Do I dare...?

Another year begins and I wonder should I dare to get my hopes up? Last year I was so sure of myself. I just graduated and I was getting ready to go to graduate school. I was thrilled at the prospects of the future…and then one of the worst years I have ever had happened. I’ve always said I don’t half ass anything, and I guess that goes for literally everything. So, it should come as no surprise that if I was gonna have the year from hell, I was gonna do it up big…”Miranda Style,” if you will.

I started out the year with a bang: Mental Breakdown #1. Hallucination and delusion and mood disturbances to boot. Then March happened: Mental Breakdown #2. Hallucinations, delusions and mood disturbances all over again. In April I was accepted into graduate school and I guess I had the nerve to think that things were going to turn around. Then the financial aid department gave me hell. I didn’t think things would ever get straight and when they finally did, I moved out of my parent’s house. Again, I had the nerve to think that things were going uphill finally. Then entire first part of that year I had started gaining weight back. I think it started as a medication side effect and then turned into emotional eating. The week after I moved into my first place I fell over my foot drop on the way to my NEW JOB! I was so excited about the job. I felt like I was finally being an adult in a real way. I was living on my own, I was going to graduate school and I was working a pretty sweet job…all at once…like a normal adult my age would.

After I fell I kinda just gave up on the weight loss thing. I got depressed and didn’t make any efforts to work out and at the end of August I had a pretty epic manic episode. It didn’t put me into the hospital, thank God, but my clinicians did talk about it.

At the end of August, I started feeling yucky all the time. And then one day, in the beginning of September, a few hours before work, I felt really horrible. So, I called into work and told them I was going to the doctor. I went to the urgent care and basically whimpered in the waiting room until they called my name. When they took my vitals they told me I needed to go to the emergency room because my oxygen levels were low. Long story short: pneumonia. They loaded me up on meds and sent me home.

I never really got better. Somewhere in the middle of all of this I adopted Howie. He was a bright light in the middle of a storm for me. I’m pretty sure I owe that dog my life. I love him so much and miss him so much right now.

A few weeks after the ER visit with pneumonia, a coughing fit threw my back out. That was horrible. I ended up back in the ER and again they loaded me up on drugs and sent me on my way.

About mid-September I got kicked out of school. Now, I will be the first to tell you, I’m not normal by any stretch of the imagination. And I know that there were approximately three times were I behaved abnormally in class. The school requested a note from my physician telling them if she thought I was capable of participating in an advanced degree, higher level education program…and my doctor told them I was. But a few days after they received the letter, they called me and told me they felt I needed to address some “concerns,” before I could continue. I was pissed to say the least. I mean a doctor…with a MEDICAL degree just told you I could do it. What are your qualifications? I was wronged and I know it. They did give me the option of returning, but I don’t know why I ever would. The teachers were horrible to me in the first place and then the administration gave no consideration to an ACTUAL DOCTOR’S point of view. So, why exactly would I want an education from underhanded, backstabbing, insecure morons in the first place? (I’m still a little pissed if you can’t tell…)

Well, this wasn’t the end of my horrible year. A week after the school gave me the boot, work called and said they were releasing me from the project due to performance…which is a fancy way of saying I was fired. I had never been fired from a position before. I’ve had unfortunate circumstances prevent me from returning to jobs before, but I had never been fired. Now, let me explain to you how this happened. You see, the job was telephone interviewing. They monitor your interviews per calls made and this is how a projects stats are generated. You see their problem with me was that I was making a lot of calls, but I was completing interviews. This kind of annoyed me because I actually had quite a few partially completed interviews, where the individual had to leave…and I couldn’t blame the person…it was a freaking 30 minute interview and there was absolutely no benefit for their participation. So, I was having bad luck with interviews…I had missed work from having pneumonia and there was this one incident involving a joking note that was accidently left behind that no one but me and my therapist found funny. (I got bored and wrote about deciding to go insane and would someone please feed my pet monkey while I’m on the crazy express lane...I thought it was funny, but work ended up making me get evaluated…oops.) So, yeah…I lost my job.

So, then I had no source of income and bills started gathering up. I sold a bunch of stuff on eBay and managed to make rent and everything for the month of October, but I never could find a job…so I had to move back in with mom and dad at the beginning of November.

I was devastated. And honestly, I still am at times. I lost everything I had going for me….even my dog. My parents are awesome and I love them, but I don’t think no one wants to be in their late twenties and still having to live off their parents. It sucks. I hate the way I feel pretty consistently. I feel so helpless. My physical health has deteriorated and I can’t really do much by myself. I don’t get out often because of my health and because I have no income. Sometimes I feel like everything I do is a burden to my family. I hate that I have miles worth of medical expenses and no way to help take care of them myself.

In December I started seeing a weight loss doctor to try and start a new healthier lifestyle. As I drove home I thought to myself…I’m gonna turn this all around. I’m gonna lose the weigh, I’m gonna recover from this stuff…I’m gonna fight hard to overcome all the adversity in my life. As I thought these things a lady slammed into the back of my car going at least 70 mph. My car was propelled into a guardrail, it bounced off, spun around, knocked the railing again and stopped on the side of the road facing traffic. My knees have been even more horrible since the accident. They were already bad, but the good one tends to hurt now too because of how hard it hit the gear shaft.

So, I sit here about two weeks into the New Year and I wonder…do I dare have hopes? Do I dare to dream? Do I dare plan? Vocational rehab is coming up in February…do I dare hope that they will help me find a good job…one that I can work and take care of myself and feel like…well, an adult. Do I dare dream of success? Do I dare to dream of a Master’s degree in Social Work? Do I dare to dream of being a licensed therapist? Do I dare to dream of writing a book one day? Do I dare to dream of living? Of living a life of peace, of success, of service to others…a life where I’m not constantly overwhelmed by a personal crisis, where I can reach out and help others. Do I dare to dream of health? Both mental, physical and spiritual? Do I dare? Because in my life daring to dream of these things has never really panned out…in fact it seems that every move I make forward is met with a thousand slaps in the face and a mile’s worth of getting throw backwards. And I can’t help but wonder if maybe I’m on the wrong path…if maybe the things I dream of doing one day are not what God wants for me. But when I pray…when I talk to God about the future…it feels like he’s saying: “You’ll get there. I know you long to minister to others and you will get there. Just keep going…just trust me…just have faith in me…let me pave the way…let me mold you and shape you…just hang in there…we’re gonna get there…I promise.

And I hold desperately to His promises. I’m that same 9 year old that heard Him say “I’m real, and I love you.” I’m that same 12 year old that heard Him say: “I’m gonna use you in a mighty way one day…you’re gonna touch the lives of many through My Spirit in you.”

So even though I sit here wondering if I dare to hope and dream of a bright future, I already know that answer is “Yes, I do dare.” So get ready 2015…because yes, I dare…

Love, Randi