My Beloved Sophie, Part 1

My family's second Bernese Mountain Dog and the beginning of *the* decade.

I’ve been avoiding the next few chapters. Yup, I said it. I have been avoiding these chapters. I don’t blame myself. These are some HELLISH chapters and honestly, I think that someday these few chapters could make up a whole book. But, that book is for the future so for now, I begin here.

Before I dive in, I do want to be very up front about a few things. This chapter is dark. It discusses my first plan for suicide and my experience with electroconvulsive therapy. For the sake of my own well-being, I have written it to be fairly clinical in nature. In my current state of depression, diving in all the way would be too much of an emotional tsunami for me to swim through at the moment. That said, even as it is written, this chapter is still very heavy.

So please, before you decide to read on, choose yourself right now. If you can do that and read through these challenging topics, then, by all means, please continue. However, if the content matter will not allow you to ‘have a day’, then pl…