When the darkness of your past ruins your future...

2001
The year they died. My ex's.. Yes, I was one of those weirdos that messed around with sex and drugs and open relationships and all that craziness. I was 25, young and overpaid, and very bored. I met these wild and crazy, and sexy people and suddenly it was a full tilt party at the year 2001 dawned.

Except... The party never lasts long, and eventually you have to clean up. Months of messing around with them left me with a wicked heroin and opium habit, and a view of reality that was now slanted towards hedonism and getting high. At some point in the early summer, I rpied myself away from those two.. Those two lovely people, and I stepped back, and managed to pull out of my spiral into hell.

(Mostly)

And then the show dropped. The 11 page suicide note e-mailed to everyone. Imagine your nearest 25 acquaintances finally finding out your every problem. It's like your shrink and lover both just aired your dirtiest laundry. But I wasn't alone, she aired the dirty of her husband, myself, and a roommate of hers. All in this in a rambling 11 page note. And then everyone knew. That we had bdsm sex, that we did copious amounts of drugs, and had figured out how to steal stuff from this one store. That I essentially sat on my ass at work (And her husband worked with me..) and we sat there and did nothing, and was grossly overpaid for it. She hated that. She hated her past, our shitty love triangle, and the leverage that her roomate had over us.

She she put a deer rifle to her chest, and pulled the trigger. But first she e-mailed the whole gang, and dragged us all through the muck. Yea, it makes it hard to show up at a goddamn funeral when everyoen there knows that she and her husband used to make you crawl across the floor for them during sex. Owch. The shame. And the loathing.

He took his life 4 months later. If there was any excuse for him to go ballistic with his using, this was the perfect excuse. His wife was gone, our terrible secrets were out there, and the future was getting dim. PLus some sick fucks had rammed a couple of jets into the Twin Towers, so we were all fucked as a nation. He left a note in his pocket that was sad. It was an apology for her, and for him.

Another funeral. Another uncomfy gathering. It was just me and their roommate left. Till death do they part, and even in death, they managed to stay together. I was an idiot. I tried to follow.. But I lacked resources or finances at the time, and fuck my stupid body, Oxy/Percocet/Most Oral Opioids just make me fucking vomit. So a shit load of percocet, plus smoking a ton of opium resulted in me merely passing into a near coma for 14 hours. The roommate caught me at it, and booted me out after that. And I saw his reason why. No need for a third person to die.

By 2004
Somehow I got up off my ass and pulled it together. New job, new partner, new life. Living la vida mostly ok in Chicago. And her.. she was a gem. Formerly tarnished and dirty, but she had polished herself clean finally. We fell in love everytime we saw each other, and at my urging she started to take the pill for her period.. Since hers was fucked up, and making her depressed.

Pills, plus Smoking, plus 20 lbs overweight.. Yea. You know how they say there's a chance of blood clots from taking birth control pills? And you ever wonder who in the fuck gets them? Who is that poor sad girl who keels over one day in the lobby of her building, because the pain in her leg.. Oh that fucking burning hot pain, that was there for 3 days, and fuck it'll get better and she'll see the doctor on monday.. she PROMISES me... Well it finally let up. Because the goddamn clot came loose.

I got the call on my way to work. I nearly caused and accident as I pulled into the parking lot at Jewel in Grayslake. And that day, I learned a frightening and terrible set of words. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulmonary_embolism ) The Pulmonary Embolism. Aka when the clot gets its move on, and it floats up and kills you. And just like that.. she was out of my life.

At the funeral I was almost relieved that I'd made mostly new friends over the past 3 years. I only saw two or three familiar faces there, and they looked at me... We shared the silent hell that this was #3 in three years. And they looked at me.. and treated me like I was going to be #4.

