Meg’s story!
Hello everyone! I’m excited to get to know you ladies. When starting My Pink Box Lu and I had a vision to bring women together, to share our stories and to hopefully help you not feel so alone during life’s challenges. So here we are! We want to keep things real over here, so I’ve decided to share my story with you all.
I’m going to get real personal here in a couple blog posts. I’ve always said through all of my trials that if I could help even just one person to pull themselves out of anxiety, depression or whatever they’re feeling it would help make going through all of this (more) worth it. I say that because I really do see the value in my trials after the fact, but man when I’m in them it isn’t so easy. Going through my last experience with anxiety, depression and OCD I expressed that I need to do something to help women. I just didn’t know what that was or how to do it. One evening while sitting in Lu’s car we got to talking about our desire to do just that. How could we do what we love while also bringing women together? Well ladies, here we are. We got to work, and a lot of it! I feel the need to share my story for others in hopes that you guys will know that I too have been through trials and have had to claw my way out of them. I need to be able to connect with people and be authentic. It’s always helped me to not feel so alone. How many times in life have you found yourself staring in the mirror wondering who that person is?! Well…its happened to me a handful of times and i’m about to tell you why.
Writing this I’m feeling like what and how much do I share? Am I sharing too much? I don’t know you guys?! I’m a pretty open book about my story but it does involve other people, so I hope I can do this in the best way possible while also conveying what I need to. Also, side note…I’m sitting here typing on the computer with long nails and it is just about the most annoying thing, I don’t know how you women with long nails do it haha! So I’m going to cut these babies before I continue. Okay, done! Are you ready? Here we go…
Anxiety and depression started for me at a young age. My parents divorced at age seven which I’m sure was the start of the struggle to come. I was a pretty happy kid though, all things considered. After some time my mom moved my sister and I to another town. I tried my best to meet new friends and adapt but at age twelve, living with my mom wasn’t working out. My mom was about to be married for the third time by this point and had a lot going on. After a bit I decided to move in with my dad and his wife. I remember feeling pretty lonely and unwelcome, with many nights of crying myself to sleep. I began to settle in but still always had a looming feeling of being an outsider in my home. My dad and his new wife had four children who I loved being around, truly. I feel like they were good for my soul during that time of my life. I just wanted to feel accepted and wanted but never could quite get there at my dads. My step mom and I’s relationship has always been a rough one. Even to this day. I’ll spare the details.
One evening tensions were high and I decided I’d go back to live with my mom. A few days after living at my moms house I was abruptly sent to live with my aunt and uncle in Wyoming, while my mom tried to figure some things out in her own life. I was in shock! Why? I was a good kid. I wasn’t into things I shouldn’t have been. I got good grades, stayed out of trouble. It was mind baffling. While being there I experienced a whole new level of depression and anxiety that I had never felt before. I was living in their unfinished basement while working at their local gas station. Yes, a sixteen year old working by herself at a gas station. I lost about 15 pounds during this time period. (which was not good considering I am a small and petite person). My life felt so dark. I knew I needed out. I made some phone calls to family back home telling them I needed to come home. During this time my uncle caught on to me trying to get out of there and started taping my phone calls. Luckily, I figured out what was going on and began driving to the nearest payphone in town, which was just a few miles away from where I lived. I really did feel like I was in some movie, trying to escape.
One Sunday my dad drove into town and picked me up outside the church while myself and everyone else were there. We drove to my aunt and uncles house to get my things and as we pulled up to the house my aunts car was there. She had come home from church. Let’s just say things got really intense at that moment, I remember my skinny 85 pound body running as fast as I could to gather my things and throwing them into the car. We took off and decided to take the backroads, Once we made it to the point where the backroad met the main road there were cops waiting for us, My uncle had called the cops! This specific town in Wyoming is very small, everyone knows everyone. Luckily, my dad had custody of me and showed the officers the paperwork. Thank heavens, because if it hadn’t been for that, that wouldn’t have turned out in my favor.
I finally arrived back home. I remember looking at myself in the mirror wondering who this physically ill and mentally drained person was. It took me some time but I immediately felt so much better being out of the circumstances I was in.
