as i said in my last post, i had begun to go into a brief remission, but it didnt last very long. after being on new meds, i begun to have what i call "zone out" spells...i would sit on one side of my couch and let the TV watch me...i was too spaced out to really watch it. i would sit for hours still in my nightclothes, sitting and staring at the television but not really watching it. the moments of clarity i did have i got hooked on watching reruns of "Law and Order" (i didnt know that show was so good!) on cable and also the reruns of "ER" and "Law and Order SVU". during those moments i could focus on the programs and after a while i watched those shows religiously. still though, i would sit around in my nightclothes, chain smoke and watch TV.
the only time i would move from my spot was to go to the bathroom, and sometimes surf the Internet -- mainly checking my emails and stuff like that. i had also became a regular in a chat room for depression and then i got hooked on that and for a while that filled my lonely hours and days that seemed to drag on and on. i began to withdraw from the world outside and would only go if i needed cigarettes, or had an appointment with my therapist and psychiatrist. other than that, i didnt budge from my spot on the sofa. and then i began to have sugar cravings that were almost addictive -- i would down Little Debbie cakes like regular food, and before i knew it, i had gained all the weight i'd previously lost -- about 25 pounds. i still felt depressed, lonely, and also my relationship with my s/o was deteriorating too. i had no sexual interest, and i didnt care. so each and every day it was the same routine -- get up, take morning meds, sit on the sofa all day, watch TV, sit on the sofa all evening and then take betime meds, go to bed.
during those times i didnt seem to care what was going on around me -- i was still zoning out from time to time, and as i said before, i only went out of the house if i absolutely had to. this went on thru the end of 2003, and by then, i think around October of that year, i finally was released to go back to work. i didnt look forward to it, but i had to try and catch up the bills that had gotten out of control. so -- back to work i went.
i managed to stay sane up until April 2004, and then the spiral down the black hole began again. when i saw my psychiatrist, i told him that i had been having moments where i spaced out, i didnt or couldnt seem to concentrate while i was working, and also i still felt depressed. in fact, i began crying as i told him how i'd been feeling. he immediately took me off duty -- again, and told me he was going to put me back in PHP. he also called my supervisor on my unit where i worked and told her what was going on. still weeping, i thanked him, and thus began the descent into the dark hell hole of severe depression -- yet again. prior to seeing my doctor, i had had a run-in with one of the nurses on the floor who was a bonafide bitch supreme, and again i was feeling the urge to chokek the living shit outta her ass, and when it was time for the second half of my shift, i told the charge nurse i didnt want to work with that bitch because if i did i wasnt responsible for what i did to her. that bitch had been riding me all shift about piddling shit, and it was grating on my nerves and again i was only a millisecond away from bitch slappin her ass.
also, in February 2004, my youngest daughter was nearly raped by a man in my building. i found out when i came home that night from work, and when my daughter told me that, i nearly went thru the roof i was so angry. i wanted to kill that bastard right then and there. i asked her if she called the police and made a report and she said she had. i could not sleep that night because i was too angry. this was on a friday night when my child told me this. the next morning was saturday and that began my weekend to work -- however, i didnt make it to work that day. my teenage daughter had went around the corner to the store and came back looking terrified and told me she ran into that bastard again and he gave her a look. immediately i called the police and told them what was going on and they said they would send some officers to my house. all of this transpired around 1:30 -- the time i usually would start preparing to go to work. the cops came -- two plainclothes cops - one African-American and one Caucasian. i told them what had happened to her the day before and the black cop told us to get in the unmarked police car and wait while they waited for the muthafucka to show his face. as soon as he came out of his building, my daughter yelled, "that's him right there!" and the cops swung around to the front of the building and arrested him on the spot. i knew right then i wasnt gonna make it to work that day or sunday, so i had the black cop call my job and tell them it was a family emergency and that i wouldnt be in both days. i was still in my uniform when we went to the district police station on 79th and Halsted, and i was getting angrier by the minute. i wanted that muthafucka's head on a platter , and the black cop (who was a nice guy named Anderson) took me and my daughter into an interview room and told us we had to wait for the state's attorney to come down and hear both sides of the story.
