ErinsAnimals

This is a question I have tried to answer in the past yet it keeps coming back to me time and time again. I don't blame the people who ask in fact I think its my own fault as at the time I was not able to fully explain why I had to move countries ergo why I had to rehome my 6 hamsters in May 2013.

I knew at some point the fully story would needed to be explained but for a long time the topic was (and still is) very emotionally raw for me.

I first would like to say that I am a "pets for life" person and there are very few situations which actually call for a pet to be rehomed. I always get my pets with the intention of having them for their entire lives but I was never to know what events would occur that year and I feel with all my heart that rehoming my hamsters with selected family/family friends was in their best interests.

I'm going to answer the easiest question first and then the harder one below xx

Why Didn't You Take Your Hamsters With You?

We - myself and my partner - moved from Wales (a country in the United Kingdom) to Cyprus, an island 2000 miles east of the UK located near Egypt. Though there were originally plans to take two of the hamsters with us after a lot of time and thought I realised that we only wanted to take them for our own selfish reasons. I only wanted to take them because I loved them, not because it would be in their best interests. The hamsters would have had to travel in the cold cargo hold of the plane for over 5 hours.
This alone would be stressful not to mention the noise of the engines, the smell of other animals (including predators like cats and birds) but on arrival they would be brought out into a humid climate of 38C+ after coming from a cold climate that averaged 10C on a warm day!

I am always telling people over and over again to keep stress levels as low as they possibly can for hamsters as they are prone to many stress-related illnesses including wet-tail which kills almost all of its victims. Stress is the most dangerous emotion a hamster can experience so how could I justify putting them through all that just so I could keep them to myself? How could I live with myself if they became ill or worse still didn't survive the journey?

It broke my heart to admit that I couldn't do it.

Knowing that plenty of people wouldn't understand and that I would be unfairly hated for rehoming my pets I did make the right decision and although I miss them deeply I do not regret it.



Why Did You Move Countries?

So onto the reason I had to move because this is where many people get confused.
To explain this I have to lead you through the events of 2012-2013 to give you the backstory necessary to understand my decision to move. I have cried on and off while writing the following paragraphs as it was an incredibly dark and scary time in my life which I wish I could erase from my memory. If you do wish to leave a comment bellow this blog post please bare in mind that you are not just talking to a computer screen but to a real person who has been through these events and the severe mental illness that caused them.

*The following paragraphs talk in detail about severe mental depression. This may not be suitable for all readers. Please continue at your own discretion*

I've lived in Cyprus since the age of 11 and have always considered it to be my home. Its where my mother and half of my family live, its also where most of my memories come from. In October 2009 I moved from Cyprus back to my birth country, Wales to live with my dads family and finish my education. It all went smoothly for the first two years and I even met my partner Dan in school there. Together we bought our first hamsters and opened our YouTube channel which has since been very successful.
Everything was great!

At the beginning of 2012 after experiencing several stressful events plus events and memories from my childhood that I have never fully come to terms with or understood my grandmother passed away suddenly. Having never dealt with a family death before and having always felt that I struggle with expressing emotions properly I hit a huge wall where every feeling that had been locked away in my past suddenly evolved into monstrous beasts that wanted to come out all at once. My instinct was to just get on with things but as soon as I was locked away in my room it was as though I wasn't me any more. I became a monster inside myself and I was scared.

I did everything I could possibly do to separate myself and the monster. Only letting it out when I was alone, but it was so... so dark. It had the darkest, most evil thoughts and I was terrified of what it might do. Would it hurt someone... could it do worse?

It didn't take long for people to realise something was wrong. I became distant, locking myself away more than usual and my emotions were scattered. I couldn't identify one day to the next, I was forgetful, clumsy and always on the edge of tears. I started self harming to let out some of my emotion. It made me feel relief and the fact that I felt relieved over harming myself made me feel sick.

I was taken to a doctor.

After spending about an hour talking to the doctor about all of this I was tested and diagnosed with severe depression. I was only just 18 years old.

Over the next few months I was back and forth to the doctors, they had put me on Citalopram - an antidepressant - and kept uping the dose when it wouldn't work for me.

Slowly things got worse.

I couldn't see a point in anything. All I could see for my future was what I saw in everyone else around me. You get up in the morning to go to work to pay for the bed you sleep in so that you can get up the next day and go to work. Even typing that sentence has gotten my heart racing in anxiety. I fear the thought that life is as pointless and meaningless as working to live and only living to work but I couldn't convince myself that it was anything less than that.

When I knew no one was home I would scream at my own reflection until I made myself hoarse. I would punch myself, cut myself, slam my head against the wall in frustration over my own feelings... There were other, worse things too but I want to forget...

When the medication wasn't working on its highest dose they changed me over to Lustral, a stronger antidepressant. Again they kept messing with the dose when it clearly wasn't working for me.

At the beginning of 2013 I had a complete mental breakdown.

Looking back I can't identify myself with that person. It wasn't me any more.
I was messed up massively, completely disconnected from everything in the real world and I could no longer tell the difference between what was a dream and what was really happening. I would stay up until the early hours of the morning not realising it was even night time. Some nights I wouldn't sleep at all just because I didn't want too or I would stay up for days on end not realising I hadn't slept thinking that the previous day had been part of a dream. What day was it? Was it day or night? Should I even care what day it is?

