No, the number isn’t a typo, and the title is only a slight exaggeration. Today marks the 10 year anniversary of an event which changed my life, and I need to tell the story to someone.
10 years ago today, after Hurricane Iniki hit Hawai’i, I became close to catatonic from clinical depression. I was not responding to the world, to anything. I had gone to my fiance’s house call him J for now) to ride out the storm, and, much as I loved him, nothing could get me out of the horror, the pain, and the fear that enveloped me. Because of the disruption caused by the storm, it wasn’t until the following day that he was able to call a couple of friends for a lift and get me checked into a hospital. I did not think I was going to check out again. I don’t remember much of that time, but I remember wishing my heart would just stop and let me die because I was already dead. I remember the woman I shared a room with praying “for the woman in the next bed” but I never learned her name. Mostly I remember being stuck in a hell I could not get out of. Some time later, J told me he looked into my eyes, but did not see a soul there.
The day after I checked into the hospital, Sunday, the near catatonia ended. I won’t go into the details because they involve what I still insist on considering a miracle, and I respect this board to much to witness in MPSIMS. What I will tell you is I remember hearing my priest was on her way, then she was there, then she was saying the Eucharist and things change. Coming out of that numb, null, non-feeling state hurt as badly as anything I’ve done in raw emotional terms, but I was able to think, to feel to respond.
There’s no immediate happy ending here. It took a year of struggle to get back on my feet, including 2 more hospitalizations. I found out how hard it was to get treatment for depression if one wasn’t an alcoholic or a drug addict, and, after my health insurance had run out, it took a call to a suicide hotline to find a place which would treat me (the clinic they referred me to had turned me down when I’d called them a few weeks earlier). I also had too much pride and too many issues to turn around and come home. My engagement also ended. It was a tremendous struggle, and I learned a lot, perhaps most importantly that I wasn’t some less-than-human creature.
Now, I’m back in Pennsylvania, watching the dawn from a gorgeous apartment in a great location. I have wonderful friends, the kind of people I always hoped I’d meet, and a marvelous place to go on lines to discuss everything from Great Cosmic Issues to people having sex with traffic cones! 
This week will be rough, as it has been rough for the past 10 years. This year, a bit more so than much, since I was laid off from a job I loved a month ago, so, even as I watch the dawn, I wonder how much longer I’ll be able to do this before I have to move back in with my parents.
I’ve had another 10 years. I think I’ve done some good with it. I’m pretty sure agentfroot will be checking in and agreeing with that. A month ago, the layoff combined with other factors put me in similar circumstances to the ones which nearly killed me a decade ago, and I survived it, albeit a bit rockily at times. I’m still surviving it, even if not quite as well as usual at the moment. Still, today I’ll be preparing another new resume and I’ll keep searching for the next great job.
I will remember what it was like a year ago today (can anyone in the US help it?), including what it was like to look out at a perfect autumn morning, then later to be one of thousands of people evacuating downtown Pittsburgh, not knowing what was going to continue to happen. I’ll also remember my own day the world ended, and the day it began again, however painfully. People speak of being born-again Christians. What happened two days later was like a rebirth, and I swear it was just as painful as the original one was! and 
Thank you for listening to me ramble, folks, and, if I may, my friends. Like I said, I needed to do this, even if it’s only casting electrons into the ether.
CJ