Four years ago, to the day in fact -- entirely coincidental that I should be up in the middle of the night contemplating this blog post on the very anniversary of my former rescue's incorporation -- I began a passionate journey to do something that I saw a desperate need for. That need was a strong group of people who cared about pit bull-type dogs. After the support behind mine and my partner's "independent" rescue of our dog, Spiderman, I saw a group of people who only needed a name. We could do so much good in the world, or in North Carolina at the very least, if we all worked toward the same goal. The idea, at first, was not even mine. As a joke, our friends began to press, "What will be the name of your rescue?" This very question kept me up night after night, ringing in my head. Pit bull rescue had stopped being a choice, and instead, had become a calling. There was hardly anyone that wasn't willing to stand behind our endeavors. There were so many dogs to be saved.
The first few months were almost too easy and too successful. We recruited foster home after foster home, and after careful screening, placed dog after dog into seemingly amazing homes. This was my life's work, I thought. I never had felt so complete, so needed, so appreciated, and so much a part of the greater good.
I'm not sure the exact moment it began to crumble, or more accurately, when I began to crumble. I know it wasn't really a defining moment, but instead a compounding of disappointment and heartache that drove out every ounce of passion I had in me. I woke up in the morning, and almost physically instead of metaphorically, I didn't recognize myself. I just wanted to sleep, and never wake up. I wanted to cry until my eyes were dry. I was always hungry, but nothing had taste, and nothing sounded good. I didn't want to get dressed, or see people, or, quite frankly, try at at anything. I know for at least two years of my life I didn't cook a single meal. It was a costly habit that I couldn't break b/c I just couldn't garner the motivation to make any effort to take care of myself. I showered and bathed knowing it was a societal expectation and I really didn't want to be the smelly pit bull rescue lady. I after all, had some dignity.
I always knew the dogs needed me, but the phrase "going through the motions" settled into my psyche like a headache I couldn't rid myself of. I packed up the monthly heartworm and flea & tick medications; not really remembering why I once found this monotonous task so empowering. I drug myself to another shelter for another temperament test and became fleetingly excited as I saved another dog's life, but the high was so short lived, I was barely back in the confines of my own home before I was ready to crawl into my cave and shut out the world.
By January of this year, I felt so miserable on a day-to-day basis, that I convinced myself that if I just quit my job and delved into putting all of myself into the rescue, as a full-time paid non-profit employee, I could help a lot more animals. It was totally irrational and ill-advised; but consider I was suffering from severe depression, and my brain was fried from 3 1/2 years of over-caring. The freedom of being my own boss picked up my spirits for a few days or so, but that too, was short-lived. The drawback of not only suffering from depression but bipolar disorder as well, is that we often make hasty decisions in manic moments, only later to come crashing down when the results don't meet our expectations. At this time I was on so many medications for anxiety, depression, and insomnia, that my bipolar tendencies did not always come to light. However muted, there they were, the highs and lows; the vicious cycle that as an animal rescuer, I was apt never to recover from. I was 29 years old and felt 50. My hair had almost completely washed out to gray from the roots to halfway back on the crown of my head. My body ached, I was always tired. I wasn't living anymore. I was killing myself.
Meanwhile, it was a curious thing of the relationships that were around me. Once I had ran out of fingers and toes, I stopped counting all the "friends" who had hurt me when my executive decisions didn't match their vision. People didn't simply turn away, or go quietly into other endeavors. They left kicking and screaming and dragging my name in the dirt. Their backlash consistently hurt the reputation of the rescue my partner and I had built, and over time it became more and more difficult to find donors and foster homes because of other people's claims it "should be about the dogs"-- a phrase, I by, the way, hate with a passion. The very people that toss this phrase around as an antidote to explain their cruel behavior against another human being, are the very ones who have made it nearly impossible to continue rescuing. There is no one left to take in returned dogs, let alone bring in new ones, when other rescuers have driven all the foster homes and financial resources away with rumors and scandals.
Maybe I could have persevered if these were simple disagreements; to agree to disagree, if you will. Sure, it was dizzying, to be at one moment giving a dog "too many chances"; but in the next breath "giving up too easily", on for example, a dog with a bite history. But it wasn't even about the "business" of rescue anymore. I was being attacked personally. My very character was called into question. I have tried to kick out the residents renting free space in my head, so I have forgot a few of the choice adjectives that have described me, but I can't help but remember a few. I was described as a "dictator posing as a democracy"; my mental illness was "a convenient excuse"; and during my short few months being unemployed Oct 2011 - February 2012 (when the spay/neuter clinic I worked for was closed) I was told to "quit being lazy and just get a job". Long scathing emails, texts, and Facebook messages on what a horrible human being I am, were more commonplace on a week-to-week basis, than not. And for someone suffering from severe depression, this drove me further into the abyss of hopelessness.
