I love what I do for a living, I really do. Working in a hospital lab every day never gets boring to me and I never tire of helping sick people. That being said, I work in a very toxic hospital lab setting, one that is less than conducive to my overall mental health. In fact, I work in conditions where excellence, character, and effort are always ignored or worse; exploited. I work in the basement of hospital in a room with no windows, where the phone rings constantly and eternally with complaining and belligerent callers. I don't work in a happy environment. Why not leave then? Why not indeed. I can give three very good reasons, the first being that I believe in the lab's medical director (she's the doctor that oversees all of the medical and technical aspects of the lab), the second is that I love living in Missoula, the third is that I'm sick and tired of running.
It has been nearly four months since the night I had to make a controversial judgment call on a trauma situation, followed by my subsequent vilification and offering up as a sacrificial lamb by the laboratory director. As I have stated previously on this blog, she committed no less than character assassination on me, dragging up every undocumented rumor or breath of dissent about me over the last five and half years. Sources that are loyal to me speak of how individuals were encouraged to air any and all dirty laundry about me within the privacy of the lab director's office. I no longer think everyone took a shot at me, but I do know just who the biggest culprits are. I can say that I'm nowhere near as bitter about it now as I was three months ago, but wounds take much longer to heel with me and the wounds I suffered this last time were especially deep.
My latest realization stems from the fact that the lab director (NOT the medical director, they are two different people) threw the book at me so hard that I have a blunt force induced concussion from its impact with my head. She pulled no punches and I consider myself lucky to still have my job. Worse yet, I see the practical reason for taking such a hard shot at me, she's laying the groundwork to dismiss an employee who suffers from an illness that flares up without warning and often results in a extended periods of leave. My leave is always protected by the Family and Medical Leave Act and my physician is ALWAYS very supportive, proactive, compassionate, and conscientious about my condition. Though each and every period of leave has been medically necessary and physician mandated, that doesn't mean it's not a huge pain in the ass for the lab director to try make arrangements for my leave. So the best thing would be to dismiss and replace me with a far less maintenance heavy employee. It's far from the compassionate thing to do, but the lab director has demonstrated time and time again that she is has little to no compassion for anyone other than herself. The benefits coordinator in human resources assures me this isn't the case, but she doesn't know that laboratory director very well, nor does she work with the people I do. They are human beings, which means they can be shallow, petty, less than sympathetic, cruel, and spiteful.
I've been doing my absolute best to stay as far below the lab director's radar as possible, but the lab has been in a serious staffing crisis for the last two months and things aren't going to get any better until near September. When I become stressed, exhausted, and burned out, it becomes far more difficult to control my personality and I'm far more prone to getting in trouble and can easily fall into suicidal episodes. Working short in the lab is extremely difficult and requires an amount of energy and mental acuity that is extremely difficult for me to maintain every week. To be brief, at this rate it's only a matter of time before I crash and burn again. In an attempt to avoid this outcome, my physician has placed me on a four day a week restriction until working conditions in the lab improve enough for me to return to full time status. It should be noted that the staffing crisis is without question the lab director's fault, her fast and reckless approach to management always creates these situations and it's the lab staff that suffers every time. I hate being the canary in the cage for the lab, but I can't escape the fact that I'm far more sensitive to stressful periods than pretty much anyone else in the lab. Coupled with the fact that I'm still recovering from a very traumatic and vulnerable period, not being proactive at this point could be disastrous, could cost me my job or something far worse. The lab director was much less than happy when I broke the news to her, even when I explained the reasoning behind the move.....actually that probably made matter her attitude worse since it highlights her poor leadership abilities. That being said, it is far easier to fill one shift a week than to have me take another six week leave of absence, which I did point out to her. She did make a few passive aggressive comments when I tried to help her come up with solutions to this week's schedule.....which once again demonstrate the nature of her character. I get three days a week off for the near term, but I'm back on her radar again and that is not a good thing.
One thing that I've learned over the last seven years is that unless someone has experienced trauma, loss, hardship, serious illness, and/or mental illness they are not likely of being able to feel much compassion for people who are suffering from the things I just listed. I'm not saying that everyone is this way, there are individuals who are genuinely compassionate without those kinds of experiences because they can look beyond the bounds of their own lives. That being said, there are also people who go through awful circumstances and learn nothing from them, I learned that just this last year. The majority of the people I work with aren't what I would call understanding or compassionate. Though I do my best to hide it, I'm probably one of the most compassionate individuals you will find in the lab because I've seen some pretty awful things in my lifetime and am very sensitive to the suffering of others. The majority of the individuals I work with are only appear superficially compassionate and only really care about their own problems and don't seem to be able to see outside their own (often limited). Some individuals are downright cold, selfish, and only concerned with how things affect themselves. I am always acutely aware of what consequences my actions and absences have on the staff of the lab and it has been a constant source of anxiety for me. That being said, no in the lab has had even close to the kind of obstacles, hardship, loss, and trauma that I've had over the last six years. Since I started at the lab I lost my only sibling to suicide, both of my remaining grandparents, my mother, a horrific mountain biking accident and had to endure an unbelievably bizarre set of circumstances involving a long distance relationship with a probable sociopath. I've nearly taken my own life numerous times during the last six years and I've had no less than four different stints at mental hospitals. I've been through all of this and only a few individuals from the lab have extended a hand to me in support. These people know who they are and they are they only people from work (save two) who have access to this blog. I am eternally grateful to these individuals and hope that I can repay them in kind at some time. However, there has been a core group of individuals who have been far less than compassionate toward me and it was this group who took their shot at me during my last episode. What's sad about this is that I had offered my (genuine) support to one of these individuals during a very difficult circumstance during an adoption proceeding that went wrong. If anyone in the lab suffers and sort of serious setback, I will always be among the first to offer my hand to help, though I know the same courtesy won't be given to me in most cases if the circumstances were reversed. That's me though, I can't standby and watch someone go down in flames without offering help.
All that being said, I've changed quite a bit as to how I behave at work after having been thrown to the wolves and then set upon by vultures. (too much?) I am a problem solver and am always happy to lend a hand to any sort of problem, dilemma, conflagration, or conflict that may arise in the lab. That isn't the case anymore. I used to get involved in all of the problem circumstances that would arise when I was on shift and do my best to resolve them (sometimes in a less than diplomatic fashion). I would go to bat for any of my coworkers and do my best to help anyone who was having a hard evening or night. I would always go the extra mile and would often go above the call of my station. Not so anymore. I go to work, go to the department I'm going to work in, and stick to the duties within that department. I do my best to not answer the phone unless it's absolutely necessary (a subject for another time), I don't get involved in any problem or conflict situations unless it directly involves me, and I never take charge or responsibility of anything that falls outside of my station. I still do the very best job that I possibly can with efficiency, precision, and expediency.....I just don't go the extra mile anymore. It's sad because the lab director killed what made me an excellent and conscientious contribution to the hospital. What's worse is that I don't care that she killed that part of me.........and I'm actually happier because of it. I'm nowhere near as stressed out at work as I used to be. I don't get worked up about things that I have no power to change or aren't responsible for. I'm still one of the best techs in the lab and I assure you, my house is ALWAYS in order when I leave for the night. I still care very much for our patients, but I have to stay off the lab director's radar. Most importantly, my primary responsibility is to take care of myself first and foremost. I have a chronic condition and I must do what I can to stay as healthy as I can in every way possible. Putting the weight of the lab's problems on my shoulders does NOT help with this endeavor. While I don't get riled up over things or sacrifice myself for the good of the lab anymore, many of my coworkers are still caught in that cycle. If only they could understand that it only enables our lab director's poor management and actually perpetuates the problem. She never acknowledges anyone's extra effort or sacrifices, she exploits them. Because I've stepped outside of all of this, some elements (those who were quickest stab me in the back) are angry because they see me as being selfish because I'm not willing to sacrifice myself and free time for a lost cause. Guess what, people? Me doing just that has played an important role in just about each of my leave of absences over the last three years. So, why would I continue doing any of it? Let's face it, one of these times I may just quit screwing around and overdose on something because I fucked the pooch at work and got into a heap of trouble again. It just isn't worth it, the lab's not worth it, the lab director is not worth it. I'm sorry those who are offended by this can't see the sense in it.
After all of that I am sure anyone who is reading this is wondering why I stay at the hospital. That is an easy answer, I believe in the lab's medical director (NOT the laboratory director). Our lab's medical director is a pathologist of the highest caliber (at least in my opinion) and she happens to be one of best human beings I have ever met. I don't give unquestioning loyalty to just anyone and I would follow that woman through the gates of hell and beyond. She is quite possibly the most intelligent person I have ever met (that's no small compliment coming from me) and she is one of the most compassionate people I have ever met. I doubt I could ever put into words just how much she has helped grow as a laboratorian and how much she has supported me with my struggles since I came to know her five years ago. I'm in her office talking to her just about every day and almost every day she inspires me to be the absolute best and compassionate medical professional that I can be. She's brutally honest and shoots straight from the hip. She tells me when I'm full of shit and questions me when she thinks I'm dodging something or not being completely honest. Not many people on this earth are capable of doing that. She is an inspiration to me and she is one of the best friends that I have ever had. She knows my darkest secrets and fears, but never blinks, never waivers, and never stops encouraging me. She is only six months older than I am, but I always feel so immature when compared to her (not in a bad way). She reminds me every day why I do what I do for a living, she is extremely passionate about laboratory medicine, and she has helped me keep my cool through more than one serious blood bank bleeding emergency. As long as she is medical director of the lab I doubt I will ever seriously think about leaving. I'm not the only person who feels that way about her. She is the very antithesis of what the laboratory director is. She hates bullshit, she hates politics, and she isn't afraid to speak her mind. She will go to the mat for anyone who works in her lab and has done so for me on numerous occasions. Having that kind of influence in my life is immeasurable and invaluable.
Though the atmosphere in the lab is frequently toxic to my mental health, keeping my thoughts and attitudes in the proper frame can help lessen the effects the working conditions have on me. I used to think that my coworkers were my friends, but now I know (with a few exceptions) that they are just coworkers. Nothing more, nothing less. I now know to expect no loyalty from them and that I shouldn't waste any trying to gain loyalty from them. I am dedicated to my job, but I am not going to sacrifice my mental health for the lab or hospital because history has shown that I end up with nothing to show for it. I go to work, only get involved in problems that directly relate to me, and I go home. No more, no less. I will do my absolute best to stay as far off of the lab director's radar as possible. I will also do my absolute best to make sure that I'm taking care of myself and my wellbeing first and foremost.....which I am doing now. I'm not at work to make friends, I'm there to do my job, help sick people, and earn a living. I can't fix the problems of the lab, nor will I waste my energy trying. I will continue to be absolutely loyal to the lab's medical director and will always strive to live up to the faith she places in me. I will never stop trying to be the best laboratorian I can be, I just won't sacrifice my wellbeing for causes that aren't worth the effort. The hospital just sold to a larger conglomerate and we are waiting for the ink to dry on the agreement. Once that is done, we will be a for profit hospital and means that there will be changes. There will be an inevitable administrative purge, in which I hope the lab director is "forcibly retired". The new organization is said to work under the Mayo model of administration which is different from how things are currently done at the hospital. I have hopes that things will get better once our new overlords begin to assert control over the various aspects of the operations of the hospital. I expect that most of administration is going to be climbing all over each other to save their jobs and it will be very entertaining to watch the lab director try to secure her position, especially in light of the fact that she has at least six years of extremely poor employee engagement survey scores hanging over her head. My guess is that she will go down in flames, but she will probably try to take as many people down with her as possible in the process, so I must be careful during this period. I plan on evaluating things in six months to see which way the wind is blowing, if it isn't blowing in a favorable direction I may just move on to a different pasture. In the meantime, I must do my best to stay on top of my mental health while doing the best job I can. At this point I'm pretty confident I can manage things if I stick to my new attitude.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Thursday, June 19, 2014
A change of attitude?
