Kill Switch

The Chaos Code
2017-09-23 21:02:12 (UTC)

I Actually Didn't Die...Barely

((C/Ped this from a FB post, so there may be a few...not understandable things here, but for the most part, you'll get what I'm saying.))

OKAY Now that I'm finally not entirely exhausted and am not ready to jump off a bridge (yet), I am gonna fucking type this up coz everyone is asking me what's going on and I can't keep up with y'all. Damn. Okay, so. . .

The past two weeks have been fucking...awful. Literally the worst two weeks of my life I had ever had. It began with me doing something VERY illegal and my mom figuring it out when I didn't think it would happen the way it did. In fact, for someone who has a catastrophic thinking problem, I'm surprised this scenario did not enter my mind at any moment.

It was the moment I said "Wow. I really am a drug addict." I mean, I've known I was an addict for literally years but after what I did, I just couldn't even...I mean, this is something I could have gone to prison for life or double life for. So it kinda just...woke me up and I was like "fuck" but I kept going anyways and then I ran out of pills and everything else and didn't know what to do. . . which is precisely the moment my mom had found out what I had done.

Bad timing.

So she blocks me in the basement with her car so that I can't use my car. And it's been YEARS of me saying to my father "Can I PLEASE buy my car from you so I have legal ownership?" Every day. . .same response. . . "Yeah, of course! Just let me get around to it." Like...this goes on for like...since maybe 2013? 4ish years later...my mom starts holding it over my head. "The car isn't even legally yours so if you take it anywhere, I will just call the police and tell them you stole it." Well I couldn't anyways because she blocked me in with her car. The only way I could have driven it was directly off the mountain cliff and over the edge, which I was considering, but felt too scared that I might hurt an animal in the process since it's all forest and trees and such where I am and our neighbours down the road have free-roam dogs. So despite the fact I would have LOVED to have just gunned the accelerator off the edge of that cliff, I didn't.

Then they barricade me in my room and won't let me out. This isn't unusual. Normally they turn off the power to the basement and leave me down there. But this time they actually barricaded me in the ROOM and not just the basement. I had no water and no access to water. Or anything else. And then my mom would come pounding on my door and screaming and at one point she had my dad hold me down while she took every single one of my medications, including the most important one, my mood stabilizer, and ripped them out of my hands. So after that, I was just screaming at the top of my lungs and pulling my hair out and banging my head against the wall remembering "Only the head has pain receptors. The brain doesn't." Thinking maybe if I could just bash my skull in to the point of brains, then I wouldn't feel anything and could physically rip my brain out by pieces since I wouldn't be able to feel anything. But then my parents came downstairs obviously coz of the noise of me banging my head against the wall as hard as I could and I ran and pushed the couch in my room against the door and pushed the table against that and pushed the bed against that. Which ...minus a small triangular bureau thing by my bed, that's all the furniture in my room.

So...I couldn't get out or in for days. This was during a period of which my dad had just gotten out of the geriatric ward and my mom was dealing with his new weird habits and medication reactions. So obvs, I mean, I'M the one who barricaded myself in. Why should they deal with me? I get that.

I just...pulled the barricade out from my side and pushed on the other side for what felt like hours until it gave out. I grabbed my bag, put my laptop and notepad for school in it, chargers, phone, and left.

Now. . .if you've ever been up my mountain, you'll know it's a 10 minute DRIVE up there. Nah, fam, I walked all that. And then walked more...and more...and more...and there was no signal...anywhere...Idk how long I walked. But I was wearing odd clothing because nothing was clean obviously. I was wearing a sweater with nothing underneath and shorts and plaid shoes and I had lost my glasses so I didn't even have those. And I ended up somewhere on this road...Idk how far I went but I kept checking for service to text any friend to see if they would let me couch hop for one or two nights. But no. No signal. So I started walking back.

It was too hot. I laid down on the very edge of the pavement of this tiny, windy, backroad and I remember looking up at the trees and seeing the sun shine through the leaves and just...being in awe of the beauty. I went to take a picture of it with my phone but then I blacked out.

Somewhere during this time, a car almost hit me and left skid marks on the road which the police pointed out later. Idk if I was awake for that or not. But then I woke up to this really sweet mom and she had her van stopped beside me and she was holding me and shaking me and her little ...gradeschooler(??) age kid was like screaming at her like "IS HE ALIVE!?" or something. I'm not entirely sure what. Somewhere during that time, local 911 dispatch was called from my phone. Maybe I did it. Maybe she did. Idk. But local 911 dispatch works even when you don't have service, so. . .thank god for that? I guess. Maybe not. It probably would have been better if I had just been hit by a car and died, honestly.

