Hello blog, it has only been ten months since I last wrote anything in this space. It actually seems like it was a lifetime ago given everything that has happened in that time. I wish I could say that thing have been going well, but really it has just been one very long train wreck.
Most everyone knows that my mother passed away in early June last year from complications of lymphoma. My relationship with mom was complex due to the long term abuse she gave me growing up and her death has been an extremely complex issue for me to deal with. Though we weren't close over the last 15 years, she left everything to me in what is undoubtedly the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. I am eternally grateful for her generosity, it shows that despite everything that happened between us, she genuinely loved me as her son. Having to settle mom's estate and sell her condo was more than a challenge for a man who has a multifaceted mental illness and mood disorder. Fortunately for me, mom's good friends adopted me as one of their own. They are all very, very nice people and I genuinely appreciate them.....but they aren't the sort of people who are going to understand the inner workings of someone who is as complex and (dare I say) broken as I am. I actually ended up selling mom's condo to her friends, who had just lost their home in a fire. These people needed help so I sold the condo to them for far less than it was worth (much to the dismay of my aunt and father). This was a "pay it forward" moment for me, mostly because I know what it's like to suddenly find yourself without a home and no belongings whatsoever (when I crash landed back on the mainland after living in Hawaii for two years). I would like to think that was what mom would have wanted me to do.
Despite the fact that mom's friends have adopted me, I am almost completely alone right now. My best friend in Spokane stopped talking to me about this time last year. This is primarily because he has been displeased with me for years now over my activity levels and my weight. I'm fat. There is no way around it. I know it and trust me, I HATE IT. Unfortunately, I live with a pretty serious case of Complex PTSD, an unspecified personality disorder (this is a new development), bouts of severe depression, and extremely low self worth. To say I hate myself would be the understatement of a lifetime. Over the last few years it has become increasingly difficult for my friend in Spokane to hide his displeasure with me over how lazy he thinks I am. Of course, Matt has lead a relatively easy life, he has no mental illness, he wasn't abused as a child, he didn't lose a sibling to suicide, he didn't have his entire world come crashing in on him at any point in time, let alone numerous times.......and he has no reference for any of these things, so instead of compassion, he has contempt.
Being betrayed (more in this later) and abandoned by friends isn't anything new to me, it just never gets any easier. Matt was the last bastion of friends I had from before my Kauai days. We used to ski and mountain bike together a lot. Over the last couple of years mountain biking with Matt hasn't been fun for me because every time we would go out he would try to push me as hard as he absolutely could in an attempt to get me to lose weight. I don't like being pushed by anyone and I actually lost interest in mountain biking over the last couple of years because the pressure he put on me. Every time he would call over the previous two years I would have to lie to him about mountain biking or going to the gym because there would always be this awkward pause and change in his tone with me if I ever mentioned I wasn't doing either. Matt has never been the most compassionate person I have ever met, nor has he ever really understood the things that I have been through over the last seven years (specifically Carly's suicide). He called me after mom's death and of course, asked me if I had been going to the gym or mountain biking. Naturally, I had not been doing either of those things because I was too busy taking care of things concerning mom's death. The last time I heard from him was a text a few weeks later inquiring if I was getting out on the bike with the dogs while I was in Helena, I said that I hadn't had the time and I haven't heard from him since......though it has never been very far from my mind. In fact, I obsess over it frequently.
When you have trust and self esteem issues, it is extremely important that people who are close to those with these issues be supportive, accepting, and as understanding as is humanly possible. I have a serious mental illness, it is not tangible, it is not plainly defined, it is never logical, nor is it very obvious. It is insidious, persistent, and very debilitating. I want to be normal, I want people to like me, I want to get up and function like a normal person every day instead of wanting to stay in bed or never leave my apartment. I want to be happy.....so much. I'm so tired of hurting inside. I'm so tired of hating myself. I'm so tired of trying so hard to convince myself and everyone else that I'm a good person. I'm tired of being left behind or betrayed. I'm tired of being tired.
Like I said above, I have serious trust issues and events over the last year have on poured gasoline over that fire. The remaining elements of my family have absolutely zero idea who I am, what I stand for, what my interests and pursuits are, what I do for a living, how intelligent I am, or how delicate I am....which is fine. It is nearly impossible for me to ask for help from anyone and that goes double for those in my family. By the time January rolled around, things were absolutely falling apart at the seams for me. Numerous events at work had pushed me beyond my breaking point and it became painfully obvious to me that I wasn't in control of myself any longer. So I decided to take a leave of absence in order to try to get some things back in order in my life. I made the mistake of mentioning this to one of my relatives....... to disastrous effect. When placed in a conflict situation, I try to be as honest as possible while not being inflammatory. Unfortunately the person I was trying to confide in became angry with me and I dropped a pretty huge bomb on the person (not in anger, I was just being honest). As usual, I was treated like I was being unreasonable and didn't deserve to be upset. The underlying message? Jon does not matter. I did my best to inject some structure back into my life during my leave and did have a small degree of success. One area of constant anxiety was my work situation. Though I was out on medical leave, I knew that because of the extreme lack of staffing levels within the lab I was causing a lot of people a lot of inconvenience. This weighed heavily on me and I chose to return to work much earlier than I should have........and I paid the price for it.
