Crying Wolf

A friend has said the way I have lived the last four years is to kick the can down the road dealing with whatever only when the road ends and whatever absolutely needs to be addressed. She’s not wrong. The multiple warning lights illuminated on my car dashboard? I realize at some point my car is going to stop working. The hole in my kitchen ceiling caused by a leak from the upstairs bathroom? At some point that needs to get fixed. The accumulation of empty boxes in my basement? Yes they need to be recycled. The parts of my yard covered in weeds? They drive me nuts but not enough to do anything about it. My garage badly in need of painting? I’m sure the neighbors are well aware every time they drive by. The road I’m on feels eerily close to its end.

Living moment to moment in unrelenting anguish, it is hard to think about the future or something that needs to get done next week. An excuse for sure but a darn painful one to hide behind.

I was vertically resting in the leather recliner underneath my cat blanket in the small treatment room in Vadnais Heights recuperating from the latest Ketamine treatment. I was fully coherent when the latest panic attack hit and hit with a vengeance. I was gulping for air, sweating profusely and could feel my heart racing. The device they place on me to monitor my heart and blood pressure during the treatments wasn’t working but I knew my heart was pounding hard. Eventually the nurse attendant entered the room to remove the IV needle from my arm. I told her I was having a bad panic attack and she went and got the nurse. I told them I didn’t think it was related to the treatment, that the attacks have been happening more and more and with more and more intensity. Once I feel one coming on, it’s almost made worse in knowing how long and how severe the others have been. The nurse attendant (who’s told me she loves how I dress… cat clothes), who has an impressive snake tattoo on her forearm, and who has helped in many of my treatments, asked if I’d like someone to stay with me. I said yes so she asked me about my cats. She said she understood how bad panic attacks can be, having suffered several in her life. After a few moments of silence she asked if music would help. I said yes. She said when she gets panic attacks sugar sometime helps so she asked if I’d like a Life Saver. That seemed aptly appropriate so she left to grab an iPhone and a variety of Life Savers. I chose jazz music and a cherry flavored Life Saver. She said for what it was worth, she appreciated my personality and that I seemed like a really nice person. 

The nurse returned and having discussed all this with the other nurse handling my case and the onsite psychiatrist who I met with for the first time before my treatment given how things have gone the past few days, and they decided to increase the frequency of my treatments. I said yes, but I don’t know. I’m in an even darker place now than when I started the treatments again. But that likely would have been the case had I not tried. The real ‘cure’ has to come from within, it always has. But I no longer trust my within to figure this out since it hasn’t been able to for the past four years (and beyond). The only reoccurring thought that has bubbled to the surface during all my treatments has been the necessity, the importance of publishing my memoir. So I’ve restarted that process again. 

I sat in the treatment room for over an hour trying to catch my breath and thinking I should be around people for as long as I could knowing my cats are spending less time with me in the hot weather. I buzzed the kind nurse attendant that I was ready to leave. She walked me down to my Lyft ride home. I thanked her for the Life Saver.

Best Case/Worst Case and Something In Between

Life is about telling ourselves stories; the story that defines our day to day life; the story of who we think we are, who we think we were, who we think we want to be. But all these are our own stories. They may not reflect a reality that anyone else sees. I wrote a memoir about the stories of my life. But it is written through my eyes only. Did anyone I wrote about, lived with, breathed with see any of the story the same way?

Here’s a story I’ve told myself over the years and totally believed in. That I suffered a severe mental health crisis my senior year of college and the year after my graduation that led to being hospitalized for depression. I was desperate to feel better. I listened to my friends, family and medical providers. But nothing was working. I felt worse and worse. Then it dawned on me the only way to get better was to find my inner voice again. Listen to it. So I decided I was going to write my masterpiece or die trying. It started with collecting up my best writing thus far if there’s anything worthwhile a grade school, teenager, college writing wannabe could write that was worth sharing. By collecting my best of best writing I saw there were common themes I wrote about throughout my life. I was freed by a thought that came out of the depression fog and I wrote something about the difference between fiction and nonfiction doesn’t exist. Again, we all tell ourselves the stories we live by viewed by our own lenses. This line freed me to write my story in a fictional way. And the previously blocked writing came flowing out. I was obsessed with writing my story in the form of the novel. 

The novel echoed the story of the movie ‘Amadeus.’ The narrator was a wannabe writer in awe of his friend’s writing ability, knowing he himself was somewhat of a hack. But the narrator was equally frustrated by his friend wasting his talents, wallowing in his own self pitying depression. My novel was inspired by a Bob Dylan quote about Dylan’s ‘Blood on the Tracks’ LP something about trying to write in the past, present and future at the same time and writing songs like a painting, where you can look at the whole or individual pieces of the canvass. Bob set a high bar for someone who’d never written a novel before. And I failed. Bit off more than I could chew. But in the end I wrote myself out of my depression by listening to my own voice again. I healed myself. Or that was the story I’ve told myself.

