The Power of the Pooch

I’d pretty much established my role in life and as a nurse it was so fitting; I was a caring person, I helped people and if I was doing it right, everyone around me would be fine, no problems, no suffering, all would be good. 

I was young, I was with a great guy and I had good friends. Yet things weren’t right, I wasn’t happy but I felt I should have been, I thought I was being unkind, I thought I was being unfair on my boyfriend, I thought there must be something wrong with me.

I tried speaking about it but it didn’t help, I didn’t really know how I was feeling other than that it wasn’t good. I went to a very dark place, that’s when I started drinking. 

I couldn’t sit in my own thoughts; I didn’t know how to deal with them, it was exhausting. So I would drink. Several bottles of wine a night, at least, and soon I became a functioning alcoholic.  I would get up, go to work, do my job, then I would drink and do the same again. And again. And again. 

Drink wasn’t just to get me through social situations anymore, I came to rely on it to numb my feelings. I didn’t see that it was taking all feeling, the good along with the bad. 

I’d been to and from the doctors with extreme tiredness for a long time, blood tests and investigations came to nothing. I was burnt out, being around people was draining and I was so tired from playing the part in life that I thought was me. 

A phone call with a friend helped me consider that maybe I was depressed. It hadn’t crossed my mind that I could be, I had a great life, I shouldn’t feel down. I wasn’t low, I was worn out. But it did make sense that my tiredness was coming from high emotion –  my head literally wouldn’t stop, it was playing out constant scenarios of any and every situation, before, during and after, on a never-ending loop.

I got bored of the sound of my own voice. Since splitting with my boyfriend I had stopped talking to anyone about myself and my life because I wasn’t prepared to do anything about it. I stopped feeling justified in my moaning. 

I think in the silence came my quiet realisation; not the significant ‘hit rock bottom hard’ scenario, but more the dawning knowledge that I couldn’t get any lower and that I didn’t want this to be it.

I don’t even know what my deciding point was, I just figured that I could live out my life miserable for the rest of my days or I could go after just an ounce of happiness. Anything had to be better than where I was and I came to see that I wasn’t going anywhere better without trying something different. 

We’re always told that being selfish is bad, we grow up being told to put others first but I got to the point where I had to start to do what was right only for me, even if that wasn’t right for the people around me. Maybe that’s “self care” not “selfishness” but whatever it was, it felt uncomfortable. 

So I started my journey of inner-work, I had professional support & intervention, plenty of therapy, it was a lot of time, and effort. I was still using alcohol as a massive form of escape throughout. 

But there became a reason to be done with it, Daisy. 

I’d met someone and we’d been kind of seeing each other for a while. As he left to go abroad for 6 months, he gave me Daisy. 

She gave me a focus, I had a purpose again. And at the beginning, in all honesty, I could fulfil that role drunk. It wasn’t ideal but I could do it, I did do it, I looked after her. 

She would sit and stare at me until I would have to go out, and then we were outside and walking, and that in itself helped. She would pick up on my energy too and I wanted to be calm and kind to her, and in turn I wanted to be calm and kind for her. 

She gave me unconditional love, but patience too. She looked to me for her needs and wants but her expectations of me were simple, I could handle them.

She gave me a lifeline; with Daisy I found other ways to be. I built a much healthier relationship with alcohol, and with myself. 

She completely pulled me out of the depths I was in. I think for me it’s going to be a lifelong thing, to keep out of the darkness. That’s ok, it’s who I am.

Even now she still looks at me quietly, stares at me whilst in my head I run though all of the things I need to do and all of the reasons why I can’t take her out just yet, but she knows we’ll go. And so we get out of the house, and I get out of my head. She brings me the element of play; she helps me get lost in the moment and that makes me so present and so happy. 

She’s there, simplifying my life, every day. I joke that she’s my therapy dog but it was only recently that I really got it. 

We were getting the dogs ready to go for a walk and I heard my dad explaining to my young niece why Daisy is his favourite of the dogs, my niece didn’t think you should have favourites but he simply said “but she saved Jenny”.