The second day of work after I had returned was on a Saturday during a very bad winter storm here in western Montana. Unfortunately, there was a serious wreck on highway 93, south of Missoula with numerous trauma victims. The worst victim came to our hospital and a bleeding emergency was called. Shortly before mom's death, I had been involved with other departments in the hospital in updating our bleeding emergency/trauma protocols. I had two reservations about the new policy while we were still debating, but mom died soon after the preliminary meetings on the subject and I wasn't present to voice my concerns over the new process before it got put into action. Both of those concerns presented themselves to me that very night, the second shift I had worked since coming back (too early) from leave. Faced with a no win situation, I had to make a judgment call for numerous, complex blood bank science related issues. To those who know the intricacies of the laboratory science involved in transfusion medicine, I made the right call. To those who were just screaming for blood products, no matter what the cost, my judgment call appeared to be cold, uncaring, and made me look like I wanted to let the patient bleed out. Things rapidly became political and I reacted poorly to what happened next. I had to stand my ground in the worst way possible during a serious emergency for honest and legitimate reasons. It was not the sort of call I wanted to make, but it was the call I had to make at the time. In hindsight, my judgment call on the matter was neither correct, or incorrect......we just didn't have to protocol and guidelines to anticipate what had happened. Sadly, the patient's fate had already been decided before she had even arrived at the hospital and she died shortly after.
I have been involved in numerous trauma and bleeding emergency related events here at the hospital, including one just two months prior that I recently chronicled on Facebook. In that last event, we beat impossible odds and saved a young pregnant woman's life. It was the hardest night of my career and it was the finest night of my career. The only thanks I received for my sweat and tears that night was in inquiry into my performance, something that devastated me. The underlying message (again)? Jon does not matter. Now, here I was not three months later in a very similar situation. The dust hadn't even remotely started to settle before my actions were called into question this time. I felt cornered and when I feel cornered, I lash out. Now, before I go any further about my conduct I would like to add that my candor was not anything that the staff in the lab experience from other elements in the hospital on a daily basis. In fact, I would say that I actually did a great job in not coming completely unglued in the on the person in question. That being said, don't EVER call a house supervisor when you have an attitude problem. Big, dumb mistake, Jon. I was already in the middle of a raging forest fire and I decided to drop a 2000 pound bomb on it. By the time the house supervisor came down to deal with me, I had regained some of my composure and was in the middle of realizing just what I had done in the eyes of the emergency room staff as far as my judgment call went........which was going to be difficult for me to live with (even though I wasn't in the wrong) without what happened next. The house supervisor dismissed me/told me to go home. She could have physically struck me and it wouldn't have done as much damage to me and my fragile psyche at the time. To be told to go home during a crisis situation is the ultimate indignity for someone who takes his/her job as seriously as I do. That being said, I shocked her by apologizing for my candor (something no one has ever done for me at this institution), so much so that she allowed me to stay and see things through to the end. After she left the lab and the ER physician finally called an end to everything, I fell prey to my inner voices and fell apart entirely. If it weren't for the fact that one of my coworkers muttering that I was going to kill myself as I left and called the lab's medical director in concern, I wouldn't be here today. I left the hospital determined to kill myself that very night, I just had to figure out the best way of doing it. Our medical director (who is a friend and knows my entire story as far as my PTSD goes) got me on the phone and convinced me to go home to my apartment knowing that I wouldn't do anything to myself once I was at home with the dogs. I don't think I have ever been as fractured as I was then, there were pieces of me to be found everywhere. I had made and extremely difficult clinical decision that appeared to everyone not educated in laboratory transfusion medicine that I was just going to let a patient die, I had lost my temper with someone (I try so hard not to), and I had been asked to leave the hospital, my mind was telling me that everything that I have ever been told is true and that I should just do the world a favor and kill myself because I'm an awful person (in fact, just recalling that night has caused unwanted and intrusive thoughts to creep back into my mind).
