555 lines
27 KiB
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555 lines
27 KiB
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<title>Zk | 2012-07-27-suicide-part1</title>
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<h1>Zk | 2012-07-27-suicide-part1</h1>
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<article class="content">
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<p>type: post
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title: On Suicide
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slug: on-suicide-1
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date: 2012-07-27</p>
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<hr />
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<p>{{< warning >}}
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<p>On March 21st, 2012, I tried to kill myself.</p></p>
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<p>It's amazing how such a simple statement of fact reflects (at time of writing), months of strange tension, slow recovery, and a whole lot of trying to understand what really happened. It's not a comfortable thing for anyone to discuss, but it's one of those things I need to discuss, need to get off my chest. A little to much of what makes life meaningful for me now is wrapped up in that one night.</p>
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<p><em>This subject is a huge trigger for me, and a good way to make me instantly feel bad; understand, if you're the same, that the whole thing is about suicide. I apologize in advance. It's one of those things I needed to write.</em>
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{{< /warning >}}
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> From the point of view of the universe, Max's death wasn't a big deal,
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> it was just my big deal.
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>
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> -- Steve Eisman, as quoted in Michael Lewis' _The Big Short_
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## Introduction
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I've noticed that, with almost every large, defining moment in life,
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a need to share, or at least explain, starts up once things start to
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wind down. The need to move on from life lived with parents for so long
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at the beginning of college led to a big jump in the number of words
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written, for me, and ditto getting settled at my new job: that was about
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the time that I started to work on \[adjective\]\[species\].
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It's not really so much that I have the need to write about what
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happened, even, as that, after something of such import, I feel the need
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to expose myself through writing, to force ideas out into the open
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whether or not they actually have anything to do with what's going on.
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That was the case with getting a new job. I didn't need to write about
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the new job, I just needed to write. Creativity, it seems, is one of
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those things where, the more you put it to use, the more you *must* use
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it.
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I've toyed with how to write something like this for the last few
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months. In this case, after all, I feel the need to actually write
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about what really happened, as I tried the whole "write about something
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else" thing and it didn't work; it didn't relieve that pressure within
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myself that needed to be released. I even tried venting little bits of
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it here and there on twitter, but now, I think I really need to get this
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down in a long format.
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I tried to kill myself on March 21st, 2012. It was, as the epigram
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says, not a big deal; it was just my big deal.
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## Beforehand
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I have always been one of those on-edge people that can't quite seem to
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manage to calm down. It's been with me for as long as I can remember;
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being told that I take things too seriously, that I'm jittery and need
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to just chill out, that I'm too emotional about things.
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I have specific memories dating back to when I was seven or so, being
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told that I was taking things too seriously and was "such a crybaby"
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about it. I've been told by my mother, that even earlier than that I
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explained my fears, that back to the moment of my birth, she and I both
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were too nervous to sleep when the nurses put me in a crib in her
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hospital room, that we both lay awake, staring at each other, unable to
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get the necessary rest without some alone time.
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This is one of the benefits of psychotherapy: not so much as finding
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fault in things, as finding a common trend that winds its way through
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life, connecting moment to moment across sometimes (relatively) vast
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distances of time, so that we can say, "See, it is doing this now."
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While it wasn't until the beginning of 2012, at the urging and on the
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recommendation of my boss that I started seeing a psychiatrist also
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credentialed in psychotherapy that I started to really put these in
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words, I knew all about panic by the time I had started my job. In a
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myriad of ways, I was feeling the symptoms of anxiety from day to day,
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and I was having my own little panic attacks.
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It was the type of thing that worried me enough to see a doctor at one
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point, worried that I was starting to show signs of agoraphobia, since I
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was having a hard time walking around in public (quite a problem when
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one has to walk to class). While I know that the psychologist that I
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saw at the time touched on issues relating to panic and anxiety in a
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more holistic manner, I suppose I was mostly interested in having a
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diagnosis I could wave in others' faces, at the time, and I didn't seem
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to have internalized any of it. Indeed, judging from actions after the
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fact, I seem to have even forgotten about the diagnosis.
