In the morning they took my “ship” facemask and gave me a black one without straps. I was allowed to take it off when I was sitting in my chair/area.
I like boats
It’s hard to remember exactly the events of the day, as I was rocking a severe sleep deficit and it was a long, boring day. I do know that I would rather spend the day in the EmPATH unit than in a regular ER room.
Safety mask, no strings.
There weren’t too many people in the EmPATH unit, which was nice. Maybe a bit more than a dozen of all ages and races. Some of them got prescriptions and went home, and I wish I had looked closely at everyone in case I ran into them while inpatient. There were no external windows – I was missing nature already. There was a group check-in in the morning and it was very light. Had a lunch meal, ordered through “room service” via phone with a short cord. They literally called it room service. You got a menu and just told them what you wanted.
My nurse and I talked about my file/story. Seemed amazed at the amount I’d been through. There were a few others who did the same thing that week. I guess I could be proud that my history has shocked more than a few people when they read it. Those people are mental health professionals who have seen just about everything.
I met with a psychiatrist, nice man, very quiet. He said we should try adding lamictal, an SNRI. Don’t know that it made my chart, had one, once in EmPATH. Just layering on more meds, as usual. He hinted at ECT since that might have worked for me last time. And he agreed that inpatient is the next right thing. He said he was going to try for a bed at the hospital by the river, near the university, or coincidentally the hospital I was born at, in another city. Not too far, but a hassle if Wife wanted to visit.
I was still feeling every feeling. Tried crossword puzzles but it was hard to concentrate, and the marker they gave me was almost totally dried out. Read and reread musical instrument book, but I kept having to go over the same paragraphs over and over. But it helped keep my mind off my situation.
I spent the rest of the day waiting for a room. The Social worker was working on it and said she would call Wife with info as it developed.
I went to sleep around eight in the evening, only to be awakened at ten. My nurse told me I got a bed at the hospital by the river, and transportation was on its way. I had no idea how they were going to get me there. Uber? Limousine? Ambulance? Airlifted? Ok, maybe reaching a bit on the airlifted idea.
I called Wife twice that day. On the second call she angrily went into things like wanting a commitment from me to get better and want to live, etc. Couldn’t speak to any of those points as I still didn’t want to commit to live. It was not what I needed to hear at that moment, and went into zone out mode, hard. The nurse waited with me. He was a large man, both wide and tall. He spoke so softly it was very hard to hear him. But we got to talking, and he gave me a bit of a pep talk, as he had also been a longtime AA sponsor. I appreciated it and told him so when transportation arrived. I wish I knew how to send him a message about my changes.
I packed up all my stuff, which was just a book. Transportation were EMTs with an ambulance and stretcher. The male EMT helped me into the stretcher, where I was strapped down for safety. Like, “you’re not going anywhere” strapped down. I noticed when he walked it was almost military. When he did a subtle about face and then marched over to the stretcher, I knew he had to have military training. I asked him if he was in the reserves and his eyes went wide and he was very surprised. He was indeed in the Army reserves. We talked a bit about that and finally the female EMT finished all the necessary paperwork. A receipt for a patient. Ambulance trips are not cheap!
They rolled me out to the rig and had trouble getting the stretcher in. It was a little funny. The female EMT rode in the back with me and we headed out. I couldn’t see much of the journey, but I distinctly remember when we passed under a bridge close to home. Might have had a twinge of homesickness. I remember being very pleasant and chatty with the EMT. Human face back in action.
We arrived at the hospital late at night, but there seemed to be a lot of people there. I couldn’t tell who was on staff and who were patients. They took me into an admission room and made me change into a paper hospital gown. It had full coverage, no chilly tushy. They had me open my mouth, they checked my hair, and they had me do one jumping jack. All looking for smuggled goods.
As seen littered in parking lots everywhere
Got back into my beautiful scrubs and they took the “strapless” mask and gave me a generic hospital mask, light blue. Pretty much everything I had went to storage. Even the book. I was led to a single occupancy room (Due to COVID) at the far end of the hall, where three people were sitting in chairs chatting. I was told someone would come explain things for me.
So I sat in the bright room for a good while. Turns out it was two hours. Felt like ten hours. No clocks in the rooms. Nobody came, so I thought I might go find someone to ask at least what time we wake up. Went to the nurses station and found out it was one in the morning. There had been a shift change and I got lost in the shuffle. A nurse took me on a short tour – short because it wasn’t a large unit. I was blurry eyed and exhausted. They offered me something to help me sleep, but I turned it down. I have no idea why. Probably the anxiety, which was through the roof.
When I finally got to bed I just took off my socks and climbed in. The bed was really quite comfortable, but this was my second night without my CPAP, and I slept poorly. Again.
Monday I had a virtual PHP call from 9 to 3. Wife was coming home at 3, so I was just going to explain everything when I saw her. I called the folks at the PHP and explained what happened, and they said I should go to the ER immediately. I talked them into letting me go Tuesday morning, and was safe as I’d be in the PHP all day and then Wife would be home with me. At no point did I even consider lying about it. But I guess I could have fairly easily. It wasn’t a program I was very settled in, so I didn’t know how much I trusted them.
Wife came home, and I explained what happened. She said she had guessed that from the text to Therapist and the things I had talked about on Sunday. I told Wife I had a call with Therapist at four, and she said we should go to the ER right after. We both attended my call with Therapist, who agreed that now was better than the morning. I had sent a message to my doctor at the Treatment Resistant Depression Clinic, and he suggested a hospital just a few minutes south of me, because it had a new EmPATH unit. This information ended up being crucial to my recovery.
Wife and Therapist were both pretty upset, mad even. They both reminded me I was to call them if I ever felt unsafe, and the fact that I didn’t broke a lot of their trust. I felt bad about that, and knew I’d be working to regain that trust for a long time. Therapist kept cool, but I could tell by body language alone that they were trying to be professional and calm.
I packed a bag with my knowledge of what kinds of things weren’t safe. No hoodie with strings, no pajama pants with a string “belt” and no electronics, etc. Packed some toiletries but they weren’t allowed either. Wife took me south to that particular emergency room
When I checked in, the person in front of us was asking how much longer their wait would be. They were told four to five hours. Good thing I brought a book. The book was volume 1 of a social history of the instrument I play. Crazy detailed and I had to read every paragraph a couple times. So I knew it would be a good long read.
They had a plastic window in front of the front desk. So when it was my turn in line, I had say I had a suicide attempt and was still suicidal and didn’t feel safe. Don’t know how many people heard it, but it was crowded enough that I felt a bit conspicuous. I was told to wait and someone would come get me. Rather than four or five hours, someone was out to get me in about ten minutes. Apparently if you’re on their property and say you’re not safe, their liability makes things move faster. I would not recommend this as a tactic for anyone who doesn’t want to go to grippy sock jail, er, Inpatient Mental Health ward.
Rendering of recently remodeled ER
They took me back to a room where they took my vitals, then to a proper ER room. The doctor came in and by that point I was so anxious I had full body shivers of anxiety and my eyes were as wide as they could be. I was scared. So they gave me some Ativan when they set up my IV. That helped immensely. They took a prodigious amount of blood for tests, and gave me a deep sinus COVID test that felt like they were sticking it far enough in to poke my brain. Waited 90 minutes for tests to come back. That was about the normal time. Everything was negative – and that was my first COVID test.
They had me change into mahogany scrubs, and all of my stuff went into a locked storage closet in the room. Shoes, phone, belt, clothes, etc. All I had were the scrubs and my book. When the tests came back they said they were taking me to EmPATH.
Lesson: EMergency Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment, and Healing (EmPATH) units are where people in crisis receive expert treatment tailored to their needs in a calming environment – instead of a loud, potentially chaotic emergency department (ED). The concept is new but needed. In an EmPATH unit, arriving mental health patients go through medical screening before entering a safe, therapeutic, living room-style area with rapid access to the support they need to stabilize their situation. This includes specialized care from psychiatrists, mental health nurses, therapists, and other trained mental health professionals who will work with each patient to identify needs, administer medications, and begin appropriate treatment and healing. Some patients get meds or a therapy plan and go home from that unit, others go to inpatient.
This is not like they have on TV
After a faux wheelchair ride down a labyrinth of hallways – or maybe the Ativan was making me confused, we went into another small room, where the nurse removed my IV and told Wife that this is as far as she can go. We hugged a long and tight hug, and she left. I didn’t have that panicky feeling when you are about to go do something scary with strangers. I blame Ativan again.
I know it’s petty, but I’ve had a lot of wheelchair rides, but they have all been in the new, modern style – four small wheels. Just once I would like to get pushed around on a classic wheelchair!
