It’s No Good

So now we’re well into the fall. My Employment Insurance has been approved with no waiting period – so to speak – as I am on a Temporary Lay-Off which means that I’ve only lost my job for the time being and will be called back once the company can afford me. Pretty straightforward EI claim as they’ve got none of the normal verifying of the reason why an individual is applying. In Ontario, this means that if you are implicated and found even partially responsible for your job loss, EI can deny your application. This also prevents people from quitting their job just ’cause and then apply for EI. Both of these situations automatically disqualifies the individual. At that time, 2005, I was entitled to 60% of my salary but as next to no taxes or deductions were subtracted, it was almost the same amount as my normal salary with all of the required taxes etc were calculated. In my near addled junky mind, all I could think was “Sweet!” Business as usual.

And it was for the first couple of months…sweet, that is, but like anything else, this didn’t last. One of my friends ended up becoming our dealer after we ended up having a falling out with our original one. My friend was, and as far as I know, still prescribed massive amounts of narcotic analgesics.  On the first Wednesday of each month he receives/ed 720 8mg brand name dilaudids prescribed by his family doctor.  I had filled this prescription many times in the past for him, and as he was/is not on any sort of drug plan, it cost him about $320CAD every month.

He received these due to some injuries he had sustained during a work accident. As far as I know, him and two other workers somehow ended up being literally buried alive for a large part of one of their work days. When they rescued them all, he had broken both of his legs, some ribs, his right hand and one of the fingers on his left hand. I know that he also sustained some nerve damage in one of his hands. As far as I remember, he ended up being in hospital close to six months. Anyway, initially he never actually used any of his pain meds as he quickly learned that they were much more valuable to him if he sold them outright. Before greed overshadowed everything, he sold his pills at 10 for $100,  though this didn’t last very long, or 2 for $25 or $15 each. Do the math. He made a shocking amount of money from this endeavor and as he didn’t even use the pills at that time himself, it was all gravy.

Kind of ironic, but as long as there were pills easily and readily available, life continued on, and with it, the feeling one didn’t have so much as a care in the world. Not surprisingly, this illusion could disappear in an instant and with no warning. The first time you woke up only to discover that the well had gone dry wasn’t so bad. You hadn’t yet trained your junky mind and body to go into automatic and painful withdrawal at this mere suggestion. Not yet, but very soon. By the end of this first day without the ready availability of pills, you actually managed to finally hookup. The moment you fixed, you felt returned to normal. Two weeks later when the same situation presents itself, your mind and body are less forgiving and understanding. Start to feel anxious and nervous the longer the day stretches with no sight of relief. Well into the evening, you impatiently wait but you’re really incapable of doing anything much else as the waiting taxes every fibre in your body, and now it had started to become more and more frequent and difficult to find opiates on a daily basis.

After a short time, our bodies started to go into withdrawal when no opiates could be located, and this wasn’t pleasant. This had started to bother me as obviously having to endure ever increasing periods of withdrawal was by no stretch enjoyable and I started thinking more and more frequently that there had to be something more than this. Also, our main connect had started to lose track of the picture, and had begun treating us with disrespect, and had begun to take us for granted. For the most part, Jim and I tried to buy these pills in bulk. There rarely were no more than maybe a half a dozen smaller purchases throughout the month. Now, one would thing that if one of his customers was buying 260 units monthly that perhaps he would be able to cut them a bit of a break, but sadly no. He charged us groups of ten – sometimes on the very rare occasion groups of twelve – which translated into 26 groups of ten units each, charged at $100 per group, which adds up to $2600 each and every month!