A couple of days ago I wrote about the sad state that my attitude has been over the last few months and how I had little inclination to change my outlook on things. That may have changed over the course of the last 48 hours. I'm not sure what transpired, but yesterday I started to come around to the idea of getting back on track with things. I suddenly want to get out to walk the dogs again, I want to try to start mountain biking three days a week, and I suddenly want to try to go to the gym more frequently than the personal training appointments that I have twice a week. This is a pretty big paradigm shift when compared to my previous state of mind. I no longer feel that it's all pointless or a huge waste of energy.
I should point out that I still feel very defiant, bitter, and not likely to undertake the task of finding a new therapist/counselor at this point, but I'm at least taking an interest in activities that help to keep my spirits up. I'm also still VERY wary of people in general and am not interested in opening up or forming new connections with them. That's going to take a considerable amount of time to heal, if it heals at all. Still, my attitude as of this morning if far better than it was even 48 hours ago. I suspect my previous post may have helped some by laying the bare truth of how I felt out on the table for the world to see. My attitude still needs a LOT of work and there isn't going to be any massive course reversal overnight, it's going to take time. Getting out and doing some things that I enjoy will certainly lay the foundation for a better overall outlook on things.
My problem over the last year has been an overwhelming amount of negative and traumatic events in my life. Sometimes when things get as bad as they have been as of late, I give up all hope and embrace the darkness instead of resisting it. Even as I write this I feel the urge to just reverse course and fall back into the waiting arms of the darkness that continually threatens my mental wellbeing. Why fight the emptiness that never seems to be more than a step or two behind me? It's so hard to resist and try to make a difference in my life, but it's oh so easy to stumble and fall back into the waiting embrace of the darkness and stay there permanently. Why fight a war you can never truly win? Well, as most people who are even casually familiar with my personality can tell you, I'm very defiant by nature. I survived the abuse I suffered as a child because of my naturally defiant nature and desire to stand against what I perceive to be injustice. In many ways, my entire life is a study in defiance and a refusal to give in to forces that I have no possible chance of defeating. In the battle against my illness and my past, I have to be defiant just for the sake of being defiant. Any measure of resistance against the darkness that hunts me is a small measure of victory. It takes SO MUCH energy to be defiant day in and day out. Complicating things further is the fact that I have to be aware of my natural tendency to want to embrace the darkness and be able to recognize when it is trying to influence my thinking and behaviors. It's not easy, not by any stretch of the imagination. I can never rest on my laurels for one day because the darkness will be clawing at my heels in no time. I hate it, but it's the way things are for me. So I have to be defiant every minute of every day, it's a good thing that having a defiant nature is natural to me because it and my intelligence are the only real weapons I have against the hunter that never ceases to stalk me. Here's to defiance, may I never cease to be defiant by nature.
I should point out that I still feel very defiant, bitter, and not likely to undertake the task of finding a new therapist/counselor at this point, but I'm at least taking an interest in activities that help to keep my spirits up. I'm also still VERY wary of people in general and am not interested in opening up or forming new connections with them. That's going to take a considerable amount of time to heal, if it heals at all. Still, my attitude as of this morning if far better than it was even 48 hours ago. I suspect my previous post may have helped some by laying the bare truth of how I felt out on the table for the world to see. My attitude still needs a LOT of work and there isn't going to be any massive course reversal overnight, it's going to take time. Getting out and doing some things that I enjoy will certainly lay the foundation for a better overall outlook on things.
My problem over the last year has been an overwhelming amount of negative and traumatic events in my life. Sometimes when things get as bad as they have been as of late, I give up all hope and embrace the darkness instead of resisting it. Even as I write this I feel the urge to just reverse course and fall back into the waiting arms of the darkness that continually threatens my mental wellbeing. Why fight the emptiness that never seems to be more than a step or two behind me? It's so hard to resist and try to make a difference in my life, but it's oh so easy to stumble and fall back into the waiting embrace of the darkness and stay there permanently. Why fight a war you can never truly win? Well, as most people who are even casually familiar with my personality can tell you, I'm very defiant by nature. I survived the abuse I suffered as a child because of my naturally defiant nature and desire to stand against what I perceive to be injustice. In many ways, my entire life is a study in defiance and a refusal to give in to forces that I have no possible chance of defeating. In the battle against my illness and my past, I have to be defiant just for the sake of being defiant. Any measure of resistance against the darkness that hunts me is a small measure of victory. It takes SO MUCH energy to be defiant day in and day out. Complicating things further is the fact that I have to be aware of my natural tendency to want to embrace the darkness and be able to recognize when it is trying to influence my thinking and behaviors. It's not easy, not by any stretch of the imagination. I can never rest on my laurels for one day because the darkness will be clawing at my heels in no time. I hate it, but it's the way things are for me. So I have to be defiant every minute of every day, it's a good thing that having a defiant nature is natural to me because it and my intelligence are the only real weapons I have against the hunter that never ceases to stalk me. Here's to defiance, may I never cease to be defiant by nature.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
I tried optimism once, I was too cynical for it.
Lately I've been taken aback by the level of constant cynicism that emanates from my person. I've always been a very cynical person, but as of late I've taken things to an entirely new level altogether. In fact, I would have to say it has evolved into a fatalistic acceptance that I cannot change things in my life. It's hard to pinpoint just one event that would be the cause of my increased cynicism, but there have been many events that have occurred that probably have combined to produce a much less than positive demeanor.
Having my best friend walk out on me during one of the most difficult experiences in my life definitely has soured my overall view of people in general. Further complicating things would be getting clothes lined at work over a situation that we had no protocol for, being strung up for making a judgement call, and then having my character completely assassinated, by people I had called friends at the time, really poured gasoline on the fire. To say I'm pretty much over having any people in my life right now would be a gross understatement. My attitude is that people just don't understand me, I'm too complex, and that they only end up hurting me, so it's best to keep them at arm's length, form no connections with them, and expect nothing from them.
For the last seven years it has seemed like it has just been one significant trauma after another and the effects have really started to wear on me. I tried a different approach back in 2011 after a positive experience at an intensive residential mental health facility, but I seem to have fallen even farther down into my hole than I was before I landed at that program. I seem to have wholeheartedly embraced the idea that my complex PTSD, probable personality disorder, and severe depression are pretty much insurmountable and that I should just accept the idea that I'm permanently broken and incapable of any long term happiness. Though I am not suicidal at this time, I am almost certain that I will take my life some time in the future, probably soon after Jack and Carter pass away. I'm far more isolated from any safe, meaningful, real world social interaction than I ever have been in the past. Worse yet, I trust absolutely no one and have come to the conclusion that the world I live in so bleak that any time I let anyone near the truth, I'm only going to cause them pain and will be subsequently abandoned. Thus, I'm not opening up to anyone or seeking any professional help at this time......because I've found that I'm too complicated for pretty much any mental health professional because of my background, programming, and very high intelligence. In short, I'm too much to handle save for the very best professionals and those that live here in Missoula are in such high demand that it's nearly impossible to get in to see one. I am seeing a psychiatrist for my medications, but being a medical professional myself, I have only met one psychiatrist I have ever really liked. I'm very cynical when it comes to psychiatrists because of my medical background and understanding of mental illness in general. I think psychiatrists over simplify and trivialize people's suffering and do no more than push pills on people in the vain hopes that they might provide some measure of relief. I saw my psychiatrist last week for the second time and she already has taken on the attitude of "I know what's best for you because I'm a doctor."......who does not know me at all, who knows little of my history, doesn't understand the depth of my trust issues, and is making the huge mistake of underestimating my intelligence. She was clearly irritated with my poor attitude and lack of willingness to try to find a new counselor/therapist. How is she supposed to get any measure of my condition when I only see her for 30 minutes once every 6 weeks or so? What a complete waste of my time, the least she could do is recognize that because I happen to be a smarter than average diagnostic medicine professional, I probably have a better understanding of mental illness than she does because I happen to be mentally ill AND am a medical professional at the same time. So your one and only claim is that you know about drugs, but you have no idea how they work or if they have any chance for helping my condition. Well, that's really neat (which means go fuck yourself). So, how does anyone actually help me? My last therapist realized that I was way out of her depth and cut me loose at the worst moment possible, so naturally I'm more than a little bitter, hesitant, and cynical about establishing with a new therapist and undertaking the huge task of tell my life story again. The gist of this is that I'm so cynical and apathetic toward the state of mental health care at this point that I find it to be a huge waste of my time to even try.
Work has been a real exercise in misery as of late too. The lab is criminally short staffed and the term "theater of the absurd" applies itself with gusto on a daily basis. Having to work with people you know stabbed you in the back at moment when you were your weakest is not an easy thing to live with. In truth, I'm nowhere near as bitter about it now as I was three months ago, but the bitterness has been replaced with apathy and ambivalence to almost everyone in the lab, save a few people who I genuinely care about. I keep asking myself just how much worse things can get before something truly disastrous happens and positive change can result from it. The hospital just sold to a larger conglomerate and I guess I hold out at least some hope that things will change once they come in to inevitably purge and restructure administration. If things don't change enough for my taste, I will finally give up and run......something I've done far too much of in the last seven years and loathe to continue to do. Missoula feels like home and I don't want to leave, but the environment at work as it exists now is very detrimental to my mental health and may necessitate a move to a different clinical setting, probably in the Seattle area. I would be very, very sad to leave Zoo town though. I hate running away, I really do. I want to make things work somewhere and would prefer that place be here.
As I'm sure you can tell, my attitude is very poor right now and the worst part is that I just don't care at this point. I barely have enough energy to get out of bed and go to work, let alone fight a battle that seems impossible to win and requires a level of energy I haven't had for over a year now. I live for the dogs, they remind me of how important unconditional love is and I love them back with all of my heart. I keep getting more tattoos with the money I save from not going to a therapist, though I'm not sure if getting them is an act of self expression or one of outright defiance. I take far too much pride in standing as far as I can outside of mainstream culture, to the point of offending some of my online friends with my attitude to mainstream media consumption. I must admit that I find a lot of it stupid and openly demonstrate my contempt for all of it. I really get tired of listening to my coworkers talk nonstop about Game Of Thrones, I read the first book and found it to be awful. It's just another example of how I just don't get our society. It doesn't help that part of me doesn't really want to be associated with humanity and would love to find a way to transcend our society. Every public shooting that occurs now makes me cringe visibly because most of them are perpetrated by people who are mentally ill, like myself. Though I hate our society, I have zero ambition or inclination to take it out on other people in some enactment of revenge on innocent individuals. I just don't want to be part of a society that is increasingly destructive, materialistic, and lacking any compassion for others. In many ways, the decision to move to Kauai was an attempt to escape all of what I just listed. We all know how that turned out for me though. I used to think the answer was out there somewhere, no I think there are no answers and that we need to enjoy the measure of comfort we have now before we outright destroy ourselves and the planet. People only seem to exist to consume in this country. I refuse to have anyone tell me what is a must have commodity or what is cool. I refuse to accept that capitalism is the answer too. What does money really bring? It brings comfort, not happiness. I would prefer to be happy. Most people aren't even capable of comprehending the idea that humanity could achieve so much more if gave up on making materialistic gains the focus of our lives. So I'm basically judging our society as an utter failure and disappointment, can I possibly get any more cynical than that?
Though I genuinely believe that I am a permanently broken individual and that fighting for myself is a waste of time, I do find comfort in helping people who are going to through difficult times similar to my experiences. Despite my cynicism, I genuinely feel for other people's pain and want to help them as best as I can. It's very important to me for some odd reason. I guess I'm not cynical enough to give up trying to at least leaving a small measure of positivity before leaving this mortal coil behind some day. If my experiences can help people in life, I guess I could call that a small measure of victory.