EmPATH unit, my chair was around the corner to the right. More chairs behind the person taking the picture.
I was then taken directly into the EmPATH unit. It looked like a sick bay from the recent Star Trek shows. An asymmetrical room in an L shape, nurses station in the middle corner so they could see everyone. All the chairs were like barcaloungers, but when you go back on them, they go completely flat so you can sleep there. I was given a pillow and a blanket, and set up in a chair at the end of the short part of the L. I was given a tour on the way to the chair, snack section, bathrooms, quiet rooms, etc. By then it was ten or eleven PM and I was super tired. I curled up in the chair and went to sleep fairly quickly. Again, not a good night’s sleep. In a chair.
Poorly drawn map of EmPATH
Aside: As a “safe” environment, there were very few ways you could hurt yourself. When you’re in an environment designed to thwart self harm, it’s hard to not treat it like an escape room and look for ways to get past their defenses. I thought of taking the staples out of all of the magazines and building something that I could stick in a power outlet, but I had a feeling these were not normal outlets. I spent the next two days with those thoughts in the back of my mind.
I’ve had many people ask me if when I woke up I thought “Thank God that didn’t work!” Nope. I felt a lot of things, but that wasn’t one of them. Neither was there shame or regret. I was angry it didn’t work, I was frustrated at the fact that my one good plan wasn’t very good in the end. So now I was stuck without a way to make a quick exit following my rules. I felt trapped.
I woke up around 8, feeling groggy. No serious impact on my balance, I could walk just fine. I hadn’t gotten sick or anything, and didn’t have a headache. So I went to my actual bed and lay down to sleep. Wasn’t hopeful I would die in my sleep. I did feel fuzzy and detached, or not quite all there yet.
Around 9am our neighbor came into the house and when she got to the upstairs hall she called my name. I responded and she thanked me and said she was just checking on me. I texted her later to thank her and she made it very clear that it was no problem, and if I ever needed help, to give them a call.
I had missed texts from Therapist, who called Wife and she asked the neighbor to check on me. She warned them that I might be dead. That’s a request that sucks to make, for sure. I responded to the texts and contracted for safety. Unfortunately, Therapist’s call to Wife had been answered while she and my brother and my daughter were in the car, and it was on speaker. So now my daughter and brother are worried.
I went back to sleep for a good while, waking up for a noon haircut. I was still groggy and spacey, I probably shouldn’t have driven. I drove well enough though and got my haircut. It was hard to keep focus, but Stylist and I chatted as we always do. Human face still worked.
My siblings, aunts and uncles all have a call on Sunday afternoon. I was on the call like nothing had happened, nothing was wrong – or at least more than usual. Flat and quiet. I wish I could go back and see the call again, knowing my brother, daughter and Wife had all had that shock earlier in the day. At some point I had called Wife and without giving any details said I was just having a normal bad day. And I spent the rest of the day bingeing movies.
Slept poorly, as usual. I spent the day easily and quietly – except for the music lesson, which was quite loud, but did make me feel good for a moment. I had hot dogs, hung out on the porch, and in the evening, I started the scotch again – it was so good! Like drinking a peat fire.
After watching countless movies, I was nice and drunk in the low light of the porch. It was a beautiful night, not cold, not hot. I got the pills, and took a sniff. Medicinal. I took out a pull and licked it. I kept doing that for a bit, it was bitter but not bad at all. Finally I crunched the pill. And another one. And then I just swallowed the other two.
It was so easy. No drama, didn’t feel like anything, really. Another mundane task. I’m guessing this is why one suicide attempt increases your risk for future attempts. You realize it’s simple and easy, the soundtrack doesn’t swell and get dramatic, nobody rushes in and tries to revive you. You’re alone with yourself, and everyone dies alone in one sense or another.
I had deleted my Friday note, and began a new note, scheduled to send on Monday morning. What I wanted to be five words in the most succinct statement ever turns into paragraphs of rambling thought. Said many of the things from the previous note, but tightened it up a bit so it would be shorter, not novella length. Gotta edit, even if it’s your last piece of writing.
I said that I would be proud of them no matter what. And I wanted them to live their life remembering me and knowing that I’m proud of them, but don’t let me interrupt the amazing that they’re living. I told them I loved them all, and when they smell the rain – the petrichor, my favorite smell – think of me. That if there is any way, I’m sending that message. So that even when it rains they can have happiness. I also said “Live for me.”
I was growing much more fuzzy. Walking was more difficult, and I knew I was on my way. I texted “I love you” to Wife and siblings, and sent “Sorry” to Therapist. It was late enough I knew nobody would see the messages until morning.
I fell asleep on the couch on our porch. I didn’t want them to have to look for me, and didn’t want to spoil our bed by dying in it. I know that I wouldn’t want to sleep in a bed my partner had died in. Much less any mess left behind. I was a very considerate dead man. And I slept deeply for the first time in weeks. But not deeply enough.
Wife was going out of town to see Daughter, leaving me alone for a long weekend. I call it a weekend because it’s just like every other day of the week, but there are more people around. This depressive episode is not the first, obviously, because after all, I’m a professional depressive. The people I meet who are on their first go around frustrate me almost as much as people living their lives happily. Smiling, walking, laughing. Wife didn’t seem too concerned. Mentioned calling her for help if I needed it, and hugged me a little bit longer than usual. I talked about the movies I would watch, that I would get out of the house, that I would walk with friends at some point.
After PHP that day I ran some errands. Went to the grocery store and got food for the whole weekend. I hadn’t been seeing next week for a few days now, but I still bought the food. In my mind my calendar is always there, planning and reminding me of things coming up. But this week that went away. I didn’t see next week or any time after that. I was continuing faster and faster toward that wall.
I stopped at the liquor store and found, after some time, a single malt scotch that was “heavily peated” — it’s the flavor of peat fires, like smoke and rich ground. My favorite Irish single malt had that flavor, and I wanted something good, but not something I normally drank. If things didn’t go according to plan, I didn’t want to associate my favorite with failure. It was a bit more expensive, but I figured it would be the last one, so why not get something really nice?
Nobody stopped me, it was just an errand. Maybe if I had been wearing a Scarlet D, someone would have called me out. But they didn’t. It felt like a normal day, except I was picking up 50% of my demise. I was astounded at how mundane it all was. I wondered if everyone felt like this before a major destructive event. The fact that right up to the event, everything seemed normal and routine. I didn’t want anyone to call me out on it, and that helped my anxiety a bit.
Watched a movie, ordered some food from my favorite restaurant, and settled in for a quiet evening. Watching movies and drinking some scotch. I had a headache though, so I didn’t want to drink too much. And for some reason it felt like Saturday was a better day than Friday. By this point I had forgotten Saturday was 9/11.
Before I went to bed I wrote my first suicide note. My Therapist said it was so much harder for those left behind without a note. That without one, there was just too much unknown. I didn’t think I would die overnight, but also knew I might not be able to sleep, might get up and drink some more, might decide to take the pills. But I didn’t want to be hungover for my music lesson on Saturday afternoon. It’s funny that I’m actually thinking about my music lesson but not able to see next week?
I had never written a suicide note, and wasn’t exactly sure what to say. Essentially just goodbye, I’m removing the burden, and everyone will eventually grieve me and move on. No matter how bad it gets it can still get worse so it’s not selfish, it’s survival. That this weekend is going to happen so many more times for the rest of my life until I do it. Finally, don’t let this final act of horribleness color everything that I have taught you, everything that I’ve shown you, everything that I have loved you for.
I set the message to send on Monday morning, so I could delete it if it wasn’t needed. As I went to bed I saw a friend was still awake, online. I just dropped them a “Hey.” They called me and we talked for a long time. It wasn’t a cry for help, but I knew they had been through some of the things I had been through. We talked about depression, suicide, cookies, and the feelings we had in common. It didn’t make me feel different, but it was just nice to talk to someone for a bit. The house had been pretty lonely even after just half a day.
When it came down to it, I just couldn’t do this forever. I knew that things can get better, but things will eventually get bad again. You don’t cure depression, you manage it. Finally, I felt like I had been living with future ghosts. Every scenario I’m in, all I can think is “Is this the last time I do this? How will this be next time when I’m not there? Will I have ruined this for you by being gone? Will you remember the happy times from the days and weeks before I died? I hoped so.
When Saturday comes you’ll understand why it’s the anchor and “peak” low in this journal.