Legit 3 ambulances and 1 cop car showed up. I was withdrawing really, really badly and I hadn't had any water in literal days and I obviously hadn't eaten in even longer than that. I was super dehydrated and malnourished and overexhausted, yet my stats were okay. Like, everything like my BP and temp and pulse checked out. My BP is chronically low and lowered even more by the BP med I take for migraines so it's obvious that it was a "little high, but normal". And my temp was not too high. And my pulse wasn't thready, which I had already checked myself to make sure I could just go to sleep on the road and wake up later after resting. The EMT's said I could go with them or not. And the cop said "You're 25. If you wanna walk away from me right now and keep walking down that road and go to sleep on the side of the road, I can't stop you. But by the skid marks on the road here (like I mentioned), I'm pretty sure you're going to get hit by a car. So..." I mean, well, if that's not my damn white privilege at its finest... But, anyways, I said "Yeah, y'know what, I'm just gonna keep walking." Then the cop pulls me aside and is like "No. I really don't think you should." And one of the EMTs knew my mom from when she worked at the same hospital he worked at and had been up to our house plenty of times. So he drove up to her house and brought her back because, yknow...no service. And I told the police and EMTs to just...lemme go from there. I didn't want police involved. Coz, as the officer said, "You're 25. You make your own decisions at this point in life." So I did.

I adamantly told my mother I wasn't going back with her and she was about to scream at me but then I threw up blood. Just...pure blood. And idk how I got to Asheville Memorial Trauma Center, but I did. They had a helipad. It was like being in a Grey's Anatomy episode coz they're a level 1 trauma center. Omg. So cool. They had all this fancy equipment like that green vein scan thingy where you run it over the AC or the hand and it just shows you where the veins are so you don't have to feel for them. It was fascinating.

I got stuck maybe 8 times, though. For blood draws and such. Coz my veins are small and they roll and I'm a very hard stick.

I don't remember much from the time I was there but we didn't leave until like...idk, idr, maybe 4am? We got home around 6am. Dad had locked us out of the house. The key was in view on the inside from the window and I was delirious and laughing while my mom was fuming angry and screaming for my dad to wake up and pounding on the door.

Something happened between this that I don't remember. Lots of black-out periods, obvs.

I slept. I withdrew. Hard. Lots of pain. This is day 5 of totally nothing and there's STILL lots of pain. Then the same thing happened. My mom barricaded my car in and took my meds from me and locked me in the basement. So I said...fuck it....and lied and said I had friends to stay with, even though I hadn't even contacted anyone at this point yet. Coz I figured that would make her let me leave if she knew a friend was involved. And she still wouldn't let me out unless I gave a full name, address, and telephone number. She kept saying this was all for "my safety". I couldn't handle it. I can't handle being in that house anyways. Anyone with depression will know that environment affects your moods VERY highly. So I was not only withdrawing from opiates, benzos, ambien, a BP med for migraines, but also cold turkey from my mood stabilizer. Like, I'm surprised I didn't die. I wish I would have. I have never been in so much pure physical and mental agony in my life.

I don't remember much of the next few days. And I don't remember how we came to an agreement, but my mom gave me my meds back and let me out and let me take my car. I was crying and screaming so hard because she told me if I didn't come home and stay home, she was going to take my dog to a kill shelter. And there was nothing I could do.

I went down somewhere in town on a backroad where no one would find me in the pure dark and called my old therapist. He recommended several good 7-day detox programs for me that also handle psych issues. Because rehabs won't take me due to my psych issues because they don't have the capability to handle psych medications.

I had somehow convinced my mom to let me sleep in my car that night. She had been screaming about how "Human beings DO NOT live in cars, Killian!" And such nonsense that typical cis white baby boomers babble about. I don't remember much of that night. But I ended up in a hotel somehow. Where I have been for the past few days. I went to volunteer, got that job, was about to go scrub shopping with my mom when the withdrawals just got too intense and I thought "My doctor is a former addict. Like. Everyone knows this. He SHOULD help me. Right?" Wrong.