When I say that we were regulars, I truly mean that we were indeed that. I am in no way attempting to inflate our use, and in fact, am extremely ashamed and embarrassed even sharing this info, as it paints a pretty distasteful picture of what we allowed our addiction to become before we were finally able to put the breaks on it. Now for just over 24 months dealing with him, we never deviated far from this number. We almost always paid in advance, and always paid cash – no bartering or asking for them up front, etc. If we did have to request a front, it was rarely for more than a few days. Now, I get why he didn’t want to cut us too sweet a deal as he had begun to rely on our money each and every month. Who wouldn’t want to receive this amount, especially considering there was no work needed at all whatsoever in getting it? No hustling, no nickel and dime sales, less traffic coming and going to his house because he didn’t need a dozen or so more customers minimum to replace the two of us.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Barrel of a Gun

The summer that my Mom and I ended up having our falling out certainly turned out to be a quite a bit more than a mere convenience for me as it turned out. While there had never been any question that we both had been heading down this path ever since my Dad passed away, I most definitely made the most of the opportunity when it presented itself to me and did nothing much to prevent its derailment. Even though we’d been at odds in the past over issues more serious than the one that I finally used as my excuse to sever our current relationship, by this point it didn’t matter. Definitely the proverbial straw for me, as there were a number of very legitimate reasons why we could not, nor should not, continue on with our current relationship as it stood.

At the same time, I knew that I was also motivated by the fact that there would now be one less potential distraction interfering with my current usage. By this time, I was having a difficult time balancing my active addiction with my work and social responsibilities, my family obligations, as well as dealing with the general day to day mundane stuff one tends to encounter as we drift through our lives . So with that stress gone for the time being, I was able to refocus more of my energies on what was becoming increasingly more and more important, and I don’t mean work. Ironically, about a month or so after my blowup with my Mom, I ended up receiving a temporary layoff  notice from my employer stating that I would be required, immediately, to take a leave from work of between 12 and up to a maximum of 16 weeks. At that time, I had been working for my employer, a software company, for a number of years. By the time I received this notice, our office had been reduced to a staff of just over twenty from a high of near a hundred and fifty employees less than a year prior. Even though I knew I was still a valued employee, I also recognized the financial duress the company was currently experiencing.

Plus, talk about timing. Bloody pathetic on my part, but reality none the less. One less distraction yet again. The writing was so on my wall and yet…

TO BE CONTINUED…

I WAS WRONG

It would be a full two and a bit years after my Dad’s death before my Mom and I would actually have our falling out. Our relationship just seemed to get progressively worse over time. My Mother had always been a bit harsh although often I barely noticed as I had gotten used to her treatment over the years. Usually, it was only after someone else took the time to comment to me about it that I would give any serious thought to what I should do, at least that had been the pattern in the past. Once my Dad passed, I seemed to have become more sensitive to any of her criticisms, and increasingly found it near impossible to stand.

My Mother always seemed to have something to say about my looks, my hair, my clothes, my job, my hobbies, you name it and she could find fault. I never really knew why either, nor could I understand why she always seemed so dissatisfied with me. Growing up I had been a straight A student and had received numerous scholarship offers to university upon graduation from high school. I was never in trouble and even maintained a part time job all through high school so that I could support myself financially. In fact, I was able to buy my first car in cash just after my seventeenth birthday and paid for my entire trip to the British Isles the summer I turned 21.

For the near six months that I drove my Dad to the hospital five days a week, she reminded me each and every day at least three times not to be late, and not in an absent minded sort of way. She was very insistent and quite mean about it too, even though I did not once show up late to pick them up for the hospital. And so on…

Now I can’t put all of the blame on my Mom’s shoulders for our falling out as I was dealing with some serious issues of my own the summer of 2005. I was easily at the height of my addiction, and I was finding it increasingly difficult trying to conceal it from everyone. No one at home nor work or anywhere knew what I was hiding and this secret was starting to weigh me down. With each passing day, I found it harder and harder to keep all my balls in the air.

By this time, we were spending on average well over $2000/month attempting to support our habit, and by then, this was barely covering its maintenance. Obviously our personal finances were starting to suffer because of the amount we were spending. No amount of additional hours at work seemed to prevent our bills from starting to pile up. My nerves were wearing thin and I was starting to become careless at work. I knew a meltdown was imminent and felt at a loss at being able to prevent it. 