Finally, I recently told one of my last remaining friends that fatalism is neither sad or cynical if it is the genuine truth. At this point I would like to believe that I'm at least not deluding myself about my future and have truly embraced my fate. Some people just aren't well suited to living in this world, my sister was one of those people and she struggled to very end before she could bear it no longer. I think I am very similar to her in that respect, I just happen to lack her courage and am too attached to a pair of Dingoes to completely accept my fate just yet. Life goes on and I continue to endure......for now. Who knows, maybe my attitude will improve in the future, maybe it won't. I could choose to give a crap about my attitude, but I am too apathetic, cynical, and fatalistic to do so at this point.......and I'm just fine with that.
Having my best friend walk out on me during one of the most difficult experiences in my life definitely has soured my overall view of people in general. Further complicating things would be getting clothes lined at work over a situation that we had no protocol for, being strung up for making a judgement call, and then having my character completely assassinated, by people I had called friends at the time, really poured gasoline on the fire. To say I'm pretty much over having any people in my life right now would be a gross understatement. My attitude is that people just don't understand me, I'm too complex, and that they only end up hurting me, so it's best to keep them at arm's length, form no connections with them, and expect nothing from them.
For the last seven years it has seemed like it has just been one significant trauma after another and the effects have really started to wear on me. I tried a different approach back in 2011 after a positive experience at an intensive residential mental health facility, but I seem to have fallen even farther down into my hole than I was before I landed at that program. I seem to have wholeheartedly embraced the idea that my complex PTSD, probable personality disorder, and severe depression are pretty much insurmountable and that I should just accept the idea that I'm permanently broken and incapable of any long term happiness. Though I am not suicidal at this time, I am almost certain that I will take my life some time in the future, probably soon after Jack and Carter pass away. I'm far more isolated from any safe, meaningful, real world social interaction than I ever have been in the past. Worse yet, I trust absolutely no one and have come to the conclusion that the world I live in so bleak that any time I let anyone near the truth, I'm only going to cause them pain and will be subsequently abandoned. Thus, I'm not opening up to anyone or seeking any professional help at this time......because I've found that I'm too complicated for pretty much any mental health professional because of my background, programming, and very high intelligence. In short, I'm too much to handle save for the very best professionals and those that live here in Missoula are in such high demand that it's nearly impossible to get in to see one. I am seeing a psychiatrist for my medications, but being a medical professional myself, I have only met one psychiatrist I have ever really liked. I'm very cynical when it comes to psychiatrists because of my medical background and understanding of mental illness in general. I think psychiatrists over simplify and trivialize people's suffering and do no more than push pills on people in the vain hopes that they might provide some measure of relief. I saw my psychiatrist last week for the second time and she already has taken on the attitude of "I know what's best for you because I'm a doctor."......who does not know me at all, who knows little of my history, doesn't understand the depth of my trust issues, and is making the huge mistake of underestimating my intelligence. She was clearly irritated with my poor attitude and lack of willingness to try to find a new counselor/therapist. How is she supposed to get any measure of my condition when I only see her for 30 minutes once every 6 weeks or so? What a complete waste of my time, the least she could do is recognize that because I happen to be a smarter than average diagnostic medicine professional, I probably have a better understanding of mental illness than she does because I happen to be mentally ill AND am a medical professional at the same time. So your one and only claim is that you know about drugs, but you have no idea how they work or if they have any chance for helping my condition. Well, that's really neat (which means go fuck yourself). So, how does anyone actually help me? My last therapist realized that I was way out of her depth and cut me loose at the worst moment possible, so naturally I'm more than a little bitter, hesitant, and cynical about establishing with a new therapist and undertaking the huge task of tell my life story again. The gist of this is that I'm so cynical and apathetic toward the state of mental health care at this point that I find it to be a huge waste of my time to even try.
Work has been a real exercise in misery as of late too. The lab is criminally short staffed and the term "theater of the absurd" applies itself with gusto on a daily basis. Having to work with people you know stabbed you in the back at moment when you were your weakest is not an easy thing to live with. In truth, I'm nowhere near as bitter about it now as I was three months ago, but the bitterness has been replaced with apathy and ambivalence to almost everyone in the lab, save a few people who I genuinely care about. I keep asking myself just how much worse things can get before something truly disastrous happens and positive change can result from it. The hospital just sold to a larger conglomerate and I guess I hold out at least some hope that things will change once they come in to inevitably purge and restructure administration. If things don't change enough for my taste, I will finally give up and run......something I've done far too much of in the last seven years and loathe to continue to do. Missoula feels like home and I don't want to leave, but the environment at work as it exists now is very detrimental to my mental health and may necessitate a move to a different clinical setting, probably in the Seattle area. I would be very, very sad to leave Zoo town though. I hate running away, I really do. I want to make things work somewhere and would prefer that place be here.
As I'm sure you can tell, my attitude is very poor right now and the worst part is that I just don't care at this point. I barely have enough energy to get out of bed and go to work, let alone fight a battle that seems impossible to win and requires a level of energy I haven't had for over a year now. I live for the dogs, they remind me of how important unconditional love is and I love them back with all of my heart. I keep getting more tattoos with the money I save from not going to a therapist, though I'm not sure if getting them is an act of self expression or one of outright defiance. I take far too much pride in standing as far as I can outside of mainstream culture, to the point of offending some of my online friends with my attitude to mainstream media consumption. I must admit that I find a lot of it stupid and openly demonstrate my contempt for all of it. I really get tired of listening to my coworkers talk nonstop about Game Of Thrones, I read the first book and found it to be awful. It's just another example of how I just don't get our society. It doesn't help that part of me doesn't really want to be associated with humanity and would love to find a way to transcend our society. Every public shooting that occurs now makes me cringe visibly because most of them are perpetrated by people who are mentally ill, like myself. Though I hate our society, I have zero ambition or inclination to take it out on other people in some enactment of revenge on innocent individuals. I just don't want to be part of a society that is increasingly destructive, materialistic, and lacking any compassion for others. In many ways, the decision to move to Kauai was an attempt to escape all of what I just listed. We all know how that turned out for me though. I used to think the answer was out there somewhere, no I think there are no answers and that we need to enjoy the measure of comfort we have now before we outright destroy ourselves and the planet. People only seem to exist to consume in this country. I refuse to have anyone tell me what is a must have commodity or what is cool. I refuse to accept that capitalism is the answer too. What does money really bring? It brings comfort, not happiness. I would prefer to be happy. Most people aren't even capable of comprehending the idea that humanity could achieve so much more if gave up on making materialistic gains the focus of our lives. So I'm basically judging our society as an utter failure and disappointment, can I possibly get any more cynical than that?
Though I genuinely believe that I am a permanently broken individual and that fighting for myself is a waste of time, I do find comfort in helping people who are going to through difficult times similar to my experiences. Despite my cynicism, I genuinely feel for other people's pain and want to help them as best as I can. It's very important to me for some odd reason. I guess I'm not cynical enough to give up trying to at least leaving a small measure of positivity before leaving this mortal coil behind some day. If my experiences can help people in life, I guess I could call that a small measure of victory.
Finally, I recently told one of my last remaining friends that fatalism is neither sad or cynical if it is the genuine truth. At this point I would like to believe that I'm at least not deluding myself about my future and have truly embraced my fate. Some people just aren't well suited to living in this world, my sister was one of those people and she struggled to very end before she could bear it no longer. I think I am very similar to her in that respect, I just happen to lack her courage and am too attached to a pair of Dingoes to completely accept my fate just yet. Life goes on and I continue to endure......for now. Who knows, maybe my attitude will improve in the future, maybe it won't. I could choose to give a crap about my attitude, but I am too apathetic, cynical, and fatalistic to do so at this point.......and I'm just fine with that.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
When friendships hurt.
The past year of my life has been one of pretty serious turbulence and upheaval.....again. The entire status quo of the previous 6 years evaporated nearly in an instant when my mother passed away early last June. Mom left absolutely everything to me and I found myself financially solvent for the first time since I moved to Kauai. That's not to say that mom's death wasn't difficult for me since she was the largest (but not only) source of abuse during my childhood and I had an extreme amount of conflicting emotions regarding our relationship. The circumstances of my relationship with my mother were extremely volatile and complex, something most anyone outside of abuse survivors wouldn't be able to understand or appreciate. This wasn't the first major death in my immediate for me within the previous 5 years though. I lost my only sibling to suicide 4 years prior to mom's death and also was an extremely complex event for me to deal with.
It is during that summer following Carly's suicide that my best friend started to complicate things for me. I'm not going to name my friend because I think it would be unfair to do so without his explicit permission, which I have no intention of asking for. I'm just going to refer to him as "my friend from Spokane" during this post.
I met my friend from Spokane back in 2001 when we students doing our clinical internships at one of the hospitals in Spokane. It turned out that we both had an interest in mountain biking and skiing/snowboarding and we spent a fair amount of time doing both activities together up until my wife and I's decision to move to Kauai. It should also be known that my friend was a big enough part of my life that he was a member of my wedding entourage. As I've mentioned several times in previous blog posts, my marriage fell apart within weeks after moving to the island and my wife ended up moving back to Spokane while I remained on the island. Though I did my best to keep our separation and eventual divorce as amicable as possible, my now ex-wife had no such intentions and she basically made all of our mutual friends choose sides.......and most everyone sided with her, which is perfectly okay. My friend from Spokane and his wife were pretty much the only friends from that period that stuck with me and they even came to visit me on the island (the only people to do so other than my sister when things fell apart at the end of my stay on Kauai). This is something that I will be eternally grateful for, it was so nice to be around familiar company at the time and I genuinely enjoyed all of the activities we did together during their visit.
My friend from Spokane was there for me when I crash landed back on the mainland and he picked Jack and myself up at the airport in Seattle and drove us back to Spokane. I ended up settling in Missoula shortly thereafter. Both he and his wife are from Missoula and both of their families still live here, which meant I would see the two of them at least every other month and I would occasionally go over to Spokane to visit with them. My first year in Missoula was a pretty dark one for me, I was completely in debt, I didn't have a comfortable living space, and I carried a lot of shame from the divorce and failing to make things work on the island. As a result of all of this, I fell into a pretty deep depression and gained about 20 pounds during that first year. I went back to mountain biking that following spring and went a time or two with my friend. It was at this point that he started making comments about my lifestyle choices and weight issues. These were subtle at first and I'm only aware of all of this in hindsight.
Carly took her life in late May of that spring and that naturally had a huge impact on me. My friend was familiar with my sister's troubles from conversations I had with him about the subject. In fact, I had mentioned some time in the early 2000's that I was pretty sure that Carly was going to succeed in taking her own life within the next 5 to 10 years. Now, though we were good friends and I told him a lot of intimate things in confidence, I wouldn't describe my friend as the most compassionate or emotional individuals that I have ever met.......which is fine, some people are just that way and I accept him for it. However, he had a very difficult time in understanding the complexities of my emotions involving Carly's death and how much I was grieving at the time. At one point in time, in what would become one of the coldest things anyone has ever said to me, he said that he didn't understand my emotions or grief on the subject since I had been saying for years that I thought Carly was going to take her life at some point in time. Though this was indeed a very cold thing to say to anyone in grief, I would never say that it was a statement he made out of malice, it was just a statement from someone who is not emotionally sensitive, has ever suffered a loss, or has never had a life changing negative event occur to them. My friend grew up in a normal home, free from abuse and I don't think he ever suffered any bullying at the hands of classmates. To be honest, I don't think he had any reference for any of the complex experiences I've had growing up and I don't think he was capable of processing the things I experienced on the island, or the fallout from my time there.
It's at this point that I should say that I've known all of these things about my friend, but I've always accepted them because it is who he is. Though I am bitter about things I'm about to say here, I will always defend my friend's character because though he is not very emotional or compassionate, he is a very nice, genuine and intelligent man.
