#existing? god the mental illness and trauma and deep dive into the after effects of years of torture & the moral dilemmas? the courtroom | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

iwatchedyougoinghomeeveryday · 3 years

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Gonna make good use of Tumblr and write a post about my trauma!!!

tw: death, depression

It’s 3:00 am and I’m just gonna dive in... there’s no denying that everyone has had a difficult year and in a way that makes me feel better and worse? Even though I wish I could take away everyone’s pain... better because I know people can relate. Worse because I feel guilty when I go on and on in my head about the unfairness of it all when I know others are dealing with things far more overwhelming and traumatic. Still... these past two years have made me feel numb in a way I could not have predicted.

I never, ever wanted time to move forward. As a child I questioned why everyone wanted to grow up and resisted the changes in my life. I felt wiser and also lonelier with the perspective that time passing meant taking steps closer to an inevitable end. I never thought about myself - I was fortunate enough to not have to question my own mortality - but I worried endlessly about my loved ones. I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop - everyone around me was well and I had never experienced major loss before. Things had to end. So while everyone was actually healthy and present, I was spending time panicking about the future. Worrying that it would be the last time I saw somebody or picturing the day when I got that big, bad news. Sometimes it was too painful to even imagine - I simply couldn’t picture it - but I’d torment myself with the thought anyway.

All of this to say... I’ve been so nihilistic. That might be dramatic, but it’s how I’ve felt, especially since I entered this depression episode seven years ago. I don’t think it was a coincidence that my depression got bad my junior year in high school when everyone was excitedly planning for the future. I didn’t care about school or jobs or anything superficial - I just cared about my family being alive. And couldn’t everyone see how pointless the other stuff was? It was a distraction, or worse, an endless routine with a predictable end. I hated it.

I haven’t done any of that stuff - there’s nothing I want from the future. I think if I had a dream or passion, I would accept it as a distraction, a goal to alleviate some of that darkness. But I genuinely don’t want anything. And that’s a whole other story, but it’s where I’ve been stuck these past five years - telling myself that if my family was secure and my mental health was better, then the rest would fall into place. That never happened - the other shoe dropped.

Here was my family: my mother, my sister, my grandmother and grandfather, my aunt, my four cats. Those were my people - my tiny circle of people that I held closely. A few months out of school... I found out one of my cats had cancer. I got him when I was seven. (I pretty much got all my cats when I was seven/eight.) He was my best friend and, after eight months, I lost him. And that broke me a bit. I drove myself crazy that year (2016) with worry and my OCD - that was my worst year with anxiety. I spent so much energy caring for him then suddenly... nothing. I feel like I can’t properly express how much my cats meant to me. They were all my best friends, really. They were always there and I understood them so deeply and I felt so responsible for them - it was unwavering. When I was ten, and dealing with my aforementioned fear of death, I remember thinking that they were “it” for me - they would be gone one day but I vowed they were the only pets I was ever going to have. It was the only thing that was right and fair.

Flashforward a year and half from my cat dying... my aunt’s boyfriend died from a heart attack. Sudden, no warning - just get the call that he’s gone. And even though it wasn’t official, he was like an uncle to my sister and I. He’d been in our lives for over ten years. It was difficult to categorize or even comprehend this loss. But I consider this the start of everything going to heck. Something happened at the end of 2018 that I can’t even talk about because it’s too painful and sensitive, but it was one more major trauma.

Early 2019... another one of my cats died from a random attack. We let him onto our back porch for the morning - we have a fenced backyard and he just liked to sit on the porch - and there was a stray cat that had gotten inside and attacked him. Just like that, two days later, he was gone. Once again having to accept a sudden and senseless death. Leading to August 2019, two days after my birthday, my grandfather fell from his porch steps, hit his head, and died. Just like that. Nobody got to even say goodbye or see him because my grandmother was visiting my mother, sister, and I for my birthday. Only took us two hours to drive there and in that time he was gone. Two hours to worry about my grandfather, who was in great health, then just accepting that he was dead. This was the biggest, most awful thing to happen to my family. I still haven’t coped with it.

Didn’t even mention that in 2018 I found out that another one of my cats had kidney disease. He was second closest to me when my other cat was alive, but in his absence, my bond with him was stronger than I had with any of my cats. Stronger than I had with most people, tbh. He was needy and around me 24/7 - he really only loved me. And I couldn’t fathom losing him. There were ups-and-downs, but he was doing good with his fluid treatments. Then November 2019, because I was so intuitive with him, I got the feeling that he was getting sick and for real this time. He was only eating just a little bit less than usual, but I knew. Just a look in his eye... I knew. And this really sent me on the deep end. November 2019 my depression deepened when I realized that a year from that date, I might not have my two cats, or my grandmother, or who knows who else. This was not some faraway fear - this was real. I was actually living in the time that I feared. I was there. So badly I wished 2020 didn’t have to exist. (God, if I only knew what was to come.)