There’s quite a bit of detail I left out about this stage of my life because a lot of it had to do with other people in my life. With me being a minor, the majority of my life was determined by the adults around me. I’m not sure they’d appreciate me airing all the dirty laundry, so I wont. I will add though, that I was a pretty good kid. I tried my best to do what was right and follow the rules around me.
Fast forward a few more years where I went through another life altering time. I was graduating high school and needed to find a place to live and figure my life out. I was expected to move out, and take on all financial responsibilities as soon as I graduated. After moving out for a few months Lu and I decided to move to Hawaii. What a fun time of life we were in, I learned a lot about myself and am grateful for the experience and confidence it gave me to support myself. After some time Lu and I both felt like it was time to leave Hawaii and to come back to Utah, which left me trying to figure out what to do with my life again. I moved in with my brother and his family until I came up with my next plan. During this time I wasn’t feeling like myself, I was feeling pretty depressed and lonely. I wasn’t welcome at my dads house for reasons unknown to me and I also didn’t want to move back to Hawaii where my mom was. The opportunity arose to move out with my cousin so we packed up and left town. While living there I worked one full-time and one part-time job,. I kept busy! Things were going pretty well until my cousin decided to move back home. There I was left again to figure out what the heck I was going to do. I moved back to the original apartment I started out in and started dating my husband who I met through my cousin. At first, I wasn’t having it. I wasn’t feeling like myself. Just ask my husband haha! He always says I looked ticked off the first time he saw me, but truth be told I was in a deep depression.
After a couple of weeks my cousin and I went on a double date. Me with my husband, and he with my husbands sister. After that date we started dating and the rest is history! haha jk, not even close! (I wish!) Throughout the months that we dated I wasn’t feeling well. I was constantly anxious and felt slightly depressed. But why? Why was I struggling so bad? I went searching. I searched the internet high and low for any possible solution to end this. Nothing was helping. Everything started scaring me, the news, the thought of getting married and having our marriage end in divorce. I kept having the thought “what if Im going crazy? Wait, was I already crazy? Is this where people end up loosing their minds and have to be put in a mental hospital for the rest of their lives?! This thought drove me into more anxiety and fear. My husband and I started talking marriage and I lost it. I shut down and ran. We had a good talk and decided to end things until I could figure out what I wanted. That next evening I went to a bon fire and he was there with a girl he had just met. I was so sick about it. I went home that evening and ended up calling him at 3am to talk. Side note: I only had an orange to eat that day. I was sick to my stomach and ran to the bathroom to throw it up. I’m not sure why I chose the bath tub but I did. The bath tub was then clogged and I didn’t have the energy to clean it. Gross, I know! I can’t remember how long it sat there. Yikes! #whatamess
We ended up getting back together the next day. and I opened up to him about how I was feeling. I decided that I probably shouldn’t live alone so I called my dad and asked if I could move in for a bit. This also took a lot of guts because prior to this I wasn’t welcome. He told me he’d have to ask his wife. They agreed and I moved back in.
During one of my nightly searches trying to find anything that could help me, I came across a program. It was around $300 dollars, I remember thinking that was so expensive and I wasn’t sure how I was going to afford it but I was desperate. The next day my dad came up to me and said ” hey, I saw this program that came up on the TV for anxiety and depression. You should try it”. I told him that I had just purchased it. That’s a good sign right?! Maybe this program was really going to help me! While waiting for it to come I met with a doctor who prescribed me two prescriptions. I was so nervous to take them but again, was willing to try anything. I took the first medication that night to help me sleep. I finally slept a stretch of 6 hours and it felt amazing. Prior to this I had gone weeks with only an hour here and there of unrested sleep. I was so worn out and tired but my body was in such a panic, that it couldn’t fall asleep. The next day when I felt anxious I was told to take my other prescription. So I did. I called a counselor and told her how bad I was struggling. She told me that I would probably deal with this the rest of my life. WHAT?! The thought of dealing with that the rest of my life was terrifying. We scheduled an appointment that day. I have no idea how I got there, no idea what the session was about or how I got home. After that I was so scared to take the xanax again that I flushed the whole bottle down the toilet.
To be continued...