Lost

     I have never wanted my blog to be a place of negativity, and I've tried hard to always put good in with the bad when I do a post where I've been having a hard week. I hope you can bare with me as I do this post.  I have a lot of emotions I need to try to process, and I feel like writing them out here, where I know it's public, will help me be more rational and think more in depth about things than it would if I was just writing to myself.
     Nearly two weeks ago, I lost my dog. She was very old, and suffering a lot. It finally got to the point where things all climaxed, and she was suffering so much  that I made the decision, with the agreement of my family, to get her euthanized. I held her in my arms that night as she was put down. She had been my best friend, had loved me unconditionally, and now she had just left the world.


She's beautiful, isn't she?



 Originally I was ok. I cried a lot, and was definitely sad she was gone, but I knew she was in a better place, I knew I'd be able to see her again, and that she still loved me. It has been more recent that it has been harder on me.
      This week I hit some serious emotional lows. I even went so far as to consider taking my life, and honestly wanting to. I reached the point where I couldn't really see meaning anymore. I mean, here I am 19, not in school or on a mission. Not knowing if I'll ever go on a mission, and experiencing huge conflict as a result. Knowing I need to start college, but absolutely terrified and not sure why. Questioning what it is I even want to do with my future.... For years of my life I had decided that I was going to be a veterinarian, but it has been this past year that I've been unsure, and I'm not set on a vet anymore. Now I just don't know.
     I've been having an extremely hard time with relationships recently. I've had so many people come into my life saying they want to be part of my life, telling me they want to be my friend, that they want to love me and be loved by me, but I just feel completely numb, and yet inadequate. I feel stretched thin, I feel lost... I want people in my life too. At least, part of me does. The other part of me looks at it as painful, stressful, draining, and ultimately conditional. Conditional.... I think that's one of the biggest issues for me right now.
     One thing about my relationship with my dog was that it was unconditional. No matter how hard life got, no matter what stupid things I did, my dog was always there for me, she never hated me. She accepted me for who I am, and never put expectations on me to be perfect. She loved me.... And when I look at my human relationships, they just seem so conditional, but maybe that's what could make them potentially more worth-while. Tonight I got into a huge conflict with my best friend over something so stupid, but to me, it was so real and so painful. It made me realize how easy it is for me to destroy things because they're conditional.... It's not like the comfort I found in the unconditional relationship I had with my dog.
     Then I just feel like ultimately I'm setting myself up to fail in relationships. It's so hard for me, almost impossible, to have a real relationship with someone I don't feel connected to. I can play the part in superficial relationships, but I can only handle it for so long before I feel like I'm just lying to them and myself. Then there's the corresponding issue of it being so hard for me and so rare for me to find anyone I truly feel connected to, and together with failing in the relationships I don't feel connected in, it just multiplies the issue exponentially. Then when I do find someone I feel connected to, I am so much more likely to cause them pain.
     When I'm hurting or depressed, I tend to mirror emotionally what a cornered animal would do. When an animal is cornered or feels threatened and they can't escape, their first instinct is to lash out at whatever is closest to them. Maybe the thing closest to the animal is actually what's trying to help it, but to the animal in that moment, it becomes a target. I've noticed that in my life. I'm not talking about the closest thing to me meaning physically, but the closest ones to me emotionally.
     If I feel pain, or I feel threatened, even in the threat/pain is far away from me, I don't always run to it to attack it, I often let it out on those I care most about, the ones closest to me, and it hurts me and them.  I just feel like I have so many misplaced emotions, and when I don't know where to place them rather than doing the logical thing and working through them without causing unnecessary conflict, I take it out on those closest to me, and I think that is the quality I hate most about myself. I wish I didn't hurt those I love, I wish I knew how to better handle the things in my life, and sometimes I think I do; but when it comes down to the heat of the moment, like an animal I just lash out.
     Maybe I'm over-exaggerating reality. I might be, but to me this is what it feels like.
     Then there's the issue I'm having with self-worth. I honestly feel inadequate in nearly everything I do. I feel like I'm never good enough, and that while I may have occasional successes, that ultimately the bad will out-weigh the good. I haven't felt God in my life recently. I've been resentful and angry because inside, I just hurt. I'm hurt and I'm lost and I don't know if I'll ever be found, and to me that's a terrifying thought.
     While I've only been diagnosed with depression and anxiety, sometimes I honestly feel like there's something else wrong inside my head. I know it's not any form of autism, aspergers, bipolar, or anything like that, I just feel like there's something... Maybe it's not even something specific that can be diagnosed, I don't know. I just don't feel like depression and anxiety can really account for everything I'm feeling, and the struggles I'm having in relationships and spirituality. It just doesn't make sense...
     Tonight, when I felt so angry, so resentful, I said something I now regret. I was so hurt, I felt so cornered, stuck, and lost. My dog passed not long ago, emotionally I've been breaking, spiritually I've been withdrawn, and I had just had a big conflict with my best friend, the one I still felt truly loved around. I broke. Through tears of anger and sadness, I expressed anger and resentment to God. Anger and resentment for what He "did" to me. For the trials placed in my life. I denied that He loved me. I was angry for the trials He gave me, angry for the trials He gave those I love, and angry for the pain I was feeling. How? How could this happen to me? Why is it that everything I love ultimately gets taken away from me? Maybe this is what I needed, to be broken, finally broken and hopeless.
     As I'm trying to find my way back, I still feel like parts of me are getting lost along the way. I've been told before that God gives us trials to help us grow, and while part of me knows logically that it must be true, because I've experienced growth due to trials, part of me still questions and isn't willing to believe. I've been told over and over that God loves me, truly and completely, more than any human on this earth at this time could, but I guess I'm still trying to believe that too. There was a time when I did believe that, even a time when I had an honest testimony about that, but I think this is part of me getting lost these past couple weeks, and it's going to take time to find myself again.
     My intention of doing this post was not for an explosion of people worrying about me. I don't want people worrying about me, that's the opposite of why I'm doing this post. This post is for me, so that I can process my emotions, and look back on it to keep my goals in mind and look at where I want to be by seeing where I was. I'm out of the valley and starting to climb the hill. While I'm still in the dark, and still hurting, I'm on my way up. It's going to be a long and hard process, probably one of the hardest things I've ever done, even exceeding my time in inpatient treatment, but it's something I want to do, something I need to do. I can't give up, I have a life to live, and a testimony to find. I may have to start at square one, but I at least need to start.
     I need to find God again, I need to get my emotions figured out. I need to learn to have relationships, and how to keep people in my life. I need to learn and know that God loves me, I need to get my testimony back. I have so much work to do, but the important thing is that I start, no matter where I'm starting from.