I had a lot of potential coming out of this time of my life, and for good reason. It is extremely hard coming out of a deep depression, and you need a lot of things to look forward to. I vividly remember being in my kitchen, leaning again my cupboard, having my family telling me I have a problem with my pills and with being depressed. My eyes stung with tears, my chest hurt, and I just felt helpless. What was I supposed to do? Well, I had a little ways still that I could go down, but I had a long ways that I could go up. Luckily, I'd gotten rid of two big parts that were weighing me down, so it was time to swim.
I've had this happen a couple times in my life, though never to that extreme. One thing I've learned is to never let myself not work or not do things with my mind again. Apparently I always need to be thinking or I get upset. Some people need to exercise their body; I need to exercise my mind. I'm interested to see where that will take me in life, but I guess that's likely going to be a different story. Another thing I've learned from it is to nip it in the bud and start fixing things early. This chapter will center around how I did that.
The first step I took wasn't actually under my control. I got rid of Josh. I didn't realize it at the time but he was like the black hole of my happiness. Every time he came home he was just whining about his job and stuff, and he just made me so freaking miserable. I'd have to work to keep him happy, and then try to defend him to people. It was exhausting. So when he left, I was instantly several magnitudes happier, because I only had to focus on my own happiness and not his.
The next step I took was going to a psychologist. This was a very familiar step for me, I've gone to quite a few of these over the years. A lot of people call psychologist shrinks, which is stupid because they're very normal sized people, and they're quite helpful. This guy specialized in trauma. He talked through everything I'd gone through and everything I was going through with me and did some trauma techniques with me. It was very helpful. One thing we talked about was relationships and about whether or not I would find a husband that I would be with for the rest of my life. He told me most people divorce nowadays, and so it wasn't a bad thing to find a man for the now instead of for the forever. I'm not sure I necessarily agree with him, but it's definitely something I've kept in mind. Not everyone can handle my health stuff, but that doesn't mean I can't be with them.
The next step I took is one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life, and if you're in chronic pain I strongly suggest taking this step. I went to my family doctor (who is a complete hero in this story, she is the person who got everything in motion from the get go and essentially saved my life many times because of it). I told her about my difficulties with the pain and the pills (which I'd now gotten control of) and how I just needed some help. She immediately suggested the Chronic Pain Center, saying she'd refer me to it. This is one of those things that I get emotional about when I mention it. They're amazing! They give you group sessions so you can discuss techniques with other people to deal with your pain, such as sleep sessions, figuring out your triggers, meditation sessions, yoga, swimming even! And once you go through a bunch give you a team of doctors, physiotherapists, kinesiologists, occupational therapists, nutritionists, psychologists, nurses, etc. and all of them, ALL of them, specialize in PAIN! I walked into that place a wounded animal and walked out a confident person. The only issue I had with the place is I found a lot of people, mostly the ones who were a lot older than me, were extremely negative. That's fine though, I tried to spread a little positivity wherever I went. I have stories galore from this place, not about other people because I feel their stories are not mine to tell, but about me. Unfortunately, you guys only have so much time to read this, so someday, if I ever make this blog a book, I'll delete this sentence and tell you a bunch of awesome stories. The current outcome of the CPC, however, is that my pain has gone down and I'm able to manage it. I do have flare ups, of course, but I can deal with them better. That's absolutely amazing, and apparently a pretty rare outcome of this place (that the pain goes down).
One thing I should note about my time with the CPC: while here I saw the psychologist about my issue with relationships. She told me the exact opposite of the other psychologist, that there are men out there that can deal with health problems and there are men that can't, and there are also men that will target women that have them (eg. creeps). I should be looking for the men that can deal with them and can make me feel normal. I totally agree with this. I need to think about this long and hard though because there's apparently not a lot of guys in the world who can do that.
Another step I took was starting my charity, Team Kelli. I raise money for the Alberta Children's Hospital by selling wristbands (hopefully doing more in the future) and telling my story. I've raised almost $2 000 to date. The hospital has done so much for me in the past, and now I want to give back.
Finally the last step I took was writing this blog. I decided I'd gone through a lot in my life, and people have always told me I've been really positive and done really well. After seeing things like people in hospitals and hearing stories of other people in similar situations, I decided to write this to hopefully help people see that you can be positive no matter what the circumstance, and that it will help you to push through and get to the greener side of the fence. Nothing in life is easy, but if it was we wouldn't appreciate it. That's what makes life fun! So I hope by reading what I've written here, you've realized this for yourself and taken more risks, found more positives, and had your life become a bit better. Or, missing that, you've at least found this an interesting read thus far.
I say thus far for a reason... one thing about my life that the only things that seem to be constants are bad luck, pain, and health problems. I don't so much mind that, it gives me something to depend on. Don't take that as a negative statement, please! More just as a statement that you'd only understand if you were in the situation. I view pain as a level system. First it's excruciating and you just want to get rid of it. Then it's annoying, then tolerable. Eventually you don't notice it. Finally you're so used to it that it's one of your closest friends, always there with you, never leaving your side. You get a bad grade? At least you can depend on your pain still being there. Friends ditch you? Pain didn't! It is weird, but that's what happens.
Anyway, I digress, as usual. Back to my usual, happy self, I was back in school, back to work, and back to life! I could now focus on getting some of the things fixed in my messed up body. And boy, was I going to get them fixed...
