Little Mermaid
For parts of this story I've thought through over and over, I don't like telling it as much. It's just facts I am unleashing from me brain. I want to move forward, but I will get this out.
Um, well, I have always loved singing. Really really loved it. I sing in church most Sundays. A few weeks after my attempt, I was trying to sing and my voice would hurt, feel like a tiny guitar pic was like poking in my vocal chords or something. It seemed like certain notes. And it felt kinda hoarse, and just like catching, so I couldn't create whole round sounding notes. maybe like something inside was choking my singing voice.
So we went to a doctor to evaluate it. My mom did haul me to an awful lot of appointments those days. Anyway, this guy stuck a camera up my nose and down the back of my throat. I think he might've looked down my throat too. I think he was an ENT. He found scar tissue he thought was causing the problem. The scar tissue was from when I was intubated following the attempt. When the pulled out the tube, he thinks it scratched my lungs. I remember if felt pretty dang weird.So, we scheduled a brief outpatient surgery where he went in to remove the scar tissue. (PS how weird is it to go to an appointment for cleaning up the damage from the rescue following a sorta botched suicide attempt? I think we musta let the guy in on the story. Again, it was probably another moment of my mother matter-of-fact spewing all the horrible things she went through, mercilessly throwing her chemically altered and addled nutso daughter under the bus.
Guess it feels good to get this out.
Meanwhile, before the surgery, I got hired at Starbucks. I did have to tell them that I could start immediately, but I wouldn't be able to talk much after the minor surgery next week. They said that's alright and told me I could do cleaning tasks to start.
So after my first few days at the bux, I had surgery then came back to be the new briefly mute girl who was just there to clean stuff.
My poetic side always sorta like that moment. What else was I gonna do, get more depressed and fired again? So in my head I was a Cinderella cleaner with and Ursula took my voice. Maybe a prince would come save me.
The one other upside to this bit is that people respect the idea of surgery, physical treatments. There wasn't the shamey stuff that goes with why I had the surgery and how only weeks prior I was locked up for wanting to harm myself.
Two jobs ago, my mania slowly developed into psychosis. I kept going into work while the illness was grabbing hold. My boss, who was a young guy and most likely had zero experience with this kind of thing, kept asking me if I was alright. It should have been obvious that I was not alright. But one day at work they called an ambulance for me and I attempted to fight them off. I kept screaming that there were "dueling with a god." The police showed up and sent me to the hospital. I'll never forget how everyone was standing around looking at me, how they locked the door after I walked outside to fight the paramedics. Then after weeks in the hospital I'm finally cleared to leave and a day after HR calls me with my boss on the line as well. They told me they were "going to terminate employment" when I insisted that what I had was a medical condition, that it wasn't all my fault that I have the right set of meds now, that you wouldn't fire a man who broke his leg, why would you fire a man with a chemical imbalance. My boss replies "because I don't know if it will happen again." No one knows when any illness will strike! It's morally objectionable to fire a man or woman who comes down with cancer. But it would seem, firing a man who developed a mental illness still lies within the realm of acceptable. I fell quite deeply into a depression. It was a great job to have. Now I squirm and cringe when I think about how they must talk about me as the guy who "went crazy."
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like such a terrible experience. I hate that this stuff gets seared in our memories. Mental illness is treated so differently than injuries as far as jobs go. It's so hard. I think one of the hopes that I hold on to is how I am not in that moment now. I don't know what is scarier...job losses or mind losses...ya know? And when they come together it's a cluster. One point I might mention though, is that illnesses, like cancers and others, can mean having to leave a job because your body is unable. It's not getting fired, but it is having to leave. There are limitations we hit whatever is driving us - from illness, to mind chaos, to stress. I just keep praying that God will make less of those kind of horrifying moments in my life.
DeleteYou know, for a while I thought it was punishment from God for all the wrongs I've committed in life. I still can't be sure that it isn't. I'm not religious by any stretch of the imagination. But I do believe that a God exists and I'll even venture to say that if this God exists then it could very well be a personal God not unlike the one found in Christian theology. But I've given up trying to decipher the will of a God. I can only control a few facets of my life and will continue to do so. If this God sees it fit to have me come down with another illness, then so be it. I've come back to reality several times before, and while I fear that at some point I'll never return to sanity, like some kind of Nietzschean calamity. I don't think there's any reason to believe that I won't be able to come back to the real world. I guess what I'm trying to say is that God is going to do what God is going to do. Who am I to petition God to change its plan for my sake. If I were to pray for anything, it would be for the strength to pick up the pieces, glue them back together and continue on. Which is a triumph in itself for people who suffer from mental illness.
DeleteThank you for sharing your painful memories. I know it may be cathartic but painful nonetheless.