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I should note that I wasn't some jangled, half-crazed hermit who
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couldn't leave his house without serious psychological pain. I felt,
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and still feel, like a fairly normal person. There's not spectacular
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about me that points to some dramatic panic disorder. I interact
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happily with my friends, I can deal with store clerks and walk through
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crowds, even if it takes a bit of concentration. In fact, the only
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thing that marked out any sort of problem to me, at least in the
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beginning, were intermittent panic attacks that influenced my mood
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heavily.
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A panic attack is a strange sort of thing to go through. It's not
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exactly what I expected, and it took several of them happening to me
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before I even figured out what they were. The words "panic attack" make
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it sound as though, for no reason, terror strikes you out of the blue
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and your heart races, eyes dart from left to right, and all those
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physical reactions that are the stuff of cartoons and movies.
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Perhaps that is what happens for many, but for me, it's a little
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subtler. I have ruminative panic attacks, where my mind will get stuck
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on an idea and turn it over and over, examine it from all angles,
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attempt to work out all possible solutions and counters no matter how
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absurd, and then turn it over some more. There is, of course, anxiety
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or even terror involved in the sensation, and there are some of the
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physical symptoms that fit within the cliché: racing pulse and tunnel
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vision among them.
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Anyway, the whole point of bringing this up is that, by the end of the
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year 2011, I was experiencing panic attacks with increasing severity and
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frequency, and others started to notice. James, of course, noticed them
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right away, and several friends, including my boss at my job, who had me
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nearly in tears at one point as he handed me a check for a thousand
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dollars and a recommendation for a psychiatrist.
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I started seeing Dr. Johnston, one of Colorado's best psychiatrists
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according to word around the block, near the beginning of 2012. One of
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the things we did immediately was attempt to set up a series of
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discussions as to what exactly was causing these panic attacks, and why
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they were affecting me so strongly. I walked into our first meeting
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with a bit of a script, as I felt was appropriate, since I needed to get
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an idea of what I was feeling across quickly and efficiently.
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"I'm having an inappropriate reaction to stress, I think," I told him.
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"I start to panic and it leads to a lot of depression, suicidal
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ruminations, and trouble concentrating." This topic wound on between
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us over the next six months, and I'm sure
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I'll get more into the results later, but for now, I think it'd help
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more to explain how things felt to me.
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I've always had some sort of issues with control. I've always needed to
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be on top of a situation, and all of my deepest fears, all of those
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things that I would ruminate on during panic attacks, would surround the
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fact that I was not in control of a situation. Being falsely accused,
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for example, is a prime selection: being prosecuted or locked up for
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something that I did not do was frightening enough, but toss in the fact
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that I have no control to prove otherwise, whether through marshalling
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of evidence or sheer persuasion based on personality, and I'm totally
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lost in a spiral of anxiety.
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More to the point, however, the doctor also put me on two prescriptions
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\- one daily and one meant to be taken as needed for more severe panic
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attacks. The first was Clonazepam, a type of anxiolytic that is
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intended to remain in the system for about thirty-six hours. The point
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of that was to take, in my case, half a pill twice daily and maintain a
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constant level of it in my system, allowing me to react in a calmer
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fashion to the world around me. The latter was Lorazepam, which, while
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it had the effect of stopping just about any panic attack that hit me,
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also had the effect of sending me to bed right away; it was to be used
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as needed for "breakthrough" panic.
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Things started to look up. I would occasionally still sneak into James'
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room to lay down with him, as I had been doing during high-anxiety
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moments, in order to calm myself down, but I felt like things were
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moving to a better place.
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I remember, about two or three weeks into starting on the medication,
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that I remarked on Twitter that I was a "firm believer in modern
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medicine." These stupid little pills (and I mean little; the Lorazepam
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was smaller than a match-head) had caused me to just...calm down. While
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I certainly still had this urge to be in control of a situation, not
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being in control did not lead to me freaking out, complete with tunnel
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vision, pounding heart, and thoughts of driving my car off a bridge. I
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was *pleased as peach* that they worked. I was ecstatic.
