Let Me Tell You The Truth

As always – I am overwhelmed with the outpouring of friendship and caring that comes from the virtual world. Thank you all.

Now – please bear with me as I tell you some things you won’t want to read – but that I need to say – because I know there are others out there who are in the same boat and can’t find the damn paddles. The water is deep and there are creatures in it that you have never dreamed of – even in your darkest moments.

I’m going to backtrack a bit here and tell some things that I refused to put in print and out into the void when I was suffering the most.

Some of you might think I’m totally nuts but at least you’ll know I’m honest. Some of you will never understand because you have children that fill that void in your life and perhaps have never loved an animal. Some of you have never known the love of an animal – the love that is unconditional and unwavering. Your loss.

And most of you have never known the inside of a psyche ward and the confusion and emptiness that takes over your brain when you have a breakdown. Lucky for you. For those of us who have suffered mentally – depression – breakdowns – meltdowns - you know where I’m coming from and you don’t want to go back there either. If hearing of someone else’s spiral into the blackness sets you on that track once more – don’t read further. Just a warning.

Here goes. (taking a deep breath)

Right after my precious Dolly died I was totally suicidal.

I sat on the bottom steps with my head in my hands – sobbing. The Man sat beside me with his arms around me – crying into my hair. I screamed – I sobbed – I tore at my face – I pulled out my hair – I threw anything I could get my hands on. And then I told him I just wanted to die so that I could go and be with my Dolly.

And I meant every single word of it.

He said – “What about me?”

I said – “I know – but I can’t help it. I just want to die. I just want to hold Dolly again and be with her. She was my baby.”

I immediately went and turned off and unplugged all the phones in the house. They stayed that way for 6 weeks. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. If my brother called – he left a message and I would call him back. I didn’t tell him or anyone how I was feeling. Just The Man. And I didn’t tell him about it for a couple of weeks.

In order to help me keep my mind from going right around the bend – The Man kept my mp3 player loaded with audio books so that I could keep my mind occupied instead of crying nonstop. It was that sort of thing (amid some others) that put me in the psyche ward the first time. I listened to those audio books the entire time The Man was not in the house. They helped.

But! During that time I started developing a plan – or to be more honest – two plans. I knew exactly how I was going to do it when I couldn’t take it any longer. I kept these secrets close while I worked on my knitting and dealt with the upcoming shows. I kept them close while I made sure I had all the necessary requirements in order to fulfill those plans.

One night – unable to deal with my anguish – I blurted out my secret to The Man. He stood staring at me – holding me at arms length – staring at my face where the evidence of my anguish was marked by the dark circles under my eyes – before the tears started down his cheeks.

“No Aims. You mustn’t! You mustn’t. What will I do?”

I told him I planned to fill our lovely clawfoot tub with nice hot water – get in – and slit my wrists. I could envision it all – the pain just seeping out into the water – the sinking down into the deep warm depths and giving in. I kept in mind that slashing my wrists would have to be done under the water so he wouldn’t have to clean blood off of the walls. I could listen to music while I did that and that it might hurt a bit but would soon be over. I didn’t want to be naked when they found me either so I kept that in mind as well. Plan 1.

Plan 2 was a little harder but still easily done. We have a big eyehook in the ceiling of our bedroom. It holds body weight quite easily. We have a couch almost directly below it – almost. I planned on tying my housecoat sash around my neck and through the eyehook and jumping off the couch. It would work. Less messy. Job done.

Never once did I think about taking all the pills in the house. That’s harder to do and you can easily have your stomach pumped. Then you have to face it all over again. No.

Never once did I think I should tell all of you. Or my doctor. No way. I would have ended up in the psyche ward for sure. Tied down. No – instead I pretended – in comments – in posts. I did a good job for most of the time. Few of you knew where my mind was really at.

When I told The Man, he left me a note to leave my cell phone on and keep it on me. He called me every hour to ‘just chat’. Just check. He raced home every single night instead of staying late as he always did to put in some extra overtime so we could have lots of time away.

I lived in my own personal little hell of loneliness and despair. Struck down and done in by the loss of my precious precious Dolly.

Please know how hard this is to write - so that is enough for today.