50 Shades of Depression and Anxiety

It has been three years. Three years of chaos, hurt, anger, depression, anxiety, and uncertainty. Three years of wondering what will happen next. I’m happy to be here three years later with a clearer head on my shoulders. I still hold hurt in my heart of my break up three years ago, but I’m getting there. It gets easier each day and I can happily say that I don’t hold the same anger of even the same hurt from then. It’s different hurt. Hurt that will likely never heal, you just learn to deal with it.

I have anger still associated with my trauma from three years ago, and it is also an emotion and feeling that I will never get over. Why? Because he did one thing to me that I never thought he would do; he took my dog from me. Pink was a saint of a dog. The closest thing to a dog that you could have without having a dog. He took her away almost three years ago and I haven’t seen my precious baby since. Rumor is is that he killed her, but I want to believe that she is living such a happy fulfilling life somewhere. One day I hope to get another dog as wonderful as Pink was, but I just don’t think that’s in the cards for me right now.

Has my depression gotten any better? The short answer is no, it hasn’t. I don’t think it ever will. Some might think that I’m doing better than I was, and they’re right. I am in a much better spot than I was the last time I wrote, but I don’t think depression really gets better, I just think it changes. My depression is just different than it was. Let’s be honest though, all of ours is because that’s just how 2020 is.

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing some cheese-dick blog about this last year of my life. I wasn’t going to because who really cares? Then I realized that I fucking cared and that I fucking matter. I might not matter to anyone else but I matter to myself. So fuck it, here we go…

The beginning of 2017 was fucking wonderful. My boyfriend at the time and me were at a high point in our relationship, I had the opportunity to go to the stock show again, I had the best birthday party I’ve ever had, and I threw Seth a pretty awesome party as well. By April we adopted a new puppy and named him Copper (which gets us to a different story later on). Unfortunately that just gets us to the 4th month of the year. At least I can say that they were good months.

I’ll be honest, I dont really remember much from May or June for that matter. I’m sure they weren’t particularly good or bad months, I probably just skated through them. When July came around, Seth and I broke up and for some reason I wasn’t sad at the time. I think I knew that our time wasn’t over yet. I was right… we got back together just to fall apart again.

Either way, by August my life was basically over. Nothing was what I had hoped it would be. I also didn’t think I’d get through the time but here I am. September, October, and November all are kind of a blur to me. I remember specific moments, like Halloween, but months as a whole aren’t in my memory. By December, things didn’t really look up fully, and this has been a challlenging month. Hopefully the last challenging month for a while.  Christmas sucked this year, I pushed certain friends away (Rebecca if you read this, I’m sorry and I hope you’ll forgive me.), and I also had to grow the balls for everyone and surrender Copper to the shelter. I don’t think I’m ready yet to talk about Copper, but someday I will.

Although this year was really tough, I am forced to learn lessons for the hardship. If I didn’t try and take something away from everything, good or bad, I wouldn’t move on with life and grow as a human being in this fucked up world.

So what the fuck did I learn from all of this?

1. My depression was/is much more serious than I thought it was.

You see, In December of last year, Seth and I broke up two days before Christmas. My mom made me cut all my hair off, and I forced myself to seek therapy. My depression and anxiety got the absolute best of me. I knew that if I didn’t get help, I’d do something serious and hurt everyone else.

2. My suicidal thoughts were a real thing.

I had always suffered with suicidal tendencies, but once the tendencies weren’t enough, actions were my next step. If i hadn’t sought help and got myself on anti depressants, I’m not sure where I’d be right now.

3. I found out who my true friends are.

With all the shit I went through this year, I realized what friends were willing to stick by my side even if I do them wrong, and which ones were just happy I was single again. True friends are really hard to find. So thank you to Gianna, Alex, Zeb, Conor, Trent, Rachel, Mo, and everyone else I can’t think of right now. You guys really got me through this year.

4. It’s okay to be broken.

I learned that everyone is broken in their own way, and some of us express it more than others. One of my best friends mom died a couple of years ago and she struggles with depression and anxiety just as much as I do, but she doesn’t show it. I didn’t find out about her mom dying till 4 months after it happened. I wasn’t totally surprised that she didn’t tell me,  but at the same time I was shocked I didn’t know.