Exactly one month after Carly's death, I went out late one evening for a mountain bike ride with Jack on a trail that I am very familiar with. I was very emotional at that point and I really pushed things on the downhill in an attempt to purge some of the intense feeling I was having. Well, I clipped a rock, went over the handlebars, and broke my right arm along with several ribs because of how aggressively I was riding that night. This meant I spent all of my summer grieving my sister, unable to get out and enjoy the weather, nursing an arm with a new plate in it, and waiting for my ribs to mend.......which meant I put on another 15 or so pounds and I fell even further into a near crippling depression. I finally shed my arm cast about 3 days before my trip to Dave Matthews Band at the gorge with my then girlfriend. That trip proved to be a serious disaster for me and I returned home almost despondent from everything that had transpired over the previous 4 months. My friend and his wife came over to Missoula about 3 weeks later to attend a Michael Franti concert with me. We had a pretty good time at the show but when I was purchasing a concert shirt after the show, he made note of the fact that I had gotten a XXL shirt and mentioned "You are going to do something about that, right?" Needless to say I was extremely embarrassed and more than a little hurt. To make things even worse, I saw the two of them in the parking lot of a grocery store then next day and he inquired if I had gone mountain biking that day. I explained that I had not since I was working a graveyard shift that night and needed to rest up for it that day. He called me a "lazy fuck" on the spot. Stunned beyond words, I bid them goodbye. Needless to say, I didn't speak to him for a couple of months after that incident. He did eventually call and apologize, but combined with his comments about Carly's death, the damage had been done and my opinion of him along with my willingness to talk about any sensitive issues with him changed dramatically. I had forgiven him, but his words continue to hurt and haunt me to this day.
Things with my long distance girlfriend exploded the following year and with it came serious thoughts of harming myself on a regular basis. He did his best to try to support me during this time, especially during my two hospitalizations and subsequent 6 week stay at an intensive outpatient mental health center in Seattle. We did have a couple of rough episodes though. He came to Missoula one weekend insisting that I go up skiing with him and his friend up at the local ski resort. I had completely lost interest in winter sports before moving to the island and didn't want to go at all, especially since I was completely out of shape and severely depressed at the time. He absolutely insisted that I go with them (because of the weight issue again) and it was pretty much a complete disaster for me.
I came home from the program in Seattle in the best frame of mind that I had been in in over 5 years, possibly the best I had ever been in my entire. I went back to mountain biking with an energy and enthusiasm I hadn't seen since I had been in college in Bozeman. He was pleased by this and came over to ride with me numerous times........though he would push absolutely as hard as he could, which is not something I appreciate at all. I ride to have fun, not to be pushed to go harder so I can lose weight. It got to the point that I didn't want to ride at all with him because of the anxiety it caused me and I even cancelled a trip over to Spokane to go riding with him and a friend of his (someone who I've never liked).
It should be noted that my current physical condition causes me a tremendous amount of anxiety and shame. I weighed 100 pounds less than I do today back in 1994 and I was in really good shape all up to and including my time on the island. Since coming home, I have been assaulted with one major event after another and the severity of my underlying mental illness has increased exponentially. I went from kind of having mental illness problems to crossing over into non-functional territory over the last 6 years. I'm fat, there is no sugar coating my physical condition and my friend's visible displeasure with this has been a constant source of anxiety for me. His pressure for me to constantly be mountain biking, in the gym, and/or rigorously hiking with the dogs had driven me to the point of completely abandoning mountain biking over the last two years because I felt I had to go as much as possible or he was going to be angry with me. It even got to the point where I would lie to him as to what my activities were to avoid his displeasure over the year preceding my mother's death. By the time last spring had arrived, I had gotten to the point that I was trying to avoid contact with him altogether because of the anxiety it would give me and the extent I felt I needed to lie to him.
The news of my mother's terminal cancer and 6 to 8 month prognosis once again shattered the very tenuous stability I was able to maintain in life at that point. The last time I saw my friend was in early March, a few days after I had gotten the news about mom. My relationship and feelings regarding my mother were even more complicated that those that I had about my sister. At the time, I didn't want to have anything to do with trying to take care of mom in her dying days (please don't judge, there are very, very painful reasons for this involving how I was treated by her growing up with severe asthma). I'm not even sure why I even bothered to discuss any of this with my friend since I knew he was unable to showing any sort of compassion, understanding or support toward me on this very complicated subject. Worse than that, he made numerous references toward my weight and questioned me on my activity levels and how much I was getting out with the dogs.
At this point I was now becoming very resentful toward him and very afraid of his judgements (perceived or real) of me. I came to my senses over what I was going to do about mom's suffering and decided that I was going to take family medical leave from work to stay with her in Helena until she passed away. During this two month period I didn't hear once from my friend in Spokane, which was a very difficult time for me because of all the issues I was facing. Mom passed away a few days before I was going to take my leave and I didn't bother to call my friend and tell him because I was so afraid of what he would say to me.......because I wasn't doing anything for exercise at all.
I finally got a phone call from him about 4 days after the funeral. I had posted a picture of myself dressed in a tie for the funeral (something that I never wear) on my Instagram account mentioning the funeral and put he 2 and 2 together about what had. That phone call was a little surreal, I hadn't heard from him in months, a LOT had occurred during that time, and I was in a very strange place at the time. Of course he asked about what I had been doing for exercise, which really got under my skin, almost to the point of me telling him to go fuck himself. He told me to make sure to get out and mountain bike with the the dogs and to keep in touch......which was now an extremely remote possibility on my part. The last time I heard from was a week later he texted me asking me how the mountain biking in Helena was going. I told him I was far too busy to do anything of that nature. You know, because I was far too busy going through everything at mom's condo, taking care of the estate, and all the other small things one has to do when a major family member dies and you are the only living heir.
That was almost a year ago now and I'm still very hot under the collar about all of it. I've struggled really hard over the last year and I've pretty much done it all alone. Things finally came completely unglued for me back in January and I had to take a leave of absence from work. I went back too early, nearly lost my job in a very unfortunate and unprecedented incident where there were no clear guidelines or policies about what course of action should be taken in that kind of situation. The lab manager came hunting for my head and showed an impressive amount of zeal while assassination my character. I'm almost completely alone save from a few online interactions via Facebook........and I trust absolutely no one. During all of this time I haven't heard from my friend even once......and it hurts. Worse yet, I'm scared to death he is going to show up out of the blue and be more than happy to express his displeasure with me over being fat.
My subconscious mind tells me that I have no right to feel hurt or angry with him. It tells me that I deserve to be punished and/or abandoned by him because I'm fat and am too lazy to do anything about it. My subconscious mind also tell me that I finally ran off the last of my friends and that I have finally fulfilled my destiny of being completely alone. I could deal with all of this if another part of my mind wasn't so pissed off over being pressured, judged and eventually abandoned by another person who was important to me. I could call him up and express my feelings to him, but that has always proven to be a disastrous idea in the past. I can't seem to move on from it either, I obsess about it nearly every day. The worst by far is that I ran into his brother this week at restaurant, just by chance. I knew this was going to happen eventually, but that doesn't mean I was even remotely ready for it. "Hey Jon, when was the last time you heard from Matt? Did you know he bought a BMW?".......... I've never wanted to run away so much in my life. I spoke the truth though, that I hadn't heard from him since very shortly after my mom had passed away. I also mentioned that he hadn't been very happy with me and my lifestyle choices for quite some time. His brother mentioned that I should just call him. I should call him? I should call HIM? Yes, that sounds like an absolutely STERLING IDEA, how about I do that right now so you can listen to him ask me how much I've been mountain biking with the dogs so I can be less fat than I am now. HOW ABOUT NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In fact, your brother can GO FUCK HIMSELF.
Here's what I really want to say to my so called friend. Fuck you. Fuck you and your easy fucking life. Fuck you and your lack of understanding and compassion. Fuck you and your "happy" little marriage. Did I ever mention how I feel sorry for your poor wife? Judging from the utter lack of compassion that you've shown me over the last 5 years, I'm guessing you must reserve all of it for her emotional needs. NOT. I've watched you unfairly push her to lose weight over the last 10 years. In fact, I've always wanted to ask her what it's like to be married to a man who has the emotional depth and maturity of the average slime covered rock you find in the mud at the bottom of a fucking swamp. She must be sensationally happy with your marriage. Have you ever even considered her wants or emotional needs? I'm sure you have been more than happy to push her to lose as much weight as possible and make her feel less than attractive and undeserving of your nonexistent love. I can't even begin to imagine what any sort of intimate contact you have with her. Have you ever even made love to her? I'm sure you read a manual on the subject and followed the procedure down to the last letter, minus all of the emotion, tenderness, and connection you are supposed to show to her. Oh yeah, fuck you and all the new and expensive fucking toys you flaunted in my face over the last 6 years. Being completely broke, it's not like I was sensitive about those sort of things. Finally, fuck you for abandoning me, it's not like I need people in my life who accept and understand me for who I am. Up until now, I've always done that for you. I hope some day your fucking life comes crashing down around you......and doesn't let up for a 7 year period. I hope you get an intimate experience for what it's like to get tossed around so badly by life that you don't know which way is up, or what you even stand for anymore. I hope you find yourself in a brand new city, with no money, nowhere to live, a brand new job and nothing other than the shirt on your back, your dog, and your car. I hope you look around for support from people, only to find that it isn't there at all. I hope those people you look to for that support either judge you, betray you, or abandon you at the worst moment possible.I hope you wind up fatter than I am right now and that your own wife will treat you with derision because you are too "lazy" to do anything about it. I hope you get to feel what it's like to wake up each day without any sense of fucking hope whatsoever, knowing that you are always going to be alone, and waiting for that fateful day when you finally muster up the courage to take your own life......and when you've experienced all of that for yourself, I hope you come crawling back to ask for my help and forgiveness. Here's the rub, after I finish telling you how much of an insensitive asshole you've been to me and how much pain you've caused me....... I'll offer you my hand and help you get back up on your feet, because that place is exactly where I live every single day and I know what it's like when no one is there to help you. Ultimately I would do that for you because despite all of the things that have occurred in my life, I've learned what compassion is, how important it is, and how to show it to people.....even the ones who have injured us the most.
It is during that summer following Carly's suicide that my best friend started to complicate things for me. I'm not going to name my friend because I think it would be unfair to do so without his explicit permission, which I have no intention of asking for. I'm just going to refer to him as "my friend from Spokane" during this post.
I met my friend from Spokane back in 2001 when we students doing our clinical internships at one of the hospitals in Spokane. It turned out that we both had an interest in mountain biking and skiing/snowboarding and we spent a fair amount of time doing both activities together up until my wife and I's decision to move to Kauai. It should also be known that my friend was a big enough part of my life that he was a member of my wedding entourage. As I've mentioned several times in previous blog posts, my marriage fell apart within weeks after moving to the island and my wife ended up moving back to Spokane while I remained on the island. Though I did my best to keep our separation and eventual divorce as amicable as possible, my now ex-wife had no such intentions and she basically made all of our mutual friends choose sides.......and most everyone sided with her, which is perfectly okay. My friend from Spokane and his wife were pretty much the only friends from that period that stuck with me and they even came to visit me on the island (the only people to do so other than my sister when things fell apart at the end of my stay on Kauai). This is something that I will be eternally grateful for, it was so nice to be around familiar company at the time and I genuinely enjoyed all of the activities we did together during their visit.
My friend from Spokane was there for me when I crash landed back on the mainland and he picked Jack and myself up at the airport in Seattle and drove us back to Spokane. I ended up settling in Missoula shortly thereafter. Both he and his wife are from Missoula and both of their families still live here, which meant I would see the two of them at least every other month and I would occasionally go over to Spokane to visit with them. My first year in Missoula was a pretty dark one for me, I was completely in debt, I didn't have a comfortable living space, and I carried a lot of shame from the divorce and failing to make things work on the island. As a result of all of this, I fell into a pretty deep depression and gained about 20 pounds during that first year. I went back to mountain biking that following spring and went a time or two with my friend. It was at this point that he started making comments about my lifestyle choices and weight issues. These were subtle at first and I'm only aware of all of this in hindsight.
