Truth

In 2006, I spent five months in jail. Flashback to 2003, my mother in the hospital in Carson City and me living in Belmont, California with my husband and working at a job, as an alcohol and drug counselor, that I loved. But, I loved my mother more. I quit my job, took a job in South Lake Tahoe for much less money in order to be close to my mother. My husband stayed behind to ready the house for sale. Just as things began to come together to make the transition easy my mother passed on. My beloved mother, my hero, died. My husband was still in Belmont. I was in Carson City staying with my sister, a late stage alcoholic who my husband had lately spent a month helping out because she had fallen and broken a hip. Now I was staying with her. Not easy. In the next couple of months I would take her to the hospital to detox twice and try without success to get her into rehab. My husband finished the house and put it on the market then joined me in Carson City. We found our own place and for several weeks things seemed to be going in the right direction. Then the bottom fell out when I discovered that he has relapsed. I found myself intimately involved with two active alcoholics, both of whom were abusive--my sister emotionally and verbally, my husband emotionally, verbally, and physically. So much had been happening in my life, so many changes and losses and I had began to cycle manically. I had been diagnosed with Bipolar II several years before but with my life running semi-smoothly I had stopped my medications and now without them I found myself either running higher than a kite or falling into hopeless depression. The cycling was erratic and cruel and after a failed suicide attempt I left my husband and without options went to stay with my sister again. From the frying pan into the fire is how things went. My sister was drinking more than ever and arriving home from work after a day of treating alcoholics and drug addicts I would then have to deal with her. Twice I had to take her into the hospital to detox and the one time that I managed to convince her to enter a rehab she spent one night there and then left because they wouldn't let her keep her makeup. When I couldn't handle the situation anymore I found a weekly motel in South Lake Tahoe and eventually an apartment. It made more sense to be on my own and closer to work. But my sister's condition only declined and no one else was willing to help her. I made welfare checks by telephone on a daily basis and went over the hill once a week to make sure she was alive and well. Then the day came when I arrived at her home to find the police and an ambulance there. She had gotten drunk and was running naked around her backyard. The neighbors called the police and the police called an ambulance. She went into the hospital, into intensive care, where they detoxed her. She was in ICU for a week. She refused another inpatient rehab so I offered to help her find an outpatient clinic. She stayed sober two weeks before I got a call from her that she had fallen again. She didn't think it was serious but I drove over the hill to check on her and found her lying on the floor in her own waste unable to move. Again I called an ambulance. She had dislocated her shoulder and broken her hip again and once more she needed to be medically detoxed. For me things were going from bad to worse. I began traveling back and forth from South Lake Tahoe to Carson City twice a day to maintain her house and her pets during the six week period she spent in first the hospital then the rehabilitation clinic. Once she left the clinic I would take her to physical therapy three days a week before going to work. At this same time my youngest daughter lost a baby and spent a week in the hospital with a blood infection undergoing several blood transfusions. These were long days and trying times for me and I entered a prolonged manic phase. I couldn't sleep or eat. I lost thirty pounds in six weeks. And got myself into trouble. She had given me her gas card for traveling, her check book for household bills, and her credit card for household and pet supplies. In my manic state I began to shop during the night buying all kinds of things that I don't remember buying. I certainly don't have storerooms full of items purchased. My daughter tells me I would show up at odd times with groceries and household supplies. I bought tires for my sister's SUV just to buy them. I shopped at Walmart and bought ridiculous things I didn't need and didn't keep. I was spending $50.00 a day on gas traveling back and forth from South Lake Tahoe and Carson City. Then one day I crashed. I entered a depression that wouldn't go away. I wrote a note to my sister telling her what I had done, I drove to the Sheriff's department and told them what I did. I quit my counseling job and took a room service job in a Tahoe casino-hotel because I didn't feel worthy of my work anymore. And I waited for the s**t to hit the fan. Police showed up at my door, handcuffed me, and took me to jail. I was bailed out later that night but the snowball was rolling and nothing would be the same again. The day before I was to go to court I rented a hotel room and attempted to asphyxiate myself. I had been researching suicide for weeks and was sure it would work. It didn't and so I took the stockpile of pills I had acquired and alcohol and went off to try again. I did not want to live. I did not want my children to look at me with disgust and disappointment. I had never been in trouble of any kind before and I didn't know how I would handle it. I just wanted to die, to leave before I could inflict anymore damage on those I loved. The pills and the alcohol didn't work. I woke up covered in my own vomit in my truck that was under three feet of snow. I gave up. Again. I drove into town and to my daughter's house. From there I called the police who picked me up and took me to the hospital. I was then transported to the county psychiatric hospital, where I stayed for two weeks, then off to jail (Later I will write about my jail experience). I am now a convicted felon. I have finished my probation and paid my restitution. I hold myself fully accountable for my actions and for the consequences of those actions. My life will never be the same. I can no longer do the work I once loved. My oldest daughter doesn't talk to me. I no longer associate with my siblings, or should I say they no longer associate with me. In fact, I just found out a few months ago that my sister died in 2008. I can understand why no one let me know but not why they didn't let my children know. Today I am trying to put my life back together. While I was in jail I saw a psychiatrist and went back on my meds. When I got out I began what would be three years of therapy. I am still on my meds. I still think about dying every day but I won't act on those thoughts again. I saw the sadness, the heartbreak, my suicide attempts caused my children and I can't bear to cause them any more pain. My life is not where I want it to be but life is a process I am willing to work on. Writing this down is part of that process. I haven't told anyone outside my children and my therapist my story. I don't know what tomorrow will bring but it can't be any worse than yesterday and someday I will find my way home. Someday I will be able to hold my head up again. Someday I will like myself again.