Note: When I set out to write this story, it took me several weeks to work up the courage to put down what I wanted to say. I am still working on it. It is also turning into a freaking book, so I decided to break it up into several pieces.
What does a mental breakdown, an anniversary, physics, and the Large Hadron Collider have in common? They are all related to the story I’m about to tell you. It is the story of how a year ago to this exact date, I had a mental breakdown that nearly killed me, that made me doubt my belief system, that reduced me to a shell of my former self. It is the story of how I struggled to survive my mind completely melting down on me. It is a story of how I tried to shield my family from the worst of it and didn‘t succeed. The story doesn’t have an end, because it is my life and I’m obviously still here, but maybe someday the madness will be laid to rest and I can continue living my life somewhat normally. It starts out like this…
September 8, 2008. A glorious Labor Day in Chicagoland. The day before, the husband and I decided to take our son to the MSI to run around and play since it was (shockingly) a free day. As life is wont to do, a curveball was thrown and my husband was called in to work. Not feeling like going anywhere now that the plans were stuffed up, I settled down with my son to hang out. I started my usual morning perusal of the internet, finally stopping at my main hangout, a message board. What’s this? A post about a machine that is going to replicate the Big Bang ? Is that safe? What the hell does that mean? What is a Large Hadron Collider? That’s what my mind looked like after reading the initial post. Being the curious person I am, I Googled it. BIG mistake. VERY BIG mistake.
What I found was several paranoid diatribes about how it was going to destroy the world, create black holes, it wasn’t safe, etc. I found lawsuits against it, trying to stop it from running. The more I delved into the conspiracies, the more panicky my brain became. Then came the breakdown. “Oh my God, these physicists are going to kill us all….what’s going to happen to my son…..Earth is going to be destroyed because these assholes are trying to play God…….we’re doomed…..oh shit…..” That’s what was going through my mind. That’s what resonated all day. “We’re dead.” “We’re doomed.” “Life is over.” I melted like a giant ice shelf being affected by global warming.
Looking back now, I can see that this was not the whole cause of my meltdown, but rather the trigger point. For months I had been feeling worried, anxious, scared, but had been able to bat it down. Reading about a machine that I really didn’t understand and then reading a bunch of asinine conspiracy theories just toppled my reserve. I cried for the rest of the day. I don’t remember much else, just the crying, holding on to the boy, praying, and eventually cooking dinner. I didn’t eat much; fear can do that. It turns out I wouldn’t eat much for the next nine days, ending with me losing about 14 pounds. Then night fell, and my panic grew…
For thirty minutes before I showered, I sat in the bathroom and cried. I pondered suicide. There was a straight razor in the bathroom that just seemed to be calling to me, urging me to use it, to just neatly slice my veins and be done with it. I picked it up, held it to my arms, then thought about my son and husband. I put it away (in reality, I should have tossed it since I used it to cut myself later on), took a shower, and cried some more. Then I went to bed, but did not fall asleep for the longest time. I was hoping against hope that I would wake up on Tuesday and the feelings would be gone. They weren’t.
Late Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I stayed up because that was the launch date of the LHC. I wanted to see if we were going to die. When nothing happened, I went to my son’s room and sat next to his bed for twenty minutes, crying softly and holding his hand. I thought for sure that that would be the end of it with the startup of the machine. Nope. I endured the agony of a complete and utter breakdown until Saturday, September 13. We had gone grocery shopping as normal, but I was a mess inside. I hurried through the stores quickly, thinking that at any minute, something awful would happen. I couldn’t endure the laughter and smiles of other people. It finally got so bad that I begged my husband to take me to the hospital. After dealing with me all week, he was eager to comply. So began my night in the ER.
I arrived there, went to Triage, and told them what was going on. When they came to the question, “Did you think about suicide at any time?”, I hesitated, answered in the affirmative, and hung my head to cry. The nurse patted my hand, upgraded me to a purple band, and sent me back to the ER with another nurse and basically what amounted to a keeper because I was deemed suicidal. I was put in a room with my keeper and without my belongings (I might use my phone to commit suicide) and the nurse told me that a hospital psychologist would be along directly to evaluate me.
After a standard psychological evaluation, the psychologist said she had to consult with the main psychologist on staff (teaching hospital), and that she would be back soon. In the meantime, my keeper had gone home while the psychologist was with me, so they sent a new keeper in. She was very sweet and tried to keep me distracted while I waited. It took a while (it IS a Chicago ER), but in the interim, I got to watch someone die. Not exactly something you want to see when your mind is already messing with you. I definitely felt horrible for the man who died, his family, and the doctors and nurses who worked so valiantly to save him.
After an hour or so, the psychologist came back to tell me what was up. Since I was coherent and capable of responding to questions, they would not keep me. However, I had to see my regular doctor to talk about ways to get me over the panic/anxiety and to find a mental health counselor. Luckily, I had made an appointment with my doctor for three days after this incident, so I was good on that end. However, I was wary of taking on a counselor because I didn’t like discussing these things with perfect strangers, which is weird because I’m BLOGGING this now. But I digress…
To be continued...
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