Today, we’re going to discuss our Mental Health; and we’ll be doing so through the context of my own Mental Health. I’ll be sharing some deeply personal things in this open and honest blog about my own mental health journey, before finally addressing how that could affect Headspaces like Pupspace.
Because of the seriousness of this topic, this blog will not be featuring any inserted advertisements, nor will I be featuring various pictures from my Puppy Journey.
Before we dive into the subject, I want to remind everyone that:
It’s OK to NOT be OK (even important sometimes)
If you are, or suspect a friend/family member/relation is experiencing your own difficulties with your mental health, please seek assistance!
There are MANY options available, more than you might think, and they include (but are not limited to):
Your Primary Care Physician
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
Your Friends & Family
Mental Health Professionals
TRIGGER WARNING
Today’s Blog Entry contains content that some readers may find Triggering.
For a long time, I was NOT OK
That’s not an exaggeration, nor is it a joke. For several years, I have not be “OK.” How did I get here? Well, buckle up because we’re going to take a trip down memory lane.
The first time I remember not being entirely OK, was when my grandfather passed away. I was around 10 years old, and when he died from complications related to leukemia it literally hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember the exact moment I found out he had passed… I was in our basement playing Mario Kart with my friend who lived two doors down; my parents had just returned from “visiting grandpa” at the hospital. One of them, I honestly can’t recall if it was Mom or Dad, walked up behind us. To be honest, I can’t recall the exact words, but the news of Grandpa’s Death was imparted.
In that moment, time stopped and the world went quiet. I can vaguely recall the television screen seeming to become blurry, everything suddenly sounded distant… the SNES controller in my had suddenly felt both incredibly heavy and weightless at the same time… and then my memory cuts off.
I don’t recall what happened next… I don’t recall what happened in the coming days… the next few months, and even the following years, all kind of blur together into a bit of a jumbled mess. But one thing I do know for certain, is the exact moment that I learned of my grandfathers death was the moment my life, my personality, and my world changed.
From that moment on, I became completely serious… I’d forgotten, very suddenly, how to have fun. I became somewhat disconnected from the world. I remember, before this moment in my life, having a lot of friends who I would hang out with regularly. After that, there was only one person who really remained my friend; probably the only one who seemed to not notice that I was suddenly a “very serious” person.
Growing Up Without Finishing Childhood
As I mentioned, when my grandfather passed it changed everything about me… that was literally the moment that my childhood ended. I may have not literally aged overnight, but my mental state completely changed. Before his passing, I was often the weird and often goofy kid who had tons of fun and was always up to something silly. After his passing, I became a completely serious person… so much so that the most common thing I can remember hearing the rest of my young life was: “Why are you always so serious? Relax and try having some fun for a change.”
After that moment, I became inwardly focused and incredibly self conscious. I approached everything in life with the utmost seriousness… which was often frustrating because Adults don’t tend to take people that young seriously. The end result was a transition; I went from being a care-free extroverted kid to being a quiet, shy, introverted and ultimately insecure person.
For the next several years I threw myself into reading science fiction books, almost exclusively Start Wars books, and working as hard as I knew how towards one day becoming a filmmaker. I approached everything so seriously, without any concept of fun being a part of the experience, and I found myself a loaner throughout most of the rest of my young life. I had a few friends, most of whom I would only see during the school year… and a majority of my time was spent either in introspection or trying to logically dream up ideas for movies.
During those years, with all of that introspection I often imagined what my future life would be like. I knew at the time that I was different; but I didn’t yet know what it was that made me feel that way. Ultimately, I would come to accept the idea that I would never find someone to share a life with; and would live out my life alone, with only my mind and creativity to keep me company.
An Incredibly Challenging Year
Many years later, I found that my incredibly serious approach to life had yielded results. I owned my own business with my father, I owned a house with my Partner (soon to be Husband), and I had been feeling happy and good for a number of years. I felt like I was at the top of my game, and I was ready to take on the world.
The business my father and I owned together was a family affair. I ran almost all of the aspects of the business. My father, an accountant by trade, took care of our accounting needs., my mother, not to be left out, did some of the bookkeeping, my Husband would come in to help clean and would also help choose some of our products, and I partnered with my brother in-law’s online reputation management company. It was a slick, and very successful operation. However, there was one rather sticky downside.