5. I have found my childish side of me again. 

Anyone that actually knows me knows that I used to be the tie dye obsessed, Spongebob loving hippy. During my relationship, I lost a little bit of that. Which isn’t all bad, but I missed it. Once I remembered who I was as an independent person, I found my childish side of me again. I haven’t taken off my tie dye onesie in a few days because I’d rather be comfortable than look like an adult.

I’m not totally sure what my point is with this blog, but I know the hell that I have endured this last year, and I know that if I didn’t walk through it, I wouldn’t have ever grown as a person. I may not have walked through it with grace and dignity, but I walked through it dammit. And to me, thats all that fucking matters.

 

So as I stumble drunk into 2018, I am prepared to throw some off my bad habits, my fake friends, and all the shit still weighing me down from 2017 out of the window. Fuck all the negative this year. I plan on making 2018 my bitch, and having the best damn year of my life.

To my friends and members of the Trashcan Clan, here is to 2018. Let’s fuck some shit up and throw some shit out of windows. Life is too short to be unhappy this year. I love all you fuckers and wish everyone the best. Cheers!

I had an old friend of mine reach out to me a few days ago. Casual catching up and just the regular bullshit. Then he explained that he was going through a break up, like me. Although they ended because of different circumstances, a break up is a break up.

Tonight he asked me “Can I ask what the hardest part of the whole break up process was for you?”. First I want to make it clear that I am still struggling with this break up. I wish I could use the word WAS, but I’d be lying. Anyways I replied with “You can ask me anything lol I’ll try and answer it the best that I can, but expect a novel. Haha”. I’m not sure if he thought I was kidding, but I wasn’t. This is what I texted to him.

“I’m still trying to cope with the whole thing, and it really does get easier with time. You can’t expect to wake up one day and have all the pain just gone. The first month for me was brutal. I started taking anti depressants and anti anxiety meds. I still take them. I’ve always suffered with depression tho, I just knew that if I didn’t do anything about it this time, I wouldn’t be here anymore. I still cry about it all the time because it’s just hard for me to know that the person that I talked to everyday for three years, was a complete stranger now. He was my best friend and he almost died the first month of us knowing each other in a bad car wreak. And in that moment, I thought I was going to lose the man I wanted to marry. I genuinely thought I’d spend the rest of my life with him. And idk if I’m an idiot for thinking that or not. Another hard part for me is all the hobbies that we started together and how we’ll probably never do them again. He might do them in his own, but right now, I’m not strong enough to. We created a whole different world and lives for ourselves in three years, and suddenly, it’s gone and you don’t know if you’ll ever get it back. Up until a week ago, I held out hope for us getting back together. Then I found out he has a new girl in his life and I was devastated. It almost killed me to know that he could just move on and I was here being the fool to think he still loved me and he’d realize what he lost. Some days are better than others. It all just sucks. Idk if there is really a good or bad part to it. I mean now I can fuck whoever I want and do whatever I want whenever I want. But I also don’t have someone waiting to hold me after the end of a long day. You find your independence again and learn to be by yourself. I almost feel like I just graduated high school again and I have no fucking clue what I’m doing with myself besides drinking myself silly every night. Maybe the worst part is that you’ll forever love that person and you can’t get rid of their memories. No matter what you do, you’ll always have those. And years down the road, when you’ve completely moved on and started your own family, you’ll be telling your kids this crazy story of something you did and you’ll remember they were with you. Then the memories flood again.”

My friends response to this was “Damn Laura, you should copy and save that and copyright that shit.”, so I did… well part of that anyways. I remembered that I have this blog here for a reason. my voice is heard in some way or another. I felt stupid for having this here for a little while, but I’m remembering why I have it. My thoughts matter to people. This lets people into my life. My friends actually give a shit on how IM doing and I don’t have to pretend that I’m doing okay, when clearly, I’m not. I’m a fucking wreck. I’ve just learned things along the way that don’t make it as awful.

 

Anniveraries suck. There are dates in our lives that you never even imagined would be a significant day. Yet now every year, this date will creep up, along with the memories that are associated with it.