Things had been getting steadily worse in the previous few weeks. I went from being in a major depressive episode with little hope to a safety-last, near catatonic state with extreme depression, mounting anxiety, and no hope whatsoever. I had given up on trying, and just let the depression roll over me like waves in the middle of an ocean storm. I learned that it could always get worse, and every day it did. In the last PHP I did, I had to give up giving them estimates of intensity of depression, because I had gotten to 9 or 10 out of 10 and had nowhere to go from there. So I would just say “off the chart” or “I just really don’t know how to rate that anymore.” I had also started self harming in the form of biting. I was literally tearing myself apart.
My therapist said that my primary relationships were with depression and anxiety. She was right. I felt like I had different personas living inside my mind. The first was Depression (D). D would help me feel worse, would give answers to people in my stead, and had been around for decades. It was an old friend, and we were very close. While I didn’t like what it did to my life, I somehow didn’t want to live without it. Anxiety (A) was the second. Sometimes A was quiet, telling me something bad would happen if I talked to a stranger or called someone on the phone. It could also be quite loud, bypassing my brain and making my body shake, my mind swim, and logic was thrown out the window. A would come out and take over from D, and often I couldn’t hear D in the background because A was so loud. A was just mean and made me want to run from it, but I couldn’t. A had been after me a few times in the past, and was responsible for some of the worst days of my life, but D would always take over when A got tired. And then there was Suicide (S), who was a fairly new player in the game, but had always been in the background whispering passive suicidal ideations into my ear, making me think more and more about S.
I would occasionally cheat on D and A. Hanging out with good friends and neighbors, chatting and maybe eating pizza. I would be animated and enjoying myself. When I left those situations D and A would come at me strong. It was like a mental health hangover, and the more I drank in the happiness in life, the worse it would be the next hours or days. That always made me feel like I didn’t have any problems, because there were times when I would forget them. So obviously the times I was experiencing them was something I could just turn off, right? Nope. Also, on those social occasions I would often be drinking. Which just gave D and A more energy with which to mess with me.
Regardless, I would cheat on D and A, but I would lie for S.
There were things about S that I had never told anyone, partly out of concern for my safety, ironically. I didn’t want to say something that would bring on the guys in white coats to escort me to an asylum. But another big reason why I denied and lied for S was to keep it in my pocket. It gave me the idea that I had an exit plan, that even if the doctors didn’t know what was wrong or how to fix it, I had a solution I could call upon if it got too bad. I also lied to those who loved me, and wanted me to let them know if I wasn’t safe.
I had been somewhat open with Therapist in sharing my suicidal ideation, and in programs I would often be even more up front about how much I thought about my own death and how passive it was, or even getting close to active.
Lesson: Suicidal Ideation can be passive or active. Passive means you wish a meteor would fall from the sky and kill you. It means every little ache and pain can make you wonder if it’s a life threatening disease, and hope it is. It can also just simply mean you don’t want to exist or feel the way you do, but you have little hope for good things to come. Active suicidal ideation is planning a way to do it, attempting it, feeling unsafe, or anything else that takes it from a philosophical concept to a full bodied reality.
My safety has always been pretty good. Except for some impulsive behaviors, I thought about hurting myself plenty of times, but had only once ever done anything. One of my hobbies was to research my meds to see if overdoses would be lethal, search for other suicide methods, and track down every side effect, potential conflicts with meds, etc. that I could find. I even read “The Final Exit,” which advocates for right to die, but many people consider it to be the definitive suicide manual. I had been considering multiple plans, but as I said never implemented them. But of late I had come up with something that might fit my parameters, or rules. Being clever, a long time ago I devised some rules for my suicide, should I ever get there:
Had to be painless.
Doesn’t hurt anyone else. (e.g. even a bus driver or train driver hitting someone is traumatic for them)
Does not have a likelihood of failing and putting me in a worse physical situation, such as being maimed or permanently damaged.
I was determined that if I ever needed to resort to it, I would be smart enough to be able to do it successfully. The thought of the embarrassment, shame, and sadness that followed a failed attempt would not only make me feel those things, but it would put me in a deeper hole and remove the option from the future. Stuck with no escape.
I always thought I was smart enough to do it successfully. How hard can it be, killing yourself? Turns out it’s pretty freaking hard using my rules. Originally I wanted to come up with a diabolical scheme that would kill me but not have even the slightest hint of suicide. For the insurance money. But that never came to fruition, so I had to just go straightforward with self murder.
Again, pretty freaking hard. Most of the over the counter drugs aren’t dangerous enough, so it ends up having to be prescriptions. A couple months ago I had a root canal go bad and the pain from that also wanted me to kill myself. It was the worst pain I had ever felt. Dentist was sympathetic and set me up with a root canal referral and a bottle of Oxycodone. I didn’t use all of it, so we keep something like that around “just in case” for sprained ankles or really bad injuries. And there it sat, right next to the cologne I don’t wear. When you search the internet for “ways to kill yourself” all you get are suicide hotline ads and links to other depressive stuff. However, if you search for “dangers of alcohol” there are all sorts of lists of things you shouldn’t mix with drinking. Very handy. According to them, if you had a shot of beer and someone with an opioid walked by you would fall down dead in an instant.
I only had four pills. But one of those can get you loopy. Guessing four plus a crap ton of alcohol would just let me sleep, and then shut down. Ok, so in looking back it wasn’t really a foolproof plan. But it was a plan, so I was getting closer. When you take the depression quiz at the doctor’s office and you indicate that you would prefer to be dead, they ask if you have a plan. And if you have intent. Which I guess means the guts to go ahead and do it. If you simply say “No plan or intent” they smile and move on. Because passive suicidal ideation is fine, I guess. I’d been saying “no plan, no intent” for months. But now I had a plan. So I had to start lying about that. If I reveal the recipe, they’ll take away the ingredients.
Much of this information I hadn’t shared with anyone. Not Wife, not Therapist, not even anonymously online. At some point I promised both Wife and Therapist that if I ever got to that point, I would call them before I did anything. And much like the concept of the suicide hotline, I didn’t understand why I would do that. If I’ve crossed a line, the last thing I would do is to bring someone in to try and stop me. That would be counter-productive. I am sorry I lied to people who are so important to me, but I don’t feel I failed someone. I just feel like I had to do at the time what was necessary for my survival, even if survival was quitting.
The weekend before the Saturday
It was Labor Day weekend, and we were up north with family. I was incredibly depressed, and just for the fun of it (or it was a med issue?), decided not to drink that weekend, which was actually nice. Up north is a very drinky place sometimes. In front of the evening campfire, or watching a movie, or even just after having driven for many hours all hopped up on caffeine so that I could relax and get to sleep. My mother was an alcoholic who drank to be able to sleep, and that was always present on those nights. But still I drank.
But not that weekend, and honestly I didn’t miss it much. I was having trouble sleeping anyway, so it might not have helped that. And I would hopefully wake up in the morning refreshed and not dragged down by a hangover or tired from not getting a proper night’s sleep. But I would wake up with only the crushing weight of depression holding me down. Pretty much just normal for me these days.
It was meals with family and in-laws, that look I’m happy and jovial. But it’s just me wearing my Human Mask. It didn’t even really take much thought. I’ll take it off later and pay in pain for the effort of looking normal. To recover from this weekend I’ll have to take it easy for the week. Easy enough for a professional depressive. Next weekend I’ll buy some nice scotch, watch a bunch of movies, and be lazy. Except the alcohol makes the suicidal ideation kick into overdrive. The last time I was up north I tried to will myself to death. Then I thought about what it would be like to walk into the lake and drown myself. I settled on laying on my stomach in bed and trying to fall asleep with my arms blocking the arteries in my neck. Stupid, yes, but you never know. That was where I was at. Literally trying to stop breathing.
It was Saturday that I realized I would have an opportunity to make an attempt next week. To finally go to sleep and not have to wake up to the weight. Wife was going to be out of town the next weekend, and it wasn’t like something I was planning, at least not right away. It was inevitable. I would get some really nice scotch, and I would drink it freely. But I also knew when I did that it put me deeper in the hole, and tempted me to do something about it. Those were the times when the depression was scary. Actually, not scary, but more true. I would relax into it and let it have it’s way with me. And I knew that this time was going to be serious.
I got to thinking about how hard liquor makes my suicidal ideation go through the roof. Literally the first sip makes me want to find the closest bridge and jump off. The problem there is that it would potentially hurt someone else. Walking across the bridge over the highway makes me giddy nonetheless. Something having to do with alcohol. And alcohol poisoning would likely fail the first two rules. But something that would make me go to sleep? Sounds good to me.
