Description: This story is written from my OWN true personal experience, please keep this in mind when/if you leave a review. Wanted to share this not only because as I edited, I'd relieved the content could easily have been applied to any of the above mentioned characters especially Hannah, Clay, Alex and Tyler, but also as way of showing anyone else who might be reading and dealing with their own grief from loss that they're not alone; I've been there. Please, seek help and talk about your hurt and pain, don't hold it in...I promise you one way or another your grief will find a way out if you bottle it up and don't deal with it; mine did. Speak up and reach out, it does make living with the heartache a bit easier; I promise.
Disclaimer: I claim full rights to this story, it is mine and only mine.
Author's Note: Seeing as how this story was originally written to deal and pen down my own personal trauma, any rude or disrepectful reviews will promptly be removed.
Reliving My Trauma
It's not August, 12th, 2019 currently, but that's alright. Tonight's date of February, 7th, 2021 is much more significant. Today marks two years since my mental breakdown while closing at work. This will forever be a day that both terrified the living daylights out of me and forced me to finally take the leap of faith necessary to seek help and turn my life around.
My shift began like any other; I clocked in and took my ten dollar bank before beginning my deliveries. Not feeling or acting my usual happy, sarcastic, and filled-with-endless energy self that day; I mostly kept to myself between deliveries and did my own thing. Keep in my I hadn't had the best nights sleep, which was my own fault. I'd woken up to use the bathroom a few hours before my shift and checked my email before lying back down.
This proved to be the worst decision of my life and I hadn't even realized it. As fate would have it, a friend I hadn't heard from in a while private messaged me on , a site that I post stories on. Needless to say, I was excited and filled with joy to hear from them as the message was pertaining to a story of mine they'd read and enjoyed. Not wanting to wait, I immediately wrote a long and winded reply back before lying back down.
Needless to divulge, I'd gone to work exhausted though my inner enthusiasm hid this fact well. As the evening waned on, I went on my deliveries and completed my nightly chores dutifully. Now, I cannot pinpoint the moment my delirium crept in as I do not remember much from before or during it's arrival. What I DO recall and will never forget are the delusions I suffered. Each scenario played before me in my mind was of a family member or friend who had taken their life.
For any whom might be reading this, if you can't deal with my truth...stop reading now. For those who have been there themselves and will relate? ...Please, continue reading my fellow warrior's. I'm now going to list and recount every last delusion that I'm able to remember to the best of my ability below:
1.) My Mother's Mom, my Grandmother was not her real Mother. The sweet loving lady she'd grown up with had adopted her as her own daughter after her real one had taken their life a few years after my mother was born. She had been silently drowning in heart break ever since the love of her life had left her and found another.
In real life, my Mom is not adopted and there is a birth certificate to prove so. However, her Father had lost his life at a young age to an accidental carbon monoxide poisoning while working on a car in his garage. One can note the subtle similarities which are altogether frightening.
2.) My Ex Joseph was becoming increasingly lonely in Seoul, South Korea. Though he had met many new friends overseas ( I, myself taught English in Huai'an, China for a few months) while teaching English, Joe found himself missing the one's he'd left back home, along with his family and myself. During our last conversation over the phone, I'd mentioned how I had left Huai'an, China and gone back home.
Hoping to surprise his family and myself, Joseph booked the next possible flight home to New Jersey from Seoul, South Korea. Unfortunately for him, he'd soon realized I'd landed in South Carolina instead, ready to begin the next chapter of my life with a clean slate (We'd broken up while both overseas but promised to remained friends and had succeeded, if only for a short while in reality).
The news I'd done so without him and by myself proved too painful for Joseph to bare. ...He drove out and parked near the bay, as we had countless times before, and ended his existence a few nights later; unable to withstand his heartache. This particular hallucination never happened or else I wouldn't be here writing. ...Yet, by some miracle, I am.
3.) My bosses Mother lost her battle with ongoing depression and brought her suffering to an end when he was only just entering early adulthood. Once again, this did not actually occur. My boss at the times Mother was in fact alive and well. How do I know this? Simple, he had spoken of her a few times in the past. To the best of my knowledge, this vision doesn't relate to anyone. ...Well, that I know of at least.
Those still hell bent on reading will recognize the commonalities if you're unlucky enough to know me. A little humor is essential while revealing my gingerless soul for all to read as this ISN'T easy for anyone to do...especially for myself.
4.) The voice that spoke to me throughout the remainder of my shift closing that night was a stranger to my ears. I've since come to the conclusion that whomever was speaking was possibly God, one of his Angels, or a guardian of an unknown origin sent to watch over me in my hour of need. I don't remember much else, only that, at one point I'd been sweeping the floors...at times with the broom upside down..., laughing, talking to myself (presumably with my cousin Matthew who'd lost his own life in 2015 to Suicide), and pointing at my wrist (at a tattoo I'd gotten a few years earlier in his memory).
Noticing that I clearly was not okay, a co-worker who had been closing alongside me offered to finish up mopping so that I could head home. ...I owe him my eternal gratitude as his actions later saved my LIFE. Upon counting out my tips, clocking out and leaving; I found myself sitting in my pickup truck with my foot on the brakes as I shifted through gears. At one point ( In my hospital stays abstract, it was reported I'd been doing so for three hours straight), I'd gone to leave but soon found myself again with my foot on the brakes and shifting through gears repeatedly.
A short time later is when a police officer and, a little while later, an ambulance arrived. My concerned co-worker, had convinced our boss to make a phone call for my safety. The police officer asked if I was alright and whether or not I'd taken any drugs. Of course, still lost in delusions mind you, my response was perfectly clear. I'd told the officer that I hadn't taken anything and was clearing my system to maintain my CDL as I had a physical coming up and evening though I wasn't using it at the moment, I wasn't willing to risk losing my credentials by failing a drug test.
I'm able to laugh at this part now since, even though I'd literally lost my mind, my honesty was still very much intact, amusingly. While I don't remember my ride in the ambulance to Tom's River Medical or any examinations they performed, I DO recall feeling time pass slowly as different events in my life flashed before my eyes and discovering laughter helped me speed up times agonizingly and excruciatingly delayed process up. ...Still have no idea why this was, but it helped push me through with each crazed hysterical chuckle.
The only other thing I recollect with amazing clarity, was hearing the voice of my Ex Joseph uttering to my other old boyfriend John," Huh, I guess she truly did love me.", which I now bitterly snicker at because even before we dated, I always told Joe that I loved him even when he never once said those same words to me. When I finally awoke the next evening, I found myself in a hospital bed alone and scared wondering what the hell I had done
and doing my best to act normal.
I'd become genuinely horrified of being shipped to a mental institution much like I had once often joked about. Believe me when I tell you...I was not laughing then. To my great relief, the following afternoon, I was discharged. My brother picked me up and took me home and the very next day I drove to Ocean Crest Mental Health in Tom's River and sought the help I'd come to realize I desperately needed.
This was the best decision I ever could have made for My well-being. I've learned to open up about what is weighing on my heart and mind. I've also found my way back to a career that I truly love as a school bus driver. The reason for me finally sharing my person struggle is that maybe it will help someone else find the strength to overcome their own inner battle and find the courage to seek help and get better.
Please, do not ever give up on yourselves and continue to look for those brighter days ahead. ...Amen.
Theresa Foley, written on 2-7-2021 in my Random Thoughts Entries notebook.
