Michelle’s face was white, no color, she looked exhausted, and it was my fault.
I remember thinking I could do “one more thing” for work before we left for the hospital. I could take one last shot at saving my job before I was let go. Maybe if I could get things going in the right direction, she would sleep better at night and not look so afraid because things would be okay again.
The truth was she was exhausted because she knew that I was in a dark place, a place where there was no future for me; not as an employee, not as a husband, and not as a father. I had crossed from passive suicidal ideation to active suicidal ideation. I was giving serious thought to how I wanted to end it – the cycle of anxiety and depression, illness and pain…
…the pain, that was a symptom that was new to me. I knew some of the physical manifestations; constant fidgeting, headaches, tightness in my chest, the nausea. Pain, that one caught me off guard. Every joint in my body hurt and my joints have never been an issue. My back pain never would abate and I could never get comfortable. Even the simple touch from Michelle’s hand on my arm would send pain shooting throughout my body.
My whole world was turning to shit around me. I was on the verge of being unemployed, we were in the middle of a pandemic, I wasn’t sleeping because of the unyielding pain I was experiencing – it all was too much, I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt alone, trapped in my life, trapped in my house, trapped in my body, and trapped in my mind.
Michelle reminded me that I wasn’t alone. That even if I had no one else, I had her, I had Dominic, and I had Sully, my dog. She convinced me to go to the emergency room, that she would call my supervisor and let him know I was on my way to the hospital.
Around 10:00am we headed to the hospital.
It was around 11:00am that I realized it was her birthday.
We were in the emergency room, it was cold, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, but at least I wasn’t alone, and that made all the difference that day.
Uncommon Karma 