At that time, in 2014, we were operating as a dealership for a national brand. The way things were in our existing contract, things were pretty smooth… however, in the next contract there were a number of changes that made it unfavorable for us to continue working with them as a dealership. We faced a decision, to either:
sign a contract that would change our operation from a dealership to a franchise (it’s all about who owns the intellectual property of the location) with no exchange of money
ORre-brand our store and try to make our own way in the world.
Having a great deal of experience in our industry prior to owning our store, and having good relationships with competing brands already; we felt prepared to take on the world and try to make our own way. Unfortunately for us, the one thing we lacked to pull that off was a larger bank account.
In the end, while we did actually experience growth and success in our first year on our own; we were saddled with a space designed to support a much higher sales volume and we had to choose between sinking more money into the business to keep it afloat (which may never be repaid) or to cut our losses and close the business.
This all sounds pretty straight forward… but, that’s just the bare facts. Let’s take a stroll through what actually happened during the year, that final year of our retail location being open; because this is the year when my carefully constructed mental balance would be completely shattered, taking blows repeatedly throughout the year.
It started in March… the previous we had successfully converted the format of our store in 48 hours from our dealership to our new brand; including changing out all of our products and giving the retail store a face-lift with a fresh coat of paint. No small feat, for a small single location retail shop to accomplish; but a victory non-the-less. March was to be our grand opening, following a soft open for the month of February as the rest of our new products continued to filter in.
We sank quite a bit of money into the marketing for our Grand Opening event… and the unfortunate truth was that only 2 people showed up to the event… and they showed up together. It’s hard to describe the gut-wrenching feeling of having sunk 10 times your normal marketing budget into an event, only to see patronage collapse around you; despite hundreds of hours of work being poured into crafting the marketing and getting the word out.
At that moment… I was both dismayed and invigorated to continue doing more to grow the business and get back on our feet. However, my body had other plans. Within two weeks of that grand opening, I got to have my first experience with shingles… and while I’ve had a great deal of experience with pain (we can discuss my battle with Crohns Disease another time), this was a new and wholly uniquely excruciating pain to experience.
Initially, my Shingles was misdiagnosed as a staph infection… honestly, the doctor at the walk-in debated between the two and told me if it wasn’t better by Tuesday to come back in… well, on Tuesday morning I woke up, still in pain. I was planning to go into the clinic to get seen again, however, my day was just about to get frightening.
When I get up, around 6 am typically, I make the coffee and get things ready while my husband get’s ready to head to work. Well, I made coffee and poured myself a cup (as per usual)… and promptly manged to spill hot coffee all down my front when I went to take a sip. Of course, my first reaction was to curse and grumble and wipe myself off… before going in for another sip. My second sip, however, was fated to be the same as my first… and I poured hot coffee all down my front again.
Furious, I cursed up a storm and wiped myself off. My husband, curious what the yelling was about, came out to see what was up and when I told him I thought my cup might have a crack, he asked me what was wrong with my eye.
Now… I didn’t have any indication from my perspective that anything was wrong… I was still pretty sleep-groggy, but I didn’t notice any impact to my vision, nor any other odd feelings in my face. However, when I made my way to the bathroom mirror, the sight I saw in the mirror made my heart skip a beat… I literally looked like I’d had a stroke. The right half of my face had gone completely numb… I couldn’t feel it when I touched it, my eye wouldn’t blink properly, I couldn’t control any motor function on the right side of my face… when I smiled, only the left side would turn up… I couldn’t raise my eyebrow… and suddenly I was very, very scared.
My sister was a nurse at the time… so I immediately snapped a selfie and texted it to her. Her response was: “GO TO THE ER NOW”… followed by instructions to go to the ER at the hospital she worked at, and that she’d already alerted the check-in counter to expect me.
Well… to skip ahead a bit, it turns out that I did indeed have shingles (not staph) and that I had also experienced a Bells Palsy… a condition that typically causes partial paralysis in the face. For me, it was the right half of my face. I was told that recovery varied from person to person… and that I could expect it to improve but there was no way to know if I would get 100% of my motor function back.
Well… this took a heavy blow on me. I started to immediately notice that customers would stare at me, as if I was some kind of monster… probably wondering “what the hell happened to that guy.” This long road to recovery, 6 months in all, and not a full recovery (most people can’t tell, but I’m acutely aware of when my face is being “lazy”)… it all took a massive toll on my mental state. I was shattered… I felt my self confidence, a feature I had previously taken for granted, was completely eroded and I began to question everything.
