Standing In A Swimming Pool Painted Black

I think it was sometime after Brad OD’ing on heroin on October 9th, 2008 that I sort of began a slow decline back into the deepest pit of depression.  After all, he and I had shared our “Christmas” stories, as I call them—tales from our emotionally scarring and disturbed childhoods.   I had always been attracted to people who had similar backgrounds to me.  When I thought of him dying on an OD and bleeding out I would go numb and cry.  There are so many people I had known in my life who never made it very far past their thirties.  It was another blow.

As fall set in and winter came, I could feel the familiar patterns setting in.   The feeling of blackness, deep depression closing in.  Your world seems to get smaller and more enclosed.  You get number and more used to being numb and sad.  You start to sink and no longer care anymore.

As I look back, I began to feel like the shrink I had wasn’t really helping.  I began to drift along in my own therapy, never really feeling as connected.  She had this style that was more strictly business.  I can tell you that business has never been my style.  I am creative, think and feeling.  I am not a one to be in a therapy session that is more driven with an agenda.  I should have told her that and asked for another doctor. 

Being on Disability and relying on Medicare means that you have to take what you get.  And now, I feel I can speak on this more openly: Jefferson didn’t accept Medicare and would not accept Medicaid as secondary insurance for therapy.  They had their reasons which I see now they could have worked around as my present health system does.  The only reason I was there and getting therapy was because I had a lawyer who had negotiated with them.  However, the time was running out. 

A perfect storm was brewing between my mental state and Mid-Life Crisis combined with a nose dive in the economy and dwindling services.  There are parts of 2008 and 2009 that I can barely remember. 

I was trying to pull up and do something.  Things began to feel more and more like walking up hill dragging a herd of elephants behind you.  I would sometimes blog but didn’t feel into it as much.  Most times, I felt very empty and alone. 

Physically, years of being heavy and diabetic were catching up to me as neuropathy began to take hold of my feet.  Walking was getting more painful.  My feet hurt horrendously and sometimes I felt like I had my foot in a nest of hornets.  I began getting limited. 

Performing in the Dumpsta’ Players was causing me even more pain then I could deal with.  One show would keep me in bed for a day and a half with severe pain and stiffness.  In pain, the pleasure of performing was hardly worth the pain.  I felt shittier losing my one outlet that I had. 

This was leading up to last summer.  The summer that things began coming due.

 

To be continued.