TW: Mention of mental illness, suicide, personality disorder
Day 11
28/12/2020
I live with depression and anxiety. I possibly also have borderline personality traits, but the jury is out on that. It’s day 11 of my in-patient stint in the psychiatry ward. I can only hope that this is the first and the last time I will need admission and observation.
As I sit here typing, I think about time.
My pathology makes me experience time very differently. While anxiety stabs my brain with daggers that scream of deadliness, depression makes me wallow in the slow waters of existential crises. My daily existence depends on the fine balance of the chemicals in my brain.
While one is admitted, time passes slowly yet the days pass by fast enough. Time slows down for you to feel your feelings, with occasional periods of clarity. Deadlines cease to matter. The existential crises and anhedonia melt away slowly. Your muscles learn to unclench and you slowly feel happiness as you once did in the past.
I made the decision to adopt two poochkins in 2015. My babies were around 42 days when they came to me. I was a first-time dog mom. When I first held them, I experienced joy and terror at the same time.
There have been many instances when I have contemplated deliberate self-harm. When one does that, time slows down and deliberations are made. Your mind negotiates with itself as to why you are better off alive than dead or vice versa. At the end of my detailed deliberations, the reason I chose life has always been; my dogs.
I made the decision to adopt two poochkins in 2015. My babies were around 42 days when they came to me. I was a first-time dog mom. When I first held them, I experienced joy and terror at the same time. I reveled in those loving licks while I would always worry that I was not doing enough for them. Ever since I brought my babies home, my time has been even more precious. If I could, I would spend every waking moment, holding and loving my babies.
When I was advised admission, the first thing that popped into my weary brain was my babies’ faces. I wondered how they would do without me. I wondered whether they would feel that my love is suddenly missing. I wondered whether they would feel abandoned. I wondered…. And then I imagined their lives without me –permanently. Thus, I accepted hospitalization.
You may wonder why I digress from my experience of time to that of my babies. Let me explain. While I take the effort to get better, I am faced with time away from my babies. I know they are fine. They are well-fed, watered, loved, and safe with their grandmother. However, nothing can supplant the experience of touch, cuddles, smell, and the sheer warmth of having them in your arms. I still need to be present, to look into their puppy eyes, scratch their bellies, and whisper sweet nothings into their ears.
“Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day. It is amazing how much love and laughter they bring into our lives and even how much closer we become with each other because of them.” — John Grogan (American journalist)
The phrase “time is precious” takes a whole other meaning when you realize that time with your babies is so transient, unpredictable, and irreplaceable.
For the sake of my babies, I live.
For the sake of my babies, I try.