Except this time I’d be in the worst mindset yet (because every day just gets worse, no matter how bad you think it already is) and that could lead me to do something “stupid” like kill myself. And if I had that plan and remembered to implement it in a drunken state, I would actually do it. I wouldn’t choose to do it. I would just do it. And since this was back when I thought I knew what I was doing, I figured it would work. That’s all well and good, but it occurred to me that it was going to happen regardless. I’m going to be alone, I’m going to buy scotch intending to drink in moderation, and I’m going to drink too much of it. And then I’ll have the means, the motivation, and the bravery to pull it off. Except those things were going to happen no matter what, so I was running headlong into a brick wall, and I’d hit that wall next Saturday. Nothing I can do to change it. While I’m serious about not wanting to live anymore, I don’t like not being in control of it. And that’s why I had a full blown panic attack up north on Labor Day Weekend. And couldn’t tell anyone why I was having it. I have enough random crap happening to me these days that nobody will blink an eye.
I had some Oxycodone left over from a dental issue earlier in the year. There were only four left, but I had done my research. The warnings were not to take any oxy when drinking, that even a normal dose could be dangerous. I figured four times a normal dose should do the trick. Combined with the alcohol, I would just go to sleep and never wake up again. And I had been keeping them in mind, and knew that the next time I drank heavily, my inhibitions would be gone, my safety measures would be ignored, and I would finally do it.
So it wasn’t a plan, it was a surety. Yes, I could tell someone, call someone, text someone, but I lie for Suicide, and most of me wanted it to actually happen. And the part that didn’t want me to do it wasn’t saying a peep. So I had a week to live. I went back and forth between excitement to finally get it done, and fear because the brain often doesn’t want to be killed. So there was no guarantee.
Remainder of the week
I spent the rest of that week increasingly stressed out. I would tell the PHP group that I was bad, but I always claimed no intent. That my kids were my safety, and I didn’t want to hurt them or pass this pain on to them. In reality I was convinced that my death would put an end to the burden, the struggle, the pain for everyone. Every day that went by, it was all getting worse, and I was feeling all of it. Depression, Anxiety and Suicide were running the show, helping me not give a shit, and helping me toward that inevitability. Every day was worse, and that’s when I gave up trying to even understand how bad it was. I was simply giving in to all of it, and this just accelerated me toward that wall.
On Thursday I had a call with Therapist. I was flat in affect, my whole body shaking from the anxiety, and my sleep deficit was building and building, keeping me down. She was concerned. She had never seen me anywhere near this bad, and I agreed again to call her or text her if I felt unsafe. But I was already unsafe, and past the point of being able to ask for help. I was just waiting for the weekend. And I was skilled in making people feel like I’d be fine. Like I would finally get some sleep and feel better. That I had things in my life, my wife and kids and family, that have always prevented me from doing anything, and that sure, I was going to be fine.
Yes, it’s not in alphabetical order. Use the search function in your browser to find what you’re looking for. Or just read them all, it’s not very long.
Inpatient : Treatment for someone who is admitted to a hospital (also see Outpatient).
Outpatient : Treatment for someone who is not admitted to a hospital. (Also see Inpatient)
Psychiatrist : MD who specializes in psychiatry. Able to write prescriptions and work with a patient on their medication management.
Psychologist : MD who specializes in the mind and its functions. Typically cannot prescribe medication, varies by state.
Therapist : One who is professionally trained and/or skilled in the practice of a particular type of therapy.
A : Anxiety, as an internal personality
D : Depression, as an internal personality
S : Suicide, as an internal personality
Terminology
Affect : What someone feels inside that can be recognized by others. For example: if you are looking/acting sad or have a flat tone of voice you can be recognized by someone else as you are feeling sad or depressed
Anhedonia : Describes a lack of pleasure. Often the person doesn’t feel good when they are doing the things that normally make them feel good. Anhedonia due to depression will get better once the depression has been successfully treated.
DSM IV : A diagnostic manual published by the American Psychiatry Association that names and describes mental disorders.
GAD-7 : Rapid screening for the presence of a clinically significant anxiety disorder, especially in outpatient settings. ~10 questions
Involuntary status : A term used to describe someone who has been admitted into a psychiatric facility (usually a hospital) against their will or without their consent, under the authority and protection of the law.
PHQ-9 : A screening tool for the diagnosis of depression and to quantify depression symptoms and monitor severity. ~10 questions
Recovery : When a person with a mental disorder is doing as well as they can be and is feeling mentally healthy – even if they still have a mental disorder.
Relapse : When a person with a mental disorder who has been in remission or recovery gets sick again.
Remission : When a person’s symptoms decrease and they return to their usual state after having an active phase of a disorder.
Voluntary admission : Being admitted as a patient to a mental health unit for treatment (usually in a hospital) based on a person’s agreement to be admitted.
Disorders
Dysthymic Disorder : A mood disorder. People with Dysthymic Disorder experience persistent low mood for two or more years but experience fewer depressive symptoms than in Major Depression
GAD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder : Severe, ongoing anxiety that interferes with daily activities.
MDD, Major Depressive Disorder : A mental health disorder characterized by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life.
SAD, Social Anxiety Disorder : An anxiety disorder regarding the fear of having to be in social situations. A person with Social Anxiety Disorder also avoids the situations that make them feel anxious.
Trauma, Psychological Trauma : Damage to a person’s mind as a result of one or more events that cause overwhelming amounts of stress that exceed the person’s ability to cope or integrate the emotions involved, eventually leading to serious, long-term negative consequences.
TRD, Treatment Resistant Depression : Refers to inadequate response to multiple antidepressant trials or therapies of adequate doses and duration. (TRDc is the clinic specializing in TRD)
Negative behaviors
Self–harm : Any injury that a person inflicts on themselves without the intent to die.
SI, Suicidal Ideation : Thoughts, images or fantasies of harming or killing oneself. Can be passive, a thought exercise, or active, intent and a plan to commit
Substance Use Disorders : Repeated misuse of alcohol and/or drugs — often occur simultaneously in individuals with mental illness, usually to cope with overwhelming symptoms.
Suicide : The act of deliberately killing oneself.
Suicide attempt : Any non-fatal suicidal behavior, refers to intentional self-inflicted poisoning, injury or self-harm which may or may not have a fatal intent or outcome.
Therapies
Antidepressant : Medication used for depression and other mood and anxiety disorders.
CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy : A psycho-social intervention that aims to improve mental health. Focuses on challenging and changing cognitive distortions and behaviors, improving emotional regulation, and the development of personal coping strategies that target solving current problems.
CPAP, Continuous Positive Airway Pressure : A form of positive airway pressure ventilation in which a constant level of pressure is continuously applied to the upper respiratory tract. It is intended to prevent upper airway collapse, as occurs in obstructive sleep apnea. CPAP therapy is highly effective for managing obstructive sleep apnea.
DBT, Dialectical Behavior Therapy : An evidence-based psychotherapy that began with efforts to treat borderline personality disorder. There is evidence that it can be useful in treating mood disorders, suicidal ideation, and for change in behavioral patterns such as self-harm and substance use.
ECT, Electroconvulsive Therapy : Treatment where a generalized seizure (without muscular convulsions) is electrically induced to manage mental disorders. Not like you’ve seen in the movies.
IOP, Intensive Outpatient Programs, or day programs : Treatment programs used to address addictions, depression, eating disorders, or other dependencies that do not require detoxification or round-the-clock supervision. They enable patients to continue with their normal, day-to-day lives in a way that residential treatment programs do not. Whereas residential treatment requires that clients reside on site, clients in intensive outpatient programs live at home.
OT, Occupational Therapists : Can have many different roles. They help people to adapt to their environment and to cope with their daily life.
OT, Occupational Therapy : The use of assessment and intervention to develop, recover, or maintain the meaningful activities, or occupations, of individuals, groups, or communities.
PHP, Partial Hospitalization Program : Type of treatment program that is more intensive than IOP but less than full inpatient or residential treatment. Often like an inpatient therapy, with the difference is that patients go home at night, and it is not a safety maintained environment. Currently often virtual
PRN : Latin abbreviation used for prescriptions. translates to: when necessary.
Psychotherapy : Treatment of mental illness by talking about problems rather than by using medication. Treatment is tailored to each client’s needs.
TMS, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation : Noninvasive form of brain stimulation in which a changing magnetic field is used to cause electric current at a specific area of the brain through electromagnetic induction. An electric pulse generator, or stimulator, is connected to a magnetic coil, which in turn is connected to the scalp. The stimulator generates a changing electric current within the coil which induces a magnetic field; this field then causes a second inductance of inverted electric charge within the brain itself. VNS, Vagus Nerve Stimulation Medical treatment that involves delivering electrical impulses to the Vagus nerve. It is used as an add-on treatment for certain types of treatment-resistant depression. The device consists of a generator the size of a matchbox that is implanted under the skin below the person’s collarbone. Lead wires from the generator are tunnelled up to the patient’s neck and wrapped around the left Vagus nerve at the carotid sheath, where it delivers electrical impulses to the nerve.
