It's been a while since I've written, but it's also been a while since I've needed to, really. I feel like I really need to reach out, because I've been shutting down and hiding everything. I've learned how destructive that can be, and I want to break that before I lose it.
It's like nothing and everything are going wrong at the same time. That's the worst feeling in the world- when you don't have a reason to be down, but you're down anyways.
Five weeks ago I was perfectly fine. Seemed like all was well enough with life for me to tell people I've never been happier.
Four weeks ago I broke up with my boyfriend because we decided we are on different life paths. That was pretty hard to do, considering we were together for almost 2 years, and him and I were doing so well at the time. So I became newly single and wasn't quite sure how to do so.
Three weeks ago, I fell backwards onto my head so hard and gave myself a pretty nasty concussion. I was convinced I'd walk it off in a day or so, but that wasn't exactly the case. I slept for 72 hours straight, had nasty headaches and pressure in my head, the whole shabangabang. Being an Athletic Trainer, I knew this was bad news for any derby or exercise related stuff for a while.
A few days later, I had to move from my apartment into the house. Moving has always been stressful enough for me, but the head injury made it a bit worse. Thankfully, my good friends were all there to help me make it to the house pretty smoothly.
The headaches continued, and obviously I had to remove myself from playing derby for the time being. I just wasn't getting any better physically, so I had to go to the doctor. He put me on medical leave from pretty much everything- derby, work, ...everything. Of course, I still worked as much as I could make myself anyways. I was pretty much done with being an invalid, but was still struggling at the same time.
So fast forward a little bit here to 2 weeks ago. Still having concussion symptoms, and add in some serious emotional and depression problems, probably mostly due to the concussion. I saw my doc again for a follow up, and he pretty much said no derby for 3-4 more weeks, and I should seriously consider retiring because this is my 4th concussion. He also knows me too well to expect me to actually retire. Being off skates has been awful. I try to go to practices to keep myself connected to my teammates, but watching people skate around in circles hadnt been so easy on my head. I was taken out of doing anything physical, so I had no release for anything. Nothing to channel my depression into at all besides sleep. Sleep gets old after a while.
So this week, I have found myself shutting down and being self destructive once again. I found myself feeling alone, emotionless, detatched, unhealthy, and hiding from my friends. All I want to do is sleep and eat. I downed like 3 pints of Ben and Jerry's in 3 days. High five. I mean I know I'm not alone- I have an amazing support system in my life. I guess maybe I just need to lean on them a little more. It's hard to admit when you really need help, but I guess I'm doing it publicly with this blog.
I don't really want anyone to worry about me. I'm not going to end up back in the hospital or anything like that, I'm still on my medication regularly and stuff...I just need to get my head out of my ass and ask for support and words of encouragement.
Today was the first day I've had without a headache. I was able to coach during a scrimmage tonight, which was nice. I'm feeling a little bit stronger mentally, but the past week has set me back pretty far, and I'm still reveling in it. I want this feeling of being alone to go away. I want to get excited and be happy instead of being a flat line and wanting to sleep 24/7. It's no fun at all.
It's important to know when to ask for help...so...here I am.