As the year wore on, business began to improve at a glacial pace and that brought a new stress looming on the horizon: lay-offs. Soon, I wouldn’t be able to continue paying my staff. So, I sat them down one at a time and explained what might be coming, if things didn’t drastically improve, and that they should start looking for other options. I didn’t want to blindside them… and ultimately I did have to lay off my Assistant Manager; and reduce my part timers hours for the remainder of the year before my shop would be staffed by just me, myself and I.
Watching the business crumble around me, despite working harder than I had ever worked in my life… bringing to bear every asset I could; exercising every option from social media to distributing flyers. And despite the successes we had, growth just wouldn’t come fast enough and we would ultimately decide to close the business.
But wait… it’s about to get much, much worse.
That fall, my husband would loose his mother to cancer. This was an incredibly emotional moment in our life… and the loss of his mother took what was already a bad year and created a whole new level of bad. To add to the stress and grief of this moment; we also absorbed a significant financial burden… we found ourselves in the mid-west with his family, and the options were to either give her to the state or to fork over thousands of dollars for a cremation (burial was even more).
To us… there was obviously only one option, and that was to find the money and pay the bills. There was no way were were turning his mother over to the state. At that particular moment; though business was bad, I still believed that ultimately things would get better and we would just keep going… I remember saying: “We can always make more money.” Altogether, not an untrue statement… but life wasn’t done hammering at us that year.
Just two months later, my father and I met and decided to close our business. Within two months of that decision, I had found a tenant business to sublet our retail space to, held a closing sale, moved all of our remaining inventory into storage, and opened an eBay business to continue clearing our merchandise. Our plan was… to reduce our monthly business expenses as best we could while also increasing our sales for as long as we had inventory left… and all the while I would be hunting for my next career opportunity.
Honestly, that worked amazingly! It was quite a success selling on eBay… we even produced enough revenue for the next 18 months to pay my salary in full. However, the job hunt, well… that was another story.
Job Hunting… Feels “Really Good”
Having over a decade of successful retail management on my resume, with data and numbers to back up significant gains in business during a down economy; I felt confident that finding my next opportunity wouldn’t pose too much of a problem. Especially with all of my industry contacts, and good relations with those contacts.
However, that just wouldn’t be the case…and after 20 months of hunting, applying for thousands of positions… all I had to show for my hunt was two interviews; one legitimate and the other a complete scam. Yeah, a scam… I don’t consider being recruited as a “consultant” and then pitched a pyramid scheme selling magazines door-to-door to be a “legitimate” interview of any kind… but, that happened.
Ultimately… despite having family friends working in recruiting at Amazon, and a vast network of contacts from my years in retail… I found myself unable to get an interview for anything ranging from a Entry-Level Sales/Cashier position all the way up to an Area Manager; nor could I find work on the manufacturing side as a Territory Sales Representative.
I applied for so many positions… At first focusing on jobs I knew I was qualified for… and ultimately expanding that to everything under-the-sun from jobs I was insanely “over-qualified” for to jobs I was equally insanely “under-qualified” for… and my phone just wouldn’t ring.
After almost two years of this, my Brother In-Law came to me one day and offered me an opportunity to work with him at his Reputation Management Company. So I eagerly jumped in and started doing my best to sell his product and support his existing book of clients. It was a fun job, and I really enjoyed my time with him, however, after a few months I figured out that his company just wasn’t quite ready to afford a full-time employee; and it wouldn’t be for several years… It just wasn’t responsible of me to continue taking money from him, that he and my sister really needed themselves.
So, back on the hunt I went… and I found myself being pitched an opportunity that sounded fantastic! Training and licensing provided, expectation to be earning 6 figures within 5 years, mentor-ship and ongoing training with the goal of moving me into owning my own agency… that’s right, I was pitched a gig as an insurance agent.
The pitch, on paper, sounded great! I went over it with my husband, my parents, even friends and people I knew in the Insurance Industry… they all agreed, it sounded like a great opportunity. So, I dove in… and immediately there-after lost one of my two Grandmothers. Her passing wasn’t a complete surprise, she’d had a rapid decline over the course of the previous two years; but it was another difficult loss to take.
