I have gone roughly three weeks without any major depressive moods. I think that's a first, though I can't say for sure, given the murkiness of my memory of certain time periods. But I suspect that this is a first.
The most unusual thing about this is that it's not for lack of trying. I had a couple of instances where I did or thought things that made me depressed, and I managed to pull out of it. This is a pretty major development for me.
I have asked myself a couple of times since the last entry whether it was worth it to continue this. The worst is largely written at this point, and I'm ever fearful of seeming like I'm trying to get attention. The reason for that fear, I think, makes it worth it to continue.
We were kicked out of our hovel in the Winter of 1999. I don't know exactly why, but my impression was that my dad's relationship with the guy who was renting it to us had soured. We moved to an apartment on the East side of Mount Vernon, which is the more-shitty part of town. I remember it was within walking distance of a bridge over a river, and a Calvary Chapel, which was also the name of the church my mom attended in Spokane at the time.
I wasn't really happy with the move, or anything about life at that point. Dad would yell at me to help move and pack stuff, and I didn't want to. So I yelled back.
It was a particularly desperate shouting match, shortly after New Year's in 2000, that saw my time with my dad end. I yelled that I wanted to kill myself, and that I would jump off the nearby bridge. He yelled and said he wouldn't let me. I told him he had to sleep at some point.
There's a sort of threshhold for dealing with a suicidal person. Ideation and rumination are one thing. Making a plan is another, and it's after the latter that most mental health professionals will become proactive in trying to find you a psych ward or some other restricted location. I had thought about suicide before that fight with dad, and had even threatened. But that was the first time I made a plan, and, I think, the first time I believed I would do it.
Dad called 911, not knowing what else to do, and I was taken in the back of a police car to a local hospital. Dad and Karen came to see me, and talked with the doctors there, who were trying to find a room in a psych ward. The nearest one was in Sacred Heart. In Spokane.
I was transported across the state by a kindly, older couple in what they called 'The Rainbow Van.' I remember an odd sense of enjoyment. We played music on the radio and sang along to Three Dog Night, of all things (Joy To The World, naturally).
Mom was there to meet me when we got to Sacred Heart. It was night time. I hugged her and cried, and I think this is the point where I told her I never wanted to go back, that I wanted to stay with her. She said 'of course.'
There was a lot of psychological warfare between my mom and dad on us kids. Dad insisted that mom's drug abuse was the cause of all the problems in their relationship, and he told me years later that if not for the drugs, they wouldn't probably still be together.
I didn't know any better, and believed him, and had said some things to mom that were hurtful prior to that night. I can't imagine how much that must have hurt her to hear from me. If I'd had any doubt that mom would let me stay with her, it was because of that.
I stayed in a room on the ward for a couple of days. I spoke with a couple of therapists, and was prescribed some medication, not the first psych meds I'd taken, and certainly not the last. At various times, I've been on any of about 15 different medications for various reasons, most of them before I was 18. Psychiatry has come a long way in the time since.
I finished 8th grade at Northwood Middle School. I did not particular enjoy it, but this is around the time I met my best friend, Kevin. He was the first person who tried to be friends with the sad, quiet kid, and he was someone I could relate to. I don't want to say too much about what he'd dealt with here, but he knew what it was like to be from a broken home situation. From early on, he was my brother in arms. Our relationship wasn't always easy, or smooth, but he remains my dearest friend on this Earth.
Mom did what she cold to help me, but at the time of my arrival, she had a five year old daughter, and was pregnant with a son. I don't think she could have given me the attention I needed even if she'd known exactly how to help me, and Bruce was useless as a father at the time (and has only marginally improved sense).
I raged a lot. I would rage at school and at home. I didn't do any school work. I mostly just stayed in my room. In one instance, I got so angry that I tore a towel rod out of the bathroom wall after mom had accused me, during a conversation with someone else, that I was just like my father. I stormed out of the bathroom and demanded she apologize, unknowingly still holding the towel rod. I remember the fear in the voice when she said she was sorry, and begged me not to hurt her.
I hated myself for a long time for that.
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