3 years ago, I met the man I thought I was going to marry. I almost instantly fell in love with him. About a month after we met, he was involved in a very serious car accident. November 27, 2014. A day I can’t forget.

I won’t go into much detail, but he lost his spleen, broke 6 ribs, the base of his skull, a vertebra in his neck, and his shoulder. That’s not including all the scratches, gashes, and bruises that covered his body.

When he finally answered his phone, my heart sank. Thank God I was with my best friend Zeb and his sister at the time. They kept me as calm as they possibly could. I drove by myself to the hospital to see him. The whole time, I was crying my eyes out, not knowing if the man I loved with my whole heart was going to live to tomorrow.

I never thought my heart had the ability to love someone the way I love him. I almost lost him that night… but I did lose him 3 years later. But that is besides the point.

When he was in the accident, he spent 4 days in the SICU (Surgical Intensive Care Unit), and another 3 days in a different recovery room. I spent everyday there. Most days I spent more than 12 hours in his room with him. His nurses loved me because I was the only one that could get him to do his breathing treatments. It felt good to be needed and wanted.

During that time, I learned more about myself, then any other experiance I’ve had in my life. I learned that I have a very nurturing side to me.  And I’m good at being the mother figure in my friends lives. I realized how big of a heart I have for people. I also learned how to take control over a situation, even when I had no idea what the actual fuck I was doing.

Anyways, there are a few date and anniversaries that I will always remember; and today is one of those days. And recently, getting through these days have been a pain in my ass. I wake up anxious, but I have to pull myself together and at least get out of bed. On this day, 3 years ago, his life, my life, and our lives as a whole were changed forever. And although he might not remember these dates, I will. And I’ll be thankful every year that he is alive, even if he could give two shits about me being around.

One last thing, thats super fucking important to me. Always wear your fucking seat belt. I didn’t almost lose someone I care about to not tell people how they can save their own fucking life.

   Pictured from top left to bottom. Willy, Brandon, Rebecca (Becky), Alex, and Gianna (Trash Can).

Broken… Broken is a harsh word; like hate. Most probably don’t agree, but let me explain.

There are a few people that I have met at some point in my life that I hate. Who they are doesn’t matter, it just matters that they have made that impact on my life. And for me, I hate admitting that I hate someone because people think that you can learn to like someone that you hate. You can’t, not immediately anyways.

Broken is the same concept.. sort of. It took me a long time to admit this to myself, but I AM BROKEN! I know that I am, and you know what? Being broken is perfectly fucking fine. Everyone is whether they admit it or not.

Some of us are more broken than others. I feel so insanely broken, it isn’t even funny. Where do I begin? I’m a smoker, a drinker, an emotional wreak. I am in love with someone that physically abused me. I have too big of a heart and let people walk all over me. The list goes on and on,   But there are issues that I have to deal with.

Here comes the ‘superglue’ part. I have to fix myself. No one else can fix me. My broken pieces are mine to pick up. I already had to admit that I was broken, I don’t want to admit complete defeat and say I need help. I have to glue my own pieces back together.

I don’t think you can grow as a person without learning how to fix yourself and be as independent as possible. People that know me know that I’m far from being independent, but they know that Im working on it.

Don’t get me wrong, I am so fucking greatful for my friends,  and I will forever owe them. But I am working on gluing myself back together. I’m not just gluing my trash can life together, but I’m trying to glue my broken, fucked up heart  back together as well. I appreciate people trying to help, but sometimes, you have to do things on your own.

So to all my friends reading this, I love you all so very much. I’d be lost without you guys. I honestly am not even sure if I’d be here if it weren’t for some of you. I owe you all so much, but just know that I’m trying to fix myself, and I need to do it on my own.

I fucking hate the holidays.

I didn’t always hate them, but within the last few years, I have grown to despise them. I can’t even explain exactly why, but I have a few reasons.

Reason one: People get selfish. People assume that they will receive gifts and money this time of year; which, obligates everyone else to buy presents for someone. They don’t only get selfish and needy with money, but with time as well. My family, in particular, thinks that I have to be up for Thanksgiving and stay the whole weekend to put up Christmas decorations. I highly disagree. I hate decorating. And no, it’s not because I’m the fucking Grinch (okay well yes I am, but not about Christmas. I’m him every other day of the year). It’s because we’ve completely lost what the holidays are about. Most families can’t  even afford a tree, let alone the thousands of dollars worth of decorations that my mom has collected since the ’80’s.

