This maybe my last post for a few days. I have a new pod recorded and ready to go but I need to finish the artwork first. Hopefully, that will go live tomorrow sometime..
My oral surgery is scheduled for 8:30 am on Friday. I'm struggling quite a bit right now and at this point, that struggle runs much deeper than simply facing my fears of having my wisdom teeth removed.
On the surface, I know it's not a huge deal and I'm not entirely sure why it's considered major surgery but it sure feels like a huge deal.
As a small child, I had a very traumatic experience involving the oral surgeon. I had a tooth ripped out by our family dog and surgically reimplanted. I wasn't properly anesthetized and I was restrained (probably cause I wasn't super cooperative at the time). I felt everything they did until I was finally knocked out.
That spawned a phobia of the dentist and a 25 year period of time that I never went back to the dentist.
I overcame that fear a few months and I'm good now. After 25 years, I only needed to have a previous filling replaced but I did discover I need to lose my wisdom teeth.
My oral surgeon is an old friend and he's amazing, so I'm in good hands. It's just the idea of facing that fear that's pretty much broken me.
I spoke at length with our family therapist this week and I've come to a realization. It doesn't make me happy to admit this but right now, I'm not happy anyway.
As it stands, I'm simply not winning my longstanding war with depression. In fact, it's getting so bad that I'm just not coping with anything. I know that a large part of this is my pending surgery but truthfully, it will be something else later.
My life is chronically stressful. I'm talking seriously, seriously stressful and that's not likely to change anytime soon, if ever.
I cope really well until I don't and then I simply begin to crumble. There's no way to predict where my upper limit is but I seem to continuously keep hitting it and that's not okay.
I'm so overwhelmed that I almost can't function and that's a major problem because so many people are relying on me. As it is, Friday is like a wall and I can't see anything passed it. I know life continues on the other side but I can't see it right now and that scares me.
I'm not able to focus on work and without doing that, I can't replace our car, which is now leaking gasoline or get my family to a safer neighborhood, where the kids can actually play outside.
I can't focus at all anymore.
I end up fixated on my health, which is constantly improving and not bad at all. I know that but I worry anyway. I worry about not being here for my kids or my wife and it's consuming.
I've made an appointment with my doctor for this morning and I'm going to be placed back on an antidepressant. I'm personally leaning towards Prozac for a number of reasons but I won't start it until after I recover from surgery. That should only push things back a few days at most and by next week, I will be starting the new medication.
I'm not excited about this but at the same time, I'm hopefully looking at another 50 years and I can't live like this. I can't put my family through this either.
While I'm not excited, it does feel good to have a direction and maybe a light at he end of the tunnel. With any luck, that light won't turn out to be a train...
If I'm feeling up to it, I'll update you folks tomorrow but no promises. There's a lot I have to get done before Friday, including making a fresh pot of bone broth so I have something healthy to eat while I recover. I also have to get about 5,000 steps in so I hit my minimum goal of 200,000 steps for the month before Friday. That's the goal for the whole month and I'll reach it about 10 days early because I'm afraid after Friday, I might not be in a place to get my walking done each day. I feel good having accomplished that..
So that's where I stand at the moment. It's not pretty but it's my truth and I need to do what I need to do in order to get through this and get back on my feet. My needs more than I'm able to give them right now and that's not okay. Taking care of myself means I can take better care of them.