We went to my doctor and he was literally screaming at me and pointing his pen in my face saying he wasn't going to be manipulated by a bipolar drug addict anymore. And I have NEVER been diagnosed bipolar. Ever. That has never come up even once except with him. I am most definitely NOT bipolar. And when I said that, he's like screaming at me that I'm definitely bipolar and that he's cutting me off of everything except my mood stabilizer and that I need to get in with a psychiatrist if I want my benzos back, which are what I need, and a neurologist if I want my BP meds back, and where the hell I'm going to find Ambien to sleep? Fuck.

AND THEN He starts yelling about how he's never had a case of costochondritis in his 30-something years of being a doctor and that I am lying about it. But my mom was in the room and she's like quietly shaking her head. Because I have been diagnosed three times now with costo. It's supposed to be short term. But mine is long term and that's where it gets confusing because costo has never really lasted this long in many people in the entire world so far. And he just screams at me that it's all psychological and that I have too many problems and that I'm never going to make it through school, so why am I even trying, and then says that I am probably going to be living in a state mental institution by the age of 30 or less.

I just walked out at this point. Thank god I had my car. I drove off. Drove. For a while. Got lost. Stopped at a rest stop and texted my platonic soul mate. I was ready to drive to New Orleans right then without anything at all. But I calmed down a bit after popping one of the few ativan or valium (Idr) I have left and came up with a better plan because even my therapist said "You're being dismissive of my help. I don't think you want my help. This is not going to end well." But no. I don't even care anymore. I'm going to get through this.

Got set up in a very cheap hotel near my volunteer shelter for 3 days to sort things out and come up with a plan. So I have been wracking my brain and doing SO much research and talking to so many friends about potential living arrangements. But nothing came up. I need to be in a city or heavily populated suburb because I cannot HANDLE being isolated and I cannot handle living by myself either.

So best friend and I eventually came up with a plan. Thank god her roommates are such wonderful people. I love them both so much.

The Tech school I can AFFORD to get into is in Asheville. And I want more hands on experience than the online world is giving me. I want to be able to dissect things and do actual venipuncture restraint positions on dogs bigger than me and I want to do all these things PHYSICALLY. I want HANDS-ON experience and I just...can't get a shadowing position in such a small town.

Problem being, if I leave NC for over a month, I lose my disability, SSI, EBT, and Medicaid. I could do without disability, SSI, and EBT...but I cannot afford my medications without Medicaid. So I'm not sure what I'm going to do while going to school because I only get about 650ish a month from my disability and about 50 from my SSI and 74 on my EBT which my parents use because I really don't eat coz of my anorexia and depression and anxiety combo. But my Medicaid pushes meds that are normally around 200-300 dollars out of pocket, even with discounts like GoodRx, pushes them all the way down to 3 dollars a piece. And my mood stabilizer is especially pricey. So Idk what I'm gonna do when I move in with someone in Asheville coz I will want to be focusing on school and shadowing/interning and volunteering and not have to worry about working, but then. . .I want to work, too. But only at a vet's office or somewhere that deals with medical things. I'm literally 1 class away from getting my vet transfer degree. But do you know why I started over from scratch? Because I can't handle the speech class which is the last and only class I need AND because this degree, albeit a fully accredited AA, is nothing more than a "Here. You have taken all the gen ed classes and a million extracurriculars and now you can use this degree to get into a vet tech school!" Which, I mean, is great, because I REALLY want to get into North Carolina Univeristy in Raleigh. . .that would be my ideal school for vet tech training in this state (not my ideal state, obvs...I hate the south and I want to live in Massachusetts, but it's too expensive). But. . .the in-state tuition is above 10k. I highly doubt any sort of financial aid would cover all of that, even with Pell Grants.

Yes, I realize that becoming a tech and then going for the full vet surgeon licensing is gonna put me in debt until long after I die and that I'm going to be paying back literal millions of dollars worth of loans for the rest of my life and beyond. But why go to a school like that for 10k when they have the same hands-on program at a fully accredited community college? I never even realized how much of a difference the community college price versus university price was. . .because I've had Florida Pre-Paid this whole time and haven't had to pay anything big yet and right now my loan paybacks are at about 1k-2k at the most. I just...would uh...to add a 10k on top of that... (for one semester)...and then another 10k (for one more semester)...then two more 10k's for the last two semesters....I don't know if I could do all that. And then I have to PAY to take three different tests and if I fail even one, all that training was for nothing. And of course, applications and records and SAT score retrieval all cost money, too. AND THIS IS JUST FOR TECH SCHOOL. NOT EVEN FULL VET LICENSING AND SURGICAL LICENSING. So despite NC State and Raleigh being my dream in this state. . .it's just not. . .I don't think it's a wise decision. So I'm aiming for Asheville.

