Stalked

As a Firefighter/EMT, when we have bad days they very quickly turn into bad weeks. A bad day for us all too often means that we lost a patient or lost one of our own. This week I worked a scene of a young woman who completed suicide. There was nothing we could do for her, she was gone long before anyone called 911. Even though there was so very obviously nothing anyone could do to save this young woman’s life it tends to follow you, stalk you. Some things that you encounter in this profession never leave you.

For the last three days I’ve been haunted by the completed suicides that I’ve worked in my two short years as a firefighter/EMT. None of which were viable. The elderly male who put a gun in his mouth and sprayed his entire bathroom with blood and brain matter. The 19 year old girl who hung herself with the cord of a curling iron from an eye-hook in a bathroom ceiling. The 32 year old mother who we found face down in her own vomit, she overdosed on Oxycodone with her teenage children in the house. And then Saturday, the young woman who sat in her car garage with her car running.

The things I’ve seen make it hard to sleep at night. Natural death is hard to deal with, but when someone actively takes their own life it’s devastating for all involved. It kind of makes you angry, you studied your ass off to learn how to save people when they’re circling the drain, you’ve held the hand of the dying and tried to do your best to comfort them when all they want is more time on this Earth. Then you go and cut down the body of someone who decided that their life isn’t worth living. It definitely makes you question your faith in God, or whatever higher power that you believe in, that they allow the people who want to live, to die, while the ones who have no desire to live anymore can choose to take their own lives.

I’m not putting down people who are depressed, suicidal or mentally ill. I understand some of the emotional distress and chemical imbalances that play a role in depression. I’m just simply asking why things play out the way they do. I understand that I’ll never have an answer to that question.

Conclusion: death is difficult. My job has me knee deep in corpses, when I’d much rather do lift assists all day every day. You can comfort the families who’ve lost a loved one all day, but you can never breathe life back into a person when their time has come.

EMS: the profession of being stalked by death.

Drained

How can one

person take so

much from you?

Out of you?

How can one

person cause you

so much pain?

So much frustration?

 

Seems it’s true-

you’re damned if

you don’t, damned

if you do.

Do you crawl

into your own

dark abyss, lock

yourself away from

the people, the

mess? Isolate and

keep your heart

safe?

 

I’ve been hurt by who I thought was a good friend, and in turn the person I thought was a good friend turned to my own family to try and turn them against me with their lies. Fortunately for me my family knows me and knows that person is lying about me. However it doesn’t stop it from stinging. I too easily turn the hurt and pain into anger. I’m battling the anger now, though it feels like a losing fight. I’m finding myself feeling vindictive, and that scares me because I’m not a vindictive person. Tomorrow morning I have a meeting with the Chief of Police in hopes of getting the harassing text messages and phone calls to stop. I need to dig down deep right now and find the strength to be the bigger person. I can overcome the little people in this world. I just have to stay strong and not let them win.

When Help is 1,749 Miles Away

My psychotherapist, JB, has taken a job in Puerto Rico, 1,749 miles away. She will continue to “see” me via phone, Skype and/or email. I guess it’s a temporary job for only five or six months and then she’s coming back to continue her private practice here. I wish her nothing but luck and happiness. I can imagine how burnt out one can get being a psychotherapist.

Now for the selfish side of me: JB couldn’t have taken this job at a worse time! It’s mid-October and my anxiety and depression increases three-fold throughout the winter months. Yes she gave me referrals in case I feel the need to contact a counselor to have face-to-face sessions with while she’s gone but I’ve been seeing JB off and on for ten years, a new counselor won’t get it. JB does. I don’t have the patience to train a new counselor so they know what is and isn’t off-limits and I don’t have the mental ability to retell my story to a new counselor.

Maybe that’s the problem. I’ve become too comfortable with JB and it’s more like a friendship than a client/counselor relationship. Maybe she respects my boundaries a little too much because she knows how defensive and angry I get. Maybe having another counselor on the side would be beneficial for treatment. Maybe a kind of good cop/bad cop thing wouldn’t be a bad idea. JB is the good cop and another, new counselor can be the bad cop.

Maybe I’m completely overreacting by hitting the panic button so soon.

 

We Are All One

~*High*~

I’ve been strong for far too long,
I just can’t keep the pace.
I’ve been carrying on,
driving down the same old roads,
I’m losing faith, starting to lose face.
Seems it’s the same from day-to-day,
It seems nothing ever changes.
I’ve nothing left to lose,
there’s nothing left to gain,
I’m all out of things to say.
These pills only kill the pain for just so long,
just one more line, I think-
and I’ll be able to go on.
I’ve run out of cigarettes
and I’m down to my last shot of whiskey,
I know that if I keep this up
this lifestyle will kill me.
I need a helping hand,
someone to save me from myself
because I don’t think I can,
and I don’t know how much more I can stand.
I feel I’ve lost my mind- all concept of time-
and I’m going to extremes just to unwind.
So hold me close and don’t let me go,
I’m becoming my own worst enemy.
Hold me tight and don’t let my mind take flight,
I feel it’s getting harder for me to breathe.
I’m sorry if my words have brought you down,
it seems like you’re always around
for the good and the bad days,
when I’m feeling crazy, a touch insane.
You get it all,
the best of me and the worst of me,
now that I’m down on my knees, crying “please”
I hear you whispering to me calmly,
soothing away my misery.
I realize you make me want to be a better person,
and I know that through trials and tribulations
your love and patience can replace my addictions.

