"Nothing's gonna stand in our way, not tonight..."

I have found myself coming across several statements today that I felt I could respond to starting out, "After spending three days in a psych ward..." I have not actually responded with this, but I have thought about it. And I think one of the most interesting things about this is that my expectation for people's reactions has not been an uncomfortable silence where they are thinking "Why should I listen to this person who is obviously crazy because she just spent three days in a psych ward?", but more of a hushed reverence where they are thinking "Ah, we must listen to the wisdom she gleaned from "observing" a psych ward for three days." I now feel that when my mom gets on one of her rambling goes-nowhere stories about the men she works with at Caterpillar that while I have never really met any of them, I feel pretty comfortable thinking are at least somewhere in the vicinity of the category of redneck or white trash, or whatever colorful epithet you prefer, I can say, "Yeah, I spend three days with some of those people in a psych ward."

So, anyway, here's the scoop. The whole and real story for anyone who is curious about some part or cluless about all of it (I don't know how many people actually know what happened to me this weekend right now). Saturday night I had a party at my apartment which went swimmingly, up until the point that I went away from all of my guests and laid down in my closet for some reason (and I apologize to all of my guests that I ignored and left to clean up the trappings of the soiree). You see, lately I've noticed that when I have an "episode" of depression, it's different than it used to be. Before I had some event to point to as the catalyst, and whether that event was really what I was sad about or not, at least I could recognize it as a trigger and know why I spiraled downward. As of late, I honestly don't know why I start feeling bad and it tends to come out of nowhere. Like Saturday night. I've also noticed that instead of crying and wallowing in self-pity, I now become angry and frustrated (again I'm not sure the reason behind these emotions) and cut my arm and throw things in my apartment. So, after everyone left my place, I did both of these things, but really trashed my place (hence the last blog). I then hung out with a couple of people that were still at the front of my apartment building, tried making out with a friend of mine (which I've been tending to do a bit, and again, I'm not really sure why other than it is a challenge because he persistently refuses), drove around town a bit, knocked on a friend's door (thereby freaking out his girlfriend I learned later), came back home (all while barefoot and wearing a camisole and pajama pants mind you) and took the rest of the Zoloft I had (three 100mg pills) and four or five handfuls of Ibuprofen. I then went to sleep, woke up some hours later to vomit on the area of my carpet next to my bed, stayed in a half-asleep, half-vomiting, half-snot-infused-sort-of-daze, all while feeling really shitty. My friend called me (I was supposed to attend another friend's bridal shower), I told her I thought I should go to the doctor (so maybe I could feel not shitty), she came over, saw the remainder of the Ibuprofen on my kitchen table, took me outside and called an ambulance. Two police cars, a fire truck, and an ambulance all arrived (the ambulance being the last on the scene), and I was carried off, with an IV in me and all my vitals monitored to the Kishwaukee hospital. I was in the emergency room for a couple of hours while they ran blood tests and gave me a tetanus shot and then I was admitted to the psych ward. As this blog is getting pretty long already and as the totality of my experience in this ward is probably good for a whole other blog or two, I'll cut this story short, and get to my explanation.

My explanation: okay, I can't really give a complete and accurate reason since I'm still not sure what actually caused this chain of events (because, if I do say so myself, it was a pretty kick-ass party at my place, although being really drunk off of Everclear-infused punch most of the evening may have had something to do with it). But I thought about it a bit while sitting around in a confined space and think I have a good grasp on at least a partial reason. I have thought about suicide and had it as one of my options for a long time now, basically as long as I can remember, but especially since I was a freshman in high school (my first absolutely clear memory of thinking about offing myself). I think I needed to come closer to actual suicide than I ever had in the past as a way to finally really deal with those thoughts and what lies behind them. I think I am now revoking my 26 rule. I don't want to say that I experienced one of those I want to live! moments, because I didn't. I knew when taking the pills (the thought of any pills now make me pretty nauseous, and I don't think I'll be purchasing any Ibuprofen for quite some time) that I had a chance of dying, but also knew that the likelihood of that happening was pretty slim (these were basically the cheapest, OTC pills I could find when I bought them and have used three instead of the recommended two whenever I had a headache). So, I didn't have some life-is-great epiphany, but I also am pretty sure that in the future, I will no longer think of killing myself as an option. So, while I may have regrets about this weekend (and feel really bad about my three great, sweethearts of friends cleaning up the huge mess that was my apartment), it looks as though it did produce something worthwhile. Speaking of which, another good, sweetheart of a friend came to visit me and brought me the graphic novel V for Vendetta, which I am almost finished with. I may have to wait until tomorrow to write a post about it, though, since I have actually been pretty busy making deliveries and such at work today. Oh, one more thing, it seems my flower precedes me. I have had several indications of this in the past, and another one today. I went to a professor's office seeking his signature, and the first thing he said to me was, "Oh, I recognize you because of the flower. What's your name?"