I needed to share my burden with someone and I thought at the time, that my Mother might be the one, but once I had, I quickly realized how desperately wrong I was. Initially, she seemed so very empathetic but this lasted barely 48 hours and then all hell broke loose. It had taken so much to confide everything and she had promised that this would remain between the two of us, but it didn’t. Almost instantly she was on the phone to her sister telling her what an awful daughter she had and who knows what else. She actually told me all this the next time we talked. I was shattered. When I asked her why she did exactly what I had asked and she had promised she wouldn’t do, she really had no defense.

I remember mumbling something to her during that call that I couldn’t do this anymore with her, that I needed to get well and the longer she was around to poison everything, the longer it would end up taking me to get healthy again. I quietly hung up the phone and from that moment on had no communication with her for eighteen months. I didn’t look back and in many ways, these eighteen months ended up being some of the happiest and relaxing ones of recent memory. Even though this fracture looked as if it was irreconcilable, in the end, it turned out to be the complete opposite, but another year and a half was to pass before I was able to find out.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Mommy Dearest

Over the years, my Mother and I have had, at best, a somewhat strained relationship, although for the past few years, we somehow were both able to put this to rest and have enjoyed what has very much felt like a normal and healthy one. To say this has been like a breath of fresh air does not even begin to do it any sort of justice. As this was something I had dreamt my entire adult life of having, I was careful to ensure I did nothing to jeopardize it, although I wouldn’t have just accepted it without question had I felt that there might be possible negative consequences. In fact, in order to reach the previously unattainable, I had had to completely severe absolutely all ties with my Mom for near two years. Drastic action begets dramatic results it would seem.

Growing up, there was just Dad, Mom, my slightly younger brother and myself. When I was five, my parents decided it was time to leave the land of our birth, Ireland, to try our luck in another country halfway around the world, Canada. While I have some very vivid memories of this time, I certainly was far too young to fully comprehend the drastic, not to mention dramatic, changes occurring within our little family. Immigrating to a new country is daunting enough when one is young, single with their whole life ahead of them, I can’t even begin to imagine the stress involved for a couple just a few years away from forty with two small children in tow! Not only this, but they had to do it completely on their own as no one else from either one of their families had done this, nor would anyone ever do it.

What this meant was that neither my brother or myself had the luxury of being part of an extended family while we grew up. Although we had a total of nineteen cousins, we rarely ever saw any of them as an ocean separated us and still does. While we were fortunate enough to spend many a summer vacation visiting and getting to know them all, it was never quite the same as if we had been able to share our daily life on a regular basis with them. On occasion, I sometimes found myself filled with envy if one of my friends had the opportunity of being able to get particularly close to one of their cousins simply because they could – location…location…location.

Yet, in reality, as I grew up, this was really nothing more than a minor handicap because all in all, I was darn fortunate enough to have a pretty idyllic childhood. My folks were amazing enough and neither myself nor my brother were ever victims of any sort of abusive treatment. We were treated more than fairly, and certainly didn’t lack for much of anything growing up. I seemed to naturally gravitate towards my Dad, while my brother seemed to be my Mom’s favorite. I most definitely was my Daddy’s Little Girl, and I surely managed to stay this way until he passed away in 2003. We shared similar interests and I always found it much easier to confide in him than I had ever found in my Mother.

While she doted on my brother who could do no wrong in her eyes, I struggled to simply get along with her at times. She could be overly harsh and critical of me if allowed, but as long as my Father was alive, it rarely happened. From time to time over the years, I’d find myself worrying what would end up happening to our relationship once my Father was no longer around to temper our behavior and treatment of the other.

Then in 2002, my father was diagnosed with cancer. After his first month of radiation and chemo, he found himself getting weaker and felt that he could no longer drive himself safely back and forth to the hospital. As my Mother had never learned to drive, he asked me if I would drive him back and forth to his hospital appointments. Of course I agreed without hesitation but this also meant that I would be responsible with having to take him five days a week, every week for approx five to six months.

