Kat's Rambling Mind

It was Thursday night, May 26, 2016. I hadn’t really slept for almost two weeks. I had been inside for at least that many weeks, and I couldn’t remember the last time I ate or bathed. I was drinking non-stop, alternating between straight Canadian whiskey and boxed wine, and smoking one cigarette after another. I was pacing around the house, which I’d let get into a state of disarray that generally warrants an intervention of some sort on reality shows.

Up and down the hallway I walked, back and forth, then through the kitchen, then back down the hallway. The light in the house was dim, and the air was suffocating. I had started talking aloud to myself, my cats, the walls…incoherent, disjointed diatribes that I sent into the void. I had become hoarse from the cigarettes but felt like if I just kept talking, I would solve all my problems.

And then I noticed something.

There was something on my walls. Tiny movements that looked like static on a television screen. Was it some sort of household pest? Did I have an infestation of insects? I got as close to the walls as I could, and strained my eyes, trying to focus on what could be causing the movement; I ran my hands up and down the smooth surface of the paint, and realized I was starting to hallucinate. I was losing my grip on reality. I was terrified.

I stumbled to my couch in the living room–I had stopped sleeping in my bedroom months ago, preferring to sleep on the couch–and tried to lie down, tried to calm my buzzing brain and ringing ears. I quickly got back up, too wired to be still, and decided to clean off my kitchen table. It was covered in clutter, and I needed the surface. I had decided to write something.

I managed to clear the table completely, the first task I’d completed in weeks, maybe months. Time had become fluid, an infinite loop of days and nights running together and I didn’t really even know what day it was. I had fought untreated depression for years, and I was so very tired. I felt that I had made so many mistakes, and that I’d accumulated so many broken relationships and failures that I would never again feel happiness or purpose. I was fifty-one years old, never married, no children, and I had isolated myself completely. The loneliness had turned to despair, and the pain had become overwhelming. I just wanted to be free.

I decided that I would end my life.

And so, I sat down at my clean kitchen table, paper and pen in hand, and prepared to write my suicide note. How would I tell my family? What would I say? I was convinced that their lives would be better without me, that I was a burden to them; I imagined they might even be relieved. I felt utterly worthless and beyond redemption.

As I tried to find the right words to say goodbye, I had random childhood memories pop into my muddled thoughts like a fast-forwarding slide show. Laughing with my family. Feeling loved. Feeling comforted and safe. I did not feel safe anymore, and I felt I had already put my family through so much. And I was so very tired. I was numb.

I laid my head down on my arms at my kitchen table. I couldn’t think anymore. I just wanted it to stop. All of it. Everything.

I didn’t know how much time had passed. I drifted into a state of semi-sleep, semi-consciousness.

Like a thunderclap, I suddenly heard a voice. Crystal clear. Loud. Succinct.

“GET UP.”

Startled, I sat bolt upright in my wooden kitchen chair, trying to comprehend what had just happened. I looked around. I was alone. But I knew what I had heard. I stood up and looked at large clock I had in the kitchen. It was almost 5:00 AM on Friday, May 27, 2016. Memorial Day weekend was about to start.

I picked up my phone and hit the speed dial button designated for my parents. My mother picked up halfway through the second ring and said, “What is it?”.

I replied, “Mama…I need help”.

“I’ll be right there”, she said, and hung up.

Ten minutes later, my mother was in my driveway, loading me into her car and taking me to my parents’ house. What happened over the next few hours is a little blurry. My parents called my brother, who lived almost three hours away. He got up, got in his car, and started driving.

The next thing I knew, my big brother was there and asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital. I meekly agreed to go. I didn’t know what awaited me when I got there, but I knew it had to be better than where I’d been recently. With my brother’s guidance, I checked myself in. I was immediately placed under suicide watch, and my possessions were taken from me, right down to my shoelaces. “Just like in the movies”, I thought to myself and wondered how one hangs oneself with shoelaces. I was given a gown, some grippy socks, and a blanket. I was told that during my stay, I would be allowed to call my family only at certain times, and that they would not be able to call or visit me for the duration of my stay.

I said goodbye to my brother and walked through the double doors into the psychiatric wing of Northeast Georgia Medical Center.

I was ushered into a room with a bed and an observation window while they finished the intake process. Later, I was moved into a semi-private room with another patient. I was evaluated, questioned, told when I’d be going to group therapy, and given a combination of medications that made me relaxed…and sleepy. For the first time in weeks, I finally slept.

The next few days were strictly regimented. Meals at exact times, then medications, then therapy, then recreation (which consisted of coloring books and pencils in the common room). It was a relief to have some structure, and I felt a glimmer of something like hope start to return. My mind was still very scattered, but I had finally admitted to myself that I had become an alcoholic and substance abuser.

