Good Dog

Sadness is sinking low into my belly today, not depression which somehow manages to numb as it rips your insides apart with dread and hopelessness. Today is a healthier sort of sadness- grief. I’m trying to dig through all of it, through the pain instead of around it.

Abby got attacked by another dog today. I can’t talk about it because I’m not ready re-live it. She’ll be okay but she’s sore, depressed, and completely not herself. It reminds me that the spinning spark of her life is slowing down. It’s hard for me to bear. I’m holding a place of empathy for her current pain, and there is an internal scraping sensation along with a voice screaming, “why can’t you help her? Save her? Keep her from death?” It’s a young, broken-hearted voice, it makes me cry occasionally, and sometimes I can barely keep it from overflowing, completely drowning me.

I’ve figured out recently when thinking about Abby’s death, that what I fear the most in the world is not necessarily death but my own emotions. This may be what we all fear the most, I don’t know. My emotions seem to be substantially more mercurial than most and much more destructive. They have an ability to engulf me entirely, an angry wave from the deep center of the ocean that builds and builds. It crashes on the beach where I stand and then takes me down in the slow scraping undertow. Others can swim, but I have to wait to be washed ashore. I’m deeply afraid that one day I won’t come back to the safety of the sand.

My new medication seems to be working a bit, and I feel some days of stability and greater control over my thoughts and emotions. I swim a little or at least tread water. Some days I crash back down again but as Andy pointed out, it’s one of those things that may go up and down for awhile, but the overall trend will be upward toward stability. Good Dog I hope so.

I want my next post to be something happier maybe something fun, a drift away from talking about bipolar. I need a break from it the difficulty of it all. I’m not sure what it will be yet, but I’m going to exercise my inventive qualities and come up with something that stretches my creative muscles. It may be a joyful post about Abby because I need that now. I need to focus on all the happiness I can muster. Please stay tuned. I’m on it.