Carly took her life in late May of that spring and that naturally had a huge impact on me. My friend was familiar with my sister's troubles from conversations I had with him about the subject. In fact, I had mentioned some time in the early 2000's that I was pretty sure that Carly was going to succeed in taking her own life within the next 5 to 10 years. Now, though we were good friends and I told him a lot of intimate things in confidence, I wouldn't describe my friend as the most compassionate or emotional individuals that I have ever met.......which is fine, some people are just that way and I accept him for it. However, he had a very difficult time in understanding the complexities of my emotions involving Carly's death and how much I was grieving at the time. At one point in time, in what would become one of the coldest things anyone has ever said to me, he said that he didn't understand my emotions or grief on the subject since I had been saying for years that I thought Carly was going to take her life at some point in time. Though this was indeed a very cold thing to say to anyone in grief, I would never say that it was a statement he made out of malice, it was just a statement from someone who is not emotionally sensitive, has ever suffered a loss, or has never had a life changing negative event occur to them. My friend grew up in a normal home, free from abuse and I don't think he ever suffered any bullying at the hands of classmates. To be honest, I don't think he had any reference for any of the complex experiences I've had growing up and I don't think he was capable of processing the things I experienced on the island, or the fallout from my time there.
It's at this point that I should say that I've known all of these things about my friend, but I've always accepted them because it is who he is. Though I am bitter about things I'm about to say here, I will always defend my friend's character because though he is not very emotional or compassionate, he is a very nice, genuine and intelligent man.
Exactly one month after Carly's death, I went out late one evening for a mountain bike ride with Jack on a trail that I am very familiar with. I was very emotional at that point and I really pushed things on the downhill in an attempt to purge some of the intense feeling I was having. Well, I clipped a rock, went over the handlebars, and broke my right arm along with several ribs because of how aggressively I was riding that night. This meant I spent all of my summer grieving my sister, unable to get out and enjoy the weather, nursing an arm with a new plate in it, and waiting for my ribs to mend.......which meant I put on another 15 or so pounds and I fell even further into a near crippling depression. I finally shed my arm cast about 3 days before my trip to Dave Matthews Band at the gorge with my then girlfriend. That trip proved to be a serious disaster for me and I returned home almost despondent from everything that had transpired over the previous 4 months. My friend and his wife came over to Missoula about 3 weeks later to attend a Michael Franti concert with me. We had a pretty good time at the show but when I was purchasing a concert shirt after the show, he made note of the fact that I had gotten a XXL shirt and mentioned "You are going to do something about that, right?" Needless to say I was extremely embarrassed and more than a little hurt. To make things even worse, I saw the two of them in the parking lot of a grocery store then next day and he inquired if I had gone mountain biking that day. I explained that I had not since I was working a graveyard shift that night and needed to rest up for it that day. He called me a "lazy fuck" on the spot. Stunned beyond words, I bid them goodbye. Needless to say, I didn't speak to him for a couple of months after that incident. He did eventually call and apologize, but combined with his comments about Carly's death, the damage had been done and my opinion of him along with my willingness to talk about any sensitive issues with him changed dramatically. I had forgiven him, but his words continue to hurt and haunt me to this day.
Things with my long distance girlfriend exploded the following year and with it came serious thoughts of harming myself on a regular basis. He did his best to try to support me during this time, especially during my two hospitalizations and subsequent 6 week stay at an intensive outpatient mental health center in Seattle. We did have a couple of rough episodes though. He came to Missoula one weekend insisting that I go up skiing with him and his friend up at the local ski resort. I had completely lost interest in winter sports before moving to the island and didn't want to go at all, especially since I was completely out of shape and severely depressed at the time. He absolutely insisted that I go with them (because of the weight issue again) and it was pretty much a complete disaster for me.
I came home from the program in Seattle in the best frame of mind that I had been in in over 5 years, possibly the best I had ever been in my entire. I went back to mountain biking with an energy and enthusiasm I hadn't seen since I had been in college in Bozeman. He was pleased by this and came over to ride with me numerous times........though he would push absolutely as hard as he could, which is not something I appreciate at all. I ride to have fun, not to be pushed to go harder so I can lose weight. It got to the point that I didn't want to ride at all with him because of the anxiety it caused me and I even cancelled a trip over to Spokane to go riding with him and a friend of his (someone who I've never liked).
It should be noted that my current physical condition causes me a tremendous amount of anxiety and shame. I weighed 100 pounds less than I do today back in 1994 and I was in really good shape all up to and including my time on the island. Since coming home, I have been assaulted with one major event after another and the severity of my underlying mental illness has increased exponentially. I went from kind of having mental illness problems to crossing over into non-functional territory over the last 6 years. I'm fat, there is no sugar coating my physical condition and my friend's visible displeasure with this has been a constant source of anxiety for me. His pressure for me to constantly be mountain biking, in the gym, and/or rigorously hiking with the dogs had driven me to the point of completely abandoning mountain biking over the last two years because I felt I had to go as much as possible or he was going to be angry with me. It even got to the point where I would lie to him as to what my activities were to avoid his displeasure over the year preceding my mother's death. By the time last spring had arrived, I had gotten to the point that I was trying to avoid contact with him altogether because of the anxiety it would give me and the extent I felt I needed to lie to him.
The news of my mother's terminal cancer and 6 to 8 month prognosis once again shattered the very tenuous stability I was able to maintain in life at that point. The last time I saw my friend was in early March, a few days after I had gotten the news about mom. My relationship and feelings regarding my mother were even more complicated that those that I had about my sister. At the time, I didn't want to have anything to do with trying to take care of mom in her dying days (please don't judge, there are very, very painful reasons for this involving how I was treated by her growing up with severe asthma). I'm not even sure why I even bothered to discuss any of this with my friend since I knew he was unable to showing any sort of compassion, understanding or support toward me on this very complicated subject. Worse than that, he made numerous references toward my weight and questioned me on my activity levels and how much I was getting out with the dogs.
At this point I was now becoming very resentful toward him and very afraid of his judgements (perceived or real) of me. I came to my senses over what I was going to do about mom's suffering and decided that I was going to take family medical leave from work to stay with her in Helena until she passed away. During this two month period I didn't hear once from my friend in Spokane, which was a very difficult time for me because of all the issues I was facing. Mom passed away a few days before I was going to take my leave and I didn't bother to call my friend and tell him because I was so afraid of what he would say to me.......because I wasn't doing anything for exercise at all.
I finally got a phone call from him about 4 days after the funeral. I had posted a picture of myself dressed in a tie for the funeral (something that I never wear) on my Instagram account mentioning the funeral and put he 2 and 2 together about what had. That phone call was a little surreal, I hadn't heard from him in months, a LOT had occurred during that time, and I was in a very strange place at the time. Of course he asked about what I had been doing for exercise, which really got under my skin, almost to the point of me telling him to go fuck himself. He told me to make sure to get out and mountain bike with the the dogs and to keep in touch......which was now an extremely remote possibility on my part. The last time I heard from was a week later he texted me asking me how the mountain biking in Helena was going. I told him I was far too busy to do anything of that nature. You know, because I was far too busy going through everything at mom's condo, taking care of the estate, and all the other small things one has to do when a major family member dies and you are the only living heir.
That was almost a year ago now and I'm still very hot under the collar about all of it. I've struggled really hard over the last year and I've pretty much done it all alone. Things finally came completely unglued for me back in January and I had to take a leave of absence from work. I went back too early, nearly lost my job in a very unfortunate and unprecedented incident where there were no clear guidelines or policies about what course of action should be taken in that kind of situation. The lab manager came hunting for my head and showed an impressive amount of zeal while assassination my character. I'm almost completely alone save from a few online interactions via Facebook........and I trust absolutely no one. During all of this time I haven't heard from my friend even once......and it hurts. Worse yet, I'm scared to death he is going to show up out of the blue and be more than happy to express his displeasure with me over being fat.
My subconscious mind tells me that I have no right to feel hurt or angry with him. It tells me that I deserve to be punished and/or abandoned by him because I'm fat and am too lazy to do anything about it. My subconscious mind also tell me that I finally ran off the last of my friends and that I have finally fulfilled my destiny of being completely alone. I could deal with all of this if another part of my mind wasn't so pissed off over being pressured, judged and eventually abandoned by another person who was important to me. I could call him up and express my feelings to him, but that has always proven to be a disastrous idea in the past. I can't seem to move on from it either, I obsess about it nearly every day. The worst by far is that I ran into his brother this week at restaurant, just by chance. I knew this was going to happen eventually, but that doesn't mean I was even remotely ready for it. "Hey Jon, when was the last time you heard from Matt? Did you know he bought a BMW?".......... I've never wanted to run away so much in my life. I spoke the truth though, that I hadn't heard from him since very shortly after my mom had passed away. I also mentioned that he hadn't been very happy with me and my lifestyle choices for quite some time. His brother mentioned that I should just call him. I should call him? I should call HIM? Yes, that sounds like an absolutely STERLING IDEA, how about I do that right now so you can listen to him ask me how much I've been mountain biking with the dogs so I can be less fat than I am now. HOW ABOUT NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In fact, your brother can GO FUCK HIMSELF.
Here's what I really want to say to my so called friend. Fuck you. Fuck you and your easy fucking life. Fuck you and your lack of understanding and compassion. Fuck you and your "happy" little marriage. Did I ever mention how I feel sorry for your poor wife? Judging from the utter lack of compassion that you've shown me over the last 5 years, I'm guessing you must reserve all of it for her emotional needs. NOT. I've watched you unfairly push her to lose weight over the last 10 years. In fact, I've always wanted to ask her what it's like to be married to a man who has the emotional depth and maturity of the average slime covered rock you find in the mud at the bottom of a fucking swamp. She must be sensationally happy with your marriage. Have you ever even considered her wants or emotional needs? I'm sure you have been more than happy to push her to lose as much weight as possible and make her feel less than attractive and undeserving of your nonexistent love. I can't even begin to imagine what any sort of intimate contact you have with her. Have you ever even made love to her? I'm sure you read a manual on the subject and followed the procedure down to the last letter, minus all of the emotion, tenderness, and connection you are supposed to show to her. Oh yeah, fuck you and all the new and expensive fucking toys you flaunted in my face over the last 6 years. Being completely broke, it's not like I was sensitive about those sort of things. Finally, fuck you for abandoning me, it's not like I need people in my life who accept and understand me for who I am. Up until now, I've always done that for you. I hope some day your fucking life comes crashing down around you......and doesn't let up for a 7 year period. I hope you get an intimate experience for what it's like to get tossed around so badly by life that you don't know which way is up, or what you even stand for anymore. I hope you find yourself in a brand new city, with no money, nowhere to live, a brand new job and nothing other than the shirt on your back, your dog, and your car. I hope you look around for support from people, only to find that it isn't there at all. I hope those people you look to for that support either judge you, betray you, or abandon you at the worst moment possible.I hope you wind up fatter than I am right now and that your own wife will treat you with derision because you are too "lazy" to do anything about it. I hope you get to feel what it's like to wake up each day without any sense of fucking hope whatsoever, knowing that you are always going to be alone, and waiting for that fateful day when you finally muster up the courage to take your own life......and when you've experienced all of that for yourself, I hope you come crawling back to ask for my help and forgiveness. Here's the rub, after I finish telling you how much of an insensitive asshole you've been to me and how much pain you've caused me....... I'll offer you my hand and help you get back up on your feet, because that place is exactly where I live every single day and I know what it's like when no one is there to help you. Ultimately I would do that for you because despite all of the things that have occurred in my life, I've learned what compassion is, how important it is, and how to show it to people.....even the ones who have injured us the most.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
This is how my mind works........every day.
I am Shinji Ikari. I am the hedgehog. Forgive what is about to come next, it's very raw, unfiltered and emotional. I have this conversation in my mind. Every day.
Stay away.
Stay away.
Stay away.
Stay away.
I don't trust you.
Stay away.
Stay away.
Stay away.