Although this obviously greatly impacted my life as well as my own immediate family’s, I didn’t mind doing it in the least and would gladly have done it again without hesitation. As some days I was required at the hospital for near eight hours, plus had to be there Monday through Friday, I quickly found it was impossible for me to continue to work full time while I did this. Luckily, I had an amazingly empathetic boss and was able to take a six month leave of absence without pay remarkably easily. Tragically, she found herself in a near identical situation with her own father a mere two months after me so…

I began driving my Father on a regular basis about the second week of July and continued to do this every day until just before Christmas of the same year.  My father managed to finish all of his radiation and chemo treatments a scant six days before Christmas Eve. Christmas that year was nice, although we already knew that my father had ended up not responding well to either one of his treatments and wasn’t going to be really getting any better.

This was confirmed before the third week of January had even started. In the interim from Christmas til this time, I had returned to work and was trying my best to settle back into some sort of routine. I was barely back at work, when my father was admitted to the hospital for what ultimately turned out to be the rest of his life. From the moment he went in, I made sure that I visited each and every day though it became increasingly harder to see him suffering so much as it got closer and closer to the end.

For the first time since I had been told that he had cancer back the previous June, I started to really feel stressed and overwhelmed. I often found it quite challenging trying to juggle a successful return to work while meeting my own immediate family’s needs – Sara was only twelve when all of this started and had yet to lose anyone close to her from death so…

At the same time, I found I was at the beck and call of my mother without the benefit of any safety net. As I knew that this was incredibly hard on her, I tried not to take some of her many and frequent outbursts personally . I got it. She felt powerless to help her life partner, a man that had looked after her now since 1956 and visa versa. All faults aside, they really were a truly magnificent couple who loved each other deeply until the very end.

OK, this entry now seems to have taken on a life of its own, so in the interest of looking towards a bit of a conclusion on the way to wrapping this all up, I’m not going to bore you with all of the specifics of what ultimately caused my Mother and I to have this serious falling out. Instead, the following anecdote should illustrate quite nicely what I was more of less up against.

By the time my father finally passed away the second week of March, I was pretty much overwhelmed with so many different emotions, never mind feeling so very, very tired. Through the last week of his life, I had spent every night at the hospital sleeping beside my father in a bed that his nurses had put together for me. The following day the only thing that I wanted to be excused from was having to take my mother to the funeral home to finalize our earlier arrangements. I was so very shattered that I just didn’t have it in me to do this. As Jim and I had taken Mom there prior to Dad’s passing, I figured now that it could be my brother’s turn, especially as he had only visited him twice the whole time he was in hospital.

At the time, I really didn’t give this request much thought at all, but it soon became quite apparent that perhaps I should have. My Mom was a little bit demanding of my time the first few months after Dad died. After working hard all week, I rarely had a chance to slow down once the weekend arrived as I was required to chauffeur my Mom around so she could get whatever errands she needed to get done. It seemed as if every place that I happened to take my mother, whenever she was offered condolences, she just had to stop so she could also share a particular story with everyone.

All puffed up and proud, she told everyone who would listen what an absolute rock my brother had been to her, and how she wouldn’t have known what to do had he not been there to look after everything the day after my Father’s passing. Canonization for sainthood must surely be around the next corner. Not one mention of what I had done for five months, nor even the last three months that he spent in the hospital. Nothing at all, nary a word, and, to make matters worse, she did all of this right in front of me, and not just on one occasion, but multiple times. I started cracking up in short order let me tell you.

This was barely the tip of the iceberg and now that my Father was no longer around to temper my Mother’s actions and treatment of me, I found our situation intolerable not to mention untenable. The longer it continued, the more I felt poisoned and shattered, and increasingly more and more depressed. Ultimately, for my own self preservation, I ended up having to sever all ties with my Mother. It turned out to be easier than I had ever imagined, and in the end I managed to avoid my mother and her abuse for nearly eighteen months.