The insurance gig though… well… to make this long story short, I spent a year spinning my tires and going nowhere. It turns out, all of those excellent buzz-words in the pitch, were completely untrue. Their idea of mentor-ship was to stick you in a phone-pit and if you had a question to say: “Um, I’m not sure, why don’t you call agent services about that.”
Things Are About to Get Complicated
During this year, from starting and stopping working for my brother, and beginning a venture into insurance sales; I also found a very magical new thing in my life… I found my way to Puppy Play, and began in earnest, a journey into my various Kinks and Fetishes.
Towards the end of that year, I found myself nominated (barely 8 months into becoming a Pup) for the Board of Directors of SEA-PAH. Now… I’ll have a lot more to share about my experience in community service in a future blog, however, I will be including a bit about that in this one as well… because it definitely had an impact on my mental health.
Up until this point, my experience in Puppy Play and Kink had been incredibly positive (for the most part)… and I was excited to be taking on a new challenge. I spoke with my husband and my (at the time) Alpha, and decided to accept the nomination and run for a board seat.
At the beginning of the next year I found myself elected to the Board of Directors, and serving in an officers role as Secretary. This started off pretty great, however, just 3 months into my two year term my last living grandparent, my grandmother, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. Unlike my other grandmother, this one had been very healthy and active; her mind remained sharp and she lived an active life.
This death, threw my entire life into chaos. I spent the next two months, driving back & forth from Seattle to Boise, helping my father to take care of his late mothers home and possessions. It was incredibly surreal… all that traveling… my life felt like it was suddenly in limbo… and like my grandfathers passing, I never had an opportunity to say goodbye.
During this time, the Insurance gig really just fell apart. I had spent more money than I made, trying to be an insurance agent… and with nothing to show for it, and I found myself thinking of other opportunities for myself during my 8 hour drives (each way) back and forth between Seattle and Boise. This would lead to a return to school for me… going back to college and moving into a new career path.
All of this, though, was going on while I was also on the Board of Directors of SEA-PAH… helping the other Directors to put on monthly events for a membership which, at last count, numbered in excess of 250 members… and launching and growing my own brand as Farrstrider, and continuing to grow the various outlets of my content creation to include a YouTube channel, a blog and a Podcast.
You could say I was stretched thin… and that would be accurate. In the fall, was the Camp K9 event that everyone looked forward to each year. One of SEA-PAH’s biggest annual events; and luckily the Board of Directors didn’t seem to need much assistance from me at the event, so I got to mostly just try and enjoy myself. And although I did have some good times there… if you read my previous blog “There and Back Again - The Abyss of Depression”, you know that ultimately I experienced a mental break down that weekend… my headspace shattered and broke; but the year wasn’t done throwing punches just yet.
In December, on the heels of the end of my first quarter back in school, my Alpha and I came to a mutual agreement to end both our romantic relationship and our formal relationship as Alpha and Pup. We simply found that we were in two different places, and that our wants and needs weren’t as compatible as we’d once though. We do remain friends, and he will always be my Alpha… as I told him: Much in the same way that your Parents will always be your Parents.
Though this was a mutual decision, it didn’t make that moment any less impact-full. Throughout all of this, up to this point in time, moving into 2019; I felt that I had become good at self-management of my own headspace and mental health.
In hindsight, I wasn’t doing a good job of self-managing my mental health. I was in a cycle of ups and downs where the swings were becoming bigger and bigger… shortly lived higher highs, and ever lengthening lower lows.
Overwhelmed
In the beginning of 2019, I reluctantly accepted the position of President on the Board of Directors of SEA-PAH. As I said before, I’ll have a lot more to say on this in another blog at a later date. However, I feel it’s important to note just why I was so reluctant… as it’s deeply entangled with our exploration of Mental Health.
Going into 2019, I already felt like I had hit my limits and moved past them on multiple occasions the previous year… the death of my last living grandparent, a complete shattering of my headspace, and the dissolution of a big part of my relationship to my Alpha. I knew I was at my wits end, that I was already grasping at straws… however, I also felt an unstated pressure to step up; an unspoken demand for my service. So it was, that I reluctantly accepted the Presidents position for the year ahead.