Stay away.
StayAwayStayAwayStayAwayStayAwayStayAwayStayAwayStayAwayStayAwayStayAway.
Stay. Away.
I don't trust you.
STAY AWAY!
I. Don't. Trust. You.
Any of you.
TRUST NO ONE......they will only hurt you.
You must never trust anyone again.
I DON'T NEED ANYONE IN MY LIFE, THEY ONLY CAUSE ME PAIN!
......and they don't care.
They don't care.
They don't care.
They don't care.
They don't care.
They. Don't. Care.
THEY DON'T CARE!!!!!
Please, leave me alone.
Leave me alone.
Leave me alone.
Leave me alone.
LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!
.............don't let anyone near................don't let anyone near.................don't let anyone near..........
DON'T LET ANYONE NEAR!!!!!
.........they will hurt you.
They will hurt you.
They will hurt you.
They will hurt you.
They will hurt you.
They. Will. Hurt. You.
THEY WILL HURT YOU!!!!!
........they won't accept you.
They won't accept you.
They won't accept you.
They won't accept you.
They won't accept you.
THEY WON'T ACCEPT YOU!!!!!
..........they will abandon you.
They will abandon you.
They will abandon you.
They will abandon you.
They will abandon you.
They. Will. Abandon. You.
THEY WILL ABANDON YOU!!!!!!!
........or they will betray you.
They will betray you.
They will betray you.
They will betray you.
They will betray you.
They. Will. Betray. You.
THEY WILL BETRAY YOU!!!!!!!
Trust. No. One......................................ever.
I will never trust again. I will never trust again. I will never trust again. I will never trust again.
I. Will. Never. Trust. Again.
I WILL NEVER TRUST AGAIN...............ever.
Who can you trust.....................................? No one.
Who can you trust.....................................? No one.
Who can you trust.....................................? No one.
Who can you trust.....................................? NO ONE!
TRUST NO ONE!
TRUST NO ONE!
TRUST NO ONE!
TRUST NO ONE!
If you keep them away, they can't hurt you, betray you, abandon you...........
If you keep them away......
If you keep them away......
If you keep them away......
YOU MUST KEEP THEM AWAY!!!!!
STAY AWAY FROM ME! STAY AWAY FROM ME! STAY AWAY FROM ME!
.......this is my fault.
This is my fault.
This is my fault.
This is my fault.
This is my fault.
This. Is. My. Fault.
THIS IS ALL MY FAULT!!!!!!!!!!!
............it has always been my fault.
It has always been my fault.
It has always been my fault.
It has always been my fault.
It has always been my fault.
It. Has. Always. Been. My. Fault.
IT WILL ALWAYS BE MY FAULT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
StopItStopItStopItStopItStopItStopItStopItStopItStopItStopItStopItStopItStopIt.
...........you can't stop it..................you never will.
LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I want to be left alone.
Just. Stay. Away.
People only hurt me.
People only hurt me because I'm bad.
People only hurt me because I'm bad and flawed.
People only hurt me because I'm bad, flawed, and I'm less than human.
People only hurt me because I'm bad, flawed, less than human, AND BECAUSE I DESERVE IT!
I deserve it.
I deserve it.
I deserve it.
I deserve it.
I. Deserve. It.
I WILL ALWAYS DESERVE IT!!!!!!!
I must always hide.
I must always hide.
I must always hide.
I must always hide.
I. Must. Always. Hide.
I MUST ALWAYS HIDE!!!!!
ALWAYS!
ALWAYS!
ALWAYS!
ALWAYS!
A!L!W!A!Y!S!
AlwaysAlwaysAlwaysAlwaysAlwaysAlwaysAlwaysAlwaysAlwaysAlwaysAlways
Smile and pretend everything is okay.
Smile and pretend everything is okay.
Smile and pretend everything is okay.
(they won't notice)
Smile and pretend everything is okay.
Smile and pretend everything is okay.
Smile and pretend everything is okay.
(they won't notice)
Always smile and pretend everything is okay.
(they will never notice)
Look at me, I'm okay.
Look at me, I'm okay.
Look at me, I'm okay.
Look at me, I'm okay.
(they are looking at you)
I'm okay.
I'm okay.
I'm okay..........................stay away............................
I'm okay.
I'm okay.
I'm okay..........................stay away............................
I'M OKAY......................STAY AWAY......................
I'M ALWAYS OKAY......................STAY AWAY..................ALWAYS.
(they are still looking)
Distract them.
Distract them.
Distract them.............................stay away.....................
Distract them.
Distract them.............................stay away.....................
(it's not working, they will see the truth)
STAYAWAYSTAYAWAYSTAYAWAYSTAYAWAYSTAYAWAYSTAYAWAYSTAYAWAY
(they can see it, the truth, they can see it)
RUNAWAYRUNAWAYRUNAWAYRUNAWAYRUNAWAYRUNAWAYRUNAWAYRUNAWAY
MUST. RUN. AWAY.
HIDE.
HIDE.
HIDE.
HIDE.
(they are searching for you......and the truth)
HIDE.
HIDE.
HIDE.
HIDE.
DON'TFINDMEDON'TFINDMEDON'TFINDMEDON'TFINDMEDON'TFINDME
Who are you?
I don't know.
Who are you?
I don't know.
Who are you?
I don't know.
Who? Are? You?
I. Don't. Know.
WHO ARE YOU??????????????
I DON'T KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know what people want me to be.
(you should be that person)
I know what people want me to be.
(you should be that person)
I know what people want me to be.
(you should be that person)
I don't want to be what people want me to be.
(you must be that person)
I don't want to be what people want me to be.
(you must be that person)
I don't want to be what people want me to be.
(you must be that person)
I have to try to be a good person.
(you aren't a good person)
I have to try to be a good person.
(you aren't a good person)
I have to try to be a good person.
(you aren't a good person...............................and you never will be)
Stay away.
Stay away.
Stay away.
Stay away.
I don't trust you.
Stay away.
Stay away.
Stay away.
Stay away.
StayAwayStayAwayStayAwayStayAwayStayAwayStayAwayStayAwayStayAwayStayAway.
Stay. Away.
I don't trust you.
STAY AWAY!
I. Don't. Trust. You.
Any of you.
TRUST NO ONE......they will only hurt you.
You must never trust anyone again.
I DON'T NEED ANYONE IN MY LIFE, THEY ONLY CAUSE ME PAIN!
......and they don't care.
They don't care.
They don't care.
They don't care.
They don't care.
They. Don't. Care.
THEY DON'T CARE!!!!!
Please, leave me alone.
Leave me alone.
Leave me alone.
Leave me alone.
LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!
.............don't let anyone near................don't let anyone near.................don't let anyone near..........
DON'T LET ANYONE NEAR!!!!!
.........they will hurt you.
They will hurt you.
They will hurt you.
They will hurt you.
They will hurt you.
They. Will. Hurt. You.
THEY WILL HURT YOU!!!!!
........they won't accept you.
They won't accept you.
They won't accept you.
They won't accept you.
They won't accept you.
THEY WON'T ACCEPT YOU!!!!!
..........they will abandon you.
They will abandon you.
They will abandon you.
They will abandon you.
They will abandon you.
They. Will. Abandon. You.
THEY WILL ABANDON YOU!!!!!!!
........or they will betray you.
They will betray you.
They will betray you.
They will betray you.
They will betray you.
They. Will. Betray. You.
THEY WILL BETRAY YOU!!!!!!!
Trust. No. One......................................ever.
I will never trust again. I will never trust again. I will never trust again. I will never trust again.
I. Will. Never. Trust. Again.
I WILL NEVER TRUST AGAIN...............ever.
Who can you trust.....................................? No one.
Who can you trust.....................................? No one.
Who can you trust.....................................? No one.
Who can you trust.....................................? NO ONE!
TRUST NO ONE!
TRUST NO ONE!
TRUST NO ONE!
TRUST NO ONE!
If you keep them away, they can't hurt you, betray you, abandon you...........
If you keep them away......
If you keep them away......
If you keep them away......
YOU MUST KEEP THEM AWAY!!!!!
STAY AWAY FROM ME! STAY AWAY FROM ME! STAY AWAY FROM ME!
.......this is my fault.
This is my fault.
This is my fault.
This is my fault.
This is my fault.
This. Is. My. Fault.
THIS IS ALL MY FAULT!!!!!!!!!!!
............it has always been my fault.
It has always been my fault.
It has always been my fault.
It has always been my fault.
It has always been my fault.
It. Has. Always. Been. My. Fault.
IT WILL ALWAYS BE MY FAULT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
StopItStopItStopItStopItStopItStopItStopItStopItStopItStopItStopItStopItStopIt.
...........you can't stop it..................you never will.
LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I want to be left alone.
Just. Stay. Away.
People only hurt me.
People only hurt me because I'm bad.
People only hurt me because I'm bad and flawed.
People only hurt me because I'm bad, flawed, and I'm less than human.
People only hurt me because I'm bad, flawed, less than human, AND BECAUSE I DESERVE IT!
I deserve it.
I deserve it.
I deserve it.
I deserve it.
I. Deserve. It.
I WILL ALWAYS DESERVE IT!!!!!!!
I must always hide.
I must always hide.
I must always hide.
I must always hide.
I. Must. Always. Hide.
I MUST ALWAYS HIDE!!!!!
ALWAYS!
ALWAYS!
ALWAYS!
ALWAYS!
A!L!W!A!Y!S!
AlwaysAlwaysAlwaysAlwaysAlwaysAlwaysAlwaysAlwaysAlwaysAlwaysAlways
Smile and pretend everything is okay.
Smile and pretend everything is okay.
Smile and pretend everything is okay.
(they won't notice)
Smile and pretend everything is okay.
Smile and pretend everything is okay.
Smile and pretend everything is okay.
(they won't notice)
Always smile and pretend everything is okay.
(they will never notice)
Look at me, I'm okay.
Look at me, I'm okay.
Look at me, I'm okay.
Look at me, I'm okay.
(they are looking at you)
I'm okay.
I'm okay.
I'm okay..........................stay away............................
I'm okay.
I'm okay.
I'm okay..........................stay away............................
I'M OKAY......................STAY AWAY......................
I'M ALWAYS OKAY......................STAY AWAY..................ALWAYS.
(they are still looking)
Distract them.
Distract them.
Distract them.............................stay away.....................
Distract them.
Distract them.............................stay away.....................
(it's not working, they will see the truth)
STAYAWAYSTAYAWAYSTAYAWAYSTAYAWAYSTAYAWAYSTAYAWAYSTAYAWAY
(they can see it, the truth, they can see it)
RUNAWAYRUNAWAYRUNAWAYRUNAWAYRUNAWAYRUNAWAYRUNAWAYRUNAWAY
MUST. RUN. AWAY.
HIDE.
HIDE.
HIDE.
HIDE.
(they are searching for you......and the truth)
HIDE.
HIDE.
HIDE.
HIDE.
DON'TFINDMEDON'TFINDMEDON'TFINDMEDON'TFINDMEDON'TFINDME
Who are you?
I don't know.
Who are you?
I don't know.
Who are you?
I don't know.
Who? Are? You?
I. Don't. Know.
WHO ARE YOU??????????????
I DON'T KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know what people want me to be.
(you should be that person)
I know what people want me to be.
(you should be that person)
I know what people want me to be.
(you should be that person)
I don't want to be what people want me to be.
(you must be that person)
I don't want to be what people want me to be.
(you must be that person)
I don't want to be what people want me to be.
(you must be that person)
I have to try to be a good person.
(you aren't a good person)
I have to try to be a good person.
(you aren't a good person)
I have to try to be a good person.
(you aren't a good person...............................and you never will be)
Dr. Nelson will see you now?
Every now and then someone will mention that I should or should have gone to med school. I usually laugh maniacally at these sorts of statements. Me, as a doctor? I'm not sure the world would be able to support the smug/arrogant singularity that would be created if I were to ever obtain a medical doctorate.