I was a basket case November and December as I watched my cat slowly get worse. On top of this, my mom was feeling ill and she went to the doctor several times with no explanation for her pain. That sickened me - I had pictured losing so many people, but I couldn’t picture losing my mom. It was too big, too life-shattering. She was superwoman, invincible. And now I had to consider that, too. She thankfully started feeling better, but my cat got worse. I was lucky if I got any sleep or ate anything during last January. At the end of the month he passed away and, out of everything I have experienced, that destroyed me the most. He was like my child - I was supposed to protect him. And instead I watched him suffer. I’ve now lost people close to me and I know it sounds bad, but losing my cat was the worst.

But guess what - trauma is not over! Exactly one month from my cat dying... I witnessed a fatal car accident. Directly in front of me. Never even seen an accident before - not even a fender bender - and this one was fatal. It was unnerving because the actual collision didn’t seem that bad, but suddenly there was an unconscious old woman laying in the road. I didn’t see it happen - thank God - but I’m assuming she was ejected from her car because she was not wearing a seatbelt. I called 911 - first time doing that, too - and watched as she lay there and all I could think was that I was on the opposite side of what happened with my grandfather, six months ago. He had a fatal head injury and we got the call and got to the hospital to get the news that he died. Some family was going to have that same experience. That messed me up. In so many ways. I don’t have my license because I am scared of driving - now I’m scared to ride in cars. I had nightmares for months. This accident never made the news, which actually made me angry because it felt like something that happened and was immediately forgotten about. I obsessively wondered about the family and victim. The accident happened at the entrance to the library - my one safe place. I volunteered there every week before covid. I only got the chance to go two times before everything shut down in March, but I had to drive by the place where it happened and when I was in the library I tensed and panicked every time I heard an ambulance. It was awful.

July 2020 - I lost the last of my kitties. Fifteen years of taking care of them, loving them... I really didn’t know how to exist without them. We didn’t have any closure on this cat’s death, either. Never knew exactly what was wrong. But I was so numb at this point - my whole view shifted. I just didn’t want anyone to suffer anymore. So losing her was numbing - she was gone, but she didn’t suffer like my last kitty. Numb numb numb numb numb.

Then Thanksgiving... this news would’ve absolutely destroyed me a few years ago. Right now I can’t comprehend it. I’ve been expecting the worst anyway. We found out my grandmother has cancer and is already in the final stages. That damn theme again... no warning. She went into the hospital for another reason, leaves learning that she has three cancerous areas. And I see her at Thanksgiving and all hope is gone... I see the effect on her. Because I’m robotically dealing with grief now, I tell myself that I don’t expect her to live to 2021. I saw her end of October - she seemed fine. If she can go from fine to awful in three weeks, then I expect the same for her passing. And it is so selfish, but I do not want to see it. I do not want her to get any worse. She had a biopsy and she gets results tomorrow. I already know it will be the worst case scenario. Everyone, especially now, says to appreciate the small things, make the moments matter because you don’t know how many you have left. BS. I just want it to be over. I don’t want the in-between - there’s nothing to appreciate. Losing my grandmother... that’s unfathomable. I love everyone in my family, but it’s always been me, my mom, my sister, and my grandmother who has been the closest. My family couldn’t function without my grandfather. I don’t know how we go on without my grandmother. It doesn’t matter what news she gets from the doctor tomorrow. One month is the timeframe I am giving myself. It is cold and calculating to think, but that’s what I expect. And I’m so used to people dying suddenly... there’s nothing romantic about last moments and words. I don’t want them. Maybe I’d regret that in the future, but right now, it’s how I cope.

This is not even mentioning that my mother has always had SO much stress and trauma in her own life and this past year I have noticed it take a huge toll on her. I’m worried about her health - physically and mentally. She’s seemed different this year - I can’t blame her, but I don’t know what to do. And my sister’s mental health is always so fragile, and her relationship with my mother is awful - I feel like I’ve lost them, too. It’s not hopeless, but I’ve been trying to fix things and they don’t improve. And I know my grandmother’s passing will affect them most of all - she’s my mother’s mother, after all, and my sister has always loved my grandmother the most. She has unconditional love for her, a love I wish she extended to us but I was always glad she had that relationship with my grandmother. We’re going to be completely broken.

So now I’m submerged in that future - I’ve lost all four of my cats, my grandfather, my grandmother soon. My mom and sister are all I’ve got, and that would be reassurance if I wasn’t so worried about them, too. If sixteen-year-old me couldn’t see a favorable future... you can imagine how helpless I feel now.

#ma post #life #my cats #i don't even want to tag my old tags i remember using because it will hurt to go back and see the posts #this was a really long depressing post but i just wanted to write everything out #since tomorrow is going to hurt like hell #i don't even want to go to sleep because that means i will have to wake up #that's emo but true #well #i'm glad i'm allowing myself to be truly depressing on my blog #back in high school i just masqueraded it as smaller problems #like school stuff getting me down #no savanah you are depressed!!

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