Over the course of a week and a half in September 2021 I experienced an all time mental health low, but ended up in a different place, with a bit more perspective than I’ve had in a very long time. This is my memory, to be able to remember. Not just because I have memory issues, but because as time goes by we have different interpretations of those memories.
trigger warnings
I don’t usually offer them, but the next posts will be describing a suicide attempt, an inpatient stay, extreme anxiety, extreme depression, alcohol, med abuse, self injuring and self defeating activities. You’ve been duly warned.
Reading this may hurt, sting, or make you very unhappy. Even sad. That is not my intent. I want to share my experience so that those who are living it can understand how different therapies feel, but also so that those who haven’t felt like any of this can hopefully understand me, and what I go through.
If you do begin this, please finish it. Don’t leave it halfway, scared or angry. Hear how it ended up.
Glossary and acronyms available after the Prologue. (link Glossary and acronyms)
I had a severe depressive episode a few years ago. Did three PHPs, a day program, ECT and returned to work. (Now’s the time to check out that glossary) A month or two later two things happened. First, I turned a corner and started to feel alive and great again. I was optimistic, active, and my scores on the PHQ-9 were zero – my therapist and I actually had to think of something to talk about. The second was that COVID changed our world. I had a job that could be done remotely already, and we had frequent “work from home” days before COVID. So work carried on. And we got a ton of business because of COVID – don’t worry, it was helpful business, not accumulating stockpiles of hand sanitizer or something else evil. So we were a lot busier. And then we scored a partnership with a competitor, and that started a tsunami of work. We were having trouble growing the size of the team, so we all had to buckle down and hold on. And I broke. So if I refer to “the perfect year” it was most of 2020. That coincidence will come back much later on in the story. And it wasn’t really perfect.
Why “semicolon” as a title?
Project Semicolon explains that “a semicolon is used when an author could’ve chosen to end their sentence, but chose not to. The author is you and the sentence is your life”. (link: Project Semicolon) While I didn’t choose to, and the working of “the sentence [words] is your life” sounds too much like “the sentence [prison term] is your life” feels awkward to me. But it’s the sentiment that counts. The idea that the stuff before the semicolon may not be the same or around anymore, but the semicolon signals that there is just as much stuff and life ahead of the bad moment or time. Instead of a period, which ends everything.
Notes for the reader
You know how I said “short” history up there? Yeah. get a blanket, some tea, and buckle in for a bit of a read. I have done my best to edit the story, but there will be things I missed or repeated. Sorry. Please share this collection of posts or this blog anonymously with others as you feel appropriate. While this is my memory, it’s also intended to help. And the only way it can help is if people read it. I know that’s a big ask, as it’s pretty long.
Any time I mention an MD it’s almost always a Psychiatrist. Though I’ve been informed a psychiatrist isn’t an MD. Work with me. I refer to people by their role capitolized. So Wife and Therapist or even Nurse occasionally.
Enjoy. (Is that even an appropriate thing to say?)
I haven’t forgotten, I’ve just been writing this whole time. I may have gone a bit overboard, but I hope someone will get something out of it. It’s also for my own failing memory, to save the week’s journey so I can remember it later.
I will be putting it out in chapters, so it’s not going to be one wall of text that’s longer than the book Animal Farm. It’ll be broken into logical segments and posted probably once a day. They still might be walls of text, but at least they’ll have pictures and stopping points. 🙂
In the meantime, enjoy this picture of a room exactly like the one I enjoyed for some days..
In my program, your first time is with the nasal administration. They (for reasons we still have no clue about) deliver the nasal ketamine to your house. I had to sign for it, etc. It comes in a box that’s about a foot square, like a cube. It also demands that you refrigerate it immediately. So I did, but I have to say taking a square foot of space in our fridge was not convenient. Part of the reason you do the nasal version is that it’s not as intense as the other methods. So if you’re going to have a heart attack, blood pressure spike, or bad freak-out on your trip, they’ll find out with a little bit less intensity.
I’ll be getting intramuscular shots next week. I just realized I don’t know which muscle. I think it’s the arm, but it could be the butt cheek. What a pain in the ass that would be! Also, given that the injected version is more intense, I’m looking forward to see just how more intense it will be. I felt under control, but there were times where I was really disassociating. Not sure how it can get more intense than that. I’ll let you know.
They say time doesn’t move at the same speed, and they were right. Given the fact that I thought I was saying something every few (or ten) minutes, and yet the average time between comments is 28 seconds, I think it’s safe to say I was having some time issues.
You check in at the main desk, but they send you down the hall to a door with a nice big red warning on it. It opened into a mini waiting room, and the nurse then lead us to the actual room. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I had visions of having to sit in that not-so-comfortable chair next to the doctor’s desk for an hour tripping out.
As it happens, it was a large room with great big comfortable recliners in lightly separated bays. If someone was having a bad experience, everyone would hear it. Each area has a few of the things you would expect in a hospital room. The blood pressure stand, emergency button, a visitor’s chair. Wife sat in that chair and I jumped into the recliner.
The nurse gets your vitals, then you take the nasal spray. Three times in each nostril with a minute between snorts. It hurt, actually. Not so much that you would cry out in pain, but enough that you realize you’re happy not to be doing it that way every time. It was a stinging in the nose, and some would go down the back of your throat and tasted horribly bitter. Not tonic water bitter that you want to taste, not cocoa powder bitter that reminds you of chocolate. Bitter like chewing up aspirin. The nurse then pulls a curtain across the opening of the mini bay you’re in, and lets you get to tripping. So there’s some privacy, but I know I heard the nurse laugh once or twice as I was babbling away.
They take your blood pressure every 15 minutes. The cuff just stays on and inflates once in a while automatically. I usually don’t like the pressure of a cuff, but didn’t even notice it. They do this to make sure your blood pressure isn’t going high, which is a side effect that’s particularly dangerous. Mine was low going in, and even lower when testing after I started the experience. Go figure.
I’ve done my share of research, so I had read some other experiences and was super curious about how it would affect me. A neighbor had Ketamine and described his experiences. He watched a mindfulness video and was convinced it was written by him especially for him. That’s why I want to watch a movie or videos next time. I should seek out my favorite albums and see how many videos I can string together.
Being the nerd that I am, I was recording the session (on a phone with a case that makes the microphone suck) and letting it attempt to transcribe as it recorded. Due to the microphone suckage, the audio was very quiet, and hard to transcribe. I even had to go with both sides of earphones and use my military training in transcription in order to make out many of the phrases.
I was indeed tripping, but in going over the log that I recorded, I remembered everything. It’s not like ECT where you come out of it not remembering going into it. I’m hoping the log is clear enough for you. There are some text styles that show something I did, something someone else said, and comments every few lines. The transcriptions are italicized, and the log entries are bold.
Enjoy!
3:42:17 PM Testing
This is the beginning, I was setting up the voice recorder on my phone. I hadn’t really used it before, and it’s pretty limited. I can’t adjust the scale of the visualization, so when it’s working in a quiet area it’s almost impossible to see if it caught it. Also, my phone case makes the bad microphone work even more poorly. But I worked with what I had. An idea was to video it, as that’s unlimited in length, except it’s much harder to transcribe.
3:43:34 PM I know this sounds weird, but I can feel all of my clothing
I think your senses get boosted a bit. So all of the different fabrics on my skin were very pronounced. It was fun, and it was pretty cool to have that much knowledge of how my clothes feel.
3:44:22 PM <???> made my nose stop running
I had been having an incredibly frustrating day or two of allergies. At first I thought it might be COVID, and how funny that would be. After months and months of hoping to catch COVID and die, now that I’m in a much better place it would be like an Alanis Morissette song. Isn’t it ironic? Also, the <???> indicates I couldn’t make out a word or phrase. You’ll see it a bit in the rest of the transcription.
3:44:37 PM I can taste it
This is where the ketamine was running down the back of my throat. I was starting to feel the effects, but it didn’t take any of the bitterness away.
3:44:45 PM Yeah I would not be able to walk right now
3:45:20 PM {speed slowed to .7}
So the first line was so hard to transcribe, I had to turn the speed down to 7/10ths, which helped quite a bit, but it was still a trial to understand some of the lines. Mostly due to the low volume, but I thought I sounded like I was slurring and speaking more softly than usual. I left it at that speed for the rest of the transcription and it helped immensely, even though it made my voice even deeper than it already is.