P.S. TO BE CONTINUED

and so on and so on and so on

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier.The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want. MARGARET YOUNG

One of the hardest obstacles that a recovering addict faces during their recovery is reintegrating themselves back into a society that had become a stranger to them. Once we’ve managed to survive the early days of recovery, we reach a place where we are forced with coming to terms with the damage our addiction has caused us, physically, emotionally and mentally. Having separated ourselves from the normal affairs and objects of everyday life while functioning as an addict, we come to the realization of how completely alien the world has become in our absence. Of course, its not the world but ourselves. This world becomes totally strange, and the focus of attention to the normal affairs and objects of everyday life is distorted. There is a massive, piercing or nagging pain of being separated from the existential world of normal life and its routine, and for some time no other sensations and emotions are possible.

“Routine” is a very dangerous word to people who are attracted to drug addiction. “Routine” is often interpreted as, boring, dull, trite, impotent, dumb, square or straight, unenlightened, and totally uncool. Drug addicts can’t wrap their brains around the concept of “Routine.” We almost always require intense and incredible amounts of stimulation. We’re wired differently. We’re wired to respond to chaos, drama, stimulation, and high levels of random energy charge unpredictability. We can’t tolerate “Normal.” Even so, we seem to desperately crave and need “Normal.” It seems that after years of chasing this demon we begin to chase the routine, normal life. In the early days of recovery this is not something that comes easily to a former addict. Everything around us just seems so unsettled and boring at times.

As addicts we have selfishly abused our bodies and minds in a variety of unhealthy ways all in our repeated attempts of trying to achieve that elusive, ideal high. We continue to repeat this harmful behaviour for months and years on end, and continue to do so with serious disregard for any potential future consequences. Not a very pretty picture to be sure. The only time we seem to pause to take stock of our surroundings seem to occur infrequently. Hopefully we’re still around when that day finally arrives when we’d rather kick our nasty, junky life and trade it in for something a bit more boring and ordinary. Believe me, it doesn’t matter how sincere or committed or serious you are in attempting to attain this goal of sobriety, whatever happens after you are no longer an active addict will never, ever compare to the excitement and chaos and train wreck that is now your past. Yes, this may suck, but it is very much the reality of recovery.

Even as I approach five years of sobriety, I still struggle with overwhelming feelings of apathy and tiredness and general malaise from time to time. It continues to be a bit of a struggle integrating myself into the day to day activities of all around me. It certainly didn’t help when Jim and I were attacked and then Jim severely beaten and stabbed by three complete and random strangers. And while I continue to suffer from PTSD fairly intensely from time to time, I no longer resent this as much as I initially had. One good thing that has come out of this nightmare was my discovery that my worst, crap day sober was exponentially better and more rewarding then my best day spent in an opiate haze!

Some Great Reward

One of the things that has been hardest for me while on methadone has been the weight gain that often accompanies it. For the past four years, this has been my biggest battle. Some days, I find it nothing more than a slight nuisance, while on others, I find it utterly soul crushing. I know many women on methadone suffer from this identical problem, and I know many that also stop treatment for this fact alone. As hard an adjustment as its been, this would never influence me to return to past bad behaviors or habits.

This weight gain many a time has ended up messing with my self confidence, especially as I had never, ever had a weight issue until I started MMT. It has been a pretty big adjustment just on its own, and there are so many days that I’ve allowed this to influence my overall mood. When feeling particularly frumpy or unattractive, it was so much easier to sit around all day in my baggy black t shirt and drawstring pants with unwashed hair and an unmade face. After awhile, it became easier and easier for me to use this as an excuse not to do much more of anything else.

About two weeks ago, I decided that I had had enough. No more. Just one more thing I was doing to remain a victim in one way or another that I needed to put an end to. It was now or never. As much as I wanted to return to my pretreatment weight, I know that this was not something that was going to happen overnight so I decided to take a different approach than anything I had attempted prior. A large part of  how I was feeling was a direct result of not really having anything appropriate to wear to flatter my current shape so pretty much the only way to fix this was to start over from scratch – I needed an entirely new wardrobe! So far, I had been resisting buying much of anything convinced that one day I would be able to fit back into the clothes that were hanging in my closet. In the meantime, I had been trying to stuff my size twelve body into my size eight outfits with disastrous results.

