And not in a nice way, but rather in a completely and truly fuck up your life/visit the emergency room/ permanent psychological problems kind of way.
gruesome details please?
Yes, and change minor details for dramatic effect and gratuitous nudity if you need to.
All joking aside, I hope your day tomorrow goes well, and that you spend it happily.
Yes, plese tell us the story.
I was sidelined for a year & a half with a foot injury that made it excruciatingly painful to walk. My physical & emotional health went down the drain. The medical profession was callous & uncaring – one doctor told me it was all in my head. People were horrible. My manager got angry with me because I asked someone else to carry a report to an office at the other end of the hall. There were times when I didn’t see how I would ever recover from the damage, and truthfully I’m still dealing with it.
Misery loves company, so tell us your story.
You are better, one hopes?
Settle in, 'cause this may take a while and I may not come out not looking really great.
Oh, as for how I’m doing 2 years later, well I’m on an upward curve, but I’m not yet at what I call “normal,” which is another way of saying I’m still actively depressed.
2 years ago I started my graduate school career at Florida State. I was going for a masters in Library science and I was also trying to get back together with my ex-girlfriend, who had broken up with me back in July 2000.
My first and probably biggest mistake was that I wasn’t doing the grad school thing as much for me as I was for my 'rents, which I have learned doesn’t bode well for me, grade wise. Plus, if I’m gonna be in my mode of telling horrible truths as James Hetfield is fond of saying, the real reason I was in Tallahassee was my ex-girfriend, Rachel.
When we broke up Rachel said that she still wanted to be friends, (lie) and that she wouldn’t be against working at getting back together (lie).
After the fact, it comes out that she didn’t even want me to come down to Tallahassee and that she wasn’t happy the entire 15 months that we were together except for the one thing it gave her: “a relationship: a feeling of comfort and security.”
But Rachel doesn’t come out and tell me that she doesn’t want me moving down to Tallahassee, I’m apparently supposed to figure it out through ESP.
Anyway, I get down and start classes and quickly realize that while library science isn’t the most boring field I could get my masters in, it 's in the Top 5 with a bullet. It doesn’t help that 80% of the other people in the program have their bachelors in library scince, so they already speak the lingo, while it’s all Javanese to me.
But…I’m not really focusing on classes, I’m focusing on Rachel.
Wait, here’s a quote, which might shed some light on things:
Have you ever been in love?
Horrible, isn’t it?
It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…You give them a piece of you. They don’t ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like “Maybe we should just be friends” or “how perceptive” turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart.
It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love.
I hate love.
Rose Walker
So, I’m focusing on Rachel, not so much on my classes and having problems with getting a long distance service established at my apartment, and then my rational mind decides to take 3 weeks vacation and heads off to Orlando, leaving my emotional mind in charge, with a parting admonishing of “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Oh, yeah, like your emotional mind is going to follow that all the way.
I ended up getting arrested and being charged with a misdemeanor count of stalking, which in Florida carries a maximum penalty of up to 1 year in jail.
Yes, it was Rachel who had me charged.
I got to spend 36 lovely hours in the Leon County Jail.
I got to wear an actual prison uni!!!
I figured out that, at least in Florida, juveniles wear orange unis, adults wear blue unis and trustees get to wear the classic black and white striped numbers.
I also got to know a bit of jail lingo—you got a wristband that was either white or blue.
White= misdemeanor (The guards call it a “Timex”)
Blue=felony (The guards call it a “Rolex”)
How cute.:rolleyes:
I got to share a 6’ by 4’ holding cell with 9 other inamtes for 2 1/2 hours.
I learned that the doctor/counseler privacy thing doesn’t extend to inmates, which led to me not being truthful, after I had sworn to tell the truth.
Oh, ueah, EVERYBODY in jail is innocent:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
So, I was released and got back to my apartment and got my car back and then called my parents and explained what had happened.
Not the worst conversation I’ve ever had with them…wait…actually, yes it was.
It didn’t help that I had to keep answering the door only to be served with not one but two restraining orders that Rachel had placed on me.
It didn’t seem like I would be getting my masters in Library Science, at least not from FSU, so I went over to school and went through the semi-humiliating process of withdrawing from the unviersity. There’s nothing quite like having to stage whisper that the specific reason you are withdrawing is because you were arrested and charged with stalking, which magically causes all talking to cease and 50 people turn and do nothing but give you The LOOK.
So, I pretty much stayed in my apartment, except to go meet with my attorney, and to greet yet another messenger, this one from the University, with a letter which informed me that I had had been suspended and faced a disciplinary hearing for a possible violation of the Student Code of Conduct.
That meant I got to go 9 rounds with Karen Silvestri, who was a member of the board of the Student Code. My arguement was that 1) The “alleged incident” hadn’t taken place on school grounds/school property, so FSU had no jurisdiction and I had already withdrawn, so what the fuck was the point of going through a hearing when the likely result was that I would be expelled.
So anyway, the day before my court date, which was November 8, 2000, I was coming back from the local convienience store and driving through a residential neighborhood. I remember a pickup truck pulling out in front of me, then the next thing I know people are asking me if I have any ID and I’m half lying, half sitting on something.
Turns out I’m in the ER.
Turns out I’ve been in a serious car accident.
