Fighting Yet Another Storm!

I'm caught in the eye of another storm. There's a vicious tornado screaming and destroying everything in sight. The winds are whipping and hissing all around me. Although they're not, things seem so calm and quiet where I stand. I'm frozen, I cannot speak, although my mouth continuously opens in disbelief. I can't seem to feel anymore. I reach out to help, to calm and soothe, but it never helps. The only thing I can feel is a paralyzing numbness, as the unrelenting cold continues to cut off my circulation. My hands feel as if they've been soaked in iced water, they were strong and able, now they're totally useless. I feel nothing but a deep and constant ache that I cannot reach to warm and thaw. Everything around me is spinning and crashing before my eyes. I'm unable to still the torrid winds, nor interrupt the chaos called life.

I lost Bobby, the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with. Then I lost our home we shared together. I stayed with a friend of his for awhile, renting a room out. That didn't work out, he wasn't the kind, caring and giving man he made himself out to be. He was out to get every dime he could off of me. I only had a small bedroom I couldn't even walk around in that I paid over half of my disability check to rent. The house was mouse ridden and filthy, so bad I couldn't fathom putting my hands on his things to clean them.

My health began to get worse, I was in a fog of depression, just existing and locking myself in a hot room without airconditioning during the hottest summer months this town has seen in years. I lost over twenty pounds, sitting there soaked in sweat day in and day out. I was in and out of the hospital emergency room and admitted to the hospital twice for a few nights. I was vomiting and unable to keep food or water down. I was only eating enough to survive, a bite here, a bite there. I was getting infections and my liver became diseased. I even hallucinated the night I left, I saw things that I'll never forget, that were never there. My eyes and fingers saw and touched things that others could not see or feel. I called my father for help, to get me out of there. He took me to my uncle's where my brother stayed as well and I stayed in the small utility room in the back of the house, another situation where I was cramped and locked myself in day in and day out. I gave my father power of attorney and sought help. We drove around for two days trying to find a place that would admit me and help me get over the withdrawals from the medications my doctor took me off of because my liver couldn't process them. That's why I hallucinated that one night. My liver couldn't process a medication I took and it went straight to my brain, causing me to temporarily lose my mind. I think I had a nervous breakdown now that I look back. I stayed in a mental hospital for almost a week. It was the only place that my insurance would pay for to detox my body from the medications. It helped me for a bit, but then the depression came back once I got out for a week or two or three. Time didn't exist for me for awhile. I slept as much as I could, but I was so ill there was mostly sleepless nights.

During this, I had to put down my deceased mother's dog, Sambam. I loved her so much, she was like a sister and/or daughter to me. Sambam was 19 years old the day I had her euthanized. Literally, overnight, she had lost all bladder and bowel control and was paralyzed and stuck in her own filth on her pillow. I had stayed the night with a friend and when I left she was fine. The morning I came in and went to her pillow to find her, she looked at me like she was saying "thank God you're finally here, please help me!" She couldn't move her back end at all, only her front paws and head. She was so weak, it was time. I had already been talking about having her put down because she was so old, arthritic, and seemed not to be enjoying life anymore. A few days before, I'd even asked my dad to build her a little box to bury her in. He did thankfully and I wrapped her in my mom's robe that I'd saved just for that, and put her in the little box. My uncle was with me and we wrote things on her box, as we cried and told her goodbye. Rest in peace, nineteen years old, bye baby girl, etc. She was so precious to my mom. Mom would even hire her a babysitter so she didn't have to be alone if she was going to be gone somewhere. Mom's dying words to me were to "take care of my baby" and I did just that for nine more years. I had her when I lived in Reno for a few years too.

The depression came at me so swiftly I didn't even see it. I just existed, weak and sick. My hygiene got bad and I didn't do anything but lay in bed or sit on the couch and watch TV. I started worrying my family again, causing a family member to be so worried about me he screamed and yelled trying to get me to comprehend. I only cried and didn't understand, I thought he was being mean to me, but he was trying to love me and get me to wake up. I didn't understand or see what he was trying to do. He was trying to make me snap out of it, it was killing him to see me exist that way. I didn't mean to cause them so much pain.

It was just a temporary living situation until my father found me somewhere to stay. He found a small duplex and I moved in and was just existing again. Until I lifted my head and started seeing the world around me. I became friends with my neighbors and started doing things again. I got out of the house and even began dating one guy I met. That was hard, all I could think about was losing Bobby, he'd passed away only a little over a year at that time. But I finally went to his grave and told him I was moving on and going to try to live life again and that I'd met someone that wanted to date me. It almost seems silly to ask the dead for approval to live and pursue life again now that I look back, but it was something I had to do.

The guy told me for several weeks that he was interested in me, but I kept telling him my heart was numb and dead. He kept telling me that it wasn't, that he'd grow on me. And he did, he snuck up and kissed me and my heart began to beat again, I couldn't believe it. I wouldn't let things move any further than light kisses for several weeks. I still felt as if I was betraying Bobby in a way. I've always been a faithful partner. Our relationship didn't end the way others do, this was something I didn't understand, the death of your spouse. So I felt I wasn't supposed to move on or date or anything. I was supposed to be mourning him. But a gentle hug and kiss awoke something inside me and I looked up and finally saw someone else who cared about me and wanted to pursue a relationship with me. I was uncomfortable in a sense, but I finally let it happen. I was dating again. It's only been a little over a month now that we've been together.

Low and behold, the clouds begin to shift again and another storm begins to form and sneaks up on me, on us. The wind is cackling and you can feel the electricity in the air. The roars of thunder and cracks of lightning begin. At first I thought this was just me waking up and beginning to hear and feel and living again. The excitement of it all was okay, it was just life, I was living and experiencing and no longer deaf to it all. It isn't long until I realize it's a nasty, violent storm moving in my direction again.

Too early into a relationship, when things are supposed to be perfect. We begin not getting along and fighting and bickering nonstop. I couldn't understand it, things had seemed so good before. I couldn't figure out why things had changed or what had happened to cause him to want to argue, all the while saying he hated arguing. I would plead with him to stop, that it was okay, but he'd go on and on. He started arguing with me and nothing I said was right. He'd get mad for no reason and just acted so strange, so different than that first month together. We fought the first day he went to the hospital and the second one too. I tried not to, but he was stubborn. Even in the emergency room, I would just ask him if I could get him something or try to make him comfortable and he'd get mad. I was very confused! I didn't understand it then, but I do now...

(Paragraph deleted by Samantha. This blog entry is only a rough draft of my article/story.)

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