At the time, I rationalized that I had an incredible team of Directors to work with, some of whom were already very close friends, others I hoped to become closer with throughout the year. However, 2019 wasn’t going to pull any punches, and boy did it come out swinging HARD!
The first situation I would face involved the forced cancellation of a large ticketed event due to the Seattle “Snowpocalypse” in February. Thankfully, I had a LOT of help from the other directors… however, internally my anxiety meter began to build.
Next, came negotiating a deal with the venue for Camp K9… and to say that those negotiations fell apart over the course of 3 months would be putting it lightly. But that’s exactly what happened… and I became the President without a Camp K9. That whole 3 months was so frustrating… all that work, my work, work by many others on the board and in the community… all with no pay-off; not to mention some online toxicity around the cancellation just added to the anxiety over everything.
Following the cancellation of the Camp event… my anxiety was at a peak, and it would stay there for the rest of the year; though, at the time I didn’t recognize it for what it was. Over the next few months, I felt as though I was struggling to get any club work done; and also was increasingly busy with school as my classes began to cover more complex topics.
By the end of December… I finally realized I had a serious problem. I was so deep in a depression that it felt like everything in my life was collapsing around me. I even felt like my relationships with my husband and my brother were coming apart… and in my head an incredibly nasty feedback loop kept feeding that… pushing me deeper into the depression and altered sense of reality.
It was one of the darkest times of my life… in hindsight, all of 2019 was an incredibly dark time for me; but that was about to change. I was at a point where I knew that my perception of my reality was not congruent with the actual reality I was living in.
Sharing Helps
In early January, I happened to be up incredibly late one night… I’d been having an increasing difficult time sleeping, and the lack of sleep was really only making it worse. Anyhow, on this one particular night a close friend of mine was also up and we were chatting… but something seemed off, and me being me I asked if he was OK.
The incredibly amazing thing that happened, is that he opened up and shared with me the struggles he’d been having. The conversation evolved from there and became a full blown discussion about both of our mental states. I shared things with him that I hadn’t yet shared with my partners… the weight of the idea of sharing it with either of them just felt crushing, at that time.
During the course of our discussion, he mentioned that his PCP (Primary Care Physician) had proscribed him an anti-depressant to help… and my mouth literally fell open at home. You see… we have the same doctor (a lot of my friends have the same doctor as me). I had no idea that my PCP was someone I could discuss my mental health with… I thought my only option would be to see a therapist/psychiatrist.
I feel it’s important to note… I don’t specifically have anything against Therapists & Psychologists; I have the utmost respect for them and what they do. I also have plans to seek ongoing care with a Mental Health professional in the future… however, at this particular time, I simply can’t afford the co-pay to seek this care when I’ll be having appointments multiple times a month, or even multiple times a week; I need to be in a better financial place before I add this to my Personal Care Routine.
Following this conversation, I made a couple of commitments to myself. For one, I was gong to speak to my doctor in the coming week about my Mental Health and the challenges I’d been shouldering. Secondly, I was going to speak with my partners about those challenges I’d been quietly facing. Finally, I would also commit to being open to the advice from my Doctor, because I was finally ready to admit that I needed some help.
Accountability Is Important
In the days just before my appointment, I worked up enough courage to finally speak to my Brother about how I’d been feeling. I wasn’t able to get together with him in person, but I made a point of bringing it up to him in chat.
Now, I know a lot of you might be wondering why I went to my Brother before speaking with my Husband… and honestly, I wanted to talk to him but I just felt so much anxiety about admitting any of this to him… this is how out-of-sorts my perception of reality and actual reality were at the time… fueled by anxiety and depression.
I also recognized that I needed to make myself accountable to someone important in my life before my appointment; because it would give me a solid reason to not “forget” to bring it up to my Doctor, or chicken out. Holding myself accountable by sharing this, was an important step for me to take for myself.
So… First I spoke with my Brother; and he showed me exactly what an incredible man he is. Supportive, Understanding, and Patient… it was hard, much harder than I thought it would be, to even get my fingers to type… to share my story and express my pain. But, the important thing was that I did it!
I had intended, to talk to my husband before my Doctor Appointment… however, I I just couldn’t seem to get the words out. I tried, several times… though, he would never know; because I just couldn’t get the words to come out of my mouth.
