Tuesday, 30 April 2013 03:25 PM
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Three years ago, I was in a bad place.
My roommate was a scumbag who would steal money from me to buy cocaine, and lie to my face about it. He was always late paying his half of the rent and utilities, and on more than one occasion, I got a call from a bartender asking me to bring his drunk ass home after his debit card was declined. He'd bring douchebag bros home with him, and they would stink up the apartment with cigarettes while listening to Lil Wayne till four in the morning. The cops came three times due to noise complaints. The entire time I would sit in my room, lock the door, and secretly hope that one of them would OD on coke or get alcohol poisoning. He would borrow my car without asking, usually when he was drunk, and causally dropped in a conversation once that he didn't know my car could go 125 mph.
I worked at Pizza Hut for five years, first as a driver, then as a manager. I liked driving, but getting promoted to manager was a nightmare. First, our restaurant general manager was a great guy, the best boss I ever had. He was in grad school for Russian studies, and after getting his master's, he moved to Russia to teach English. The guy they got to replace him is the biggest asshole I've ever met. First of all, he had no clue when it came to hygiene. He would show up to work reeking of cat piss, cigarettes and BO. He would yell at me for the tiniest mistakes or for no reason at all. He had a four-year-old daughter who lived with her mother, and she swore like a sailor. And to top it all off, he was rude to customers. We lost so much business because of him. He once called a female customer a cunt to her face. I was gobsmacked. He'd always schedule me for pain-in-the-ass shifts and leave himself most of the easy days. I ended up working more hours as a manager, but making less money. And to top it all off, he was a Yankees fan.
So between having to deal with these two excuses for men, I was fighting more and more with my girlfriend. She has an anxiety disorder, which made things even more stressful. Finally after one night, April 7, 2010, I lost it. I had an awful shift at work, had to come home to my roommate's asinine antics, then got into a fight with my girlfriend who had an anxiety attack over something I had done almost four years prior. I snapped, kicked her out of my apartment at three in the morning, and crawled into a handle of vodka.
The next morning, I called to apologize, but it was too late. The damage had been done, and after almost five years, we were no longer a couple. The next couple months just got rougher. My best friend moved to Tennessee to go to law school, and my mother got into a fight with my ex. And I still had to deal with a deadbeat roommate and the boss from hell.
Every Tuesday, I would go to a bar for pub trivia. I had a core team of nerds and we would usually dominate. It was the only thing that I seemed to enjoy anymore. Then one Tuesday, May 25, 2010, my ex showed up with her new boyfriend. Watching them hug and kiss was brutal, and my friends bought me drinks out of sympathy. As I sat there, I forgot about the game, I didn't care anymore. My former beloved was across from me kissing her new man, I had to be to Pizza Hut at 8am the next morning for a 12-hour-plus shift with my scumbag boss, and I still lived with a dirtbag liar and thief. It was right then and there I decided I didn't want to be alive anymore.
I got up and left. As I drove home, I contemplated crashing my car into something, but I figured it was too safe and I would probably survive. When I got home, my roommate was watching TV and informed me that we were out of beer. I brushed him off and went to my room and waited for him to fall asleep.
When he went to his room and closed the door, I took my pull-up bar and attached it to my door frame. Then I took off my belt, made a loop, and tied it on. I put my head through the loop, but my feet were still on the ground. I remember thinking to myself, "I can't do anything right, even killing myself." I got a chair and stood on it, tied the loop smaller, put it around my neck and kicked away the chair. The last thing I remember before I lost consciousness was that I wasn't afraid. Looking back now, that was the strangest thing: the total lack of fear.
The next thing I know, I'm being wheeled into the emergency room. It was the most disorienting feeling in the world. I was strapped to the gurney, completely immobilized, and my entire body felt like it was being poked with pins and needles. I remember more now, but at the time it was so disorienting. After hanging for about three or four minutes, the belt snapped and I fell, waking up my roommate. He came out of his room and saw me convulsing on the floor, so he dialed 911. The paramedics arrived and treated me. I remember being able to hear them, and feel them moving me on to the stretcher, but I couldn't see or speak. My tongue felt too big for my mouth. I fought with them when they tried to strap me down and screamed loudly. It wasn't until I was in the emergency room when I realized what happened: I tried to kill myself, failed, and now I'm in the hospital.
