The Great Fall into the Abyss of the Mind

Been gone awhile.. Much has happened and much has stayed the same.

What has stayed the same? Still getting a divorce.

As to the "What" of the "Much that has happened..." It is a long story, as it should be, for many days have passed. I am too weary to tell it all but I will write some now, and some tomorrow perhaps.

About the last entry.. That day... I called him.. there was no answer. I texted him.. no response. I felt he was, once again, not taking me seriously. I cried... a lot. I broke the lock to the gun cabinet by prying it open.. i just didn't want to live anymore. I paced the house, gun loaded, safety off, cocked and ready. My panic came in waves.. I didn't know what to do, I just knew I wanted to die. In a last ditch effort, I made a call to his parents.. All I could do was cry.. plead for help. They thought I was his sister... so I hung up. Of course they would think it was her.. why would they bother thinking it might be me? Why would they care? I cried more. I sat.. I became cold and calm.

At that point I did put a gun to my head. Finger on the trigger, eyes filled with tears and staring at images of my daughter, myself when I was my daughter's age, my wedding picture, and that screenshot sent to me from someone who has still yet to be named. But though my eyes were filled with tears, I felt insanely calm. As if I were in the center of a hurricane... time stood still. I was at peace. And it was a peace I had never felt before.. It was a peace that felt "right". I wasn't scared anymore. I think I even felt a smile on my lips because I was so certain that for the first time in my entire life, I was doing the right thing,

Just when I had numbed myself to the point where pulling the trigger would be no problem, I heard him call my name. I remember blinking once as his voice registered and he called my name again. I heard the door press against the chain lock. My throat seemed to close up yet a whimper somehow escaped.

He heard it.
He asked if i wanted him to go away... did i?
Did I want him to go away so I could finish this once and for all?
End this pain and suffering that I seemed to be causing everyone including myself?
Did I want him to leave me be so that he and his family could live in peace?
Did I?

The questions raced through my head at lightening speed and before I even knew it, I found myself unlatching the chain. Weeping so hard that my entire body trembled before I collapsed onto the hallway floor. I don't even remember walking down the hall. I do remember him taking the gun from me despite my feeble attempts to hold it. I still wanted to die..

Why did I let him in? What made me go to the door and allow his entry? I still don't know. That was June 23rd. A Sunday. The date of my last entry.

The blur I remember from that point was being driven to a mental hospital by his sister. She spoke to me like a child... I didn't take offense as she is a school teacher after all. Tears kept falling. I wasn't sobbing anymore, but I was drained, raw, and empty. But the tears would not stop. I remember sitting in triage.. waiting for what seemed like forever. Waiting for a straightjacket. Waiting for him to just leave me there. Waiting for something to happen... It ended up I was waiting to be handed papers of permission to be treated to be signed.

Then I was walked away. Away from him. Away from the noise. Away into a room where I was made to change into scrubs and then offered a dinner which sat for hours untouched. Signed more papers. Blood was drawn. Spoke blankly to a psychiatrist and then sat on the gurney rocking back and forth trying not to go catatonic. More papers to be signed.. then I was lead outside and driven to another facility.

I was terrified to get out of the car. The tech and the security guard did their best to calm me but I was shaking so bad I could hardly walk. The guard walked quickly, the tech slowed his pace to match mine and make certain I didn't fall. I was lead through what seemed to be a plethora of outside "hallways" before we even made it into the unit. I could hear nothing but the buzz of the overhead lights and my mind seemed to focus on the moths and gnats that flitted around them as we walked. It was hot. It was humid. It would have felt miserable had I not already felt dead.

Finally we made it into the coolness of the facility. My first reaction was how I thought it odd that the pale green be the color of choice for "soothing". Granted it is a color for psychological "balance" but it is also considered to be associated boredom, stagnation, blandness, and enervation. I would have thought pale, calming shades of blue to be more appropriate. As I write this, it strikes me as odd to even have this thought at that moment considering my mindset.

I don't remember much after that. I know I was "processed", made to change into yet, another set of scrubs, and  given a room which I didn't leave for the first four days unless I was "made" to do so by the staff in order to eat or take meds. I didn't speak to anyone, patient, tech, nurse... I didn't trust anyone. I always looked down, never meeting anyone's eyes. I got compliments on my hair.. (which is blue now, btw, by accident) to which I mumbled 'thank you' before hurrying back to the safety of my room.

Many nights I spent panicked and curled up into a corner wrapped in a blanket when other patients (usually male) would get out of hand and start screaming in the middle of the night. This was an on-going thing until the doctor ordered meds to sedate me. But after a few days, I grew immune and the sleeping pills alone were no longer enough.

I slept most of the first 5 of the 12 days spent there... It was a long road ahead..

As stated, the first several days were spent in my room. Insomnia hit me at night, but the days I slept almost constantly because of the mix of anxiety medication and the chronic deep depression. When awake, tears fell near constantly. My thoughts.. I am not sure I could tell you exactly what they were other than feeling ashamed of my worthlessness. The patients who had visitors were constant reminders of how (I perceived) no one gave a shit about me. That it did not matter if I rotted there. I would listen to conversations.. so many of them. One of them being between two techs. They spoke of how there was a guy on the west unit who had, at that point, been in the facility 10 months. 10 Months!! His family apparently signed him in. They spoke about how he would get calls from them, and he would walk to the phone as if to take the call, and then simply hang up. I thought about him a lot. I wondered if I were to end up staying that long (or longer), if I would get calls or if I would simply be forgotten. Then I decided I would not be forgotten because the divorce would go through and eventually I'd be kicked onto the street.