Nothing’s Right When You’re Depressed

I’ve been absent in the blogging world for about a week now. I’ve kind of taken a nose dive into depression. It’s been coming for a while but it seems it’s finally caught up with me. As usual it’s a smorgasbord of things that all came together and piled up until I can’t smile through the pain and misery any longer. For example: the back and shoulder pain has reached a point where it’s unbearable. My doctor gave me Vicodyn but informed me on Monday that she will not give me anymore (she’s only given me one script for 15). My nephew, who moved into my home six weeks ago, has several developmental disabilities that we were not prepared for and I just do not have the patience for him. Paperwork and reports are steadily piling up on my desk at the Fire Station and I don’t have the concentration to get it all done. I’m frustrated and angry with myself. I’m depressed. I spent the entire day in bed today and I’ve been taking the Vicodyn every 3-4 hours and I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be a full-on narcotic addict within the next week.
To top it all off I accidentally slammed my finger in an engine’s compartment door tonight, slicing it deeply and bruising the shit out of it, causing it to swell to the point where my knuckle is nonexistent. It sure seems like nothing goes right when you’re already depressed.

Goodbye Life Preserver

Quick replay of the last two weeks: my seventeen year old nephew moved in and my whole world shook. I gave up half of my floor so the kid would have a place to sleep. He was basically kidnapped from us when he was three and I was seven years old. His father (no relation to me) did hard time for raping a three year old girl (not nearly enough time, if you ask me). Suddenly the State places him in my home two weeks ago. We really don’t know anything about this kid except he watches Spongebob 16 hours a day and sleeps the rest.

Fast-forward to the present: I’m sitting in my car at a Dunkin’ Donuts a few towns over from my house. Why? Because my niece is in my bed. My parents don’t trust my nephew with my seven year old niece because of what his father did and so they won’t put her in a room that isn’t locked up like Fort Knox.

I’m sitting here at Dunkin’ Donuts sipping my coffee and thinking about it all. I’m usually not a selfish person. However, I feel like the line has been crossed. My one safe, quiet place has been taken away. I should probably mention that my niece does not have to stay at my house, but my Mother likes to have her sleep over a few nights a week. So why isn’t she in my Mother’s bed???

Some nights when I’m undressing for bed I feel like I should check my clothes for dirty shoe prints because it sure feels like I’m being trampled on an awful lot.

~*Time Slipping Away*~

Cry Baby

Since I’ve been out of physical therapy for two weeks things have progressively gotten worse. I’ve had almost a constant dead-arm (pins and needles, heavy, goes completely numb) for over a week, my shoulder blade and my entire back are almost unbearably achy and I’ve had a shooting, sharp pain going from my lower back down my left leg. And did I mention that the pain clinic dropped me like a hot cake, with no reason given, a week ago? I’ve had a pretty rough few weeks. I admit I’ve had a bad attitude and been in a bad mood since they dropped me as a patient. I turn the sad feelings such as hopelessness, helplessness and sorrow into anger. I guess it’s just easier to be angry than to be any of the above mentioned emotions. Of course I already have the anger issues, even when things are going great. I think the combination of everything over the last few weeks makes a volatile poison. When the pain clinic dropped me I was awash with hopelessness. Even though I was still in pain while receiving treatment the fact that they were trying to help me gave me hope. Now that no one is trying to help the pain, the hope has vanished. I don’t know where I go from here. In the area that I live in the pain clinic was the last resort.

As I laid in bed for a few hours this morning, staring at the ceiling, thinking and daydreaming, I realized that as badly as I want to pick up and start anew somewhere where no one knows me and I can find my true self, it won’t stop the pain from coming. It won’t stop the eruption of anger. I can’t run away from these problems for they have literally become a part of me and who I am. At least here I have my friends and my family, people who care about me and even a select few who understand what I’ve been through and what I’m going through. I can wish all day that circumstances were different than what they are, but it won’t do me any good. I need to do something about it before I see any results. So far every door I’ve chosen had led me down a dead end hallway, but like a game show, I know one of the doors will lead me to the prize. I just have to find the strength and determination to keep opening the doors and going down those dark hallways until I find the light at the end of the tunnel.

So basically… I’m going to need a lot more coffee.

Explicit Day= Explicit Lyrics

I have had the day from hell. Remembering that I have it a lot better than many other people do, I’m blowing off some steam with Godsmack and explicit lyrics.