Finally, my regular PrEP check-up appointment came. I was nervous, but determined, to have an open conversation about the challenges I’d been having. I’d also spent the previous couple of days trying to introspect my way to some form of root cause… attempting to sort out the emotional feelings of the depression I was in to see if I could identify a driving factor; and in my case, I felt I had narrowed it down to anxiety.
Anxiety Is Driving
Before the story continues, I want to share more about how Anxiety was impacting me; how it was even driving my depression. Because, realizing that Anxiety was a part of what I was dealing with was something that just hadn’t occurred to me before this moment.
In the course of my life I had a number of situations, in hindsight, where the mental and emotional impact of that situation was exacerbated by anxiety. However, it never once occurred to me that anxiety was even a part of things. I honestly didn’t really know anything about anxiety… my only education about anxiety being driven by ridiculous drug commercials. The way it would be explained in those ads, just never even remotely felt as though it was connected to the way I felt anxiety.
For me, it starts in my gut… that sensation of the “pit of your stomach,” as it’s been put to me before. Just a weight, and a tightening… like waiting for the next bad thing to happen. From there, it would eventually move to my chest. But, it wouldn’t feel like a heart attack… at least, not the way I’d heard it described. I didn’t feel as though I had an elephant on my chest (the most common description I’d ever heard).
When it would move into my chest… it felt like heart-break. It was emotional… waves of emotional pain would radiate out from my chest, and during the more poignant anxiety attacks I would even feel as though I was in physical pain. When one of these episodes would take full hold, I would often feel as though I couldn’t catch my breath… however, again… not in the way a heart-attack is described (which is also how I’d heard Anxiety Attacks described)… just, so emotional that it was hard to catch my breath.
From my chest… and always not far behind… it would also take hold in my head. My headspace would come crashing down into a bottomless abyss of darkness. My mind would begin manufacturing horrible scenarios and thoughts; which in turn would feed back into the emotional pain radiating from my chest, and bounce back into my head to feed the depression machine in a powerful negative feedback loop.
All of this would build exponentially… and while it is difficult to truly describe just how painful it was; emotionally, mentally, and physically. I can describe, however, the mental image I would often have in these moments… because it was always the same image, and worked in the same way.
It would feel, at first, almost like falling… like one of those dreams you wake up from where you’re falling and then it feels like you jump awake before you hit bottom; except, this fall never ended. It just kept going… and all around me, everything would become dark.
Often, in my mental picture, I would look what felt like “up”… and see just the tiniest speck of light. This is why I’ve previously described this as an abyss… it’s how I imagine it would be like to fall deep into a well… an abyss of depression.
Inside this abyss… there were no ladders, only negative thoughts manifesting on repeat. A few times, when it got really really bad, the darkness seemed to be complete; even if I looked “up” I couldn’t identify any hint of a light… and finding a way out of the abyss would seem hopeless.
Help Is There For Those Who Seek It
So, there I was on the day of my appointment. My PrEP appointments were always generally quick… I always elect to test all my sites: blood draw, butt & throat swab, piss. But generally, there isn’t much for me and my doctor to discuss… he knows I’m a big‘ol slutty pup and as a gay man himself he’s incredibly supportive of his patients.
Our appointment began as usual, but when he asked if there was anything else to discuss; I took the plunge and told him that I wanted to discuss my mental health. I could tell he wasn’t expecting that, after years of appointments this was the first time I had something else to discuss; but at the same time he simply laid out that we should get our swabs and blood draws done and then sit back down for a discussion.
When it came time to discuss my mental health… I laid out the general problems I’d been having. The depression, anxiety, and the fact that there were days where I felt so crippled by it all that I literally couldn’t do much more than sit on the couch and watch YouTube.
Mind you, I enjoy YouTube… but I wasn’t watching for enjoyment so much as I just couldn’t get motivated to even get off the couch or do the things that I needed to be doing. It was affecting my school work, it was affecting my ability to function in every day life, and it wasn’t a healthy way to be.
We discussed how my depression and anxiety were affecting me, what I felt was the driving feeling; which I identified as believing that my Anxiety was the root of the problem driving the other issues. We also discussed a long term plan for mental health, seeing a counselor of some kind; but he was also very understanding of the issue of co-pay when I described our current financial situation and how that co-pay would quickly add up. I also agreed that I would seek counseling when that financial situation changes; and I will do exactly that.