Now. . .all my disability money and SSI will be going to rent and utilities and I'm totally willing to share my EBT with whatever roommate I end up with, but I will lose ALL of that if I start any kind of job. Even a min wage retail job. And I'm fine with that. I will work till it kills me to make rent and utilities and such. But it's the FUCKING MEDICAID. If I start working, I lose my Medicaid, too. ...and I can't afford my meds without it. So...I'm not sure what to do here. I don't have credit yet but if I were to GET a credit card and gain credit, it would immediately be awful because of all my medical debt and there's no coming back from that coz I just can't do it in this economy. Which is exactly why I have put off getting any sort of credit. For...my entire adult life.

But right now...my plan is...go to New Orleans with my three good friends. Stay there for 2 weeks-month tops, which they said is totally fine and I'm completely welcome. Not like we haven't done this before in opposite situations anyways. Lmao. We help each other as much as we can. Next step? Gain roommate in Asheville through several roommate matching sites I found. Move there. THEN work on getting into the college I want and transferring my online credits and all the credits from the two other colleges I'm in and transferring my SAT scores whilst attempting to find an internship or shadowing position. And after that? I'm really not sure. I don't have a plan from there. But my mom agreed to keep my double coat dog brushed, cleaned, updated on his shots, fed properly like I feed him (NO HUMAN FOOD DAMNIT), bathed, nails clipped, butt shaved, and get the anesthesia dentistry done he needs for the next 2 years while I get my life in order. It's going to literally kill me to be away from him like that. But she said if I am not "stable to her liking" in 2 years, she will put him in a kill shelter. So not only do I WANT to do this, I HAVE to do this. Because if that happened. . .that would be the absolute last straw at any chance I would have of recovery. That dog is my life. Hell, I have his name tattooed on my wrist. I spend every waking second with him and even these couple weeks of in and out of consciousness was hell without him. I was worried about him every goddamn second and I could hear him borking and howling upstairs while I was barricaded downstairs and it would just kill me. It was like I could physically feel my heart being stabbed.

Annnd....Idk how I'm going to find a roommate that will take in an asexual, polyamorous, panromantic, nerdy recluse like me with questionable future financial stability and no credit. But even if I have to live in my car to get through school, find a place, and get my dog with me, I'll do it. I'm HOPING I will find a roommate that likes me AND a vicious little (read: very large) neurotic pomeranian in tech school. Someone who ALSO has a dog or AT LEAST a cat so that my dog will not be lonely while I am gone all day. I don't want to have to take him in with me alone and then be gone literally all day and only see him for 2 seconds before falling asleep and getting the only interaction with him possible at feeding time and to briefly take him out to go potty. I don't want that for him. He needs more. He deserves more. At least, leaving him with my mom and dad, he will be safe and taken care of and will have his "sister" and the cats to play with and he can bork to his hearts content. And my dad is retired and my mom only works 4 days a week, so he will be walked every day and taken out appropriately and I made them sign a document stating they would do this for 2 years.

So...tomorrow...I am scouring Asheville, every surrounding town within a 15 mile radius, and one within a 20 mile radius, to see what everything looks like in person and make sure the areas are diversified and active and are NOT a small town or even close to a regular sized town, but much bigger and much more diversified than a goddamn southern town with a bunch of white deer hunting orange overlord voters and then I'm gonna make it back in time for the Discovery premiere (Trekkie thing) coz it will be legendary. Like...Kirk's premiere, kinda legendary. And then I'm gonna pack after that, cuddle with my dog all night, and...leave for New Orleans whenever I wake up if I manage to sleep. Or leave when I finally decide "Fuck it, I can't stay in bed any longer." And I'll say goodbye to my dog.....and...cry..a lot...and hug him and kiss him and take tons of pictures and oh god now I'm crying.

That's all just the basics, though. There has been a lot of other less major stuff going on that's getting to me but. . .I will be so goddamn happy to see my three friends that are taking me in that I think I'm gonna cry good tears when I get there.

Just gotta say...I thought dealing with generalized anxiety without meds was hard. Nah...dealing with panic disorder without meds is impossible. I can't fucking do anything without having a mostly physical style panic attack every 2 goddamn seconds. Feels worse than withdrawals, honestly. So I have a plan about that, too, but I am DONE writing right now.

THANK YOU GOODNIGHT.




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