Journal mcgrew's Journal: Suicides 9
Amy has some severe mental and emotional problems. She's intelligent, but has a bad case of clinical depression. It's no wonder, she's had an incredibly hard life. She never knew her father growing up, her mother was abusive and she went into foster care at age 8 and bounced from home to home. Despite her horrible background (which the two of us may write a book about), she managed to get through college and obtain an LPN degree before marrying an abusive man who beat her so badly he went to prison for five years for it. Then she fell in love with another loser, and lost her children over him -- DCFS said "he goes or we take the kids". Then he hanged himself and they didn't find the body for a week. She's been living in a bottle ever since.
She and her current boyfriend have been living in the Salvation Army homeless shelter for a few months since their landlord evicted them; he's as fucked up as she is.
So I wasn't surprised when the phone rang and it said "Memorial", as it wouldn't be the first time she'd called me from the hospital's psych ward. I told her I'd pick her up after work.
I picked her up, and as we were driving she said "Larry killed himself two weeks ago. He came in drunk, but..." I can't remember the guy's name "...let him in anyway." Policy is, you can't be intoxicated in the shelter. "Then asshole found out, woke him up out of a dead sleep and threw him out. So he got another bottle and went to the overflow shelter. You can show up drunk but you can't have alcohol on you so they turned him away." She trembled a little and looked like she was going to cry. I didn't know the fellow.
"He laid down on the railroad track and crossed his arms across his chest and waited for a train. There were pieces of bone and meat and hair and blood for a mile down the track!"
A tear ran down her cheek. "He was a really good guy, never caused anybody trouble, everybody liked him. Can we go get some alcohol and go to your house and get naked?"
Sigh. I hate being an enabler, but I have a hard time saying no to Amy, especially when she wants to get laid. We got some beer and whiskey and went to my house for her to cry on my shoulder and...
"So, what made you check into the psych ward?" I asked after a beer and a shot and an orgasm.
"I didn't. I tried to kill myself. I was really depressed; fighting with Tim, Katie's the only one in my family that will have anything to do with me," (Katie's her youngest daughter, about my youngest's age) "the holidays are coming up, and I'm so lonely. I thought the world would be better off without me. I'm goddamned stupid, trying to do what Larry did. It hurt a lot of people when that train ran over him."
"So what happened?"
"Well, I was really drunk, and that girl Alan hangs around with was there. You know, the heroin junkie."
"No, I don't know her. Don't want to, either."
"Anyway, she left her rig laying around, and I never did heroin before but I decided to overdose and leave the world. The cops found me unconscious on the sidewalk at Eighth and South Grand. I wasn't breathing. It was in the paper." I couldn't find it, but I had seen the item about her friend's suicide. "If the cops hadn't come by I'd be dead. How stupid can I be? I'm going back into rehab when they get a bed, they said it would be by the end of the week."
She's been in rehab plenty of times, and AA as well, but always winds up drinking again. This time she seemed more resolute, maybe it'll stick.
"And I got some great news this afternoon, I didn't tell you!" she said.
"What?"
"My lawyer got with Dick Durbin, he's some kind of State Senator I think, and he's going to help get me my Social Security!"
"Dick Durbin?" I said, astonished. "He's not a state senator, he's a federal Senator, and he's one of the most powerful Senators in the Senate!"
"No shit?" she said. She was completely over her sadness now. "Really?"
"Yep. You can probably count on getting it."
The music started skipping. Then it froze completely, locked tight as a bank vault. I had to unplug it and try a restart, but I knew what was wrong, and it was confirmed when I booted. "Hit f1 for setup, f2 to continue" after the warning that my hard drive was about to go out. It locked up halfway through the boot process. I fiddled with it, using GRUB to go into recovery mode, but it was no use. I have to replace that drive; I should have already done it.
"What's wrong with the computer?" she asked.
"The hard drive committed suicide" I said. "It must have been depressed because I networked it with the Windows computer."
Life (Score:2)
You know, you have a fairly depressing life. Though, in comparison to some of your friends, yours probably is great. Theirs, however, makes for some seriously depressing tales.
Re: (Score:2)
My life's great. Whenever I start to feel sorry for myslef (which is very seldom) I jst remind myself how bad others have it. No way I would trade my arthritis for depression. Hell, Naproxin usually takes care of arthritis, but none of the SSRI work on a lot of people.
And trying to help some of these folks makes me feel good.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes what a monster he was to offer alcohol and physical companionship at her request! Such horrible monstrous acts, if only he'd beaten the shit out of her instead, it wouldn't have been so bad!
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Dont listen to this moron Steve!
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Don't worry, I'm not. Refusing to give her sex or booze would only make matters worse for her.
depression is a bitch (Score:2)
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Were you diagnosed with depression? After Evil-X left I was horribly depressed and I and the kids sought counselling. I was disgnosed with "Adjustment disorder with depressed mood", which is a temporary condition. That may well be what you were suffering, it's like an extreme case of grief.
They prescribed Paxil, and my (then, I no longer use that doctor since her malpractice* against me) GP took me off the Paxil as I was moving from the forclosed house! It was the only time in my life I ever considered suic
Re: (Score:2)