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--------------------
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## During
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The way that work works, really is not all that complicated, though it
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sure seems like it from an outside perspective. We do work for a
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client, and the general order of events is:
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1. They give us a requirements document - basically a specification of
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what our work should be
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2. We develop locally and make occasional deployments to a dev
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environment visible only interally.
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3. When finished, we move our work to a QA environment for the client to
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test and ensure it meets spec. We fix any defects they find.
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4. When an agreed-upon date arrives, we move our work from QA into the
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production environment, where the client does validation and it
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eventually goes live,
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On March 5th, 2012, this went wrong. Rather, everything went smoothly,
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but we found out a few days later that some old data in the system would
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be causing some problems. Our goal, rather than having a new
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requirements document to work from, was to fix this defect and prepare
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for a production release as soon as possible.
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This was a setback, of course, but I was ramping up my medication, and
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it seemed as though everything would be going fine. We had found a
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work-around to allow the old data to work properly, and it was the type
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of thing that would be a fairly simple push to fix. Everything was
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tested out and seemed to be working just fine. We were all happy, and a
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date of March 20th was decided on for the secondary release.
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Actually, the release went swimmingly. It was a smooth transition into
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the new product and there was relatively little production validation,
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so we all went to bed fairly happy on the night of the 20th.
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That always surprises me. Everything went well.
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On Wednesday the 21st, everything was still going well. I had an
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appointment with Dr. Johnston, and we talked mostly about the release,
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and how it had gone fairly well with a strange sense of calm and
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distance from the whole matter. The appointment was held over the
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phone, as we were moving from one office to the other at the time, and I
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had to move all of my work kit from one building to another, but we hung
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up feeling as though this weight that had been sitting on my shoulders
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had been lifted off, and everything was looking better. There was a
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void in my life, but that was to be expected, as the last two weeks had
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contained so much surrounding this one stressor.
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That strange void did not let up throughout the day, however. Sure,
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everything had gone well, but I had been living off anxiety for the last
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however-many-weeks, and for things to suddenly drop in such a fashion
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was a strange event to me. I couldn't quite internalize that we were
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_done_. We had nothing left to do.
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On the drive home, the weird sensation morphed into a more familiar
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anxiety and stress that I had known for the past weeks. Sure, the
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release had gone well, but so had the previous one, and it had taken a
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few days for the problems to be discovered. Would further problems be
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discovered?
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I was pretty quiet when I got home, but I usually am, so I didn't feel
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as though anything was out of place. I made dinner for James and
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myself, and settled in to watch a little bit of Babylon 5. It's a
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cheesy old show, but I figured something lightweight like that would
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help to put my mind at ease.
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James went to bed about fifteen minutes into the one-hour pilot in
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order to get up in time for work. By this point, things were starting
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to get strange, from my point of view, and here is where we need to take
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a step back.
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I sat, slouched in front of my computer, watching probably the
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world's prime example of tacky, wooden acting. At hand was my
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keyboard, his phone, an empty glass, a stick of deodorant, and a
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multi-tool used for working on computers. Always a fiddler, I spent
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most of my time picking up my phone, unlocking the screen, and
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putting it back down again, but hands wander, and they wandered
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eventually to the multi-tool.
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It took a lot of playing around with the tool, expanding all of the
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different parts and putting them back together again, before, without
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thinking about it, I settled on the knife attachment. The fact that
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the show was running in the background had left my conscious thought,
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as had the fact that he was playing with a rather dull knife. All
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that was going through my mind was...nothing.
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Nothing.
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No input seemed to reach me, and though my breathing had picked
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up and my eyes had gone wide, I was not reacting to the over-wrought
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acting on the monitors in front of him, nor was I paying attention as
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he dragged the ridiculously dull blade of the knife down along my
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forearms. I was...empty.
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It took a few pretty firm scratches in order to awaken any other levels
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of consciousness. To be honest, I'm kind of guessing at the previous
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few paragraphs, because I really don't know what happened. I zoned out,
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it felt like, and the next thing I know, some internal part of me was
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screaming at myself to wake the fuck up, because I had somehow found the
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box containing the X-acto wood-carving tools and was playing with the
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knife in there - infinitely sharper than the multi-tool - and some part
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of me had woken up to the fact.