I was still working at this point, in a pharmacy in the neighbouring village but I dreamed my way through the days and barely working. Locking myself in the staff toilets to punch and hit myself when I felt like I needed a release.

After having been on the waiting list for 6 months I was finally booked to see a private counsellor. She was one of the nicest people I ever came across and was a wonder to talk to. I felt great after leaving her office but it faded quickly as I arrived back to my room. The place that was now entirely associated with this new disturbed life of mine.

Since my diagnoses there had always been one place I could find myself in again. The real me, the one that had slipped away from my real life. YouTube and my pet hamsters were what kept that spark of Erin in me. My real life wasn't known to anyone there and I could just be who I wanted to be. I feel that I never lost myself on YouTube and I am proud of that because I can still say the person you have been watching for the last 2 and a half years has always and will always be me. Exactly who I am.

By this point in my real life I was lost, I was not Erin. I was almost begging to be locked away somewhere. I would sleep on the floor at night instead of my bed - I still don't know why - but I remember closing my eyes, holding my breath and just willing my heart to stop beating. I didn't want to die I just wanted to stop.
I wanted everything to stop.

Just stop.

Stop.

Stop.

This was my darkest point. I felt like there was no hope. Like the black emptiness I felt inside was flooding out into the world and that just beyond the horizon was where the cloud ended... but I could never go there because you can't run from something that is inside you. Wherever I went in the world I knew the darkness had to be there because I would be there. There would be no escape from it so why bother trying any more? Why sleep? Why eat? Why get up? Why even cry when I had cried for so long and it had done nothing for me but make me sleepy and sleep made me not want to wake up. Why torture myself with sleep when it would take me to a world I couldn't stay in. A world I didn't belong in. I remember being so tired that I would laugh hysterically to myself, how funny everything seemed. How desperately funny... insanely funny...

In February 2013 my mother flew over from Cyprus on business and I went to stay with her in the hotel for a week. I don't think she really knew what to expect.

It was an emotional first couple of days but there was already a huge difference in me. Being back with my mum, talking about home (Cyprus) and just being silly made me forget everything. It was almost as though the last year had been a distant nightmare.

I couldn't ignore this. Only days before I had been certain that the only escape for me was the end of my life and there was the solution staring me in the face the whole time. I was sure I couldn't run from the darkness but I was going to die anyway if I didn't so why not at least die while trying to run away.
That's exactly what I was going to do. I was going to run away, go back home to Cyprus where I belonged and live with my mother again. It was my last chance to get better.

And there is was. The stubborn, determined spark that was me.

Going back to my dads house after that week was hard. That room was still associated with the monster and it still brought out this freak in me. I said and did horrible things. Things I wish I could take back.

My mind had something to focus on though. I had lost my job so I was home 24/7. Nights and days had no meaning whatsoever any more. Time doesn't exist so why follow it?

After talking to Dan we went ahead and booked one way plane tickets for May 8th 2013 to go straight back home. This was in March so we still had lots of time to kill!

We had next to no money, just enough to buy the plane tickets. We packed as much of our lives as possible into two 23kg suitcases and two 10kg hand luggage bags and either sold, donated or left the rest with family.

Realising that the hamsters could not come with us (after making the decisions I talked about at the start of this blog post) I made plans for them to be rehomed. But not just anyone could have them. I wasn't going to advertise them or sell them, they were going to go to family and close friends who I knew would take great care of them for their whole lives. We had 6 hamsters. Phoenix, Tatty, Cwtch, Molly, Crash and Hope.

Hope and Crash went to live with my aunty as we had always been close, she had a house full of hamsters and I knew they would be well cared for.

Phoenix went to live with a friend whose daughter had recently come into the world of hamster showing. I had always planned for Phoenix to be a show hamster and I knew his energetic and loving personality would be well matched with the daughters and that she would love him deeply and forever.

Tatty, Cwtch and Molly were all fostered by YouTuber AnimalMadCait for a short time as their forever homes couldn't take them right away. Tatty is adored by his new owner as are Cwtch and Molly by theirs. Cwtch and Molly live in the same home.

So there we were. I was heartbroken for saying goodbye to the hamsters but it was absolutely the right thing to do for them.

We boarded the plane on May 8th and never, ever looked back.

The summary of my answer is this. We moved countries so that I would have a chance of living again.

As I write this post we have been back in Cyprus for 9 months. I have been off my medication the entire time. I am now completely recovered from depression, I have a job in a nursery school, two beautiful hamsters, a rescue rabbit and my adoring partner Dan who has stuck with me through all of this and even gone as far as moving half way across the world for me.

We've been living with my mother since moving back but I feel ready for us to go out on our own now.
We plan to get out own apartment near by this year and start our life properly with our little pet family.

So although the main point of this post was to answer that dreaded question at long last it has also given me the opportunity to speak out properly about something many people are still ashamed to talk about and who knows, maybe it will help someone out there.

I promise my next post won't be as dark!

Until next time...
Erin xx