Mental health talk // My dachshunds saved my life 🐶

** Warning; this post will contain mention of suicidal thoughts. Though nothing graphic nor any actual “attempts” information. Please proceed with caution **

Good morning,

Something a bit un-usual for me today, I’ve just wanted to share something a little more personal and talk more about it — just because I can. Don’t worry though, I’m in a way better state of mind that i’ve ever been since then; But it’s just to show how anything can be a reason good enough if it’s allowing you to keep going forward.

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I got baby Kafei from a breeder in May 2014, I remember it distinctly because I was in my internship in my second year of my Accounting Diploma. I actually really loved the workplace who had took me, with the help of my teacher, but sadly they couldn’t keep me as they had just hired someone.

Mom was still incredibly sick, having multiple problems happening with her dialysis and basically her body refusing to cooperate – and so I decited to take the tests to see if I would’ve been a match to give her one of my own kidneys. I was deadset on the idea that I was the one who was gonna save her live, giving her that part of me (and my DNA) to allow her more years with us as a family …

It crushed me that one day I was in College before the internship started where I got a call of the lady telling me her blood had a reaction to mine -her own DAUGHTER!- so I wasn’t a match. This was a turn back to square one of not only taking care of her (because it was my job and not dad’s for whatever reason), but also remaining unable to do anything to save her or to be sure that i’ll have her with me for more years to come .. just watching her health going downhill without any means to stop it, hearing people mostly point out she “could’ve been so sick as she was always smiling” and “atleast it’s not cancer”. The fact remained the same, I was losing my mother gradually.

 

That year sure was hard; but I managed to float in it somehow, aced all my courses and gotten my diploma. In June of 2014 I had my first job ever, in my accounting field, for a construction company… and that’s when things started to really go south.

Like most things afterward, I was just shoved there to learn whatever on my own without nobody to help me; which was BAD as I had no idea what in hell was happening. Keep in mind I had JUST gotten out of college; so I had the theoric part, but not “real life” background to it. 95% of my time was alone in a big office area where I could hear banging in the wall from the neighbor’s — because they let me in, I pushed WAY further of my limit, to the point where just crossing the door’s thresold would have me in tears in the mornings. Then I’d calm down and tell myself it wasn’t so bad and keep pushing, which led me to cry multiple times a day.

December 2019 was when I snapped and realized I couldn’t do that anymore; I couldn’t give my boss the 2weeks notice that is “prefered”.. and this is where my first panic attack took place – he denied having said I could go and told be I was forced to continue because A) I didn’t gave him to weeks, and B) they didn’t had the paperwork for my record of employement yet. I hung up the phone unable to speak and immidiately started bawling. Just un-stoppable crying and hyperventilating so much that I was dizzy; luckily I had someone with me there that day, as I was showing her what I did (though I truly didn’t knew what I was even doing xd) and first thing I said was «That’s a panic atttack, right?» to which she said yes. Later, my therapist asked me how I could tell that’s what it was – because usually people think they’re dying or having a heart attack .. and I don’t know, I just KNEW it was.

 

It took me 9 months of weekly therapy (1/2 sessions per week – paid by my dad’s workplace at that point) before I could have a job again. It was so bad that I was absolutely PANICKED at night, thinking my boss was gonna show up at my house to grab me and force me to go work – which of course never happened, but still. Baby Kafei was around 9months of age at this point.. and I grabbed onto him like a life jacket. I had been diagnosed with intermediaire/almost crossing into severe Anxiety AND Depression.

I couldn’t leave the house without my dog, or feeling really badly when I did – in fear that something would happen to him once I’d leave him, and I was walking around the house with him in my arms at all time. Meanwhile, mom’s health was still having complications; to which I would’ve wanted to be stronger for her, and not show her how bad thing was? I also kept talking to my therapist how bad I was both as a child and as Kafei’s mother because I wasn’t doing X, Y & Z. Not talking about how guilty I felt about sleeping and gaming all day, not able to go or even find a workplace (took me several months aswell, in which my dad was pushing me to find one ASAP – that didn’t helped my feeling of being a disgrace to my family and extremely lazy.)

 

2015 came, In April mom received a Kidney and all her health complications evaporated. They never seen that before- usually people receiving an organ from a dead body still need dialysis for a while before it kicks in; she didn’t. Doctors were saying how it was just like they removed her own and placed it back; ZERO problems and working full force like it was her own all along. I also had gotten Sheik from the same breeder as her brother (so they have the same parents, but different littler) and started being on anti-depression meds.

That year also meant we had to euthanized both mom’s 10years old poodle (he had been bitten by a berneese mountain dog in the neck, which leaved him in pain and aggressive), aswell as my 10+ years old kitty (she had a chunk of ear off, constant blood scab that Kafei would remove and she’d bleed everywhere – which was bad for mother’s health and make her new kidney in danger).

As I was obsessing over Kafei so much, Sheik’s arrival troubled me a bit as it kind of “leveled” things up and I wasn’t as much about him anymore.. which gave me a real scared that I didn’t loved him anymore; when really… it went back to normal instead of being obsessive and taking him as a life jacket.

 

I can’t say that I remember all the details after that point. I continued with my therapist until I had ran out of the 12 (originally 8) sessions that my dad’s workplace was paying for, and I  was still un-employed, so I couldn’t pay for them myself (was like, $180 a session of 30mins); got several wierder anxiety-induced physical problems, and it was still spiraling downward until we found an anti-depression pill that worked well on me, aswell as fixing my contraception pill  — my body need both to function; when my contraception pill go near the sugar-filled ones I see my mental health going downhill a little: more emotional, getting panics out of nowhere, migraines, etc.

My godmother came to my rescue and spent some time with me as she got alarmed by knowing what I was going through. There was only ONE TIME where I got my mother really scared.. I was working at the bakery with a boss that kept yelling at us and stuff because she was dealing with her mother’s cancer (never should’ve been upgraded to manager from supervisor, but she didn’t had a choice as the manager left in sick leave – that didn’t made her behavior right, but anyway). My dad was gone for the week so we were only her and I; I woke up that morning to go to work … and I just broke. Told my mother I didn’t wanted to go, she said I should because money- so I went to get dressed and started uncontrollably crying. It was the first time my mother had seen it that bad, as usually my panic remain un-seenable as i can only feel it. Sure, you can see it in my eyes but no excessive crying; and if I did, it was in the middle of the night.

 

There was many times where i thought about leaving this world, or thinking why I survived my three near-death experience thus far (at birth, suffocate on vomit and drown). I couldn’t save my mom, friends were leaving, nobody loved me in a “boyfriend” way, all the workplaces I got had shitty bosses who made me feel even worst but like I was stuck there because I do needed the money..

What kept me here? My dachshunds. In my sick brain, my mother had my father, my bestfriend had her half-sister at the time.. my ill brain was making me feel and think I could’ve been easily replaced. but to them? I was their mom; and although I had faith that my own mother would’ve had took great care of them (though it would’ve been too costy for her), she wasn’t me !! They also pushed me to never harm my body either, because I couldn’t bare to imagine them finding my body and not understanding. Our three souls belong together and should stay together.

for some people, «It’s just a dog»; for people like me, they are family. They can save lives. Even being asleep in a complete different room than the one I was in, if I started silently crying or panicking, one of the two would come running to comfort me.

 

No reason is too silly to live another day. And another, and another .. whatever it might be: your dogs, like me, music, an artist in particular.. anything works! And please get help. I look back onto thoses years and I can’t believe I felt so low, compared to how great I am now – it’s a long journey for sure, but it’s not an impossible one.