Man, I'm having a helluva time now. For the unaware, my best friend died in his sleep in April, Hodgkin's, lung cancer, that whole thing. Then a month later, the guy who would be my best remaining friend walked into Afton state park and offed himself, there's a thread about that. Then I had to make the choice to put my German shepherd of 13 years down a month ago, and this is not going great. I feel like a fucking failure.
Backstory on the dog - my divorce was rough. Right before shit blew up with my ex wife, my dog was playing and tore her ACL. I didn't know that at the time, high energy high drive dogs tend to limp from time to time when they play too hard, then they're good a day or 3 later, nbd. Well, she wasn't, and it was pretty obvious that something needed to be done, but before I could do that, I was forcibly removed from my house and served with an OFP because my ex felt scared and that's literally all it takes to ruin your fucking life. She stopped working, stopped contributing to the bills, and I was unable to go home for 5 months and despite making 40% of the household income, was now responsible for 100% of the household bills and the legal fees to deal with the OFP and the divorce. I worked 900 hours of overtime that year, and another 100 hours of double time to keep my house, get my kids back and stabilize my fucking life again after that absolute disaster. After I was finally able to get back to my dog, I was faced with the unfortunate fact that when your dog tears their ACL, they need it fixed right away or it is unrepairable due to scar tissue build up. Zel was now permanently crippled because she was in the care of a useless sack of shit who didnt even turn on the fucking stove for 5 months for the kids while I was gone.
The dog eventually developed severe arthritis in her hips as a result of her gait being fucked up due to dragging her leg, which lead to her falling trying to get up the stairs, which lead to a lot of abdominal wall problems and issues controlling her bladder and bowels, and requiring massive amounts of pain medication to even function throughout a day. I was left with little to no choice when faced with the prospect of her having to endure another winter while being largely unable to walk and handle her own faculties. Basically, the whole chain of events stems from one singular incident and I wasn't able to take care of it. The dog never let me down, and I fucking failed her.
Now, I know I wasn't legally allowed to be home. I know I wasn't legally allowed to do anything, and I know I was literally working every hour work would let me in order to pay the bills and keep a roof over the kid's head, but I am having a really hard time living with this reality. The reality is, had I not taken a stand and told that cunt her behavior was unacceptable and needed to change, that argument wouldn't have happened, the cops wouldn't have come thru the front door and I wouldn't have been away from my dog for 5 months. I failed Zelda, I failed Andrew because I didn't even think he was depressed, and I failed Johnny because I knew he wasnt looking good and I didn't ask more questions before he passed. Maybe this is just part of the grief process. Maybe this is the shit you go thru, but this is a gigantic fucking pile of grief all stacked up, and it fucking sucks. It's really hard to close my eyes and sleep at night (as I type this, I have to be up in 5 hours, and last night was less).
Things were getting better after the dog for awhile. But now things seem to be snowballing back up and everything has just come crashing down all at once. I don't really have the drive to do much anymore. I've got projects, but I should probably not be using power tools when my head isn't in the game. Seems like a recipe for missing fingers. I load up video games and just sit there staring at it because I can't be bothered to give enough of a shit to play them. I just end up scrolling thru YouTube to waste time until it's time to be responsible again. This fucking blows.