2008.
30 or so years old. Bored and overpaid yuppie. I just ruined my last relationship to have a chance to have what I considered epic sex with this other girl. It has become the Hedonism stage Round #2. Lost the weight, got in shape, stopped smoking and then realized that I wanted someone else. And I found her. Or wait, she found me. Who cares. The sex is good. I'm fucking invincible and suddenly I have a taste for the more sinful things again.

But.. I was trying to accelerate my career to the next level. Going for that one job.. That job which requires the deepest of background checks. A job for someone that has something to do with something federal. And they needed to check my past. And I froze up when I had to answer the questions... Because they don't want you to have a past.. a past that someone could blackmail you about.

Protip: They can ask you if you have been involved with Drugs in the last XX years. Where XX depends on what agency, or company or what level clearance you're trying to get. I munged it.. By a year. And then I had to give names and places of where I used to live. Old landlords, employers, or whatever.

Someone... Someone from seven years ago mentioned the suicides. Someone they spoke to. And theat sent them off on another trail. And they talked to another person.. but this time, they knew to ask about suicides. And this person.. who was only being honest, shared everything.

And they came back months later, and denied me. And they explained why. And I couldn't believe it. My dark and evil past had come back and haunted me once again. All the hedonistic sex, and bdsm and whatever was fine. But doing harder drugs? No.. that can be ok.. if it's long enough in the past... But they found out that she.. well she dealt... her husband sort of did to. So to sum it up.. they added up the bits and got:
1. I was fucking a married couple and doing really depraved sex acts (Weird but OK)
2. I did a shitload of heroin, opium, coke, G, X, and god knows what with them (Not terribly Ok, but it was XX years ago.. and she's been clean)
3. One of the people that fucked me, and did drugs with me.. also sold them. That's NOT ok. Doesn't matter if she's dead, or whatever. Game over lady.. you're not working on this project.

I'm celebrating by having my long always slightly tamed depression (Yay for prozac, it keeps me close enough to level..) well depression had a welcoming back party for me. And here we are. Five or so days later. I barely made it to work each day, I blew off huge personal commitments on saturday.. (Stuff in teh planning for months..) and i lined up my bottles of pills on my bed and stared them down.

I have quite the legally prescribed collection. Xanax, Klonopin, Clonodine, Risperdal (Lovely shit when you can't sleep), and finally, eight Valium from when I fucked up a muscle last year. And over 30+ of each of the others. Lets also not forget the prozac (Bah..) and Allegra.. (Um yea.. Lets OD on Allergy meds.. sweet christ, what the fuck?)

Last night at this time I ended up drilling myself to sleep with the help of 5mgs of xanax and 2mg of risperdal. I'm 110lbs. I probably should have slept all day. but hell I only slept 5 hours. Of course I was crazy all day today.

And look it's tonight. And my friends sorta booted me out earlier, since well I was being a movie snob around them. And they wanted to get it on. Not wanting to 5th wheel on them, I fucking left. And her I am. At home. 5am. Can't sleep. My current fuckbuddy, she's visiting NYC. My roommate is gone for the weekend. The street is quit, and every fucker has left Southie after they got their fill of shitty green beer. And I'm here, alone bitching on a forum on the internet, wondering if I should just finally do it. Problem is that I still don't think I have the right combo. And not being a drinker, or having access to sweet lady H anymore, I got nothing to blend in to make things stick.

Fuck. I should just go drive up the Tobin bridge, pay the fucking $3 toll, and pull over and leap. It's been done before. It's a known good way. Some jackass lept a while back, and took his fucking young kid with him. What a fucking dick. But it was life going to shit around him. I could almost understand why he would do himself in, but leave the damn kid alone.

Anyways. Dawn is arriving soon. Either to bed with me, or to Dunkies and get some fucking coffee to keep me wired through the morning. I think my goddamn mind is going to explode though. It's in teh final fucking cyclic countdown. I'm teetering on the edge and I keep daring my self to go over. The bridge, the legally prescribed meds, or fuck maybe my cousin in NH's shotgun.