That was when the most heartbreaking part of the whole ordeal happened: My mom came in. She was crying and put her hand on my head, which just made me cry even more. I told her what happened in the bar, but she told me to shush, that everything was going to be okay. As I slowly came back, my entire body started to ache. My legs were the worst; they felt cramped like I hadn't moved in days. The doctor came in and explained to my mom and me that I had hit my head pretty hard when I fell, and they wanted to transfer me to a bigger hospital to get a CT scan to see if I had any bleeding in my head. They loaded me into an ambulance and took me. The entire time, I was still strapped down and couldn't move. My entire body was aches and pains. Every muscle hurt, my head was pounding, and my throat was raw.
After arriving at the other hospital, they finally undid the straps so I could stretch my legs. I got a CT scan and the doctors said everything looked okay, so they transferred me to the psych ward. They put me in a room, and it was the first time I was alone with my mom, who followed the ambulance. I sobbed on her shoulder for what felt like an hour, then a nurse brought me some lunch. I had to take tiny bites because it hurt so bad to swallow.
I was then transferred back to my hometown hospital and admitted to their behavioral health department. They kept me in confinement for the first night to make sure I wouldn't try to hurt myself again. I took a shower and removed all the electrodes the paramedics had put in me. The inside of my elbows were bruised from all the IVs I had, and the electrodes left red welts. I remember noticing that the shower curtain was on a breakaway wire. There was another guy in confinement with who looked like Zach Galifinakis. He shit his pants and started screaming racial slurs so security strapped him to his bed and took him to another room.
After my first night, they moved me to the main ward, and I got to know the other patients and the ward. There was an elderly woman who was a meth addict, there was a young girl who had postpartum depression and had tried to kill her baby, and there was a lawyer who lost a big case and tried to kill himself. I had a huge blue and purple welt on my neck from where the belt had dug into me, so it must have been obvious to the other patients why I was in; none of them needed to ask.
It was while I was in that ward, reading Reader's Digest Condensed Books and watching daytime TV with other patients, that I really learned to appreciate being alive. Pretty much every member of my family came to visit, and I had some deep talks with the nurses and patients. The lawyer told me about the big case he lost, so he parked his Mercedes in his garage and left it running. His wife had found him and took him to the hospital. I saw his wife when she came to visit and she was breathtaking. I remember thinking that I couldn't imagine why that guy would want to kill himself. He had a big house, a Mercedes, a beautiful wife, and a partnership at a law firm. That more than anything made me realize how depression can happen to anyone. Most of my friends were out of state, and they called almost every day. I was admitted to the hospital on the morning of Wednesday, May 26. That upcoming Monday was Memorial Day, so I wasn't released until the next Tuesday. I told my folks I was going to move back in with them until I got my life sorted out. I quit my job at Pizza Hut, but I ended up getting evicted from my apartment anyway because my roommate hadn't paid his half of the rent in four months. My old manager ended up getting fired for getting caught by the health inspector not washing his hands after using the bathroom.
Three years later and I am in such a better place. I went back to school, and moved to Minnesota and the people make me feel sane. I haven't been in a serious relationship since then; I've been on dates and had some hook-ups, but that's it. I'm not complaining though because that gave me lots of me time, which I desperately needed. I got a prescription for Prozac, and had weekly sessions with a psychologist for a year after getting out of the hospital; both helped greatly. My Doc was great, and would help me sort out the thoughts I was having that were harmful or unhelpful. I always considered myself a smart guy in touch with my feelings until then; the Doc helped me even more by pointing out when I was suppressing my emotions or letting them get the better of me.
To anyone out there reading this, thank you for taking the time. I wish there was more I could do than just tell my story. If anyone would like to talk, I'll be here.