being that it was a saturday, it took some time before the state's attorney got there, so my daughter and i were interviewed by one of the detectives who listened patiently as my daughter rehashed the whole awful situation. i asked the detective would that bastard go to jail and he said it depended on whether or not he admits to his guilt. when he told me that, i was livid. i was nearly yelling 'if he admits it?' what kind of shit was this -- this muthafucka put his hands on my daughter dammit, and so on and so on and i wanted his ass in jail. i was so mad i was pacing around the room. the detective sympathized with my feelings but he said the only way that they could put him in jail was that if he confessed to what he had done, and he also had to wait until the state's attorney got there. so we waited. they were interrogating the bastard in the other room, and i was wishing i was one of the cops interrogating his ass because i woulda beat a confession outta him so help me God. me and my daughter went out in the cold to smoke our cigarettes, and i was still highly pissed at the whole justice system. time seemed to drag by, and then finally the state's attorney came to see us first and get our story and then he went to go and talk to the perp. after a few minutes, the state attorney came into our room and from the look on his face i knew it was bad news. he told us that they could only hold that muthafucka overnight because he didnt confess to the crime, and it was deemed a misdemeanor and battery.
i was so furious i couldnt even talk. the state's attorney apologized to me and to my daughter about the results and said if the bastard had admitted to his guilt then they could have arranged for him to be sentenced and put in jail but since he didnt, there was nothing they could do but keep his ass in a cell overnight and let him go the next morning. i was too outdone. they did give us a court date for sometime in April, and after a while Anderson, one of the arresting officers told me that he had arranged for one of the other cops to take us home. i was too through...and all this shit happened two days before Valentine's Day. i had to miss two whole days of work because i was too upset to even go to work, and worried constantly about my daughter's safety when i did go back to work that following monday.
sigh. february became a bad month for me and as it came to an end and march approached, my anger was steadily building up inside of me. i worked, but it was like my body was doing my job, but my mind was not there. and then to top it off, during that month of march we had one of the worst nights on that floor that ever happened....we had four Code Blues that night. the whole unit was in an uproar and i had the misfortune to have three of the patients that had coded and eventually died. i was a complete and utter wreck, my nerves were shot, and i broke down and cried. it was horrible. i was running between the rooms of the three patients trying to do the post-mortem care on each of them, and losing it bit by bit.
near the end of march, i could feel myself slipping down into the black hole again, and by the time April came, with the impending court date hanging over my head like a cloud of doom, i knew i couldnt take much more. i was still seeing both my therapist and my shrink, and though i kept my appointments, my mental state was slowly relapsing and near the middle of April, on the 25th, 2004, i couldnt handle it no more. when i saw my shrink i told him that i didnt feel like i could work anymore after all the drama that had went on three months before. i couldnt take it. he recommended that i go back to the partial hospital program and called upstairs to my boss and told her that he was taking me off duty and putting me on medical leave. i gratefully thanked him and went to the Human Resources office to get the necessary paperwork for FMLA(Family Medical Leave). i filled out what seemed like a gazillion papers, and had my doc sign off on one of them, made copies for myself, and carried the completed papers to the HR office. i asked if my medical condition qualified for the short-term disability from the job and was told i was eligible for it. again more paperwork, and waiting. The FMLA was approved, but unfortunately i couldnt use my sick time so it wound up being unpaid. but i was hopeful that i could get the STD from the job to cover my bills. i did manage to have a couple of paychecks that paid April's rent and bills, but after that, i had to go to the Public Aid office to apply for emergency food stamps and a medical card for me and my daughter. again -- more paperwork-- i had to bring copies of my check stubs, rent receipts, damn near my whole life just to get a Link card and a medical card. while all of that was going on i got a letter in the mail from the insurance company that i was ineligible for the STD thru the job because the effective date was May 1st and had i waited out the the 6 days prior, i could have gotten it. that just threw me completely under, and this time, instead of being suicidal, with all the anger i had building up inside me, i was feeling homicidal instead. so...with that it was another admission into the cuckoo's nest -- again. stay tuned.........
No comments:
Post a Comment