After discussing things for a while, he suggested that I could try an anti-depressant. Now, I’m not personally a fan of altering brain chemistry unless it’s absolutely necessary… but I honestly needed some help. Brain chemistry altering drugs, are neither a cure nor a universal treatment… every ones chemistry is different; and each drug will affect each person in their own unique way… it’s also not something that takes immediate effect; these drugs need to build up in your system before they can have a consistent and lasting effect.
We selected a drug, Sertraline (the active drug in Zoloft), as a starting point. The plan would be to take that for a month, and have a follow-up visit to see where I was at after that month; one month should have been enough to notice some kind of change. Overall, I was nervous about taking a new medication like this; but I also felt a massive weight lifted to have had that conversation with my Doctor… and relief that there was something I could do that just might help.
The first step, other than beginning to take my medication, was going to be to have a discussion with my husband about all of this. Now, I wish I could say I went right home and we had a full on discussion right away; but, it took me over a week before I was able to discuss it with him. I still feel bad about that… because when I did finally have that discussion all that anxiety I’d built up in my head about talking to him about it; just kinda vanished. I felt dumb, having kept that from him for so long… but relieved, loved, and happy to have finally opened up to him.
Four Weeks
I picked up my prescription on a Thursday… however, the weekend ahead was going to be a busy and very important weekend; and I didn’t want to risk starting an anti-depressant unless I knew exactly how it would affect me… so, out of an abundance of caution I elected to wait and begin my medication the following Monday.
What, you might be wondering, was going on that weekend? Well, that weekend marked the end of my two year term servicing on the Board of Directors of SEA-PAH. With everything that had happened during the course of the past year, all the intense drama; I was honestly looking forward to taking off my Directors Pin and passing the torch. Well, the weekend came, and went… and I actually did feel as though an incredible weight was lifted off of my shoulders following the conclusion of my term.
On Monday I began taking my medication; and as expected I really didn’t feel any different that week. However, I did have one unexpected thing happen that week. A good friend and play buddy of mine reached out and we began catching up. It turns out, he’d been dealing with a lot of depression lately as well, and had also just started taking the same medication. This would become a new topic for us to share in, and in a way it was like having a medication buddy; someone to compare notes with who was going through something similar.
The next week, I didn’t really notice anything during the week either. However, in the third week I found myself having a depressed day.. but this is also when I noticed something was different. I felt the anxiety starting to build… but it didn’t take hold quite the way it used to; it felt, disconnected from me. It was almost like a tangible object… I could imagine the anxiety as a thing, that I could grab, and examine; and then discard. The effect of the medication I was noticing, was that it had broken the feedback loop before I was pushed into the abyss.
After the fourth week, I had my check-up with my Doctor and we discussed how I’d been feeling, and how I’d noticed in the last two weeks that my anxiety both seemed reduced as well as less potent. On that visit, we decided that this was going to be a good way forward, to help in managing the anxiety for some time; and we also discussed a time when we might try stopping the medication.
In the year ahead I’ll be expecting to finish school and start a new job in a new career… a lot of change, and a lot of potential to trigger high anxiety. Further, my doctor doesn’t recommend stopping anti-depressants during the winter months, as those patients hes had who do that during the winter typically have a rough time during the colder darker months where SAD (Seasonal Affect Disorder) tends to rear it’s head in the Pacific Northwest.
We’ve set out a plan though… I’ll be continuing the Sertraline for the rest of this year, and into the spring of next year. By that time, I hope to be working in a stable new career and in a financial situation that will allow me to seek (or have already sought) counseling to continue working on my mental health and well being.
A little note about Anti-Depressants:
These drugs are not a “cure-all” treatment… they’re more like a band-aid. They can help someone overcome a situation but they do not “fix” the problem(s). In my case… my anxiety had become crippling, and it was only getting worse, and the anti-depressant I began taking has curtailed my anxiety.
Do I still get depressed? Yes, of course!
Do I still have anxiety? Yes, absolutely!
What’s the point of the anti-depressant then? The point of the anti-depressant is to give the power over my mental emotional state back to my conscious self.Feeling sad, depressed, and anxious aren’t entirely bad things. Nobody should be happy 100% of the time, that’s juts not realistic or reasonable. Depression, Sadness, and Anxiety all have roles to play in your mental health; the movie “Inside Out” hit the nail on the head with this, by making the Sadness character an unexpected hero.
