It’s funny when you consider how these two things can occur at the same time. For instance, when I look back at the past few months, I can honestly say these were the best months of my life. Yet, they were also the worst months.

I went through an agonizing breakup, the kind you wished to create a self-induced amnesia because the memories were too unbearable to face. Because of this terminated relationship of two years, my mental state also seemed to deteriorate. My sanity was being held by a thin string over a cavern of despair. I forced myself to hide away the memories and try to rebuild new ones, but found I could only hide for so long before I was wallowing in emotional turmoil again.

Of course, I have an explanation for all this. I am too stubborn to admit that I was severely emotional without a really good excuse. Am I alone? I don’t think so…

I blame the birth control! The Depo-Provera, that evil shot that helped me stay un-pregnant (thank the stars), but took away all rationality and boosted my hormones to an unstable level. It was like my identity split in two; the logical side of me was watching from far away, screaming at the top of my lungs to get the attention of the crazy side of me, to say wake up and breathe! After a few weeks of enduring the breakup, the Depo was exiting my system. I didn’t have a period at the time, so with no more birth control, my system was attempting to regulate itself. I already knew I had severe PMS, more like PMDD, so imagine having a period come and go several times a month without any warning, making me go through PMDD more than a human brain can take. On top of that, I was dealing with the average emotional despair of a breakup. Only it wasn’t so average for me.

Considering I had to deal with being around the X and his new girlfriend more than I liked, I was failing miserably on the healing end of life. Which pissed the more logical side of me off because I hated looking like a pathetic loser.

I took upon heavy drinking as a way to ignore my loser pain. I thought that maybe if I burned away a certain amount of brain cells, I could burn away the history. Except that one night, while in a drunken stupor and home alone, my depressed subconscious decided to take all the pain I was running from and throw it right back in my face—like taking a butcher knife to my leg and arm. Unfortunately, I cried myself to sleep on the floor during the process and my crime was caught later by my roommates. This resulted in an ambulance trip to the hospital, even though the gashes weren’t deep enough to be considered fatal. I was humiliated and even more depressed because of my humiliation.

When my parents came to see me, I was horrified. I knew exactly what I looked like: sickly pale, unresponsive, cut up, laying in a cold, white hospital room, dying on the inside. I looked just like my dad’s little sister. She had killed herself.

So if that thought wasn’t enough to scare me out of my depression, I don’t know what could have. I went through weekly counseling and monthly psychiatry. I was put on Zoloft for the time being and waited until my period was finally able to regulate itself, my hormones leveling out, and my PMDD becoming more discernable.

I can laugh about it now, but I’ll never forgive the ambulance and hospital bills. I’m now on Prozac for only the week before my period, which counteracts the super bad moods. I made a list of all the reasons for my depression, if only to give myself some sort of reasonable excuse:

• First breakup with first love (you know how they always say the first one is the hardest, well I believe whoever said that)
• Birth control screwing up system
• PMDD
• Having to be around X and girlfriend without sufficient healing time
• Already genetically infected (the Rowader women have issues)

Despite all of this!!!!…it was the BEST six months of my life (so far). During my depression, I developed a friendship with probably one of the most amazing persons in my life, Mat Solace. He was the light in my darkness. Along with him, my friendships with Rachel and Anthony became stronger because they watched me for three years go up and down on the happiness/sadness scale. Somehow, all four of us became connected at the hip. We embarked on exciting adventures and trips that wouldn’t have happened if I had never let go of my boyfriend. And I am ALL ABOUT adventures!

People say that there is always something good one can take away from a breakup. For me, it is the friendships and adventures. Those memories have replaced the bad ones. I promised myself, after the breakup, that I wouldn’t look for a rebound to repel the loneliness. But I guess you can say that I did find a rebound, and they were Rachel, Anthony, and Mat. Best rebounds ever! Best memories ever… Best times ever…