I wasn't the only one suffering. Though not my place to air other people's private struggles, I will say briefly that if I was suffering from severe depression, my partner was suffering from incapacitating depression, and honestly, still is. Where I was one to want to get up and achieve something from time to time, he was apt to be too tired and too much in pain to do the things that needed done. And when I say achieve something, I mean, perhaps, just folding the laundry, or going to the store (not that I really was wanting to leave the house much in those days). I had no one around me that offered any kind of hope for the future. I was aging rapidly, and my partner, who was already much older than me, had aged 30 years in just 3. I could no longer love someone who didn't love himself. I honestly, I didn't love myself very much either. With my passion completely dried up, I was a struggling shell of an animal rescuer at best. After the past few years of revolving door foster homes and severed business ties, the rescue itself wasn't fairing much better. After all, other people had all along thought they could do it better. After being part of placing over 250 dogs in 3 years, I was ready to make my exit. Or, as many see it, The Great Escape. The dog intake was at a minimum, and there were people in place who loved these dogs. I couldn't keep "going through the motions" just because the dogs needed me anymore. I needed me, and I had lost that.
When I let my colleagues know of my intentions, I had an eerie feeling that I could not be swept under the rug fast enough. Without my consent, people started trying to push my partner out of his rightful position as the surviving director. Depressed or not, the rescue had been his vision as it was mine. It was his livelihood, and to take the rescue from him would be to take everything he had. He had known every dog that had passed through the metaphorical doors of the rescue, and I wanted him to be the soul decision maker for their futures, shall they ever come back to the rescue again. And most of all, he told me that is what he wanted. I love him, and I love what we had built, and every bone in my body was telling me that he was the rightful predecessor to my Presidency. I did what I thought was best at the time.
Unfortunately, when the revolving doors turned again in opposition, it cost the rescue nearly everything. Rumors and half-truths swirled, and after 6 months my absence, there was no one left to sustain the dogs. Those that remained placed as many as they could, but when dogs were returned as the rescue was closing, where were they to put them? I have been snidely asked what my plan was for any returning dogs, when there was no longer a rescue for them to turn to. The answer is simple; I never fathomed that the rescue would one day not exist, not for a moment. I thought I had found my calling. The unwavering support at the beginning was misleading, and I thought we could only build onto our support system. Why would anyone want to quit supporting a rescue that saves lives? These are questions I never even asked, because they seemed ridiculous. I was passionately optimistic. And that's what made our rescue successful. The more you would tell me that I couldn't do something, the more I would try to prove you wrong. When that optimism was crushed, the rescue had run its course. I was no longer doing right by the dogs.
Fleeing to Florida was not a convenient escape, but it was the path I was meant to take. That's why it was carved out so perfectly. My best friend of many years had relocated here 3 years before, and I missed him more than I cared to admit. And breaking away from a rescue was a bit like leaving the mafia; its the kind of thing that follows you. Many late nights of baring my soul to the one person that truly cared about me and not their own agenda, developed into much more than a friendship. Suddenly, in one fell swoop, it became clear what I had to do. There was only one person that could change my life, and that was ME. I needed sunshine, I needed a career change, I needed love, I needed my passion back. My heart led me to pit bull rescue, and in February 2013, my path had changed, and my heart led me to Florida. Never had the puzzle pieces of life fit so perfectly together. I was smiling, I was happy, and I was being exactly who I wanted to be. As per my passionate nature, I fell head-over-heels in love before I even set foot on Florida soil, and yes, just 4 months later, Michael Tubbs and I were married. We were even expecting a baby! Sadly, a week after the big announcement, we lost the baby due to miscarriage. It's not the kind of thing we shared publicly, and because it wasn't publicized, there were quite a few people interested in my surprise pregnancy who thought they would use it as a cruel jab to hurt me. I received a text from a rescue volunteer who had left the rescue nearly 2 years ago and she said something to the effect of "Congratulations on your baby ... dogs are dying because of you ... I don't know how you sleep at night." Ouch. It was at that moment I once again saw perfect clarity of why I left animal rescue.
This brings me full circle to why I started this blog, and that is to emphasize the importance of human compassion. It's our human interactions that drive us and empower us, and if you are consistently trying to hurt others, there will be no one left to achieve great things. Animal rescue or not, our actions toward others say a lot about ourselves. Don't point the finger and seek to hurt those that are part of the solution, because soon, they may no longer be, and you will have no one to blame but the person staring back at you in the mirror. Be a reflection of exactly what you wish to see in the world. Today, I am finally doing just that.
