healing to begin. I hope my healing is beginning. I don't cry as much at least. My doctor when I went back after two weeks said that I was a lot less "weepy".

So that's where I am medically wise... Hopefully through the medicines, therapy, and venting on this blog, I'll eventually get back to who I was before I fell apart at the seams.

Hits you like a bag of bricks sometimes...

I am having a massive panic attack at work. Face flushed, heart rate pumping, scrambling around for my Xanax and then realizing I left it at home. Time to write this out, take a walk around the office, and try to calm down. Fuck, its so much harder to do this on my own without the aid of anti-anxiety meds. And what brought this on? ....My own stupidity.

I was killing time, deleting old emails until I came to one from my birthday.... Written a month before Dr X broke up with me. I shouldn't have clicked on it. I should have moved on, or deleted it. But...

A birthday poem to the women I love on her special day. I hope you like it and i hope you know i love you and will always love you because you are Susan and there is only one like you out there. Happy birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!! xoxoxox

Sonnet 17
by Pablo Neruda
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way
because I don't know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I nor you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep
it is your eyes that close

I.FEEL.LIKE.THROWING.UP.

I.AM.DOING.THIS.TO.MYSELF.

WHY!!!