3:45:33 PM The flags look like fire
3:46:10 PM <Wife asks which flags> Those banner things
There was a farmer’s market in the parking lot, and we were on the second floor. I could see the tents and the banner flags of the market, as well as the street, with cars driving by. Because the wind was fairly strong, the flags were waving quite a bit, and seemed to be flapping from the bottom to the top. So it looked a bit like a candle flickering.
It’s funny how you perceive things differently when in a different mind state. If I had tried consuming recreational drugs in college, but stopped after a month because I felt like I was stupid for a day or two after I came down, it could be like this. Once, when I was surely not under the influence of something we had taken inside peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I might have seen someone in a tie-dyed shirt and realized why people might wear them. To me it would have looked like feathers, and it might have been quite a revelation. But of course I didn’t, so I must be making that all up.
This is what the banner flags look like. (Thank you street view!)
3:46:17 PM So I'm going to be saying things because I want to be able to describe it later
There were more thoughts in my head than usual, and many of them were bizarre. Mostly just visual twists on what I see, but there were a few times when it was more contextual and perceptive. Like the flags turning into flames, or the clouds turning into water towers.
3:46:46 PM My hands feel like they're upside down
Wife asked about this the next day. It felt like my arms were oriented correctly, but my hands were facing palms up instead of the reality, which was down. It didn’t feel bad or anything, just curious. It went away as I headed toward the peak, and lost contact with my body.
3:46:56 PM I'm kinda floaty
3:47:05 PM But very relaxed
3:47:11 PM I feel like I can breathe more than usual
This was kinda cool. I’ve done a lot of breathing exercises, like 4×4 or 4×8 or in through the nose, out through the mouth, etc. 4×4 shown below, but the concept applies to many of these methods. Sometimes I take the biggest breath I can, and slowly exhale. I did this during the experience, and it felt like I was inhaling for a very long time, due to the time distortion. But it really did feel like I was breathing in a ton of air, more than usual.
Thank you Monticello Trails Middle School (Home of the Timberwolves) please don’t sue me.
3:47:31 PM Yeah I would define this as tripping balls
3:47:54 PM I don't know how to describe this but everything's inside out
Like the upside down hands, this happened twice. Once on the way up to the peak, and again on the way down. I found it interesting that I had the same experiences on both ends of the time I was treated. In this case, everything being inside out was a bit like when you do the magic eye pictures, but instead of letting your eyes relax and widen the parallax, you cross them. It’s a great way to be able to guess at the image without standing there for 15 minutes trying to relax your eyes. And during that 15 minutes you stress out because you can’t do it, which just spirals into frustration. You try it here:
Hint: It’s a boat.
Anyhoo, it felt like convex things were concave. It should have been very confusing and very disorienting, but again, it was just a curious phenomenon. By the way, you can cheat at “find the differences” pictures by doing the same thing with the crossed eyes. Where there are differences will seem to be standing out a bit. Easy Peasy.
3:48:21 PM I feel like I'm at sea 3:49:18 PM I can hear my Tinnitus 3:49:34 PM Kinda want to take a drink of water but don't think I can
I have some wicked vertigo these days. Describing it like being on a ship in a wavy ocean is exactly correct. Except sometimes there are bigger waves, and I have to stop and just hold on for a few moments. It’s okay, as I like boats.
3:49:54 PM Everything is happening around me
This was a strange one. You know in movies and TV shows where they show the protagonist standing somewhere, while the world moves hyperfast around them? IT felt a bit like that, but not as fast. Maybe you could describe it like an out of body experience might feel like. Or maybe even a ghost, and the world is happening around it without seeing the ghost.
3:50:08 PM When I move my head back and forth I have vertical vertigo
Back to the vertigo. It’s possible it has something to do with all the meds I’m on that have the side effect of lowering your blood pressure. Rather, your blood pressure lags by a few seconds. So when I stand up quickly, I get lightheaded and dizzy for just a few moments, but longer than usual.
Sitting helps a ton, but in this case it seemed stronger than usual when I looked straight up. It produces the effect of feeling like you’re on an unstable deck, but instead of wobbling side to side, you’re wobbling up and down. This might be the most difficult effect to explain.
3:51:14 PM I'm not connected (to the BP monitor)
3:51:23 PM So that (blood pressure) probably registers fairly low
3:51:31 PM {wife's name} can you hear me?
She was probably mentally preparing for a lot more of this. I tend to go on sometimes, and she’s good at putting me on mute with an alert – if she hears something that might pertain to her, she automatically unmutes. And then asks me to repeat what I just said. It works. And yes, she was hearing me and acknowledged as much.
3:51:37 PM [Wife: Do you want help with the water?] That was a long time ago
3:51:45 PM I'm fine
3:51:53 PM I'm not, like, in my body
3:52:14 PM My palms are sweating. I can still feel the tremor in my right hand but I can't - no I can see the tremor in my right hand but I can't feel it
transcription: Yeah it's my answer for it I am still feeling my trouble in my right hand but I can't
Was this the first automatic transcription? Might have been, too lazy to scroll up, but if you want to scroll up, go ahead. If I’m wrong here please send a message to donttellme@thismessagewillnotgettome.com and someone will get back to you never.
Another awesome side effect I have is the tremor. It’s worse in my right hand, which if I hold it out shakes like a cartoon character who has just seen a cartoon ghost. But not Casper the Ghost, who is the ghost of Richie Rich. Look it up. It goes from ok to worse, but the worst part is that I have it all over, just in varying degrees. Left hand much better than right, legs are subtle when I’m sitting and hold one up. Going up or down stairs, however, I can feel it in my legs, and it makes me less stable than just standing.
I had sweaty palms, and when I held my hands up to see the tremors, I could see the tremor, but couldn’t feel it. I could still feel my hand, just not the shaking.
And finally, “a long time ago” was actually two minutes. Time dilation again.
3:52:28 PM Right hand. Right is always worse than left
3:52:50 PM Cool. What color is my mood ring
3:52:58 PM What color is my mood ring? [wife: dark] It's like a yellow green or something? [wife: I'm colorblind] Oh. Great.
3:53:03 PM Oh, ok. When I had ECT I asked them to watch my ring and the nurse said it was like it was plaid. And I kinda get that now.
3:53:14 PM That stuff.
3:53:36 PM It's like the Family tartan. Like purple and yellow.
Ever since the beginning of this episode, in summer of 2019, I’ve done a lot of programs (PHP, IOT, DBT, TMS, ECT, ETC) and many of them talk about your physical state when anxious or depressed. It occurred to me that I had a mood ring sitting on my nightstand. It was just a little too small, and I discovered a plethora of different styles on Amazon. I settled on a ring that appeared black until it colored up.
It’s not the actual family tartan, but somewhat close-ish, and had the colors I saw.
It’s like any other mood ring. Not saying it doesn’t work, but it pretty much stays the same color all the time, with subtle changes. It works by body temperature. So if you’re mad in the summer sun, it should turn red. If you’re super mellow and calm in your igloo, it would be blue, etc. When I was taking ECT, I asked the nurse to watch the ring and tell me the next day what it looked like. She did, and she said it was weird. Like it was plaid.
I asked Wife what color she thought it was, and she reminded me that she was color blind and maybe not too happy I could forget something like that. I’m going to say it was the super memory eraser – ECT. *My experience is not typical, but erased parts of memory can happen.
It just seemed like a couple different colors, but in a jagged pattern, not solid. It reminded me of the family Tartan. But a bit brighter, as our colors aren’t yellow, it’s more orange with thinner lines, etc.
3:53:53 PM <deep sigh>
I don’t remember doing these but there are a few on the recording. Since the audio was so quiet I had to turn it up quite a bit, and there was all sorts of random noises. From static to something that sounded like I moved and so forth. I was also listening for any ghost voices, or EVP for the experts who watch ghost hunter tv shows. Happily? Sadly? I didn’t hear anything that sounded spooky.
3:54:02 PM Alright I'm gonna try water
3:54:13 PM I feel like one of those giant house sized marionettes that they run down the streets in France.
3:54:33 PM I know that's gonna sound insane but I can look it up later and tell you about it
Transcription: I know that's gonna sound insane but I can look it up later and tell you about it
Royal de Luxe is a French mechanical marionette street theatre company. It’s really incredible, and the people in the red outfits with gold highlights are pulling on ropes to make various movements. I highly encourage you to search YouTube for the company because those people aren’t just pulling on ropes, they’re pulling on ropes. Jumping high to get more rope, being pulled into the air for a bit of time, and so forth. I particularly liked Sea Odyssey, where the girl above and other giants end up getting on a ship leaving Liverpool. They look like they’re in a rowboat. Seriously, go to YouTube right now. I’ll wait.
