Even though I had made the decision to burn the letters and not go through with it, I was still a wreck. I just couldn’t shake the rumination, fear, anxiety, depression, or alcohol. My home life was suffering. I am pretty sure that I had suffered a full on split quite some time ago and was really feeling the effects of it. I was once a very out going, very chipper, very optimistic and joyful person. Now I was an empty, emotionless, bitter critter. “Persistent inability to experience positive emotions, and inability to experience happiness, satisfaction, or loving feelings.” “Intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, anxiety, transient stress related paranoid ideation, and severe dissociative symptoms.” I had a meltdown and ended up going to see a doctor about it. I couldn’t take it anymore. No matter what I seemed to do, no matter what I tried, I simply could not get out of this head space. I was suspicious of everyone, paranoid as shit, anxious all the time, and depressed. It was like I had just awaken one day in the past in some kind of negative alternate universe. I had to go to the emergency room and talk to a mental health doctor.
I filled out their survey in the lobby, and waited until they called me back. The second the lady walked in the verbal flood gates opened. I spewed everything that I was experiencing to this lady. I didn’t share with her my “secret places” from my traumas, because I had not yet realized the extent of what was going on. I just thought I was battling depression or something. But I explained to her how I was experiencing anxiety and paranoia all the time, I was depressed, and so on. I think I spent a grand total of about 15 minutes in this lady’s office and she wrote me a prescription for Zoloft. Sertaline is the actual name of the chemical and it belongs to the class of SSRI’s. I had reached a point where I was now willing to take medication again to try and get my mind under control. I was so sick of the way my fucked up mind was running everything I said and did. I was sick of ruining my marriage and home. I had to try something different. I waited until the prescription was filled at the pharmacy, and took the first dose in my vehicle before heading home.
That first dose of that shit hit me like I was about to start rolling on MDMA! It was weird as shit, but it gave me such a “geek”, like I was “coming up” on some kind of speed. After the first few days, I got a little more used to it, although it did make me vomit a few times. But I was rather committed to seeing how this medicine would help, if it would. I think I stayed on the Zoloft for several months, and I guess it helped a little, although I do remember it making me manic on more than one occasion. For anyone who has experienced mania, you know, it is fucking weird. It’s almost enjoyable, but at the same time it is very out of control; like watching yourself on meth doing everything throughout the day. Very out of body experience. So I continued with the medicine, and continued on with my life. Some days were good, some days were not so good. I suppose the zoloft helped me maintain a little bit better, but overall, I didn’t really feel any better, I just wasn’t acting out on my feelings as much. So, for some reason or another, I just decided to stop taking the medicine all together. I mean, I hadn’t really noticed any major changes, so clearly it wasn’t the medicine that I needed to be on. Shouldn’t be a big deal at all.
The first couple days off of the medicine, I didn’t feel or think any different. I suppose it had built up in my system enough that it kept working a bit, even after cessation. So, it was back to the drawing board I suppose, back to figuring out what the hell I was gonna do and how the hell I was gonna manage and over come this. I guess, one thing the medicine did help me with, is that I hadn’t thought about self harm, or really had all of that rumination and paranoia for a while. Maybe I should have stayed on it? Nah, I don’t think that was the medicine, I think I have just been doing better. That’s it! I got this.
I did not have this.
Right around I would say day seven or eight of not taking the medicine, we were doing life. It was a rather typical day all things considered. Though, typical when you’re me in the shape I had been in can take on many different forms. It was a bright, sunny and warm Friday afternoon from what I can recall. I had recently been on a margarita kick and had the whole set up. Shakers, limes, syrups, everything. When time would allow I would float around in the pool and drink margaritas in my sombrero. My wife will tell you, I might be one of the most obsessive people to ever walk the planet. When I get into something, I really get into it. The margaritas were one case of this, and my wife was no longer amused. Now, I am going to do my best to put this together here, because I don’t really remember, all I know is that it was definitely not good.
I guess it was around 5:00 p.m maybe? I know that I began feeling really manic, like I had when I was taking the medicine, only way more intense. I hadn’t had anything to drink that day, yet, as it was still rather early in the evening for a Friday. The mania slowly started to settle in on me, and I remember feeling all hyped up and excited. And then I don’t really remember anything else. Apparently, from here I drove to the liquor store, purchased a bottle of Tequila for my recent margarita kick, drove home and proceeded to make some Lime Margaritas. I do some what recall, in flashes, pieces of the night. But what is interesting here, is that I began blacking out before I even took a single sip of alcohol. And then I started drinking, and it go much much worse apparently.
I did my best to process this night with my therapist after it occurred, and from what I gathered of the session I had had a full blown out of body disassociation. What’s eerily interesting about this, is I can’t really remember “visually” what happened, and I can’t really remember what I was thinking either. But somehow I can remember what I was feeling throughout the night which was extreme panic and fear, intense paranoia and fright, anger, and the overall feeling that I might actually explode. It was as if I was “re-feeling” every single horror of my life all over again and all at once. It was also as if I was feeling and experiencing all of my worst possible fears all at once. I was having the first of several serious breakdowns to come.
I had just completely blacked out the course of about 12 hours. Zero recollection. I didn’t even remember going to the liquor store, and I did that about an hour before I even consumed any alcohol. I woke up in jail. Waking up in a jail cell, was not something I ever thought I would do again. I mean, I was a changed man, wasn’t I? What the fuck was happening? How in the world had I fallen to such a place again? All of this, going back to the day we moved in to our dream home felt like some kind of passing dream. A blur. Had I been checked out, and only falling deeper and deeper into some kind of abyss the entire time?
When I woke up in that jail cell I couldn’t feel anything. I was completely numb emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. What in the fuck had just happened? If I had known, that this was what awaited me if I stuck with my decision not to kill myself, maybe I would have made a different decision. My fucking life was over. What was gonna happen now? I never meant for anything like this to transpire. Why is life like this?
All I had ever known was suffering, so all I knew how to do was run from the suffering, and all the running away from it did, was cause more suffering. I was fucked. I simply could not fathom how I had lost my mind so badly. And what made matters worse, was that I could tell I was still in the midst of the split and break down. It was going to take a while to crawl out of this abyss. More residual effects of trauma.
Thank God that no body was seriously hurt.
I just wanted to die. The thought had just come back into my mind. Maybe it was time to rethink that whole suicide thing.