Reason two: Money. There are people that I would love to splurge on for Christmas, but I simply don’t have the money for it.  I can’t afford to get my mom the diamond necklace she deserves. And most people lose sight of that as well. Why do we feel the need to spend all this money on people for holidays? Last year, I made my mom, grandma, and my exes mom all embroidered tea towels. Jenny, my exes mom, enjoyed it more than anyone and she even framed it. So why the fuck do we spend the money on expensive crap that most people regift? Because people are fucking lazy, and its easier to go to a store and get something that someone else made.

I have a long list of reasons as to why I hate the holidays, but I’m sure you get the point. I asked my good friend Brandon the other day if I could just spend Christmas alone in his apartment, because I just don’t want to deal with it this year. My ex and I had an agreement that we would save money to go to California or Nashville for Christmas because the drama and bullshit is just too much. Of course, we aren’t together now, but I am sticking to being alone on Christmas. Which sounds incredibly depressing, but if I can have my dogs, I’ll be perfectly fine. Sometimes we have to splurge on ourselves for the holidays and tell everyone else to go fuck themselves.

I have yet to actually talk about super serious subjects in my life, and I’m not ready for that yet. However; I do have certain things that I remember and want other people to know. I’ll eventually elaborate on where some of these thoughts steam from, but for now, take what I give you (I still have walls put up, even though i know  three whole fucking people reading this).

My thought for today is that our past and present is written in pen, our future is written in pencil. I’m sure you know where I am going with this. We have all the ability that we allow ourselves to change our future. And we can’t always change our own future. Sometimes things happen in our life that are destined  to change our future.

The past is a different story. It is written 100% in pen. We can’t turn back the pages and try to erase that’s happened to us. Every single thing that we have gone through is a lesson that we learned something about ourselves, whether we see it or not.

I went flying again, and we flew in the plane that Brandon hit  the flock of idiot birds in. I knew this before we entered the plane (we went through two other planes before this one decided to run correctly ).  It was the smoothest ride that I have taken with Brandon yet. I got tons of wonderful pictures, and I had a blast. I went with Brandon, Kyle, and Kyles girlfriend Ashley. Once we were off the ground, everything ran very smoothly.

Ashley isn’t a fan of flying, and I’m not a fan of her. She is needy, pushy, and just one of those females that I HATE. Anyways, her story will come another time. Either way, Ashley hates flying. Which I found funny since her boyfriend of five years, flies. We hit one tiny turbulence bump, and although I like that zero gravity feeling, Ashley  didn’t handle it well.

Which this goes back to my  last  post. Some people handle different situations better than others. I normally don’t handle shit well, but when I have faith in Brandon and Kyle, I feel safe. Ashley, not so much. She freaked. Which I don’t handle prisses like that.

Maybe Ashley will learn to love flying, or at least trust the pilots. All I know is that how she handled that, can’t be changed. It’s written in pen. However; how she handles how she reacts,  is up to her.  She can erase her future and  change it has many times as she wants, and so can anyone else.

We hold the power in our future. A little bit of faith and trust in God goes a long way. Anything is possible, Cast all your fears on him, and the pen that is currently writing your present moment, won’t seem so scary anymore. Give it a try. You have nothing to lose. Make those pen marks count.

Lets talk about faith. What is faith? The actual definition of faith is “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” Tonight I had faith in more than one person.

I went flying with a dear friend of mine, Brandon, he is a pilot. His job is something that a lot of people are scared to do.  He has more faith than most people out there. Faith that his plane is going to fly without any issues, and that it will get him off the ground and back on the ground safely. He even has this faith after hitting a flock of idiot birds in a plane, and having to have an emergency landing. How he has this faith, I didn’t understand… until tonight.

As Brandon, Kyle, and I were soaring through the sky, looking down on all the city lights, we hit turbulence. That is the exact reason that most people are scared to get on an airplane. The definition of turbulence is “violent or unsteady movement of air or water, or of some other fluid.” Most people hear the word ‘violent’ and ‘air’ and say “fuck that shit, I’m out”. Which I don’t blame them. The thought of falling from the sky for most normal people (which we have established that I am not normal), is fucking terrifying.

