I suppose honesty time is well overdue in this quarter of my life. There’s a lot to sort out and put in this place or that, but writing it all out in the mishmash that I seem to specialize in certainly helps me feel less burdened, if nothing else. Apologies for the circles everyone’s about to go in.

A tremendous amount of good has been happening recently, let’s start there. I’ll try to end there, too, so I can feel less bleak. I up and moved across the country to live with my amazing boyfriend. He came down to keep me company on the drive out from California to New York. The time leading up to the drive was stressful, of course. When is getting ready for a cross country move NOT stressful? But the drive itself was uneventful and we saw some beautiful country, especially in Utah and Colorado. Tomorrow I’ll have lived here a week. It seems rather surreal after a year and some of long distance and too-short visits and companionship available only by phone, but it’s wonderful.  Gotta remember the good and acknowledge and be grateful for it!

The not so good is all internal. If I trace the roots of every issue I’m having currently, it revolves around the mauling I got via pit bull in March. With the help of therapy and my own awareness, I’m trying to knock the issues out. They are rather persistent, though.

The largest (heh) issue I currently face is how completely unhappy I am with the way I look. I have totally backslid in my progress toward healthy living and regained almost every pound I lost. A lot of that came after the attack but I can’t pretend all of it did. My biggest issue is sugar, my quickest trigger is chocolate. I tried the moderate approach, with no luck. I tried the “just have some really really dark chocolate” approach, and again I just tumbled down the chocolate hill. It seems I can have sugary drinks like lemonade with little issue, but put any amount of chocolate in front of me and down that hill I slide on a jet powered sled. It was especially bad after the attack, of course. My activity completely ceased while I was recovering, but my appetite never did. And with consolation from well wishers and wonderful friends came candy, which I happily and readily ate. “I can have this,” I thought to myself as I shoveled chocolate and candy into my waiting maw, lying in bed and binge watching The People vs OJ Simpson to distract from my searing arm pain. “I’ve been through trauma. I can have this at least.”  The food became what food can easily become, an emotional crutch. I would undo my bandages in the shower, see my flesh stitched up, raw and hurting, cry, and then run for the Reese’s.  I used it to soothe myself and the sugar cravings took hold of that ledge and did not let go.

I eventually became well enough to go out and exercise again. Another hurdle awaited me there. Every time I stepped outside, I was hyper aware of the dogs in my neighborhood. The first few days after the attack it was so bad I would sit in the car, paralyzed with fear. That eventually went away, but it seemed to cling to me when I tried to go out for a simple walk. I’d hear a dog bark and I would be absolutely terrified. I’d see someone walking toward me with a leashed dog and I would freeze in my tracks. Becoming aware of just how many of my neighbors owned pitbulls and bully breeds (and, incidentally, shoddy fences) made me never want to leave the house again. Walking became a horrifying, stressful burden. I’d come home after a ten minute walk and cry to relieve the pressure I’d found myself under on the walk.  In comparison, I used to go for an hour or two sometimes, enjoying every minute of it. I’d be aware that something could happen, but I wasn’t obsessed with the idea, it didn’t flood my brain and sound in it repeatedly like a Klaxon horn. Once on a walk, we got rushed by a loose dog in front of a garage and I nearly had a breakdown, though the dog was smallish. But my own dog needed walking, so I’d force myself to go, though oftentimes I’d miss a week or two because it was just too much.  This inactivity coupled with my loss of job activity compounded by my sugar intake just kept piling up.

So here we are now. I’ve always been deeply unhappy with the way I look and always aware I will never be beautiful, but at least before I was making progress toward being healthy. Now that I have backslid so much, I feel doubly ugly, and like I’ve failed myself. Every day is still a struggle, and I try my best to work through it. In my new neighborhood, it’s very quiet and there are lots of other folks walking. I’ve upped my walk time to half an hour, which is something I’m going to constantly try to keep upping. I definitely feel better post exercising, which is a nice change from, you know, crying. I’m trying again to cut out chocolate and sugar completely (not militant about the sugar, just about the chocolate).  I want to work back up to the healthy behaviors I was practicing before and maybe, just maybe I can start to feel better about myself.

Along with the physical unhappiness, I’ve been experiencing a lot of latent trauma effects. I’m fearful of large, strange dogs. Especially pit bulls and bully breeds (which I hesitate to admit to anyone for fear of a rush of “MY pit would never” coupled with pictures of people’s pitbulls) but most large dogs give me pause nowadays. I hate feeling this way, it doesn’t feel like who I am. I don’t like being afraid of any animals, much less dogs but that’s my reality now. I feel like it will definitely damage my livelihood in the future, as animal care is what I have always done, and a lot of people insist on owning pits and insist their pits are harmless and good. That’s a whole other post for a whole other day, though. Suffice to say, I don’t feel like myself and I don’t like being this afraid. Previously, I was always cautious but now I am genuinely and actively afraid for my life and my dog’s life on a day to day basis. In my mind I just see that dog busting out of his kennel and rushing me again, over and over, much as I try to purge it from my memory. My traitorous imagination sometimes likes to add gleeful touches to this in my nightmares, like that the dog kills my dog before coming after me, or that it’s in my house, or that I’m working at the shelter again and the director has announced that they’re adopting the dog out because the save rate statistic is just too good. These memories and nightmares will always be there with me, and I guess that’s my reality now, too.

Overall, though, I have improved some in the mental arena. It doesn’t feel fast enough, or enough improvement, but it’s a start. I feel clear-headed enough to tackle the other things in my life making me unhappy, and that’s something, at least. Perhaps I will have a more uplifting entry another time. At least I can end this one saying that for now, I am looking forward and doing my best to crawl out of the sugar-drenched, inactive hell I’ve been living in and head toward the light.