First off, I already think I'm smarter than everyone (because I am), having a the letters "MD" attached to my name would only make things ten times worse. What about bedside manner? Well, all I could say is that I would be a cross of the worst characteristics of Dr. House from the show "House" and Dr. Cox from "Scrubs". No one wants to be a patient of a smug, asshole doctor who's right all of the time. Worse than that, no one wants to work for a smug, asshole doctor who's right all of the time. I work in the basement of our hospital as a mere clinical laboratory scientist and already I'm afraid to go to any other public places of the hospital for fear of being recognized as "that asshole from the lab". If people were indeed able to put my face to the voice they hear on the phone, I'm sure I would be stabbed, shivved, shanked, perforated numerous times via scalpel, or choked to death with a stethoscope. As a practicing physician, this would be far, far worse and I calculate my odds of being assassinated by the staff I work with would be about 98%.
In all seriousness, the idea of going to medical school has never appealed to me. I enjoy working in laboratory medicine very much and doubt I will ever stray very far from it. To be honest, the only type of doctoral medicine I would be interested in is pathology and I would almost certainly specialize in hematology, infectious disease, or epidemiology. I can specialize in those areas in my current professional career if I wanted to anyway. Though it is very flattering to have people suggest that I should have gone to medical school, it would require a focus, commitment, and drive that I don't think I've ever possessed. Truthfully, what I do in laboratory medicine requires a very in depth knowledge of broad categories of medicine already. In fact, the medical director of our lab has said to me numerous times that she thinks the most intelligent people you can find in a hospital setting are usually laboratorians and I agree with this statement, though not out of arrogance or hubris. My peers and colleagues are bar none some of the most intelligent and dedicated people I have ever met in my life. We perform detailed, sophisticated, and precise laboratory medicine every single day. Without us, physicians would be blind as to how to treat their patients. I am perfectly happy and proud to perform such essential functions behind the scenes, even though no one other than ourselves understands or realizes the enormity of the contributions we make every single day.
Besides, we ALL know just how big of an asshole physician I would be. Maybe if I could find an "Evil" medical school to attend, I might actually think about it. I'm going to keep the danger of a smug/arrogant singularity that would consume the world in the closet.....for now at least.
First off, I already think I'm smarter than everyone (because I am), having a the letters "MD" attached to my name would only make things ten times worse. What about bedside manner? Well, all I could say is that I would be a cross of the worst characteristics of Dr. House from the show "House" and Dr. Cox from "Scrubs". No one wants to be a patient of a smug, asshole doctor who's right all of the time. Worse than that, no one wants to work for a smug, asshole doctor who's right all of the time. I work in the basement of our hospital as a mere clinical laboratory scientist and already I'm afraid to go to any other public places of the hospital for fear of being recognized as "that asshole from the lab". If people were indeed able to put my face to the voice they hear on the phone, I'm sure I would be stabbed, shivved, shanked, perforated numerous times via scalpel, or choked to death with a stethoscope. As a practicing physician, this would be far, far worse and I calculate my odds of being assassinated by the staff I work with would be about 98%.
In all seriousness, the idea of going to medical school has never appealed to me. I enjoy working in laboratory medicine very much and doubt I will ever stray very far from it. To be honest, the only type of doctoral medicine I would be interested in is pathology and I would almost certainly specialize in hematology, infectious disease, or epidemiology. I can specialize in those areas in my current professional career if I wanted to anyway. Though it is very flattering to have people suggest that I should have gone to medical school, it would require a focus, commitment, and drive that I don't think I've ever possessed. Truthfully, what I do in laboratory medicine requires a very in depth knowledge of broad categories of medicine already. In fact, the medical director of our lab has said to me numerous times that she thinks the most intelligent people you can find in a hospital setting are usually laboratorians and I agree with this statement, though not out of arrogance or hubris. My peers and colleagues are bar none some of the most intelligent and dedicated people I have ever met in my life. We perform detailed, sophisticated, and precise laboratory medicine every single day. Without us, physicians would be blind as to how to treat their patients. I am perfectly happy and proud to perform such essential functions behind the scenes, even though no one other than ourselves understands or realizes the enormity of the contributions we make every single day.
Besides, we ALL know just how big of an asshole physician I would be. Maybe if I could find an "Evil" medical school to attend, I might actually think about it. I'm going to keep the danger of a smug/arrogant singularity that would consume the world in the closet.....for now at least.
Monday, May 26, 2014
Carly Ann Nelson 10-03-1975 to 05-26-2009
There are few things that I wish more than to be able to go back in time to May of 2009. Carly, my sister and only sibling, took her own life on this very day five years ago. I wouldn't go back in time to try to stop her because I know she only wanted to end her pain and struggles and to be honest, 25I probably would not be able to affect the outcome. Truth be told, I respect her decision and understand that it took a great deal of courage to do what she did. I would go back just to let her know that her brother loves her and that I would always love her, no matter what happened.
Carly had Borderline Personality Disorder and was an endstage alcoholic by the time she entered her early 30's (most likely due to her personality disorder). At least that is what the current theory is (one I subscribe to). Mental illnesses have an infuriating habit of being nebulous and undefinable so during the 17 years of Carly's struggles, we never really had an asnwer as to what the nature of her disease really was. Carly wasn't born with her disorder (as I wasn't either), but a genetic predisoposition to mental illness and addiction, along with a very troubled upbringing resulted in Carly becoming a very ill and unhappy person. I'm not going to delve into the specifics that made her they way she was because it was a very gradual and long term process......not to mention, I can't remember much of our childhood. I will say this, we both played roles in each other's diseases, albeit small ones, I don't hold this against Carly and I hope she would feel the same way about me.
When Carly was 16 she made her first attempt at suicide via overdose. During emergency attempts to pump Carly's stomach, some contents were aspirated into her lungs and she went into respiratory failure. Carly's situation was dire enough that she was flown to the University of Minnesota hospital in Minneapolis. She eventually made a recovery after a number of months. She would wear the prominent tracheostomy scar from her tracheotomy for the rest of her life unfortunately. During Carly's recovery in the hospital, placing her in a long term pediatric mental health facility was recommended (which I supported). Carly was adamant about returning home to Helena for her senior year of school and was able to convince my parents to let her do so. Now this is not an indictment of any of the decisions that were made regarding Carly's wellbeing, I am merely pointing out that it was clear she was very ill from a mental standpoint early on.
Carly went home for her senior year and began drinking socially at that point. This began a seventeen year long battle with alcohol addiction for her, one that she was never able to beat for more than a few months at a time. My father and mother did their best to help Carly get well and she spent time at numerous rehabilitation programs and high level mental health facilities. Nothing ever seemed to work and Carly fell further and further into despair as time went by.
I was too busy making my way through college, finding my place in the world, and slowly coming to the realization that Carly wasn't the only one who was very mentally ill to really have a whole lot of contact with my sister. I was a much different person back then than I am today. I harbored a great deal of resentment toward Carly regarding our childhood, all the time and resources my parents devoted to her, and her inability to stay sober or out of trouble for more than a few months at a time. In short, I had little compassion for my sister's plight. By the time I had entered my career in the early 2000's it became clear to me that Carly most likely was going to succeed in a suicide attempt in the future at some point and I did my best to make that known to my parents.
I can only imagine what it was like for Carly to struggle all of those years while she watched all of her friends and her brother move on with their adult lives while she remained trapped within the prison of her illness and alcoholism. Shame is a subject that I am extremely well versed in and I feel very sad for how she must have felt. Carly kept trying her hardest to make things work, but the cards were stacked against her by the time the mid 2000's arrived. Her drinking binges became so severe that she had to be hospitlized for detoxification each time and she had more than bout with acute pancreatitis, which became a chronic ailment for her in the last years of her life. Worse yet, the increasing intensity of each incident placed a great deal of strain upon her relationship with my parents and myself.
Carly became more severely depressed, ashamed of herself, alone, and miserable by 2008.....which was not the best of years for me either. I had been in Hawaii for 18 months at that point and the slow, downward spiral I was in began to accelerate rapidly enough to the point I became suicidal myself. It was clear that I needed to move home to the mainland, which was no small task at the time. Carly offered to come visit me during those last few weeks on the island to make sure that I was going to be safe and okay. While she didn't really help much with my moving activities, it was nice to have her there with me, even if we did have a squabble or two. I think this was the first real vacation Carly had been on for many years and I think she genuinely enjoyed herself, which is something that gives me great comfort now.
By the time 2009 arrived, things had been steadily getting worse for Carly and her incidents (meaning her drinking binges, for lack of a better term) became more and more severe. She even went so far as to get married in secret to a man she was in a rehab facility with while no one was looking one day. Dad came out to Montana to try to fix this mess and it was at this point that I told him that I thought we were looking at the end times for Carly. Then, one fateful afternoon, Carly appeared in the ER here at Community Medical Center while I was on shift. I believe her pancreatitis was bothering her so mom brought her here to see if they could do something for her pain. In hindsight, I wonder if Carly came to this hospital, the very hospital she was born in, to say goodbye to me. Sadly, at this point I was more than fed up with her "antics" and was only filled with anger and resentment. Though I was downstairs in the lab when she was in our ER, I did not go up to see her because I knew if I did, I was going to release over 15 years worth of resentment upon her. Though it meant that I didn't get the chance to see her days before she took her own life, I am thankful every day that I didn't go up to see her and unleash my fury upon her. I wouldn't be able to live with myself in the aftermath. Knowing there was nothing they could do to help Carly, she was released from the ER and mom took her home to Helena. Whether unwittingly or by choice, Carly had come full circle in her life with that visit to this hospital. Two days later she took a fatal dose of painkillers, left a note, and fell unconcious in her room at mom's condo. Alone. She died several hours later in a hospital in Great Falls and I got the call sometime around 5:00 that morning.
The next week was a huge blur, though I had predicted her suicide many years prior, I was still rocked to my very core. Preparations for her funeral in Helena were made for the next week and I made the decision to speak at the service. Speaking at her service has easily been one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life and I still can't talk about it without bursting into tears. I have never been one to prepare speeches when called upon to speak in front of people, I've always just been able to convey what I wanted to without the need for notes. There must have been 200 and 300 people there in attendance and I was being called to the podium far too soon for my liking. I stood there and sobbed for 5 minutes before I could speak anything intelligible. It was so hard, but I had to do it. I had to try to convey what a beautiful person my sister was and despite all of the resentment I had held against her, I loved her very much. Just writing about the event has brought me to tears again.
Carly's tale may only seem to be about misery and sorrow, but that wasn't the essence of who she was. Carly was an extremely intelligent, charming, and witty person. She was always very kind and she loved animals (very much like her brother loves his Dingoes). She was so brilliantly smart and so witty though. She remains the only person in the world who actually grasped the complexity of my sense of humor, mostly because it was very similar to my own. She was such a beautiful person, so many people told how Carly had touched their lives at her memorial service. So much so that it became too overwhelming for me and I had to hide in the recesses of the church until the reception was over and everyone who wasn't going to the grave side service left. She loved music so much, even more so than I do. She read a lot of books and was reading Hunter S. Thompson way before I ever considered doing so. In high school it appeared to everyone that she was destined to go on to great things in adulthood, something that must have weighed heavily upon her heart in the later years of her life.