Probably won't. scared of it. (that's good, right?) and fucking ashamed of being some dead old dyke.. 30+ years old, no kids, no long term relationships and no chance of working at certain places... because when you dig up the past.. all you get is dirty.

And they found my dirt. And I'm in hell all over again.

Fuct.

Edit: To hell with it. Xanax feels almost as good as H did, so long ago.

 

welcome to SF.
you sure have been through a lot lately, no wonder your depression is back.
for now, with no sleep, in a desperate frame of mind, suicide is gonna be tempting.
of course it would be. so many losses - your exes, your friends, your job, your control over who knows what about you in the world totally violated. it's enough to sink anyone.

you're probably feeling pretty alone right now, but you have us, so there's a start. we'll always be here to to listen and support you on this journey. so, if it's any small comfort, you're not alone anymore.

you say you also feel ashamed. i felt ashamed when i attempted, ashamed for wanting that route out, and ashamed for being too much of a wimp to go through with it easily... it stayed up all night, for nights on end, yelling at myself to go through with it. as for the bdsm and all the other adventures you had in your 20s, they were just that, adventures. nothing to be ashamed about there. it's very, very sad that the people who introduced you to it were so emotionally unwell and unable to reach out for help. that doesn't have to be how the story ends for you. believe me.

as for today --

1. get some sleep for a few hours (if you can), then
2. get some professional supports in place ASAP - figure out who you can call (the doc who gave you the prescriptions? maybe? or a counsellor) and let the know it's an emergency. 'cos it really is. anytime you are this close to suicide it is an emergency situation, that way you can skip all those waiting lists.

let me know how you are getting on?

catherine

 

A few hours sleep was gotten, aided by.. nothing than my own sense of smug idiocy. That and fear of fucking up my sleep schedule and getting in late to work.. Which.. I'm at this new job, and it's T-minus two weeks until my insurance kicks back in.. Yes I should (and could) pay for a therapist/etc out of pocket, but dammit, Subsidized visits at $20 per session sure beats hte shit out of $160 per session. I tell myself to hold out until the Insurance Card comes, but I think I'm going to have to write a big check for a session or two to keep sane in the meantime.

How do you keep sane, when you're feeling insane? All I want to do it call my friends and tell them that I'm feeling nuts today. I want to call my fuckbuddy and beg her to leave NYC early, so she can stop here and give me attention. (Hooray.. 30+ and still attention whoring..) I hate talking to people about this, since It seems like some pathetic thing that I would have done when I was 16, cutting and listening to The Cure.. and now I'm 30, and it feels so much more negative. I dont ant to reach out, adn be branded as an attention seeker.. at the same time I need to vent.. and sitting on the couch, and reading shitty bios about Nomi is not actually acccomplishing any venting of any steam.

Thanks for the kind words. I'm going to go for a drive, and seek out seafood. This being Boston, a Decent "lobstah rowl" is never too far away, if you know where to look.

Danke
L

 

i'm an expert at distracting myself when i'm suicidal... which, sad to say, is pretty often these days...

are you on facebook? i ask 'cos scramble will keep you occupied for hours. i hang out in the chat room here. i go for long walks (but not by the river, too tempting). i write letters (not the suicide kind, the regular kind) or email friends. i call the suicide helpline and we have a little chat. i water the plants. i curl up in bed and sleep, hours on end.

it's funny you should mention about reachign for the same coping strategies you did as a teen. i said the very same thing to the psychiatrist about starting cutting again (i'm 42)... i hadn't cut for about 13 years, but started up again recently. i told him it felt very melodramatic, very adolescent.... he didn't flinch, just said it makes sense in times of stress we reach for the things that have worked in the past. thing is, doesn't work so well this time around. i just know too much... so i have to figure out why i still want to do it. but that's gonna take some time.

anyhow, hope you get some fresh air and things start to look a little brighter for you.
out of pocket sucks, but what's a couple of hundred bucks to keep you alive until the health insurance kicks in, eh?

catherine