It’s important though, to not let any one feeling dominate your headspace… feeling a range of emotion is what keeps us healthy and gives meaning to moments in life; both the good and the bad.
Keeping Your Headspace Healthy
We’ve discussed a lot about my personal journey through Anxiety and Depression, but we haven’t yet discussed how this relates to Headspaces like Pupspace. So, let’s dive into the subject; as always from my perspective and through my eyes as a Human Puppy.
I’ve seen a lot of posts circulating the internet, where people describe Puppy Play as something that helped them with their depression. I’ve seen it suggested as a means for managing and even treating depression.
Now, I’m obviously not a medical professional of any sort… but there just may be a nugget of truth in those claims. In my experience, engaging in Puppy Play and achieving Puppy Headspace, has had an overwhelmingly positive affect on my mental state. The release of endorphins and adrenaline from achieving this, has absolutely elevated my mood; and I’ve heard the same from many other Pups (and other kinksters) as well.
HOWEVER
Puppy Play, or any Kink for that matter, should NEVER be the ONLY thing you do to manage your overall mental health. Relying on only this one outlet to be your “magical wonder cure” for your mental and emotional well being is problematic at best. Putting all of your proverbial eggs into just one basket, is like smoking a cigarette next to a gas pump. All it takes is one incident, before the entire thing explodes in your face.
Puppy Play, and engaging in Kink play, may very well offer a great deal of benefits to ones mental health. The free expression of oneself, both sexually and non-sexually, is absolutely important to your well being. However, you should also be diversifying that mental health portfolio.
Speak up and share with your friends and family; they’re on your side, and sharing with them is the first step in feeling that support. Speaking openly and honestly with your doctor and/or therapist is also important; their entire profession is literally to help you maintain your physical and mental health… take advantage of that!
For me, while I have always had a very positive experience resulting from time spent in Pupspace; that headspace is also something I aggressively protect. You see… that mental state is so important to me that I don’t want to risk polluting it with negativity; something that I seem to observe in some people online.
I can’t count, how many times I’ve seen a Pup post about changing their name because the previous name had too many bad things associated with it… often bad memories and situations. Seeing those comments and stories, made me want to protect Farrstrider to the best of my ability.
To that end, when I have been experiencing a great deal of anxiety or depression, I tend not to engage my headspace. I’ve even gone so far as to avoid wearing my Pup Hood during some of these moments; particularly as I attach so much of my headspace and identity as Farrstrider to the sacred representation of my hood… my pup face.
In 2019, for example, as that year seemed to be a constant and exponential progression of increasing anxiety and lengthening depression; I barely wore my hood at all; and I very rarely even approached engaging my Pupspace. Even in the midst of what I had yet to admit was a problem I needed help with… I knew deep deep down that it was something I didn’t want to expose, or pollute, my Pupspace with.
In 2018, I had experienced a moment where my headspace was absolutely polluted… the aforementioned blog “There and Back Again - The Abyss of Depression” chronicles a moment when, in the middle of more headspace than I realized I was experincing; my mental health snapped and all of that anxiety and depression seeped into my Pupspace… invading that safe mental space and polluting it. It took time for me to recover from that, and be able to approach my Pupspace without being transported back into that moment; but that experience is also why I so aggressively protected it during the course of the following year.
All of that said; I found my light at the end of the tunnel. I spoke up… first to a friend who had shared his struggles with me; then to my partners and my doctor… next I shared with more friends… and finally, here I am opening up and sharing this journey with all of you.
Since opening up, and taking the scary step of discussing my mental health with my partners, doctor, and friends; I’ve found my regular mental health to be much improved. The continuing effect of the anti-depressant (Sertraline) I’m on has helped me to regain control of my mental state and move past moments of anxiety and depression; instead of being sucked into that metaphorical abyss.
In closing, I want to bring it back to where we started and remind everyone that:
It’s OK to NOT be OK (it’s even kinda important sometimes)
If you are, or suspect a friend/family member/relation is experiencing your own difficulties with your mental health, please seek assistance!
There are MANY options available, more than you might think, and they include (but are not limited to):
Your Primary Care Physician
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
Your Friends & Family
Mental Health Professionals
Much love and many wags
~ Farrstrider
