Let’s go back in time and relive a horrible time in my life. If that makes you want to read on, you are a sick person. For all you sick people who are still here, I need to set the scene. The following happened in about November to December 2009. When you read what happened, you’ll understand why this wasn’t something I wrote in my diary. The first part of the story takes place just before Thanksgiving that year. I had an altercation with another employee at work and I was fired. Spoiler alert: I was back to work by January 2010. The event I’m going to discuss happened in the middle of my unemployment.
Before I talk about the event, I would like to talk about how I feel writing about it. Whenever I write about a traumatic time in my life, I am taken back to the emotions and feelings of that time. Dredging up old feelings is difficult for me because I am always fully aware of my surroundings even when I’m in the middle of a breakdown. This creates a vivid picture of the scene, but also makes me relive the difficult emotions I was feeling. My body doesn’t know the difference between being in the moment and reliving it years later. The anger, frustration, and despair I was feeling accompanies me while writing about them. Enough about this future world of joy. Let’s head back to an evening in 2009.
Patti and I were sitting in our den and talking about what I could do to at least get a temporary job while I’m unemployed. Keep it in mind, I did not know I was going to be back at work in January. Since they fired me, I had no suitable answer to why I left my previous position. Looking for work was going to be difficult. Part of me didn’t want to look for a temporary job because I had already submitted my rebuttal to being fired. If I got a job, I would have to leave it when I got my regular job back. I left other jobs where I was miserable to get a job where I could be happy. The possibility of going to another miserable job again sent me into a spiral of depression. For the first time in many years, I felt like giving up on everything.
All my emotions were running through my head when I started yelling something. I don’t remember what it was, but the premise was that I didn’t know what to do. Collapsing on the floor in the hallway of our house, I was yelling and slobbering. Even in a state of uncontrolled frustration, I could sense what I was doing and the world around me. I knew our three cats who were less than a year old were surrounding me. They were sniffing me and wondering why I was on the floor, drooling. Patti slowly got me up, saying we didn’t need to talk about it right now. We agreed that I needed help. I needed to see a therapist for my depression.
I only found out the following recently. Patti met with our nephew and got him to call the mental health office and make an appointment for me. They wouldn’t talk to Patti. I had to make my appointment, and she knew I wouldn’t do it on my own. She told me she figured out how to make an appointment for me. I thought she convinced them to let her make the appointment somehow. Finding out all these years later that my nephew made the call makes more sense. Part of my fears involved talking on the telephone. Dealing with mental health issues, you would think the mental health office would make it easier for people to get the services they need. I’m just glad my nephew could do what I could not.
My first appointment with the psychiatrist was easy and difficult in equal measure. On the outside, I’m sure I appeared calm, but I was full of anxiety. I explained what was going on and how certain activities such as talking on the phone made me anxious. The main diagnosis was anxiety and depression. The doctor put me on anxiety medication. My parents were anti medications most of my childhood. They were into homeopathic “medications” and chiropractors. When I started seeing the “doctors” they went to for the shysters they were, I began trusting traditional medicine. Alternative medicine means not authentic medicine. I had no problem taking medication for anxiety because the doctor gradually increased the dose over time. The changes were gradual. Just talking to someone about my anxieties was what I needed most.
This was one of the worst times in my life. Why am I reliving it? Being at your lowest allows you to start from scratch in your life. I’ve had anxiety my whole life, but I was finally dealing with it. I was 39 and starting over. Unfortunately, this was not the final horrible happening in my life in the next few years. If I hadn’t dealt with my anxiety, I would not have been able to handle the next few years. Perhaps in another Thoughts from Life, I will talk about the financial downfall that happened. For now, I will just go back to my happier future life in 2026. Keep smiling!
Thoughts from Life 
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