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Even so, I felt as though I was still observing someone I know doing
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something terribly embarrassing, making a fool of themselves as they sat
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in front of the tackiest sci-fi show available and played with a razor
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blade. Perhaps it was the sheer amount of ridiculous cliché that woke
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me up to what was going on, because, even as I write this, I can't help
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but shake my head at how _stupid_ it all sounds. It's like something
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out of some terrible middle-schooler's journal (and I know, I kept an
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extensive journal in middle school).
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What really woke me up was watching this person-who-was-me somehow go
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into 'fuck it' mode and tear the shit out of his right arm from one end
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to the other with a very sharp, very new razor blade.
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Waking up is the best analogy out there, I believe. It was like that
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rush of coming to your senses after a nightmare, the pulling forward and
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the re-anchoring, the flood of adrenaline in preparation for flight. It
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wasn't necessarily the cut that woke me, though, but the second or so
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before when I entered that 'fuck it' mode, and I was too slow, too
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confused and frightened to stop this person-who-was-me from pulling the
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ultimate embarrassing act: trying to commit suicide while watching a
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dumb '90s science fiction show.
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Before I continue, I want to add my own personal amendment to what I
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just wrote. I mention that it sounds like some terrible journal of a
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thirteen year old, and that's true. However, I really _have_ to make the
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point that this was legitimately surprising to me. I had had my fair
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share of suicidal ruminations, of thinking all sorts of what if
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thoughts: what if I drove my car off a bridge? What if I shot myself?
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What if I drowned? These were all so far from the realm of actual
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possibility, however, that there was no connection to reality. They
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were thoughts that _scared_ me, they were why I went to see someone,
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because they were abnormal.
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To have one of them actualized was absolutely the most terrifying
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experience to date.
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I cut fairly deep along about seven inches of my forearm, and the
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reaction was immediate. I dropped the knife with a clatter to my desk
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and clamped my hand immediately around my arm with surprising speed -
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although the cut started to bleed immediately, there was surprisingly
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little blood loss of any kind.
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Within seconds I was overtaken with guilt-ridden sobs. I stopped the
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show with my elbow on the space-bar and sat, huddled in my computer
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chair, curled around my arm and crying for the fact that I was,
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apparently, decidedly crazy.
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It took probably ten minutes for me to realize that me crying like some
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caricature of myself, huddled over one of the deepest cuts I've
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received in my life was not going to do anything. Struggling to keep
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quiet, I slowly made my way to the bed, then the floor, then the door,
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before eventually collapsing in the hallway just outside my door. I
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would be totally unable to do anything about this, I realized.
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I started whispering James' name, then eventually swallowed the
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miniscule bit of pride I had left and called out loud enough to wake him
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up. "Can you come help me?" I asked. It took asking two more times
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before he got up. I found out later that he thought I had made a mess
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and just wanted help cleaning up, thinking that I should just clean up
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my own messes. A good point, that.
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Though the rest of the night is still sort of a blur (I hadn't totally
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gotten out of the state that I was in, just woken up slightly), I do
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remember James helping me to clean and bandage my arm as we sat on the
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floor of the bathroom, the dog occasionally wandering in and out. The
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whole time, I was still sobbing, blubbering out, "I don't
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want to leave you, I don't want to leave Zephyr, I don't know why I did
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that, I'm sorry" over and over again.
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--------------------
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## Immediately After
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The last thing I did before going to bed that night was to send an email
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to work saying that I would be in later in the day due to an "emergency
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appointment" in the morning. I certainly couldn't tell them what had
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actually happened, but I had so thoroughly exhausted myself and still
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felt so bad that I decided sleeping in would help me out quite a bit.
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I wound up at the office around eleven in the morning, and sat down,
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feeling tired, worn thin, and still traumatized from the fact that I had
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apparently acted out something I had thought was just one of those
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persistent negative thoughts that won't go away, one with no grounding
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in reality. Within minutes, I received a message from my boss informing
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me that my attitude in the last few weeks was not acceptable. I had
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been irritable and angry, to the point where my supervisors felt as
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though they had to word things so that I wouldn't get upset.