3:54:45 PM My glasses make me feel like a Picasso painting
If you search enough you could buy this for me as a memento. Last time it sold it was only $9,500…
I can normally see my glasses from the corners of my eyes, but this time it was highly asymmetrical and everything felt out of whack. I seriously felt as if I were the subject in Picasso’s “Drawing of Harold Robbins” only in color and everything is squares or circles.
Might have had a bit of Mondrian in it as well, thus the squares and colors. There were so many thoughts going through my head that these thoughts at the front of my mind mixed together. Meanwhile in the back of my mind I’m thinking that curtain looks like the scales on a white ghost version of Rainbow Fish. You know, just normal thoughts.
3:55:09 PM There was a car driving by and again now and it looked like a stormtrooper helmet. But then my eyes get all tangled and I can't really see it that well anymore
For a long time I have known about the fact that many white cars and SUVs look like a stormtrooper from the front. For some reason, every time a white car passed by on the road in front of the building, I saw them more and more as actual stormtrooper helmets. I think the first one was one of the cars that actually looks quite a bit like the helmet, and every white car after that was helped along ever so much by the image.
I would watch them go from left to right in the window, but had to turn my head to keep watching. The further to the right I turned my head the more “tangled” my vision got. Like it had turned into ropes and they were poorly braided the further I go.
3:55:56 PM My sweater [on my lap] is expanding
I had worn my favorite mustard colored cable knit sweater over a long sleeved t-shirt. I had to take it off for the blood pressure readings, so I put it in my lap with the design facing up. I figured it could be fun to see if it moved at all. And it did. At first it just looked like it was blowing up like a balloon. Later it only blew up enough to deflate, like it was breathing. I don’t remember if I saw the patterns moving like snakes, but I might have.
3:56:29 PM I wish I had tried special K before this so I could tell the difference between the street drug and the [brain working hard here] legal therapy
3:56:59 PM Did that make any sense?
3:57:11 PM There's something about the flags and the tent and the gray sky that makes me think of {local amusement park}. I think it was because we went there when it was fall.
Not the actual park, but imagine this in the autumn cold with gray skies.
We have had a local (~20 miles away) amusement park since the 70’s. I can still smell the fresh tar paths in the park. My sister and a neighbor went on the scary rollercoaster 20 times or so once. Since then there have been 8 or so new rollercoasters added, all making the original look like a kiddie ride. We went every year for a while as an agreement that if we didn’t go on the (actual dangerous) rides in the Midway at the State Fair, our parents would fork over tickets to the amusement park. And it worked! Our park was way more fun and safer than the sketchy midway. Now that I’m older I realize some of the fun of the Midway is simply not dying because you’re on a 30 year old ride that’s been taken apart and put back together every week during that time. By carnies.
What? Another aside? Sure. Was on a trip with friends and there was a county fair that we stopped by. One of the friends mentioned knowing someone who owned a bunch of amusement park games (miss the basketball hoop, don’t knock the bottles over, the giant stuffed prizes will fall apart in a week, etc.) He asked the owner about the carnies working for him and I think he asked where someone could find those scary people to hire. Turns out they were all college kids on a summer job, many of whom he knew. They let their hair grow out, wear grubby clothes and don’t shave every day. I think it’s so they look like scary carnies that you wouldn’t want to mess with. As he left the midway he recognized some of the carnies and couldn’t believe he didn’t recognize them before. So go ahead and pick a fight with a carnie, they’re probably college kids responsible enough to have summer jobs. You can probably take them in a fight. Unless they’re actually scary just-out-of-jail, carrying a knife that they would know how to puncture you with carnies. Good luck!
3:57:53 PM I feel like I could write volumes about this if I could remember.
3:58:12 PM [Wife suggests I should record it] I am.
3:58:19 PM I think I'd be okay doing it alone. [Wife asks a question] The treatment. [Wife asks a question] Nonono I mean, in here. Doing it. So in future treatments if you off somewhere on your computer..
You have to have a close family member or friend bring you and take you home. Dear Wife has been through so much with me, and is my biggest support and cheerleader. When I had ECT there was a 2 (or 3?) hour gap between my going in for the procedure and being cleared to leave. Most of that time was spent coming out of the anesthesia. So she would take her laptop and go down to the “healthier” fast food place and snack and work from there. The irony is that she worked for the hospital system in an office a block away. So she was working closer to her client than she did at work!
So I was hoping she could be released while I did my doctor approved hallucinations, so she could at least get a little work done. Here I was saying I could do the treatment all by myself, so she could work for the hour between drives.
3:59:04 PM I can still breathe bigger than I normally would but it feels more normal than last time
3:59:53 PM I'm getting a sore neck from looking out the window
My chair was parallel to the windows, so the most interesting thing to look at, outside, was to my right. And I was getting a stiff neck just for looking right. I don’t know if that’s a side effect of the treatment or my new meds, but it was the most uncomfortable part of the therapy. Worse than the nose snuffling taking the meds, since I only have to do that once.
4:00:10 PM Which doesn't make any sense because.. why would I?
4:00:18 PM I think next time I want to watch a movie.
4:00:36 PM Now my sweater is just breathing.
4:00:47 PM I'm going to forget to ask -- I'm. Going. To. Forget. To. Ask. This. Later, but can I do this with my earbuds in?
I’m thankful I said this, as it reminds me to bring my earbuds, and yes, I can wear them during the procedure. And I would have forgotten that immediately. All of those periods are (hopefully) expressing that I was talking in a stilted manner, trying to remember all the right words to say.
4:01:19 PM I kinda want one of those facemask things that court reporters have so I can just babble so nobody can hear me. It's a thing they put over their face that records their voice and I think it might do a speech to text translation. But it would be fun to have one of those.
Here we have a Lance Corporal, likely a Marine Corps Legal Services Reporter, aka MOS 4429. Semper Fi!
I was talking about a steno mask, which looks like a CPAP mask with no straps. If you don’t know what a CPAP mask is, do your own damn google search.
They use it in addition to automatic voice transcription to augment the record with things like descriptions, clarifications, etc.
4:03:10 PM My recording will only do it for ten minutes. So by this I feel like I've done 20 minutes so far, is that right?
My recording is only doing it for 10 minutes I feel like I've done 20 minutes so long ago
4:03:20 PM I'll have to figure out a better thing for next time
I want to figure out what to do better thanks for letting me
4:03:35 PM <deep sigh>
4:04:02 PM My allergies are completely clear.
Hey the transcription wasn’t completely off! It got the “spirit” of the audio. On one line only..
4:04:05 PM I don't suppose they'll let me take it home and do it every day
IIIIIIIII don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't don't suppose suppose suppose suppose suppose suppose suppose suppose suppose you'll
4:04:10 PM I haven't had allergies in a really long time.
4:04:17 PM Is there a cub out here?
4:04:32 PM [clearer, faster] What do you want to do for dinner
4:04:43 PM [Wife talking] k. [Wife talking] k. [Wife talking] k. [Felt like saying k one more time so it didn't sound like I just said KKK, but I had lost count and thought I had done 4]
Ok, I have no idea what the automatic transcription is doing here. I did have bad cell reception, so it might have been retrying and getting multiple answers. Still doesn’t help much, as it only got one line out of five.
4:04:48 PM Can you see my blood pressure numbers from there? [initial reading was slightly low, procedure could make it go high] [Wife -Yes, they're low] Oh. Weird.
4:05:04 PM [nurse asking me if I'm ok] Yep. My neck is sore from looking out the window. I don't know why. [nurse: Are you feeling all the things?] Less all the things than when I peaked but yeah I'm feeling a whole lot of stuff. I feel like I'm coherent though, like you're understanding me
The nurse came in and asked if I was feeling “all the things” because that’s what the kids nowadays say. I wasn’t so much feeling emotions, as feeling tactile and visual things. Nothing audio related, either.
4:05:15 PM [Wife? question re: cars and stormtroopers] White cars do, they're white with the black windows which are the eyes
4:05:56 PM But when I was describing that, I could see them until they were about per-pen-dic-ular from me and then it would feel like my eyes got all tangled up
Again, failing to describe the cars well enough, but she’ll read this and understand.
4:06:04 PM It's a little exhausting not being here
4:06:25 PM Am I saying every word <?> time? It thinks it's transcribing but it isn't doing a very good job cuz most of the - wha? - Ok.
4:06:50 PM I want to be a writer
4:07:17 PM I feel like taking a drink is easier but it still take a confusingly long time
4:08:38 PM I tend to zone out a lot naturally and this is just exacerbating it.
