Hot Mess- A Blog by Cassie

It was the highest point of happiness and sense of normalcy that I had reached since the accident when I wrote my last blog. I was on a new medication and feeling like things were finally starting to look up. Not that any of the feelings and thoughts I had were different, but I was beginning to trust that things had and were getting better. And then Tuesday came and my world was rocked to the core.

I didn’t notice outwardly that it was a Tuesday. I didn’t think I was going to have a bad day at all, which many times I get that “so-called” aura feeling. I had my niece and nephew over for their spring break week, and as far as I knew I was on the uphill side of the struggle I’d been facing. I dropped Easton off at school, and went to work. I had to leave work early that day because I had two appointments scheduled, one for therapy and one to check-in with the new medicine I had been started on. Looking back at it now I felt exhausted that day, and even though I thought I had done a decent job at getting myself ready that morning, I certainly did not look like it. As I was walking out of the building from work I had a small encounter with a co-worker that really was not a big deal, but one simple meaningless sentence would be the beginning of the spiral that slapped me down to the darkest of my holes yet. I kept turning the words over in my head as I climbed inside and the frustration I was feeling started to build. I already was uncomfortable about this first appointment I had for the med check because it was with a new clinician, the office is very clinical in appearance and let’s face it I don’t exactly have an easy wound to open up. Once called back to her office I immediately burst to tears. All I could say was I do not know why I cannot stop crying, but I do feel that the medicine is helping me. I couldn’t even look at her; I just covered my face with my hand and spoke through my tears. I explained how I had potentially just had the best week in 6 ½ months and all was fine until I got there, but for some reason I couldn’t quit the tears. She posed a question to me about my involvement in Raise for Rowyn, and suggested that I should maybe think about whether or not this is something I can be a key player in. I felt my defensive hat slap on as I told her that Raise for Rowyn is ours, and sometimes it’s all we have to hang on to. I would never watch this beautiful charity that stemmed from our accident as a bystander. Needless to say, I was now what you could easily call a “hot mess”. I left her office 10 minutes late for my next appointment with my therapist. Luckily, it is less than a 2 minute drive. When I walked into her office she could easily see I was in this hot mess state. I started to tell her about my previous week and how great it was, but I was still balling. Looking back at this continued series of events, I had no idea at the time that this could have started from the conversation with the coworker, and then continued with a trigger from the med check appointment. I was still just so confused why I was crying. If you have always felt like a somewhat sane person, and you are sitting in my shoes at this point, you now realize you are kinda crazy. I ended up having a pretty enjoyable session with my therapist, she always knows how to “fix me” and we did discuss that my exposure sort of therapy had in fact been working for me. Even if she freely admitted she didn’t know if it would be when we first met back in September, but that it clearly is. Her office is bright colors, her leather couch is yellow and it doesn’t feel like you are in a clinical setting at all, especially not anymore. I left the office, feeling happy, silly for my previous tears as I still didn’t understand them, but doing better. I got to daycare to pick up my two young sons and my babysitter told me that my son brought up the accident to her today. This was the first time this has happened. He has never retold our story so we never really knew what he thought, only what we suspected. He asked her in the car if she knew Rowyn. She replied with I had seen her at some birthday parties before but no I didn’t really know her. He said that his mom said we were going to pick up Wyatt for school and we were driving over there really happy. But then Rowyn got ran over so they never went to school that day. He said she lives up in Heaven with God now, and that she is an Angel with his Grandma Neaty. My babysitter said he didn’t show emotion when he told her, and it was more that he was just telling her a story. I don’t really have a word to describe the feeling that I had at that moment. Was it any different than what I thought he knew? Was I sad? Did I feel relief that he never mentioned it was our car that ran her over? I don’t know, I just felt the tears begin to well up in my eyes, so I pulled my shades down and we left. When we got home I was feeling like a nervous wreck. I was anxious, and extremely exhausted from the emotional meltdown I had experienced earlier in the day. I went to bed fairly early, slept like crap, and I woke up to a feeling of “there’s no way I can make it to work today.” My niece was able to help me with the kids, and I pretty much putted around the house all day. I woke up the next day, Thursday with every intention of making it to work. I got all ready for the day and took my son to school. I had a couple of totes in my car to pass off to Brynn that morning and I was doing so she asked if I was having a better day. I said I’m trying as I burst into tears in the parking lot of the school. She helped me get my son into the classroom, and I drove to a friend’s house nearby to cool down. I knew nobody was home, so I was going to clean myself up and get it together for work. There was no hope, I just could not. I drove home, resorted to my bedroom and slept 4 hours.

I woke up feeling out of it. Almost delirious a bit. I drove to get my children in a hurry because I had a Raise for Rowyn meeting with our pastor. I felt on auto pilot the whole way there, and went home with anxiety about how I acted or things I said during our meeting. I climbed in bed with my husband to tell him about my crappy day, and the floods returned lasting hours.

Why? Is it because Easter is this weekend, and I feel horrible that Rowyn isn’t here for it? Things had been so good just a week ago. Is it the new meds, is it just part of my diagnosis? Maybe it’s the full moon, am I nuts? Why do I feel so far from myself, what happened to Cassie? Does my husband even like this person? I don’t like this person so why would he.

I woke up Friday with no intention of going to work. I had endured enough for the week to put myself in any situation that may be jeopardizing to my mind. My family visited, I got some good friend time in and it was a nice, but still sad holiday. I have decided that everything may have come together to make me fall apart last week. I think it may have felt so much farther down the dark hole than ever because I had just came off a good week. The good felt so good, that when the bad came it was the hardest deepest bad. Honestly, maybe I shouldn’t even share this. If you know someone who struggles with a diagnosis of depression, I can tell you with certainty it’s unpleasant and scary. I know now that this is a medicine issue for me, and the next step is to work at finding one that helps me, not hurts me. Difficult to think of, but necessary to think positive about. For now, I have chosen to remove work from my plate for a short time again. Hot mess or not, I just want to be Cassie. Not the old one, but the new.