Diary of a Wimpy Skid

I miss the strong and confident woman I once was. I really miss her. She was a strength to others, not dependent upon them for survival. She was a brave, intelligent, and fun person. She was interesting, and many people of all ages loved her. I’ll bet they miss her too. Now she is a wimp.

I worked skidded hard getting her back yesterday. When I last spoke with my psychologist, I made a plan to try to go by the place of the attack – in a car. I’ve done it twice now. Once I was a passenger, and once I was the driver. The time I was a passenger it hurt a little, but that was some time ago (by accident), so I tried again yesterday. When I consciously drove by, it was not so bad. I thought I saw blood stained on the ground, but my daughter said I was imagining it.

The goal is to get to a place where I can feel safe when I walk there again. I’ve been thinking about getting a new Mini Schnauzer to raise from a puppy. That was something I had missed out on with Hardy, raising him from a pup. I realized the other day that I need another “therapy dog,” but the problem with my owning a new dog is I’m not able to take it for a walk. Walking is something I have not done on my own since June 14th. The last time I tried it with my daughter and her dog, I had a panic attack. I miss that woman who wasn’t afraid to walk.

I looked on You Tube for videos of Mini Schnauzer puppies, and I discovered there are many of them. There are videos of them singing, doing tricks, and simply being silly. There are video memorials of Mini Schnauzers that have passed away, and there are videos of them howling along to the Happy Birthday song. But there was one that caught my surprise as it uploaded to my computer. It was a video of two dogs fighting. Its still image had the leg of a Mini Schnauzer and the body of another dog that looked like the one that killed Hardy. The video had over two and a half million views!

I panicked. I broke down weeping uncontrollably. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Not only was there a video of a dog attacking a mini, but also the still looked like MY DOG being attacked. Even worse, there were over two and a half million views of the video! All of the others I had seen, even if they had LOADS of views were only around the 50,000 mark. As I gasped for air, I put down my laptop and fled the room to get a panic attack pill.

My daughter SAVED me! She clicked on the video and told me not to watch or listen. Guess what? According to my daughter, the video was only marginally scary. She said I should not watch it, but it was only a video of a “Mini” and another dog roughhousing together. Someone had filmed them playing and called it a dog attack. I was shaken, but relieved. It wasn’t me, it wasn’t Hardy, and it wasn’t violent. It was two dogs playing. Whew.