Shocking indeed, that I never seemed pleased with any of my outfit choices or would be forced to put on yet, again, the same t shirt and pair of pants. Although it actually took me three full days to finish, I went out shopping and bought all brand new things – I literally replaced everything, everything except my socks! I got all brand new underwear. I bought myself a new raincoat and two new hoodies, as well as a new pair of sandals and runners for the summer. I got five new pairs of cargo pants and four new pairs of shorts. I got eight semi-dressy tops/blouses plus four dressier types of t shirts.

I’ve put all of the new clothes in the closet in the spare room and left all of my other clothes in my closet in the bedroom – we each have our own closet in the bedroom. Now, when I go to put something on, it is much less of an ordeal as I know that whatever I end up picking out will fit me properly. No longer will there be piles of discarded items as I struggled to find something to wear for the day! Already I feel a thousand times better about myself, not to mention so much more confident.

In some ways, I am mad at myself for allowing vanity to get the best of me, but it has and after four years, I know that this wouldn’t go away on its own. I wasn’t prepared at all for how much this weight gain was going to affect me. I’d been fortunate enough to go through my life never having a weight problem, so it was never an issue I had been forced to deal with. I didn’t realize quite how lucky I was until it was too late. I think what has made it more of a struggle for me to get on top of this was the timing of my decision to start MMT. This just happened to occur while in my mid-forties, which is a time in a woman’s life when her body starts to undergo a number of changes as it is. So the two combined together were a toxic combination indeed.

Victim Impact Statement

If anyone is interested, the following is my Victim Impact Statement which I read to the court the day that two of the three accused were sentenced. One of the attackers received 8 years while the other received 7 years. Very emotional day to say the least.

 

To completely articulate the impact that this attack and stabbing of Jim has had on us is really most overwhelming and near impossible. You would think that twenty one months would be more than enough time to complete this task, and in my head, I’ve easily written my victim impact statement at least a thousand times now, but when it finally came time to get serious about it, the task felt daunting at best. I wondered how I would be able to adequately convey the physical, emotional and financial traumas we were forced to suffer because of this event. The physical, emotional and financial impact that this attack ended up having on me has forced me to live a life I barely recognize anymore and become a person I don’t know.

In Sept of this year, Jim and I will have known each other thirty years – he was 14 and I was 16. For most of this time, he has been an integral part of my life. Both of our personalities just clicked and in no time, we had forged a strong friendship. Right away I knew he was someone that would always be an important part of my life. He made me laugh and cry and angry like no one had before or since. He was someone I knew I could always trust and depend on him no matter what. He made me feel safe and secure and gave me self-confidence and poise as a result of this. To me he was fearless.

The day of the attack called all of what I believed into question. Everything I thought I knew was ripped away. This fearlessness, boldness, audaciousness that made up a large part of Jim and myself was torn from us that day. We are, and continue to be, in therapy because of the attack. Since the attack, I have had feelings of total loss and disparity. I have not really slept a full night. I require medication to assist my sleeping. I now have panic attacks and flashbacks that causes me to freeze. I have a fear of people in general. I will cross the street, rather than to meet and face people. I now have fears of something terrible happening to another family member, and am fearful for my safety and the safety of my family.

The attack itself was frightening but them to have to wait for hours to hear how Jim was doing was doubly so. He was so severely injured that he required over six hours of emergency surgery. I didn’t get to see him until close to 1am the next day. He was unrecognizable hooked up to all of the hospital’s machines. His body was bloated and initially he was unable to breathe on his own. He looked like the Frankenstein monster with staples all over his upper body, face and head. It was just short of a miracle that he even managed to regain consciousness and then finally return home. His physical recovery has been slow to say the least, but I will let him speak to this.