Turns out my favorite Pearl Jam T-shirt has a serious rip in it and my jeans are pretty much soaked with blood, (mine.)
Turns out I get to have 20 staples and 12 stitches in my head to close up the gash I got when the left side of my head hit the edge of the drivers side window.
Needless to say I did not go to court the next day. I would have looked damn foolish, seeing as my head was wrapped in white gauze bandages.
I was seriously fucked up.
Not quite as fucked up as my beloved 1994 Honda Accord which had 2 broken axles.
Turns out I had been T-boned square on the drivers side door by a 16 year old in BMW 535i who had decided that he didn’t have to heed STOP signs and blew through one at 45 mph, at which point he hit my car, which then hit a house, causing approximately $10,000 worth of damage to the house.
So, I flew up to scenic Bath, ME and moved into my parents elegant retirement castle, which they had just finished redoing using my and my brothers inheritance.
Turns out I had also fractured one of my molars which had to be pulled out. The oral sugeon actually had to use the fucking hammer to get the damn thing out.
I flew back down to Tallahassee for my court date and ended up with an adjudication and then flew back to Bath.
I was seriously depressed.
I mean I was in the pit and I was freefalling with nothing but blackness to all sides.
It was BAD.
Then we, (we being me, my mom and my dad) found out in March 2001 that my mom had 4th stage lung cancer and myo dysplasia SP?
The doctors refuse to give you “estimates” of “how much time you have left,” but when my mom asked if she should buy a winter coat, the doc said she shouldn’t plan on it.
Well, things weren’t going that much better for me. One of the conditions of my adjudication was that I go to counseling. However, the counselor had to report anything that I said that could be considered “harmful or dangerous” that I said regarding the “alleged victim,”, that being Rachel.
That led me to not being entirely truthful with the counselor, which makes the entire point of counseling utterly useless.
Plus, my 'rents were getting on me to get a job and I wasn’t having a hell of a lot of luck, and I was getting more and more and more depressed, so finally, one fine day in June, I left.
Drove down to my former hometown of Rockville, MD, with the intention of committing suicide.
Needless to say, that didn’t happen, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this.
One thing that kept me going was the message boards at Neil Gaiman.com. That sounds well and truly pathetic, but it’s true.
But I ended up going back up to Bath, ME, and arrived in time to spend the next 2 months trying to reconcile with my mom while she was going through her 2nd round of chemo.
I got a job at L.L. Bean, and then got interested in being a radiology technician, so I applied to a bunch of schools, some of which I was wait-listed for, but I didn’t get into any and took an Anatomy/Physiology class.
Then, on Tuesday March 12, 2002 at 9:08 AM, my mom died.
I was there in the room with her, when she died. I looked at her face and saw her eyeschange as she went.
I’m very, very glad that the 4 people she loved the most, (me, my dad, her younger brother Dick, and my brother Matt) were with her when she died.
Since then, I’ve finished and failed, that anatomy class, and I’m back working at Bean, this time in a different position.
But things have changed. Thanks to that wonderful 2 1/2 hours I spent in that holding cell I now have semi-clausterphobia.
Also I’ve more or less resigned myself to being single for the rest of my life. That’s single as in not dating anyone. At all.
But things could be worse. I could have done jail time.
So, any questions?
Typhoon, sorry, no gratuitous nudity, at least not on this post. Maybe next time.
No, not really. You, for the most part, look like somebody that was born with a perpetual short straw in your hand.
**
This is the one thing in the story that makes you look bad, IMO. It is your parents money until it actually becomes an inheritance.
Don’t give up on finding someone special. I have thought that I will be alone forever, but when I see how much our society is geared towards couples, my thoughts change on the subject. Maybe yours will as well.
BTW, what was the outcome in the case in Tallehassee?
Thanks to my lawyer and the fact that it was my first offense, we got a plea bargain which ended with an adjudication, which, as far as I can tell, emans that while yes, there may be evidence that the alleged incident took place, I won’t agree to that.
I ended up with 6 months probation, a $300 fine, 40 hours community service and I had to see a counselor for at least 5 sessions.
Criminey! You’ve won the exacta of human suffering. I’ve considered suicide before, so I know how bad you must have been feeling. I also know how strong you have to be to not do it. Give yourself props for that. It takes courage.
As a side note, I was born and raised in Rockville. Where did you live? I lived in “Flower Valley” a housing community near Rt 28/Muncaster Mill and Georgia Avenue.
(My apologies if this shows up more than once… the board ate my first post so I’m trying again.)
Actually, FWIW, I think you are doing a hell of a good job putting your life back together after so much chaos. You’ve been back to school, gotten a job (and kept it), and probably hardest of all, watched someone that you love die. I’m glad you could be with her in her last months and final moments, that probably meant more to her than you will ever realize. After all of these things, I’m sure you have a new perspective on life, possibly cynical but maybe also a little hopeful.
Best Wishes to you. You’ve made great strides - keep going.
Just keep moving along that upward curve. I wish you all the best.
We lived in the “Falls Orchard” development near Falls Road and Wootton Mill Parkway. I went to Richie Park Elementary and graduated from Wootton High School in 1988.
Oh, thanks for the kind words, I truly appreciate them.
I don’t know if this helps, but if you ever need anything, anything at all, just drop me a line, I’ll do anything I can. I’m serious, I’ll do anything to help.