 

As I sit in this tiny little 4 seater plane (which I have trusted Brandon flying twice now, but we had an instructor with us), I had a thought. We hit turbulence almost immediately, and for a split second, I was scared. I thought “what if this is the moment that I have been waiting for? What if this is my time to die?”Then I remembered who was with me in the plane. I remembered that Brandon, and Kyle had their pilots license’s, and I was in good hands.

Not only did I have full faith in Brandon and Kyle, I had full faith in God. God has never put me in a situation that didn’t make me  learn something, or grow from it in some way. God has never put me in a situation that I can’t learn from, or think on (except my active shooter situation in a Super 8 hotel, but that story is for different time).  My point is, God has never lead me astray.

Why did I have this random realization when I still felt like crying because I hate my life? probably because God is yelling at me to open my ears and listen to him. IT IS ALL GOING TO  BE OKAY!!!! Why can’t I understand this? Because I am stubborn and hard headed and think my life will literally fall apart over spilt milk. I know it’s not actually going to; but, it’s how I have been feeling lately.

Life has sucked so fucking much lately, that for me, it’s so incredibly hard to find my faith  in anything. But tonight, I was able to sit, take pictures, and let someone else take full control over what was going to happen to me. I don’t know how to drive a damn airplane. Even if something was going wrong, I couldn’t change it.

I heard a saying years ago that said “If you’re stressed ask yourself this. Can you change it? If the answer is yes, then why worry? If the answer is no, than why worry?” If more people could learn this, I think that the world might not be so uptight all the time.

I guess the moral of this entire story is: learn to have some amount of faith, no matter what you’re going through. Are you going through a break up? Have faith that  God will put someone better into your life. Stressed about work? Have faith that tomorrow will be a different day than today. Stressed about the airplane you’re about to ride in? Have faith in your pilot. They know what they’re doing. Tomorrow is always a new day if you let it be.

Have you ever felt blindsided in your life by a decision that has almost nothing to do with you? Because that happened to me this morning.

I have an amazing friend who works at a gas station really close to where I live that I visit often (probably more often than I should), and he told me this morning that he was putting in his two week notice. Now for most normal people, this wouldn’t be a big deal. But as a person who suffers with this mental illness, any change sucks.

Let me tell you more about this friend of mine. We’ll call him Axle for the purposes of this blog. Axle became my friend back in 2013. I had just graduated high school, and I met him in a parking lot. Yes, a parking lot. We grew up in the mountains of our beautiful state, and not much else to do other than hang out in random parking lots with friends.

When I met Axle, I had no idea the impact he would have in my life, or the impact I’d have in his. When we first met, I was doing wonderfully because I was done with school, I thought I knew what I was going to do next, and I had a job and great friends all around me. Axle wasn’t doing as well as me. No, he was feeling the exact opposite and I didn’t even know it till a few months ago. All these years, I thought he handled stress well. Which, he does, but not as well as I ever thought. He was going through a break up after six years with this girl. And I would have never known how bad it was till later. When he admitted to me that I saved his life, the way he is saving mine right now.

Either way, I was working at a Starbucks (you’d think we’d only have one in a small mountain town, but we had three), and Axle was working at a gas station. I don’t remember how we clicked so well, but we did. Enough for me to be driving him to and from work whenever I could, often times waiting two hours in this gas station for him to get off work. I mainly wasted all my money on scratch tickets while I waited for him. Occasionally a group of kids that we knew would come in and we’d all bullshit for about 20 minutes before Axle had to get back to counting his cigarettes.

Little did I know that this was only the beginning to many wonderful memories. Some super shitty ones as well, but mostly amazing things that I’ll never forget. Like bringing him unbelievable amounts of Starbucks because my manager didn’t care that I made more than my limit of free drinks a day. Or him squeezing in my tiny Ford Escort at least four times a week to take him home (he is a giant, especially compared to me).

Although I ended up moving away and losing touch with him, for maybe a couple of months, he was always waiting with open arms when I returned from whatever journey I had recently embarked on. He may have told me I was an idiot from time to time, but I know he does it out of love. And although he ended up leaving the gas station and moving to the city, our story wasn’t over yet.