It has been our psychological recovery that is taking its time and toll, as well as the financial difficulties that have resulted because of the attack. In many ways, this has been harder than the physical and emotional recovery especially as none of this financial duress was a result of our own making. For something we had zero control over as well as nearly having to sacrifice a life for, it has been unduly stressful. It certainly has been a very bitter irony that one of the more dramatic consequences of the attack has resulted in affecting our family’s bottom line. While it is fairly easy to give a dollar value to our loss of income over these past twenty-one months, it is slightly more difficult to calculate other monies lost as a direct result of this attack.

As the attack occurred while we were fulfilling one of our job duties, our immediate supervisor was able to submit the appropriate forms necessary for us to qualify to receive Workers Compensation. Its another issue entirely though that the company we work for delayed almost three months in actually doing this. As neither Jim nor I were able to immediately return to work, we both began to receive Workers Compensation benefits which equal approx two thirds of our normal salary. Now, as part of our compensation package with our employer, not only did we receive our own two bedroom apartment, we also had our telephone, cable and internet paid for by them. Once we started to receive WSIB, our employer no longer covered the cost of the above. It was now our responsibility. So suddenly, not only were we receiving about a third less pay than we were used to, but from this reduced amount, we now had to cover these additional expenses of over $1000/month. This added stress is just one more thing that we’ve been forced to deal with because of the attack.

It hasn’t been just Jim and myself that have suffered because of the attack. Both of our daughters were teenagers at the time of the attack and as much as we tried to shield them from its effects, this proved impossible. They ended up being greatly affected because of the emotional and financial stress weighing heavily on me. While Jim and I attempted to adjust to each new change as it presented itself, I found myself getting increasingly angrier and bitter with our circumstances, and these feelings were then that much more difficult to hide from the girls. I was overwhelmed with feelings of self doubt and started to feel that I was failing them as a parent. I started to fall into a depression especially as relationships with my daughters started to change.

I have also just recently discovered that I may face yet another obstacle as a direct result of this attack. Currently, I have no job to return to as it has just been phased out of the company that employs us both since the beginning of the new year. Once again, we are victims not of our own making. Certainly, this will no doubt present another fairly large financial challenge to us – now just one of many. I really had begun to believe that we would soon be able to start to put all of this behind us, to make it a thing of the past. Yet, this seems near impossible as we seem to be faced with additional obstacles far too frequently.

Certainly the therapy that I continue to receive for my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at Victoria Hospital has greatly benefited me, and is starting to alleviate a number of my symptoms. Jim has also started therapy with a different therapist and I believe that he too is finally starting to feel some benefits. Still, this offers only small comfort. Yes, we are all starting to heal, but in the end, this attack has fundamentally changed me as a person as well as the way that I now look at the world. I no longer recognize my reflection in the mirror and am not the person that I once was, or will ever be. This experience has so altered my life forever, as well as how I view life.

Funeral March

Well, the funeral turned out to be absolutely beautiful and something Daniel would have been pleased with, if this were at all even possible. Standing room only, too. It was still somewhat weird having to return to the town of our youth especially under these circumstances.

The actual service ended up lasting just over an hour. Both of his sisters got up to speak – he was the middle child – as well as his best friend from high school and also one of his nieces – in total he was uncle to five nieces and one nephew. The minister’s sermon was very fitting as she took time to address Daniel’s two decade battle with mental illness and depression, as well as talking about how he ultimately died. In fact, no one that got up to speak shied away from these normally uncomfortable subjects. To be sure, his parents opened this door originally when they stated in the newspaper’s announcement’s section how their son actually died. This was certainly a most unusual, not to mention brave move on their part. I can’t remember ever seeing something like this mentioned in any other announcement of death in a paper’s personnel’s section.

I certainly can understand their reasons behind doing this. Anyone attending his funeral would have already been familiar with the fact he was bi-polar and had been for decades. This eliminated having to respond to dozens and dozens of people asking how he died. I can just imagine how both of his parents would have dreaded this part of the whole service, but because of the type of people that they are, they would have answered each and every question without hesitation.

