Dear Diary Mental Health is Just as Important as Physical Health

Aha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And other Aha Moments.  So I want to be honest and open with my two readers.  We moved to Atlanta seven months ago.  I decided to support my husband and his career because I knew if the roles were reversed he would do the same.  Well it is not easy moving from one city to another.  I have experienced this before when I moved from my hamlet of Kingsville, Texas, where it is famous for that one movie with Matt Dillon and that other movie with Helen Slater, to the metropolis of Houston, Texas, where it is famous for that one movie with Shirley McClain and Debra Winger and that other movie with John Travolta and Debra Winger.  I was eighteen at the time and ready to be free of my parents’ shackles and be independent well as independent as I can be with my parents footing the bills for everything due to me choosing an expensive private university.  I was scared and excited.  I had a hard time the first couple of months but luckily I had family around me in the area.  I could go see cousins, aunts and uncles.  So I never felt alone.   I also made friends due to the fact I lived in the dorms and we were forced to interact with one another.  I made lifelong friends actually and I was glad we were forced to do silly socials in the dorms.  

Well Atlanta is the same feelings but different situations.

In my day...

I am married this time so I already have a best friend and therefore not alone.  I don’t have a plethora of family here.  My husband’s cousins live around the area but there are only two.  I am thirty-two this time and so I am set in my ways and not willing to be flexible, I am quickly becoming grumpy old man. *waives cane* “In my day we didn’t have holograms, Tupac was alive and WE LIKED IT!”  Plus people in their thirties already have set friends it is hard to make friends because I am guilty of that too.  In Houston I had my set group of buddies and that was it.  I didn’t want to try and open my arms to new friends because I am lazy and that takes effort and I am awkwardly social (trust me I am, I am that girl that puts foot in mouth plenty of times hence why I don’t really talk because I cannot control what comes out of my mouth which is usually blunt and curt).  I got really depressed.  I felt alone.  I am currently unemployed, I used to say funemployed but it’s not much fun when you don’t have money or friends.   I became depressed; honestly I was already depressed, I am depressed.  

In the span of two years I had so many things happen to me I just crumbled.  My father passed away, I had a miscarriage and we moved.  Yes I had a miscarriage.  I am admitting this because I am tired of people not talking about it.  These things happen and it was horrible because unlike some people I am not fertile (PCOS hellur!) so we paid a good god amount of money to get fertility treatment and then I miscarried.  It takes a toll on you physically and emotionally.  Some people in my life don’t like to acknowledge that it occurred and that is fine but I am acknowledging it.  I know some will say whoa this is private why are you letting out your emotions on such a public forum because this is something that happens to women everyday and no one talks about it and it helps me emotionally and I need a healthy outlet.  Writing is my healthy outlet.  If I don’t write about this I will eat my weight in ice cream and cookies and pizza.  I have done this many times; seriously I think I had Pizza Hut on speed dial for the longest time in my high school years.  So with all this happening in the span of two years it took a toll on me.  I know some people can brush things off and move forward (and then have a mental collapse years later).  I like to work through things and maybe it stems from being raised by a guidance counselor and a dad who analyzed every little decision you make!  I am in counseling and because of it I am becoming more aware of my negative outlook and how much I dislike myself.  I do.  Here is an Oprah moment wait for it….I am learning to love myself.  I know I am loveable because some crazy dude decided to marry me.  Yeah that still dumbfounds me! 

I had a dear friend who figured out I was depressed and she confronted me and that was the best and worst day in my life in a very long time.  She made me admit to myself that I needed help.  She saw through my fake smiles and “Oh man I love Atlanta!” while all the time I was thinking I hate it and I miss Houston.   She asked me how I was doing and I had not been asked that in a very long time.  I was shocked.  Normally people ask me how my mom is doing, Jonathan, even Pollie.   How should I know how they are doing really?  I only know how I am doing and it’s a mixed bag.  I have good days, I have bad days just like everybody else.  Well she knew what I was going through since she had to move from one city to another too because of her husband’s job.  It is not easy.  You live in one place for a long time and have family and friends and then bam you are alone in a city you don’t know and don’t want to like.  Seriously I hated Atlanta.  I didn’t want to go out.  I wouldn’t even get out of my pajamas.  I had no desire to look for a job.  I know most people would gasp and say “whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat you need a job and people out there looking for a job and can’t get one.”  My mind is lost, I never mourned for my father after he died until now.  I went back to work right after it happened.  As Americans we move through people’s death and go back to our lives.  That doesn’t work for me.  I was very close to my father.  I was his only daughter and child.  He taught me so many things.   People always assume that because I was thirty when he passed it is not as bad as if he had died if I were sixteen, I call bull corn on that because it is bad no matter what age you lose a parent.  From five to fifty it is still hard.  That is the person that raised you and your first influence.   Advice to people who don’t know what to tell people who lost someone just say I am sorry for your loss and leave it at that, please don’t compare their loss to a friend of friend who lost a cat, okay yeah.  And JUST LISTEN TO THEM IF THEY WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.  DON’T BRING UP YOUR EXPERIENCES we don’t want to hear it, we are focusing on ourselves which we have a right to do and all we ask is you listen and be there.  Okay off my soap box.  The point is in my very very very long entry is that all this stuff was happening and I was failing at losing weight.  I finally admitted to myself how self destructive I was and I realized oh guess what if you are happier then you don’t find food to cope with your misery.  But at the same time you need to eat the right foods to feel happy see how I did that, it went full circle booyah!  Thank you again two readers for reading this and understanding this journey I am going through and it will have its ups and downs but here is to having more ups like Arthur Boorman.