The Final Annie

In 2012 we lived in a big house and ALL my family lived with us. I was working hard as a virtual supervisor at Comcast and Todd was working in the stores. We were doing pretty badly financially as always. Big wish is that one day, money will not be a problem… Anyways, it was a bad year, The only good thing that came out of that year was a friendship and my grand daughter being born.

In 2012 I became pregnant again. My Fallopian tubes are trashed at the time and the Doc advised an abortion and quickly. They were unable to find the fetus in my uterus. But I waited, hard time thinking about taking the shot to kill my baby. So I didn’t, I was bleeding so I was on bedrest. But I drove my son to work one morning not feeling right. The pain was pretty bad. And I knew right away my tube had burst. I drove my son to work and then went straight to the emergency room nearly passing out at the wheel. I left my car right in front with the door open. As it turned out, my tube had exploded and I was rushed into emergency surgery, signing paperwork as we quickly rolled to the OR.

I ended up needed 3 transfusions to get me back up to good. I had lost a lot of blood. The thing is just a few years before I became pregnant and they could not find the fetus then either. I ended up bleeding hard but did not pass the fetus. I bled for a month after that before I went back to the Doctors who told me I was still pregnant. After I thought I had miscarried. That baby ended up in my tube and I had to take the shot to abort or die. I chose the shot. I hated every moment of that whole experience and thought I would never be pregnant again. It was just too much for me to go through again, but I did and it turned out worst case scenario.

To get back to 2012, I was traumatized by the whole thing and told Todd I should probably go out of work to get my head together, but we decided we couldn’t afford it. We were living too close to the edge. So that was one thing,

My Dad called me out of the blue and told me he had cancer in his throat and he was going in for surgery, I told him I would follow up with the Doctors, he had Zach watching out for him. I felt no need to run to the hospital. My dad and I were not really close. In fact when I had Abigail early leaving her in an incubator in the Neo natal for 2 weeks, he couldn’t come visit because he had yard work to do was pretty much the last time I made an attempt to talk to him.

In any case I talked to the Doc’s after the surgery and said he was well and would be in a rehab facility for a bit. He had another surgery he needed. So dad was ok, life went on. A few weeks later I got a call from Ginger, his ex-girlfriend. She said he was in ICU and she did not believe that Zach was handling it well. I should also mention at this point I was drinking again, about 3 glasses of wine, I kept it on my nightstand. My mood was foul. I knew I needed help but Kaiser does not or did not have a great mental health program. So, as I was saying my father got an infection from his feeding tube and ended up with pneumonia so bad they had him on a ventilator,

Life stopped for me and I ran to his side. I was told he probably woulds not survive, Bull shit. My dad was strong, After about a few days he opened his eyes, I instantly forgot all of his transgressions as I looked him in his deep blue eyes, He was my daddy again, He was finally able to get off the ventilator much to the shock of the Doc’s, He became so well they transferred him out of ICU, I had my brothers staying with me at the time because they said he was going to die, So I had all my family plus my brothers there in my house, Well one day as it happened we decided not to go visit him, I called him though to make sure he was ok, He didn’t sounds so good, I got a really bad feeling and told Todd we should go, but we decided to take the day off, My father had a heart attack that day and died before we could get there, I felt good that he got to see the whole family together, at least my brothers and I, When I went to say good bye to him, I just wanted to climb in next to him. No more deep blue eyes. No more dad. All gone. Thats when tequila came into the picture.

Todd had no choice but to tolerate it. I never missed work, I only had 3 shots and 3 beers, but this was every night, weekends were different. My standing rule was nothing until after dinner. I went through a 12 pack and a bottle of tequila every few days.

So went through taking care of all dads stuff and did this memorial. It really was touching how many showed up, people I hadn’t seen since I was a child. In any case, I got sicker. I did not know how to process what I’d been through up to that point, not to mention all that I had been through in my life period, but oh it was coming.

Life went on, I went back to work and within a few weeks I found out I was being laid off. All my comcasters were being laid off as they were moving the call centers out of California. It was was a brutal blow. Now I was really fucked.

Todd and I were not getting along and we had to tell the kids they had 60 days to move as we would not be able to afford the big house anymore. Everyone found a place thankfulluy. We moved into a single wide trailer ‘home”.

By then I was being treated for alcohol abuse by Kaiser which was a waste of my time. They put me on meds I hated taking and I was a total disaster. I was so bad that I was hallucinating. I had no idea it would lead me to this moment. I needed to be treated for mental illness not alcohol abuse,

After we moved I decided to see a therapist. I was a mental disaster, I found a great Doc and he got me back into my car driving with out panic attacks. He helped me cope through the bad thoughts, All the white I had this pain in my side that the Medical Doctor could not figure out, Panic attacks plus the pain was too much for me. Todd finally took me to the ER and they found a huge Kidney stone in my right Kidney, I had to have surgery ti remove it, I can’t remember what they call it but basically the ultrasound it into obliteration and you pee it out. That was fun too,

I didn’t want to see the therapist anymore as soon as I got control of my panic attacks. So I stopped, Mistake. But as life goes we all choose our own path,

Fast forward to 2013 I was back to work with Comcast in the cable store selling products. I liked the job but it was not enough money to get us out of the trailer park and that was my fucking goal. I applied for a position in Livermore which was way aways from where we lived. I got the job with a really decent salary, I was being “Make it happen” Annie. We found a house right away and moved promising myself I would never live in a trailer again.

2017 I was miserable every day and every night, drinking came back, and I felt soulless. I wanted to move back to Monterey which is where we had lived in the trailer “House”. So I suffered and suffered and drank and drank until I finally made the decision to move back. And we did into a house we could scarcely afford but I got my soul back, Just a little, I took a huge pay cut when we moved.

I was still drinking. Much to Todds chagrin. But he had no choice in the matter, At this point everyone should be giving Todd props for living with a mentally ill alcoholic.

2017: I was working with my medical Doctor in regards ti my mental illness , She prescribed a medication that changed my life. For the worst, It had been years since I had a panic attack, I was driving home from San Jose and there it came. It was a waterfall and I could in no way control. I had to pull over and call an ambulance since I had a risk of Deep Vein Thrombosis. I was unable to catch my breath. To my embarrassment it was a panic attack but one that I had not experienced since 1997 when I was all strung out.

That was it. I was paralyzed. I started seeing my Therapist again, got in with a Psychiatrist, got into a program for seriously mentally ill. I was done with working outside the home. My functionality stopped. I was no longer Survivor Annie. I lost my shit and I lost it good. It was then I was finally truly diagnosed with panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, Major Depression disorder, and complex PTSD. My entire world crashed, I lost my grip. I was hearing voices and ended up in the wacky house for a week and my thoughts off suicide get out of hand a lot. Even with the myriad of medication they have me on, it’s hard to stay stable. So I keep my appointments with my Therapist and my Psychiatrist without fail.

This was a lot for a blog. I left out some very unique experiences that I’ve had along the way, My conclusion is this, I’ve always been Survival Annie. This is how I’ve ruled my life, as if my very life depended on everything I did, Exhausting. I’m still in survival mode. It makes it hard for Todd or my Therapist to get through to me I think. I feel bad about that, but until I feel safe which may be never, I will continue in survival mode.

So that’s it in a nutshell. I’m sorry about all the verbal vomit. I promise it will get more interesting from here.