Jim and Daniel started high school twenty nine years ago, and except for a few of their class mates that just simply could not make it to the funeral, almost their entire class managed to show up. This fact alone speaks volumes and then some…Its unfortunate that Daniel never was able to recognize this fact. For most of his life, he felt irrelevant, or that he just simply couldn’t measure up to the rest of us. If only he could have taken a step back and actually seen what it was we all saw and recognized in him.

He was a brilliant writer and artist, as well as an excellent student and athlete. Everything came naturally for him though he may not have quite seen it that way. He was one of the best looking guys in high school who could have had any girl that he wanted, but ended up spending his years there single. He was accepted into all of the universities he applied for, and even managed to excel while studying away in a foreign city away from his friends and family.

It was during his final year at university that he was diagnosed with  manic depression – my understanding is that this is now called bi-polar – and even with this, he still managed to graduate. For about half a decade after this, he ended up in and out of institutions, so that by the time he was in his thirties, he felt as if he had really been left behind, and never recovered from this setback.

It really is all very, very tragic. His sisters read some of his most recent writings and while they were all exceptional, they certainly spoke to his current state of  mind. He was filled with far too much  pain it would seem, and nothing on this world seemed to offer him the relief he so obviously sought.

Peace, love and  happiness…

Suffer Well

Jim and I have to go to a funeral in the morning. I’ve only been to three other funerals in my entire life, which is a good thing I suppose. One of our friends from high school committed suicide four days ago. He had been suffering from depression for decades now, and I guess his wife of nine years leaving him recently was just too much for him. He had moved back in with his parents so it was his mother that found him. Even though at one point in our lives, we had all been close, we hadn’t really seen him in the past decade. Out of respect for his parents, though, we are going. Jim’s folks and his still live in the same small town we all grew up in, and they both attend the same church each and every Sunday. I hope that is suffering is over and that he has finally managed to find some peace.

Suicide is Painless II

Well, we really don’t have much more info today than we had last night. The standoff with the police did eventually end peacefully approximately two and a half hours after it had started. No one was hurt, although allegedly Charley was holding his ex-girlfriend against her will with him in the garage. This is the same female that he beat beyond recognition last year, and who he was not to associate with by any form of communication imaginable as part of his sentence. Now, to be fair, it is never him who violates this order. Each and every time, it is her, and each and every time she does this, it comes to no good. Yes, she was very much the unfortunate and undeserving victim of last years assault, but otherwise she has been nothing but poison. He has changed almost beyond recognition from when we first met him six years ago, and these changes have all happened within the past two years.

To be fair, he has always struggled with mental issues. Since Sara was sixteen, over three years ago now, she has tried relentlessly to get this young man some form of medical help but so far, to no avail. His mother is in complete denial regarding his mental state of mind, even at times such as this. At one point Sara even became a patient of Charley’s family doctor in order to talk to him about her concerns. He is beyond desperate and is badly in need of professional health.

Right now, I’m kind of pressed for time so have to be brief, but I’d be remiss if I failed to mention how absolutely amazing the police were in regards to my girls last night. I had to call 911 with the correct address, and was fortunate to get the same dispatcher as Katie. While on the phone I asked if the police would be able to call us back once they had arrived at the scene and everything had been sorted out – at this point there was no hostage taking, et al! She said that normally they don’t do this but she would ask.

The girls continued to call his house. At one point the phone was answered, and he identified himself as one of the officers on the scene. He engaged in conversation with Katie and she was able to supply him with a bit of Charley’s mental history and possible current state of mind, etc. When all was said and done this particular officer ended up calling the girls back twice, and both times their conversations were fairly lengthy. He deserves to be commended as he was able to calm the girls down considerably, plus assure them that now there was a very good chance that Charley would end up receiving long needed medical attention. Patience he had in spades to be sure.

TO BE CONTINUED…