In therapy, I was asked to think about why I thought I abused alcohol, and in some instances, drugs. I went on a little journey of self-discovery and knew that I used alcohol as a crutch. I was an anxious child, sometimes paralyzed by shyness, who was independent and stubborn around her family but also afraid of her own shadow in public. As a teen, I had mental health issues and struggled with an eating disorder. A natural introvert, I realized in early adulthood that alcohol made me feel brave. Yep, the old “liquid courage” description was accurate in my case. I also labored under the misapprehension that alcohol fueled my creativity and passion. I was fearless and uninhibited. I was funny, personable, the life of the party when I was drinking.

Until I wasn’t. At the drop of a hat, I would turn into a mean drunk, one with a sharp tongue and a vicious temper. I reeled into and out of toxic relationships, with alcohol lending a hand to my increasingly self-destructive behavior. I had become one unholy mess of a person.

When I got completely honest with myself, when everything was stripped away and I was facing the prospect of losing everything, I realized I had caused so much pain to those around me. Especially to my family, who had always supported me, even though it was clear I was making horrible choices.

I still want to cry when I think about that.

For four days, I stayed in the hospital, after which they asked me if I wanted to enter a long-term facility. You see, where I stayed in the hospital was for stabilizing people and returning them to some semblance of structure so that they could move on to continue healing. I said no, I wanted to go home. But not to my home. I didn’t want to be alone, so I stayed at my parents’ house.

I slowly started to heal. I quit drinking, smoking, and taking pain pills cold turkey the minute I stepped into the hospital. After I was released, I used nicotine patches exactly as directed to make sure I didn’t lapse into smoking again. I got in touch with a Facebook friend I’d made online, one who frequently talked about his former alcohol addiction and subsequent sobriety. I told him that I had seen his accomplishments and wondered if I could somehow stop drinking, too. He was (and still is) a source of inspiration and support. I’ll forever value his friendship.

I eventually went back to work. I had been on disability for a few years for overlapping chronic pain conditions, in addition to my failing mental health. But the antidepressants cut through the darkness and restored order to my thoughts. I was no longer at the mercy of my own emotions. With support, treatment, and structure restored to my life, I felt I was ready to have a purpose again.

I applied at the local grocery store and was hired as a part-time cashier. While it wasn’t as supposedly “glamourous” as my former career in the beauty industry, it provided me with a place to go, people to help, and tasks to complete. It was what I needed, and I eventually went off disability to work full-time there. I stayed there for 5 years before leaving to work for some great people at a local business. It turned out that it wasn’t an ideal fit, but I learned some new skills and moved on to where I work now, a local bank. I love it there. I’m extremely grateful for the opportunities I’ve had over the last ten years, and for the support I’ve received at each place on the road to where I am now.

And what started as a brief stay in 2016 eventually turned into a full-time residence. My father had suffered with rheumatoid arthritis for decades, and my mother was starting to need help caring for him. After he passed away a few short years later, I stayed on, telling myself that I couldn’t leave Mom alone. Of course, the truth is, I need her as much as she needs me. Neither of us want to live alone.

As I look back on the frightened, addicted, depressed, suicidal woman I was ten years ago, I realize now that while I thought alcohol made me fearless, it really just kept me trapped in a cycle of unending fear. I was somehow granted the courage to break that cycle and live a life where I am truly free, truly fearless, and truly at peace.

And as the icing on the cake that is my life now, at the ripe ol’ age of 60 I found love with a longtime friend and we’re now in a fantastic relationship. He’s my biggest source of nerdiness, inspiration, and laughter. We’re having a great time, and I can’t wait to find out what happens next for us.

I never would have believed my life could be this amazing ten years ago.

As to why I commemorate the anniversary of my sobriety on Memorial Day weekend, well, it’s because that was the only way I could keep up with it at first. I knew I’d gone in over the holiday weekend and came out the next week a different person.

You also may be wondering about the voice I heard, the voice that told me to GET UP. While some may say it was my own brain, or I was hallucinating and imagined it, I honestly believe it was a call from a higher power. An epiphany of divine providence. I believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ, and I truly believe his presence saved me from myself that night.

And so, each year over the Memorial Day weekend, I reflect on my own “new year” of sobriety. I look back and am humbled that I’ve made it another year. And this year, I’m able to say I’ve maintained my sobriety for a decade. I write about it and talk about it as openly as possible, in the hope that it removes some of the ongoing stigma around addiction and mental health issues. It’s not much, but if it reaches someone who needs help then we’re all better for it.

I am so very blessed, and so very grateful. Thanks for reading.

If you’re having issues with drugs, alcohol, or your mental health, please know that help is available. Below are some resources that may help:

https://988lifeline.org/contact-us/

https://www.aa.org/find-aa

https://nationaldepressionhotline.org/

https://www.cdc.gov/mental-health/caring/index.html