A dozen or so years later the crippling depression returned with a vengeance. With a vengeance indeed. I hadn’t healed myself and it was fiction, a foolish belief, to think I figured out how to do that. Granted there were a couple of life altering things that occurred during the dozen or so years; my closest ally, my Mom died. My biggest life lesson sharer, my first cat Mr. Max, died a short time after. I was lost again even though I was now in the middle of a proud of what I was doing career. An employee assistance program counselor committed to calling me every day to check in on my suicidal ideation level. Most days on the brink of the abyss but I knew I couldn’t leave Mr. Max’s successors, Diego-San, Thompson, and Theo, on their own. Yes, it took three cats to replace Mr. Max in my heart. I leaned on those call in check ins, but knew they would soon end because of the way insurance works. This latest crisis resource found me an insurance covered therapist, one who specialized in existentialism, a condition the fill in therapist diagnosed. So I reluctantly transferred my care.

I don’t want to end it this way. This? My career (clearly failing for the first time in my most important opportunity) and or/my life. I gave up in 2020, hoping I’d somehow just naturally die from sadness and everything. So I gave up on so many things. My love of music constantly listening to, going to concerts, creating my own…. (guitar and piano) was gone; my softball career that in a way began when I was nine years old; the love of my running, always faster than most; my attempts at being social, going out with friends, movies, and life… I haven’t found a way to continue any of those things since 2020. That’s on me. I marvel that everyone else figured out how to resume life after a year and a half being forced not being allowed to.

I’m now on a second medical leave from my job during an obviously critical time of my job. It’s accelerating my decline. I’m letting my team, my state, my country down by failing. It’s a heavy burden to deal with. I’m barely functioning on a day to day level… so many days trying to blot things out in bed, or with my head on my hands on my desk when I’m being paid to do my job. Finally identifiable panic attacks that have been happening for weeks. Accelerated by my acceptance of antidepressant medication that I once resisted? This sucks. Desperation and anguish aren’t sustainable states of mind. But that’s where I am, where I’ve been for so long now. 

The best me? I leave my job with some accolades, and publish my memoir that is successful in that people read it and relate and understand its message. That gives my life its ultimate meaning. Sharing my story is my destiny. I’m called upon to appear at events and podcasts to elaborate. 

The worst me? I can’t return to work which likely means being institutionalized losing my current housemates, three great cats, Alias, Norma and Kenta. They end up getting split up because who will take in a trio of cats? And that breaks my heart giving living most moments of the three of them I brought together. I lose my house that’s in a concerning state of disrepair.  My finances are sketchy. Will I outlive what I’ve been able to save vs. the ongoing debts incurred? Stressing me out trying to figure it all out. 

The middle most realistic case? I leave my job, publish my memoir, and it generates some interest. I find another job that helps me ease into retirement a couple of years from now. I fully appreciate my current trio of cats, so wonderful now and more wonderful going forward. 

I’m ‘dealing’ with a depression level that is exponentially worse than anything I’ve felt before. I’ve lived in a desperate, anguished state of mind and heart for a year and a half. It’s all too much. I can’t tell my story it’s been bureaucratically ruled. This time around I actually wrote something publishable that I’m extremely proud that I finished. Or haven’t been able to finish. It has sent me reeling in ways no one seems to understand. Just change your story in a slight way some suggested. Just remove parts of my message. NO! The threads are carefully and intricately woven. This isn’t about my status or making money from that status. This is about finding the meaning to authenticity, honestly and willingly share my soul. That’s not ever an easy thing to do. I didn’t write what I wrote without a lot of thought about what matters. Can I deal with not coming across in a certainly critical manner? I’ve exposed my most awful flaws knowing that was the most important message to what I’ve written…. Being a human being is all about being human.

The state of the world has also been critical in my need to exist. I confess it indeed is accelerating the state of my mental health. The insane attacks against my profession truly took a toll. I spent my career trying to make sure our elections were the best in the country. To be attacked in general, and in person has been too much to endure. I lost my passion for this work January 6, 2021. Climate change? Last summer it was dangerous to go outside and breathe because the world was burning. Political division? finding common ground? It’s crazy how both sides are believing in different realities. Yet we’re supposed to go along with our day to day lives and ignore our existential thoughts and feelings about the world burning around us? I don’t know how to do that. Too weak. Never have. I’m frozen in life, especially since 2020, disconnected from any connection that isn’t related to the feline housemates who give me a reason to feel something and to exist. And it furthers what makes me feel worse and worse every day. I’ve lost all connection with human beings and my failed attempt to turn that around by reaching out to others hasn’t made me feel any better and not feeling any better disconnects me more and more.  I’m critically disconnected. Thanks 2020!

I leaned on the medical professionals to help me way back when. And when I determined they weren’t, I turned inward and found a way forward. It’s dawned on me so late that this time around has even been worse. 988 the suicide hotline gave up on me. It didn’t occur to me until too late that the daily panic attacks over the past year were exacerbated by, if not rooted by my prescription antidepressants. Talk help with a bevy of mental health providers (what does it mean when multiple therapists quit on you?) has been only limiting and hopelessly damaging. All those years ago I had a support system of family and friends. Now days I don’t. I have recently reached out and gone out with important people in my life who expressed concern about the red alert crisis of my life. All those years ago I had people around me every day. Now days I don’t. Social media connections aren’t exactly helpful Anguish, despair, hour to hour, crisis existence. I don’t know how to deal and yet express how dark every moment has become and even harder to endure. I’m still around, mostly for my housemates and for seeing my memoir through publication but how do I find a meaningful existence to believe in?

I need to figure out a middle ground between the best case/worst case scenarios that are both feeling too fictional and rooted in the financial, something not worth continuing on for.