4:09:22 PM Like I've just been yammering the whole time [Wife:yep]
4:09:38 PM I was at a happy hour with {company I worked for 10 years ago}. {name} was there, {name} was there, we were talking to some people and one of them said can't you just shut the f*** up for 5 F****** minutes? And that became a company quote. And I don't think I can.
I do want to be a writer, and taking a drink of water was much easier now that I was almost inside my body. The fact that I said “exacerbating” should mean I’m coming down. And no, I can’t shut the f*** up for five f****** minutes.
4:09:49 PM <deep sigh>
4:10:59 PM I can feel my feet now but they still don't feel like mine. And my hands are upside down again.
4:11:10 PM What are you reading? [Wife: Facebook] I have been unsubscribing from things and unfollowing things a lot lately
4:11:26 PM I didn't miss the electronics when I was without them for four days. So I'm trying to maintain less use of them.
4:14:04 PM Do you think those flowers are real? [Wife: no]
Do they go flowers in real
I seriously did not miss electronics during my hospital stay. (They weren’t allowed, along with sharp things or ropes/cords.) Having come back I’ve slipped a bit back into Facebook because that’s where you get the best “25 celebrities whose left toe is bigger than their right” or “10 things you incorrectly knew the name for”. But I’ve been reading dead trees actual books, practicing y musical instrument, and spent more time in the real world than the virtual. My Animal Crossing town is likely choked with weeds and angry villagers, and my obsession for digging systems of tunnels in Terraria is no longer something I’m driven to do.
4:15:08 PM When I'm reading my book at night the light is just a little too dim I'm reading words wrong and so like the Full there on that box just reminded me that I would probably read that as Pull
4:15:42 PM Is this as boring as hanging out with a drunk person? [Wife: it's about the same] Ok. <laugh> Alright.
4:16:00 PM Once again it's nice having masks, so you can't see my mouth hanging open. No drooling though, so that's good.
4:16:56 PM That's some beautiful light coming in the window [a cloud had just passed]
Part of the electronics minimization and sleep hygiene effort is reading before going to sleep, and not even on an e-reader. I think it’s helped quite a bit. I will admit I watch fewer movies and that bums me out a bit. And I’m feeling my age in the fact that low light makes things blurry. Maybe I’ll start using a magnifying glass. And sit on the front lawn in a lawn chair. And go to buffets at 4pm. Yeah, no.
4:17:31 PM <chuckle> Now the clouds look like water towers.
To be clear, these visual distortions or concepts aren’t replacing what’s there with a zany cartoon image, they’re just making different connections. So while I interpreted the puffy clouds as the tops of ]water towers, I was still seeing them, and (albeit quieter than usual) still knew they were clouds.
4:17:44 PM <deep breath>
4:17:49 PM Everything is inside out again
4:18:25 PM Wow. I was thinking the tinnitus is still there but
real Oh
4:18:54 PM That's, uh, one of the <sigh> One of the side effects of the VNS is it can take away your tinnitus
4:19:02 PM It can also control your bowels, but, we'll hope for the best
I’m sure my Vagus Nerve Stimulator will be many long blog entries. So subscribe so you can get notified when I post something new.
4:19:18 PM [nurse asking me if I was able to stand up yet] Not quite there
4:20:57 PM That silver thing says {iowa college}on it
4:21:09 PM I got a {iowa college} newsletter and I was reading it and confused {iowa college} with {east coast college}, maybe it's the other way around. anyway I'm seeing all these things like {Daughter} should try and, {Daughter} would like that, {Daughter} <mumbles> yet it turned out to be {iowa college}. So it turned it into {Son} wouldn't do that.
4:21:16 PM [Looking at my cup] When we were little we auditioned for a local science tv show and I dunno I felt like I did well but neither my sister or i got a part but um I'll be able to remember what the name of it is at some point. One of the last things they did was gave us a cup, and they said, make up something about the cup and I so I decided a spaceship with fleas. And I dunno what the inspiration about that but apparently they didn't appreciate my imagination
Well Well but but you you might might at least least arrive arrive at at home home one laugh laugh and a a big big head which was bigger bigger then then a couple couple and and a a tiger tiger n***** n***** and and I I also also feel feel pretty pretty sure sure about about bad bad thing things currently currently late late
Daughter is at east coast college, Son is at Iowa college. Both liberal arts, but those two are experiencing college completely differently. Son was the first to go and he’s mastered the art of doing as little of the college extras as possible. Not likely he even knows the sports his college plays. Daughter is working hard to make friends, and actually participating in optional new student events, evening talks, and even attending a sporting event! (Volleyball)
I realize now I can’t really anonymize the kids show, because we’re not sure it was ever produced. I also didn’t get the part of “child movie reviewer” on a local morning show (which at one point had the most viewers in the nation – of morning shows) but I did send in a “helpful hint” and won a t-shirt and they performed it on the show! Yeah, except the idea came to me because I had to take the (very large) trash bag out to the trash cans. One day I saw a skateboard and thought I could just put the bag on that, roll it down the ever-so-slight downward pitch in our sidewalk, and voila! I’m at the trash cans. Except the happy couple hosting the show didn’t understand, and took a tiny little garbage bag, like a foot square, and tried to demonstrate it. They made an awkward bending over show of it and politely brushed it off. The fact that someone at the network selected it means someone understood what a trash bag was.
And hey, transcription? Now it’s not only getting it wrong, and repeating words, but now it’s accusing me of using possibly the most horrible word ever! I verified with the wife that I did not say it, BTW.
4:22:28 PM the transcription on this is far more confusing than anything I could say
4:23:29 PM <deep sigh>
4:23:22 PM Are my pupils dilated or anything?
I'd I'd I'd I'd I'd I'd like like like like like like people people people people people people to to to to to to die die die die die die later later later later later later this this this this this this afternoon afternoon afternoon afternoon afternoon afternoon
4:23:44 PM [Wife: no] I'm not sensitive to light so probably not.
4:23:44 PM Another ticket? [Wife: no]
Apparently I’d like people to die later this afternoon. Nope, didn’t say that either! The reference to “another ticket” is that my wife’s job used a ticketing system, like a help desk does, to send out little missions. She’s been so wonderful about taking me to appointments and things like these when I can’t drive, that it breaks my heart to see her having to work in uncomfortable exam or waiting rooms with crappy wifi.
4:24:30 PM I feel like the person at the party who hasn't had beer before and after half a beer they're like "Oh I'm so drunk!" like maybe this is all just my imagination
I'm beautiful before and after half beautiful girl
4:27:44 PM What? The transcription says I'd like people to die later this afternoon
to die later this afternoon
4:28:26 PM I didn't say that did I? [Wife: no] k
I just
I was very self conscious about the trip. Was I being obnoxious (no!)? Was I wackier than any other patient has been (no!)? Was I acting like a freshman at a kegger (no!)?
4:28:37 PM I feel like I'm slowly coming down but then I realize I can't feel my legs
4:30:02 PM Not like I'm paralyzed, but just like I'm high
4:30:11 PM I haven't felt anxious or depressed or freaking out or sad I'm mostly just curious
Bad I'm looking for Victoria
I have no idea who Victoria is! Honest! Again, not an emotional experience, just that I was watching this crazy movie as it unfurled itself.
4:30:45 PM [nurse asks if I can stand up yet] Yeah I really try though
4:31:11 PM Could you get me more water? Thank you
4:31:22 PM My sweater isn't moving as much as before but it's still doing something
4:32:35 PM Oh that's cold! Thank you.
They did indeed bring more water, and it was super cold, and that hit the proverbial spot. I felt like I was recovering slower than most people, but then I’m sure the ketamine and the meds I had on board had a little party in my brain. And it’s hard to leave a party early.
4:32:15 PM Like, coffee.
4:32:45 PM There's nothing going on with my head that would prevent me from putting on my sweater, is there?
I wasn’t sure if I had some apparatus on my head, but I didn’t. When the sweater was coming on I was looking through it channeling Linda Evangelista in George Michael’s Freedom 90! video. You should check it out, it’s awesome. The song is good too, I suppose.
4:33:30 PM <blood pressure cuff being taken off>
And that’s it. I finally was able to stand up, and Wife took me out to the car, and we headed right up to the cabin. She drove. Not sure if I slept better that night, but I slept well. No after effects that evening or the next day. My second treatment is tomorrow, and that’s the shot, so it should be a fun ride. I’m sure I’ll post about that, too. Because we all know I can’t shut the f*** up for five f****** minutes!
Oh I meant to say if anyone has any questions, issues, or advice, just drop me a note. Presumably you can do that from the ‘contact’ page?
a Scarlet D 