Needless to say, I went back on medical leave for another two weeks......which was probably the worst thing at the time. I had to come to grips with what I had done while elements within hospital administration decided just what they were going to do with me. Now, my coworkers who were with me that night (who just so happened to be with me the night we pulled off the miracle on the pregnant woman) defend my actions to this day and tell me I did the right thing. That being said, that was not the answer the lab manager (not the lab medical director, they are two different people) and hospital administration wanted to hear. During this two week period the lab manager went around to numerous individuals in the lab for any sort of information on my actions over the last five and half years of my employment with the hospital. It has been demonstrated numerous times that I do not work with understanding or compassionate individuals, this along with the fact I had completely screwed everyone's schedule over in the last two months due to my medical leave, gave a lot of my coworkers no pause in assassinating my character. You have to realize that I was at home during all of this agonizing and obsessing over everything the whole time. Finally, a meeting with the lab manager and human resources was setup with me the day before I returned to work. I expected things to go poorly, but I expected my disciplinary action to only concerned with that single event (which it should have been).....oh, how wrong I was. I sat for an hour listening to our lab manager catalog all of my faults and (undocumented) misdeeds. I have never been counseled for anything up until this point in my career. There were specific examples listed that could only have come from the mouths of my coworkers. At no point in time were any of my accomplishments, achievements, my dedication to the lab, my compassion and caring for our patients, my technical abilities and expertise, or my work ethic highlighted. My character was flogged mercilessly. I left that meeting with my job, but I think it would have just been better if they had fired me. The lab manager was so relentless that one of the HR reps actually had to stop her because of the physical impact it was having on my (I was trembling violently and could barely hold back tears). The worst part is that she actually had the gall to tell me that everyone cares so much about me, yet they had no qualms in stabbing me in the back. I left chastised, despondent, and in shame. The things I was accused of doing were so horrifying to me that I left seriously pondering the idea of taking my life once again.
Now, I am not defending myself over losing my temper with the house supervisor. That was unprofessional and I am very ashamed of my conduct. I apologized for that and promised it will never happen again (which it won't). That being said, all of the other accusations leveled at me had nothing to do with the night in question and could be construed as a witch hunt of sorts. Going around and polling people the (extremely understaffed and overstressed, though people I was loyal to) lab looking for tidbits to use against me without asking for examples of positive worth is unprofessional, in my opinion. With the exception of a few individuals, it is quite clear that most of my coworkers sold me out and I hope they feel really great about themselves for doing so. I went back to work the next day and tried my best to pick up the pieces of my dignity that were left to be found. It was over a week before I would even speak to anyone beyond a sentence or two. Though in a moment that brought tears to my eyes, one tech who been with the hospital for over 30 years and was retiring the next day, told me that I was one of the finest techs she had ever worked with and that it was imperative that I remain the person that I always have been. Though I genuinely appreciate the compliment, that Jon is now dead.
Things did not get any better for me after that either The following week I had an appointment with my primary care physician for my release to work full time. I arrived approximately five minutes late for my appointment......because I woke up with a sinus infection caused headache of world ending proportions. My doctor's nurse was so rude (not the best way to treat a patient with an anxiety disorder) to me that I nearly left in tears. In fact, if I had treated a patient half as badly as I had been by this nurse, I would expect to be dismissed immediately. I love my doctor very much and it was only out of respect for her and my level of despondency to prevented me from notifying the office administrator to the nurse's behavior and demanding a serious reprimand and apology. What was the take home message (again)? I don't matter. Ever. To make things even worse, my therapist had been unavailable during all of this, so I had no professional support through any of this. When she did return, she notified me that she was scaling back her practice considerably and that day was the last day she was going to see me. Take home message? I don't matter and am so messed up that even mental health professionals can't handle me. I still haven't bothered to call either of the therapists she referred me to, I just don't have the energy to tell my story again in such a way to convey the magnitude of the challenges I face and I don't feel inclined to trying to build a rapport with anyone at this time either.
So, my best friend up and abandons me, I have no support system, the hospital hangs me out to dry, my coworkers stab me in the back, I can't even get any compassion from anyone even when I'm a patient, and my therapist picks the absolute worst time to cut me loose. At this point, if you don't walk on four legs and wag your tail when you see me, I straight up don't trust you and I don't want to have anything to do with you. I. hate. people. I'm done. I'm done trying to convince myself and the world that I'm a nice person. I'm done letting ANYONE get even close to me. I'm done caring about what people think of me. I'm done with being loyal to coworkers (watch out, I never stop watching, I never stop listening, I rarely forgive, and I NEVER forget). I am fucking done. If you don't like me? That's nice, go fuck yourself. I'm done hiding from the world too. Expect lots of visible tattoos in the future. Guess what? I hate your stupid, conformist, non-thinking, mainstream life. I'm hurt. I'm bitter. I'm done with people. I'm done trying.......and you know what? I don't care. I have my dogs, they love me and I love them....dearly. They will keep me walking this road until they pass away because if there is one thing I will NEVER do, it would be to leave my two best friends behind to fend for themselves.
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