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I was stuck in a weird situation, here. On the one hand, my boss was
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totally right and I really did need to take a look at how I was
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interacting with others at work, but on the other hand, I wasn't in a
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place to do anything about it at the time, and I certainly didn't feel
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as though I could talk to my boss about what had happened in order to
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save the conversation for another time.
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I did my best to accept it and trudge through the rest of the day. The
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plan that was in place before was to follow a friend up to Blackhawk for
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a free night at a casino hotel that he had available. It seemed like
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getting out of town might actually help, and it also meant that my
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workday was significantly shorter than it would've been otherwise.
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The drive after work was calming, and I actually got to the point where
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I felt as though the night out would be a good change of pace to keep me
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from going too crazy.
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And you know? The evening really did help. It was a lot of fun
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spending $20 on roulette and walking away with $60, it was fun eating a
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ridiculous amount of crab legs, and it was...well, it was mortifying,
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watching some of saddest people I've ever seen in my life sit, lost, in
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front of their slot machines.
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We had planned on going hot-tubbing, but, as became clear when I took
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off my shirt back at the room and exposed the rather bulky bandage along
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the underside of my arm, that was pretty much out of the question, so we
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mostly just sat around talking, and, in my case, trying to feel better
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about the whole thing.
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I was fine until it was time for bed. As is usually the case, the
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stillness is when I get the worst, in terms of anxiety. That's when
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it's easiest for my mind to wander, fixate on a subject, and loop over
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it in all the worst ways for the longest time. The problems started
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when sleep didn't come.
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And didn't come.
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And still didn't come.
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After a time, I suppose I just lost it. I got up and started pacing the
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room, walking from the bathroom to the window and back again, clenching
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and unclenching my hands before I let loose a "Jesus fucking Christ!"
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I locked myself in the bathroom and broke down again.
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Both James and Karl checked in on me throughout the next few hours, but
|
|
it was mostly spent huddled up on the cold tile of the floor feeling
|
|
awful about both myself and what I'd done - that it had any effect on
|
|
those around me was just starting to hit home. I will not lie that,
|
|
several times throughout the night, I wished that I had succeeded in
|
|
order to not be going through what I was going through at the time. I
|
|
simply couldn't stand what I'd done.
|
|
|
|
After calming down, I went through and admitted it all on Twitter in
|
|
several tweets posted in quick succession. Thanks to the Internet being
|
|
the Internet, I've got them all saved:
|
|
|
|
* Panicking over work and stupid shit I did last night. Agh. _(3:22 PM -
|
|
22 Mar 12)_
|
|
* Things are totally out of control now. (5:00 AM - 23 Mar 12)
|
|
* On meds for anxiety now, but that seems to have just let loose
|
|
something terrible. Tried to kill myself Wednesday night, spent all
|
|
tonight-- _(5:09 AM - 23 Mar 12)_
|
|
* --obsessing about it, woke up Karl and James, then felt guilty and
|
|
upset about it. _(5:10 AM - 23 Mar 12)_
|
|
* It's not even really about anything, I'm just messed up, I guess.
|
|
_(5:11 AM - 23 Mar 12)_
|
|
* Days are spent in a surreality, both happy and unreasonably angry.
|
|
_(5:12 AM - 23 Mar 12)_
|
|
* I'm sorry you'll all wake up to a bunch of Matt freaking out, but I'm
|
|
stuck :S _(5:13 AM - 23 Mar 12)_
|
|
|
|
In poured a series of confused and sympathetic responses; not just
|
|
replies, but also direct messages, text messages, and in the morning, a
|
|
few phone calls. Of particular note was one message, the first,
|
|
informing me that there was a possible correlation between the
|
|
medication I was on for anxiety and some of my actions. I didn't think
|
|
too much of it at the time, but research eventually let me to believe
|
|
that was indeed what happened. More on that later, however.
|
|
|
|
I managed an hour or two of sleep before I got up early to head down
|
|
back down from Blackhawk in order to make it to work early. Before I
|
|
managed to leave the room, however, I got a call from my boss, who had
|
|
seen the tweets, ensuring that I was alright, and that I would make it
|
|
in to work alright, as he wanted to talk to me.
