Thursday, December 27, 2018

The best year of my life; the worst year of my life - 2018

2018 has been simultaneously the best and worst year of my life.  Many people know why it has been the best year of my life.  I married my best friend this past year and he is now stuck with me for life.  Our wedding was the most beautiful, and fun day and we couldn't have asked for a better wedding honestly.  It was perfection.  We spent a magical honeymoon in Santa Cruz where we fell in love with the location and the people and lifestyle there.  We have been married seven months now and while they have been a rocky seven months, filled with a lot of difficulties, neither of us can imagine life without the other.  

Not a lot of people know why it has been the worst year for me though.  In September of 2018, I suffered a mental breakdown.  My mental health went haywire and I ended up in a psych ward, where I was held for four days. My depression, which I have struggled with for many years, paired with many different stressors in my life, including my toxic work environment and simply adjusting to married life, all came to a head and I was in the lowest point of my life.  I came extremely close to carrying out a plan to end my life and, with the extra persuasion of my family, I sought help.  After four days in a psych ward that carried out illegal proceedings and offered almost no support for their patients other than shoving meds down their throats (shout out to Woodland Memorial Hospital's psych-ward) I returned home and was able to actually get help through my counselor and my psychiatrist.  I was on temporary disability for three months while I sought out answers and recovered. I have since been diagnosed with Bipolar 2 which explains the extreme mood swings that I have experienced for many years and I am on medication which has helped immensely along with counseling, which I highly recommend.

In addition to my mental health breakdown, my entire body has decided that enough is enough.  Having struggled with an undiagnosed illness for ten years, my body has hit a new low, protesting loudly about it's sick self.  I am in physical pain almost every waking hour of the day, all day, every day.  My muscles and joints all scream at me loudly and incessantly, begging for relief.  I also struggle with chronic fatigue, which plagues me, again, almost every single day, all day, every day.  It is somewhat like an extreme bad case of the flu where your entire body aches and feels heavy and exhausted.....except it never ends. These symptoms are not new.  I've experienced them for ten years, as I mentioned above.  However, over the last few months, my body's protest has become louder and more debilitating.  It is a struggle to lift myself out of bed and more days than not now, I am unable to go into work.  Because of this, I am losing my health insurance through my employer as I am not working enough hours to remain on it.  My mental health is affected by this as well, as the constant pain and fatigue takes it's toll on my mind.  There are days where I almost wish I had carried out my plan of suicide because the physical pain and fatigue that wracks my body is so overwhelming.  I spend a lot of time in bed.  In fact, I am typing this post from my bed, where I sit with a heating pad on my back, having been unable to make it into work once again.  When the holidays are over, I will be setting up an appointment with a rheumatologist to continue to seek answers. I am both hopeful and yet skeptical, a product of going ten years with no answers. The three suspects currently are fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, and myalgic encephalomyelitis, two of which are not easy to diagnose.  

In the midst of this, I also suffered an early miscarriage.  There is no 'solid proof' that what I experienced was a miscarriage as I didn't go to the doctor afterwards.  All I know is that there was a positive pregnancy test and then there was not and I was bleeding heavily, heavier than I ever have experienced during my regular cycle, and there was a lot of clotting.  There is some room, I suppose, for someone to argue that what I experienced was not a miscarriage.  But I know in my heart that it was and even though I had been unaware of the pregnancy beforehand and even though I know that we were not ready for a baby yet, I mourned over the loss and still do from time to time.  It amazes me how common miscarriages and 'chemical pregnancies,' as they call early miscarriages, are and yet how little it is talked about and how hushed such talk is of such things. 25% of clinically recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage while chemical pregnancies/miscarriages account for 50-75% of all miscarriages. On top of that, the chances of having a miscarriage in the majority of healthy women an average of 15-20% (American Pregnancy Association).  All that to say, it is much more common than most would expect because it is a taboo subject that few seem to either be comfortable talking about (which is understandable) and few seem to think they can talk about it and are sometimes ashamed to speak of it.  I often hesitate to talk about it (in fact, few know I experienced it) because I feel like I have no right to as it was not medically confirmed.  But here I am, baring and exposing all because that's what I do best I suppose.

My husband has been amazing on this bumpy, rough journey.  Our finances are shot and he is struggling to juggle between working extra hard to provide for us, taking care of housework because I am often unable to do so myself, and taking care of me, all while trying to take care of his own health, both physical and mental.  All of this has put an immense strain on our marriage.  Marriage is a huge adjustment all on it's own, with the first year of marriage being difficult and somewhat tumultuous  (something they don't tell you or prepare you for much) even without added the added stress and strain of financial issues, psych wards, and health issues. However, the support that we have been shown from both our families has been tremendous and my eyes are damp as I type this because of all of their support and love.  Vance has been such a trooper as he attempts to juggle so many things at once and we have both fought for our marriage to be and remain strong and healthy.  In the midst of the pain and stress and fear and unknown, there is goodness and kindness and love and hope.  God has held us firmly in His hands, sustaining us and breathing His sweet life into us.  Indeed, without Him, this story would be a very different story and it is very likely that I would not be here to tell it.  Even were I hear to tell the story, it would be a story void of hope.  I am so grateful and thankful for the hope that we have in Him and the love and support we are shown by our families.  This year has been a topsy turvy year, filled with such highs and lows but God has been there with us through them all.  As the new year fast approaches, I am filled with hope.  I know that the new year will not begin with me being instantly healed and our troubles will not disappear just because 2018 has come to an end, but I am hopeful as I look to the new year, holding fast to the things in life that mean the most to me and that I know will always be there for me, the people who will always be in my corner - God, my family, and my husband.  I don't need anything more than that.