These are just a sample of the the thoughts of the broken hopeless person I had become..

The first couple of days, the techs were almost lax when it came to my eating habits. (Or lack thereof). But soon they would force me out of bed and out of the room to join the others in meals, most of which I barely touched. It was then that my high level of social anxiety became very apparent. I would take a roll, pull pieces off and nibble while rocking back and forth. I don't think I ever actually finished the roll, let alone the rest of the meal because all I remember were more tears. Silent yet steadily streaming down my cheeks. I was hot but my skin was cold and clammy. Next thing I knew, I would wake in my room, hours later, curled up in a fetal position and wrapped in blankets with no recollection of how I ended up there. It was awhile before I realized that they were medicating my anxiety during the day, but during the evening they didn't bother as they figured the sleeping pill would be enough.

Day 5 was the first time I ventured out of my room of my own volition. It was the first time I comprehended I had a doctor overseeing my status and medication, as well as a social worker overseeing other aspects of the situation that I still don't quite understand. It was the first day I had a conversation with my doctor. The usual questions were asked and always answered honestly. Yes, I still want to die. No I don't want to hurt anyone else. No I have not been hurting myself nor do I want to. I just don't want to live. No I don't know my family's psychological history. No I do not have any friends or family on the outside. Yes I was abused as a child and as an adult, physically, sexually, and probably emotionally too considering self-confidence was no longer even in my vocabulary. I got defensive during the questioning. And as I did, my anxiety rose. My blood pressure was taken, it was so low that they took it 3 more times to be certain the reading was right. Twice with the machine and once the 'old school' way. I felt the haze coming on as he said he was going to adjust my medications and encourage me to attend the group therapies that took place. I remember glaring at him and telling him flat-out that my anxiety would not allow me to join group. That I needed one-on-one. That I read it in my original notes fro my first psychiatrist. He simply stated he would up my meds and for me to try.. Feeling dizzy, I was offered more meds and I wend back to my room and slept for 12 hours, missing breakfast, lunch, and snack and would have missed dinner as well had I not been woken.

Day 8 - He came to visit. I was still a mess of emotion. Still feeling worthless. I tried to have a normal conversation but all I could remember was the painful words of the screenshot. I had asked if we were still getting a divorce. He said yes. I asked if there was another girl (half-hoping that was the case cause then I could make sense of everything) he said no. I don't remember much of the conversation, other than getting up and walking away murmuring about how I was a controlling abuser and have never nor could ever love anyone or care about anyone and I believed every word. I didn't look back, instead focusing on how my mother was right all along. That if my own dad could not love me as a baby, no one would love me as an adult. I did not have another visitation from him again, nor anyone else for the rest of my stay. I believed the reason to be was that I was not worth the effort.

Day 9 I was threatened by one of the nurses that if I didn't start going to group I would be sent to the West Unit. (Where all the real problem people are.) This scared me, so I forced myself to try.. I could never last longer that 10 minutes in the room due to my anxiety. I tried three times and finally just gave up, deciding that being transferred would be better anyway since from what I had heard, they tended to over-medicate the real crazies and maybe I would get lucky enough to be one of the ones over-medicated.

Day 10 I met with a woman who was to interview me and determine my eligibility for SMI Disability Insurance. The "interview" turned into a 2 hour long session because the flood-gates opened then and everything came pouring out. Every horrible graphic detail of my childhood all the way to how I ended up in the facility. I used up nearly two boxes of tissues from crying so much. When I finally looked up at her, her eyes met mine controlled yet seemingly damp and slightly horrified. I then apologized profusely and she asked if I had ever talked to anyone before and I admitted that she was the first. She looked down at her papers as she straightened them.. I merely noted how much writing there was that then immediately felt the flush of deep shame and I apologized again. She told me not to.. that I had nothing to be sorry for.. but I felt horrible. The rest of the day, I stayed in my room, coming out only for meds and the meal I knew I would be forced to attend.

Day 11 was my first real sit down with the social worker. I vented about the groups and how my papers stated that I needed 1:1 therapy and how I wasn't getting it and how I felt like I was being treated like a number. I vented about how the nurses asked us to trust them yet half of them couldn't be friendly or even remember my name and how I felt like I was in something that resembled a mix of a prison and a dog pound and how I still felt worthless and how I questioned everything I have ever stood for.... and he listened.

In fact it was the first time that someone actually payed attention to me, heard what I was saying, and offered feedback. He sat with me for over 2 hours conversing and taking the time to actually tell me I was not worthless. That my core values mattered. That he had faith in me and believed in me. By the end of our conversation I went from feeling like a worthless waste of space to someone who still had worth. It wasn't a strong feeling. In fact it was quite tiny and fragile. But it was the first time in months that I felt like I *might* be able to handle the road ahead. I left the room with a seed of hope. That evening, the hope grew bit by bit. By morning, I was up and waiting for him and my doctor in the hall at 5:30am. I sat there and right when they came in, I nearly ambushed them saying I was ready to go home. And I was persistent until finally they said "okay".

And I got out.

My hope is still very, very small. Puny even. It's fragile, cracked, and held together with little more than paste and string. But it's there. And it's mine.

I just need help to get it to grow stronger. And I know that will take a lot of work, especially since it's mostly on me and I am trying to have it take the place of decades of negativity. I'm still scared. Petrified of what is to come... and praying to the powers that be that the choices I make as far as those I decide to keep in my life will not play a part in destroying the infinitesimal bit I have finally found.

I don't want to feel like dying again... Because I really feel that if I return to that point, there wont be a chance to come back. Because I wont bother to ask for help. I will just do it with no warning.