The year that broke me

By all counts, 2013 should have been the best year of my life so far. And there were good moments. I got married, and all of the fun things that happen along with that - bridal shower and bachelorette party and the wedding day and the honeymoon - those were the few shining moments of a year that knocked me down again and again. 2013 was the year that broke me. It changed who I am at the very core of myself - and I'm not sure to what degree I will be able to fix it. To fix myself.

Around New Year's, Patrick was diagnosed with a torn suspensory. He got a little better, got a lot worse, and then had to have surgery to mend his broken leg and suspensory. And everything inside me fell apart. I lost my job. I have spent the rest of the year trying to pull myself together. Therapy, medication, doctors' visists. I've spent the greater part of 2013 just trying to get from one breath to the next, from today to tomorrow. It's an exhausting, stressful, and depressing way to live.

After breaking through my Xanax dosage - which had my anxiety mostly under control and my panic attacks gone for several months - I started going downhill, fast. I was prescribed Prozac to add in to the mix of medications I was already taking. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of some anti-depressants are that they can make your depression worse and make you suicidal. And that's what led me to last Wednesday, having a panic attack, unable to rouse Woody from sleep. It's why the solution I found for this problem was taking the Xacto knife I use for crafting and to slice my leg open in 7 places.

The whole night is sort of a blur to me - but I have a Facebook message I sent to a friend after it happened. 7 cuts, one for every horse I've owned and loved.

I was taken to the ER on Thursday but they didn't have an open bed in the psych ward, or else they would have admitted me. I could have missed Christmas. Instead I was sent home with Woody, who had to take three days off of work to baby sit me. The doctors agreed that it was likely the Prozac which caused my flirtation with self-harm and suicide.

My leg hurt for days after. My heart has hurt for even longer. There's been a deep ache inside me since I got the call about Patrick's original injury. And every moment since has torn away a bigger piece of me, replacing it with something damaged and broken and foreign. I don't even see myself when I look into the mirror anymore.

Therapy, doctors, medicine. This is what my life has become. I try to stay positive, but it isn't easy. I have to carry a panic attack first aid kit with me everywhere I go. Literally a little metal tin that clinks around in my purse to remind me at all times that I don't have myself together. I know why it's necessary - I've had to use it several times. This year, which has dragged on and on, with one setback replacing another, has been a nightmare. I keep waiting for someone to wake me up.

But this is all there is.

I wish with all my heart that I could say that this year was the best of my life. It's been the worst. It's tried me the hardest. It's pushed me over the edge and I'm clinging on to my sanity by the tips of my fingers. And everyday I slip a little further from the person I used to be. I worry that if this goes on much longer, I'll lose her forever.

This line from Grey's Anatomy keeps playing over and over in my head:
I believe. I believe in the good. I believe that it's been a hell of a year, and I believe that in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we'll all be okay.

And so I breathe, in and out, and try to hold on until tomorrow. One day, one step at a time.