Axle and I went a few years with having only brief conversations and seeing each other a handful of times in that period of our lives. Then I went through a break up (that story will come later), and he had his giant arms open for me again. He has become the soul person that I confide in with this mess of my life. He has this joke that I am “Tropical Storm Laura”, and when I’m around, I just fuck all sorts of shit up. Which is accurate.

These days, I don’t have a job. Axle is working at a different gas station and I go to see him everyday that he is working. He makes my day better, even if I do waste any amount of cash I have on scratch tickets because apparently that is our theme. But I will spend hours, and I mean hours, just standing in a gas station talking with him. His work has become my second home and I love everyone that works there.

To the unfortunate blindsided part of this conversation (if you’ve even made it this far in this shit show of thoughts). Axle sent me a lovely message this morning that explained that he was putting in his two week notice at work today. For good reason I will add, but change none the less.

Normally (when I say normally, I mean as normal as it can be in my world), I would be excited for him. And a part of me is super excited to see what adventure he will find next; but, I’m mad at him. I cant fully explain why I am so upset with him, I just am. I wont be able to go in and see him anymore like I’m used to. I have no idea where he will actually end up next. I feel like my life has been completely changed. My daily routine won’t be the same.

I’m sure you’re wondering, “Why don’t you just visit him at his house, or go and get lunch?” That’s where our friendship is totally bizarre and abnormal. I don’t see him outside of work. The few times I have, something goes wrong (like him and his wife fighting bad enough for me to feel awkward and leave).

Having this friendship the way that it is, is what makes it so beautiful. I wouldn’t change it for the world. I know that if I can’t see Axle everyday for days or even years, our friendship will never change. He will always be my shoulder to cry on, and I will be the person that he vents to when life get tough.

That’s the beauty of learning to deal with certain areas of my depression. I know that my daily life will not be the same, but in the long run, things aren’t going to change between Axle and I. We’ve gone years without seeing each other and hardly talking at all. So this should be simple. We’ve both grown from our experience’s in life, and I have him to thank for helping me grow and learn to fucking breathe every now and then.

Just remember that things will always get better, even if you can’t find hope in the situation. Find a good friend, or multiple friends, to calm your mind. It’s okay to admit that you’re hurt or broken or lost in life. You will always have one friend there to help you get through whatever situation it is, the best way they know how to. Find yourself an Axle. They’ll eventually tell you exactly what you need to hear. Like “Pull your head out of your ass and fucking chill out.”

 

I am so unsure how I managed to get here today. Why am I writing blogs about my completely fucked up life? Is anyone ever going to read this, or is this for my own sanity? I don’t know, but I’m doing it. I’m taking a chance. Something that I don’t do often.

Most people that suffer with this awful disease (yes its a fucking disease no matter what anyone says), they don’t go out and take a chance. They don’t make the leap of faith. Most people that suffer with depression and anxiety lose all of their faith. But let me tell you one thing; if I can take this first step to try and fix my happiness (or lack of), then you definitely can.

You don’t have to trust me though. All that I ask is that you read this and think about taking a step. Let me make this leap for us, and you can learn from all my mistakes (which trust me, there will be plenty.), and then maybe you can make the chance and change with more knowledge than I have right now.

To assure you that I have no idea what I’m doing, know that I just went through an entire night of trying to figure out how to make this damn blog, and maybe grow some readers out there. I thought that maybe I would find some beautifully broken souls out there that want to hear about someone else’s fucked up life. Maybe I can give them hope that no one has given them. Maybe I can show them that there are others out there that understand what they are going through. Maybe, just maybe, I can help someone see the light of tomorrow.

I am new at this, so be patient and kind. Or don’t I guess. It’s not my life that you’re living, but if you’ve made it this far, you’ve been interested enough for some reason.

For whatever reason you’re reading this, and I hope that, if you’re patient enough for me to get good at this, you find some good out of this. Stay hopeful that tomorrow gets better. It may not feel like it now, but have a little bit of that faith that I mentioned, and you’re already doing better than some. If finding that faith is hard for you, get some sleep and try again tomorrow.