|
|
|
|
By the time I had made it down to the office, I had also received
|
|
several more text messages, and a call from a friend I had known since
|
|
elementary school, Ryan. Ryan was working in a hospital at the time,
|
|
and expressed shock when I told him my prescriptions, mentioning that it
|
|
was pretty rare for people to be prescribed two benzodiazapines at once,
|
|
another indication that it might have had something to do with the
|
|
medication that I was on.
|
|
|
|
The real surprise of the day, however, came when about half an hour
|
|
after I got into work, when my boss showed up.
|
|
|
|
"Come with me," he said, and beckoned me out of the office.
|
|
|
|
"Sorry about all of the freaking out," I mumbled, once we were out of
|
|
earshot. "I think it has to do with the medication, I'm going to call
|
|
Dr.-"
|
|
|
|
By the time we had made it to the empty office next to ours, I had
|
|
fallen silent out of embarrassment.
|
|
|
|
"I need you to tell me what your plan is," my boss asked.
|
|
|
|
"Plan?"
|
|
|
|
"Plan to kill yourself."
|
|
|
|
"I...don't have a plan, I don't know why," I managed.
|
|
|
|
"Well, you need to tell me if anything like that happens again."
|
|
|
|
The conversation continued. My boss wanted me to spend some time at
|
|
Mountain Crest, a mental health center, and had even been prepared to
|
|
take me there himself with or without my consent had I been obviously
|
|
not just as shaken up by the whole situation as everyone else.
|
|
|
|
In the end, we agreed that I would take that day, Friday off, as well as
|
|
Monday, with no questions asked by other employees. I was to use the
|
|
time to get a hold of myself, and when I came back, there would be no
|
|
repercussions. The idea of Mountain Crest was mentioned again, as well,
|
|
and I was assured that my boss and his husband would help take me there
|
|
if I needed it.
|
|
|
|
--------------------
|
|
|
|
## The following few days
|
|
|
|
I headed straight home after the talk.
|
|
|
|
I was exhausted. I had two nights of very poor or very little sleep
|
|
behind me, and the first thing I was going to do when I got home was
|
|
going to be take a nap.
|
|
|
|
James was gone when I got home, and after an hour or two's restless
|
|
sleep, I started in on cleaning the house. A good friend of mine had
|
|
always said that cleaning was an excellent way to help out in tough
|
|
emotional situations, because you could always see something getting
|
|
done, you could point to something and say, "See, it's cleaner now."
|
|
|
|
I washed the walls. I washed the banister, which had turned gray from
|
|
James' grease-covered hands levering him up the stairs after a long
|
|
day's work. I cleaned the front door, and the entryway. I cleaned part
|
|
of the kitchen, and part of the bathroom. I was exhausted, but wearing
|
|
myself out doing something with results was apparently just what I
|
|
needed.
|
|
|
|
James came home later that day, and we got a bit of talking done about
|
|
it, but we were both still too raw from two terrible nights to say too
|
|
much to each other. I agreed to stop the Clonazepam - had already
|
|
stopped - and to talk to the psychiatrist about what had happened.
|
|
|
|
During the call with the doctor, he mentioned surprise at the reaction I
|
|
had had, but did not deny it. We scheduled an appointment for later
|
|
that week, and would spend the next several months working out exactly
|
|
what had happened.
|
|
|
|
That weekend, two other friends visited us, though the trip was already
|
|
planned, and kept us company. Additionally, my boss's husband stopped
|
|
by the house to make sure that I was alright. It was a time to chill
|
|
out and relax. James took Monday off as well, and we spent time roaming
|
|
around and shopping, and talking.
|
|
|
|
All of this has been incredibly difficult to write. That whole week was
|
|
one of the most difficult to work through of my entire life, to be
|
|
honest. It's one of those things that needs to be told, though. I
|
|
need to get it off my chest.
|
|
|
|
I've learned a whole lot from the scenario, both through concrete
|
|
consequences and more abstract lessons, which I'll work on in future
|
|
parts.
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|
</article>
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<p>Page generated on 2020-04-24</p>
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