Carly's suicide five years ago today has become the most influential and transformative event of my entire life. Before her death I was always so cold and clinical all of the time, I wasn't capable of near the compassion that I am now. I've spent a great deal of time trying my best to make sense of it all and gain a greater understanding of who she was. I've seen what it's like to live too long without hope and what that does to a person both on the inside and outside. I try my best to learn as much as I can from her experiences so her death won't be in vain. I understand why she did it, why she took her own life now. Odds are that I will follow in her path some time in the future because I understand that sometimes people just aren't equipped to live in the world and that the brightest lights burn the shortest (not that my light is necessarily very bright). I've see loss from a unique perspective now and it has made me a far more compassionate person. I've spent time at a facility with other people with mental health and substance abuse issues, I understand her far better now that I ever did when she was still alive. It's extremely sad, but it has to count for something. I wouldn't have been able to be there for mom in the final month of her life if it weren't for things that I had learned from Carly's death. I realize that she was the only other person who knew what we went through as children and was maybe the only person who could have helped me make any sense of it. In the back of my mind, I always thought we would be close later in life and that we would both help each other find the answers to what we were looking for. I love and appreciate Carly far more now than I ever did when she was alive and that fills me with such great sorrow. It bothers me so much that she essentially died alone and that she didn't know if her own brother loved her or not. Earlier this month, I got tattoos of our favorite X-Men character on my forearms to represent the two of us. One of the character as a hero (in memory of her) and one of the character after she had succumb to the darkness of her soul (to represent me). I put them on my forearms so I would see them and be reminded daily of her.
So I would go back if I could, not to stop her because I wouldn't want her to suffer any longer in life than she already had, I would go back to tell her how much I love her and how we aren't as different as we always thought we were. I would show her how much I've learned and changed because of her death. Most importantly, I would make sure that she wasn't alone when she passed. No one should die alone and in misery like that. Interestingly, one of the greatest compliments that anyone has ever given was from Carly. When Jack and I crash landed back on the mainland I had very hard time finding a place for him and I to live at here in Missoula, so Jack spent a couple of weeks with mom and Carly in Helena. I came over to Helena one weekend to see him, because I can't stand to be away from him (or Carter, but he wasn't with us then) and really needed some comfort from him at the time. We were rough housing on mom's couch when Carly came down the stairs and said, "You really love your dog." I don't know how long she had been watching us, but I think at that moment she saw the essence of who I am and just how much love I am capable of. It may not seem like a very important thing, but it has come to mean so much to me over the years. It's important to me that she could see just how soft and gentle I can be. Jack bonded with Carly while he spent time with him and mom, sleeping snuggled up against her under the covers like he has with me since he was a puppy. He was there with us at her grave side service as well.
I miss my sister every day and I will miss her every day until the day I die. I will always remember her for the beautiful person she really was. I will always be sad that I wasn't able to show her love while she was alive and for the loss of any possible future we could have had together. I spend a great deal of time trying to learn from her suicide and take meaning from it. I hope it would make her smile in knowing that her suicide helped her brother to change as much as he has and that there will always be a place in his heart dedicated to her. I love you, Carly. I always will and I'm sorry.
Carly had Borderline Personality Disorder and was an endstage alcoholic by the time she entered her early 30's (most likely due to her personality disorder). At least that is what the current theory is (one I subscribe to). Mental illnesses have an infuriating habit of being nebulous and undefinable so during the 17 years of Carly's struggles, we never really had an asnwer as to what the nature of her disease really was. Carly wasn't born with her disorder (as I wasn't either), but a genetic predisoposition to mental illness and addiction, along with a very troubled upbringing resulted in Carly becoming a very ill and unhappy person. I'm not going to delve into the specifics that made her they way she was because it was a very gradual and long term process......not to mention, I can't remember much of our childhood. I will say this, we both played roles in each other's diseases, albeit small ones, I don't hold this against Carly and I hope she would feel the same way about me.
When Carly was 16 she made her first attempt at suicide via overdose. During emergency attempts to pump Carly's stomach, some contents were aspirated into her lungs and she went into respiratory failure. Carly's situation was dire enough that she was flown to the University of Minnesota hospital in Minneapolis. She eventually made a recovery after a number of months. She would wear the prominent tracheostomy scar from her tracheotomy for the rest of her life unfortunately. During Carly's recovery in the hospital, placing her in a long term pediatric mental health facility was recommended (which I supported). Carly was adamant about returning home to Helena for her senior year of school and was able to convince my parents to let her do so. Now this is not an indictment of any of the decisions that were made regarding Carly's wellbeing, I am merely pointing out that it was clear she was very ill from a mental standpoint early on.
Carly went home for her senior year and began drinking socially at that point. This began a seventeen year long battle with alcohol addiction for her, one that she was never able to beat for more than a few months at a time. My father and mother did their best to help Carly get well and she spent time at numerous rehabilitation programs and high level mental health facilities. Nothing ever seemed to work and Carly fell further and further into despair as time went by.
I was too busy making my way through college, finding my place in the world, and slowly coming to the realization that Carly wasn't the only one who was very mentally ill to really have a whole lot of contact with my sister. I was a much different person back then than I am today. I harbored a great deal of resentment toward Carly regarding our childhood, all the time and resources my parents devoted to her, and her inability to stay sober or out of trouble for more than a few months at a time. In short, I had little compassion for my sister's plight. By the time I had entered my career in the early 2000's it became clear to me that Carly most likely was going to succeed in a suicide attempt in the future at some point and I did my best to make that known to my parents.
I can only imagine what it was like for Carly to struggle all of those years while she watched all of her friends and her brother move on with their adult lives while she remained trapped within the prison of her illness and alcoholism. Shame is a subject that I am extremely well versed in and I feel very sad for how she must have felt. Carly kept trying her hardest to make things work, but the cards were stacked against her by the time the mid 2000's arrived. Her drinking binges became so severe that she had to be hospitlized for detoxification each time and she had more than bout with acute pancreatitis, which became a chronic ailment for her in the last years of her life. Worse yet, the increasing intensity of each incident placed a great deal of strain upon her relationship with my parents and myself.
Carly became more severely depressed, ashamed of herself, alone, and miserable by 2008.....which was not the best of years for me either. I had been in Hawaii for 18 months at that point and the slow, downward spiral I was in began to accelerate rapidly enough to the point I became suicidal myself. It was clear that I needed to move home to the mainland, which was no small task at the time. Carly offered to come visit me during those last few weeks on the island to make sure that I was going to be safe and okay. While she didn't really help much with my moving activities, it was nice to have her there with me, even if we did have a squabble or two. I think this was the first real vacation Carly had been on for many years and I think she genuinely enjoyed herself, which is something that gives me great comfort now.
By the time 2009 arrived, things had been steadily getting worse for Carly and her incidents (meaning her drinking binges, for lack of a better term) became more and more severe. She even went so far as to get married in secret to a man she was in a rehab facility with while no one was looking one day. Dad came out to Montana to try to fix this mess and it was at this point that I told him that I thought we were looking at the end times for Carly. Then, one fateful afternoon, Carly appeared in the ER here at Community Medical Center while I was on shift. I believe her pancreatitis was bothering her so mom brought her here to see if they could do something for her pain. In hindsight, I wonder if Carly came to this hospital, the very hospital she was born in, to say goodbye to me. Sadly, at this point I was more than fed up with her "antics" and was only filled with anger and resentment. Though I was downstairs in the lab when she was in our ER, I did not go up to see her because I knew if I did, I was going to release over 15 years worth of resentment upon her. Though it meant that I didn't get the chance to see her days before she took her own life, I am thankful every day that I didn't go up to see her and unleash my fury upon her. I wouldn't be able to live with myself in the aftermath. Knowing there was nothing they could do to help Carly, she was released from the ER and mom took her home to Helena. Whether unwittingly or by choice, Carly had come full circle in her life with that visit to this hospital. Two days later she took a fatal dose of painkillers, left a note, and fell unconcious in her room at mom's condo. Alone. She died several hours later in a hospital in Great Falls and I got the call sometime around 5:00 that morning.
The next week was a huge blur, though I had predicted her suicide many years prior, I was still rocked to my very core. Preparations for her funeral in Helena were made for the next week and I made the decision to speak at the service. Speaking at her service has easily been one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life and I still can't talk about it without bursting into tears. I have never been one to prepare speeches when called upon to speak in front of people, I've always just been able to convey what I wanted to without the need for notes. There must have been 200 and 300 people there in attendance and I was being called to the podium far too soon for my liking. I stood there and sobbed for 5 minutes before I could speak anything intelligible. It was so hard, but I had to do it. I had to try to convey what a beautiful person my sister was and despite all of the resentment I had held against her, I loved her very much. Just writing about the event has brought me to tears again.
Carly's tale may only seem to be about misery and sorrow, but that wasn't the essence of who she was. Carly was an extremely intelligent, charming, and witty person. She was always very kind and she loved animals (very much like her brother loves his Dingoes). She was so brilliantly smart and so witty though. She remains the only person in the world who actually grasped the complexity of my sense of humor, mostly because it was very similar to my own. She was such a beautiful person, so many people told how Carly had touched their lives at her memorial service. So much so that it became too overwhelming for me and I had to hide in the recesses of the church until the reception was over and everyone who wasn't going to the grave side service left. She loved music so much, even more so than I do. She read a lot of books and was reading Hunter S. Thompson way before I ever considered doing so. In high school it appeared to everyone that she was destined to go on to great things in adulthood, something that must have weighed heavily upon her heart in the later years of her life.
Carly's suicide five years ago today has become the most influential and transformative event of my entire life. Before her death I was always so cold and clinical all of the time, I wasn't capable of near the compassion that I am now. I've spent a great deal of time trying my best to make sense of it all and gain a greater understanding of who she was. I've seen what it's like to live too long without hope and what that does to a person both on the inside and outside. I try my best to learn as much as I can from her experiences so her death won't be in vain. I understand why she did it, why she took her own life now. Odds are that I will follow in her path some time in the future because I understand that sometimes people just aren't equipped to live in the world and that the brightest lights burn the shortest (not that my light is necessarily very bright). I've see loss from a unique perspective now and it has made me a far more compassionate person. I've spent time at a facility with other people with mental health and substance abuse issues, I understand her far better now that I ever did when she was still alive. It's extremely sad, but it has to count for something. I wouldn't have been able to be there for mom in the final month of her life if it weren't for things that I had learned from Carly's death. I realize that she was the only other person who knew what we went through as children and was maybe the only person who could have helped me make any sense of it. In the back of my mind, I always thought we would be close later in life and that we would both help each other find the answers to what we were looking for. I love and appreciate Carly far more now than I ever did when she was alive and that fills me with such great sorrow. It bothers me so much that she essentially died alone and that she didn't know if her own brother loved her or not. Earlier this month, I got tattoos of our favorite X-Men character on my forearms to represent the two of us. One of the character as a hero (in memory of her) and one of the character after she had succumb to the darkness of her soul (to represent me). I put them on my forearms so I would see them and be reminded daily of her.
So I would go back if I could, not to stop her because I wouldn't want her to suffer any longer in life than she already had, I would go back to tell her how much I love her and how we aren't as different as we always thought we were. I would show her how much I've learned and changed because of her death. Most importantly, I would make sure that she wasn't alone when she passed. No one should die alone and in misery like that. Interestingly, one of the greatest compliments that anyone has ever given was from Carly. When Jack and I crash landed back on the mainland I had very hard time finding a place for him and I to live at here in Missoula, so Jack spent a couple of weeks with mom and Carly in Helena. I came over to Helena one weekend to see him, because I can't stand to be away from him (or Carter, but he wasn't with us then) and really needed some comfort from him at the time. We were rough housing on mom's couch when Carly came down the stairs and said, "You really love your dog." I don't know how long she had been watching us, but I think at that moment she saw the essence of who I am and just how much love I am capable of. It may not seem like a very important thing, but it has come to mean so much to me over the years. It's important to me that she could see just how soft and gentle I can be. Jack bonded with Carly while he spent time with him and mom, sleeping snuggled up against her under the covers like he has with me since he was a puppy. He was there with us at her grave side service as well.
I miss my sister every day and I will miss her every day until the day I die. I will always remember her for the beautiful person she really was. I will always be sad that I wasn't able to show her love while she was alive and for the loss of any possible future we could have had together. I spend a great deal of time trying to learn from her suicide and take meaning from it. I hope it would make her smile in knowing that her suicide helped her brother to change as much as he has and that there will always be a place in his heart dedicated to her. I love you, Carly. I always will and I'm sorry.
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