Backtrack

I guess I should backtrack a bit and tell you how I ended up at my best friends house to begin with.  It’s a really difficult story for me and not one that I have really told often and probably never in any details.  Before we get into this, I want everyone to know that mental health is never a subject to take lightly and if a person has a mental health issue they should never be ashamed to seek help.  

Romans 8:1-2.  Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ, Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, has set you free from the law of sin and death.

Psalms 46:1. God is our refuge and strength, a helper who is always found in times of trouble.   

My mom quietly passed away in her home on December 25, 2019, which also happened to be my daughters 21st birthday.  My mom had a very short battle with cancer,  and in her dying days  she was every bit as sweet as she was in her living days.  I can only  hope to be a vague shadow of the woman that she was. Looking back I was probably clinically depressed most of my life but never diagnosed.  My mother was an Elvis Presley fan, and she often compared me to his song “ Moody Blue”.  The words are something like this…..” Monday comes she’s Tuesday, Tuesday comes she Wednesday, into another day again.  Her personality unwinds just like a ball of twine on a spool that never ends.  Just when I think I know her well her emotions revealed she’s not the person that I thought I knew. She’s a complicated lady, so color, my baby, moody, blue.”  If I am being honest, it describes me pretty well.  There have been very few people in my life that have been able to truly understand me or know the real me, and at 48 years old I am now comfortable with that and understand why.  It has never been their fault or my fault, this is just the way I am made.  God makes each person that He places on this Earth different and unique.  

My mom was my lifelong best friend.  I went to her for everything.  I was a homebody as a teenager and I started to work just before I turned 16, so I only thought about what I could do to help her.  Yes, I had a dad and he provided well for my family financially.  My father was not really a man that you could talk to or bond well with.  He passed away when I was 28 years old from Esophageal cancer.  He was a heavy smoker and an alcoholic.  My mom suffered the most at his hands, I believe.  Seeing certain things as children affect each child differently.  My brothers, I have 2 older, and myself, all view our childhood very different.  

After my mom passed away, life became very empty for me. I was never physically a well individual.  I have had chronic migraines since the age of 8 and chronic stomachache since the age of 3.  I have also had some other rheumatological issues that came and went.  My father said I was his sickly child. I was married at this time, but it was obvious that he was doing his own thing in life and that our marriage was just on paper now and was just for show when he needed it.  I still had my daughter, and at this time, which was now mid 2021 she had moved in with my husband and I, and she gave me great consolation. I also had my best friend that I worked with every day.  She was definitely a God send.  If you asked me then why God placed my best friend in my life, I would say to keep me accountable but today I would tell you something completely different.  Today I would have to tell you so many reasons, but one main thing comes to my mind….  When I met my best friend, I only knew how to give Mercy.  My best friend was more of a legalistic biblical person.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, she had mercy also.  If it had not been for my best friend showing me the purpose of the legalistic purpose of the Bible I would still be granting my daughter mercy for everything; not having shown her the laws of the Bible and I  felt she might never have came from the wilderness she was in at that time.  That is one way that God has used our friendship.  

My husband finally decided that he wanted a divorce in November of 2021, and my daughter and I had to move from my home to a small apartment.  Now, when I tell you about this place, it may cause you depression.  My house wasn’t the greatest placed I have ever lived, but I was trying to make it a home.  It had 2 bedrooms, a small bathroom, nice size kitchen, office and living room area, with a screened in front porch and large yard.  From there I moved into a 2 room and bath apartment that there were more rats than people living in the complex.  I don’t mean mice, I mean rats- big ones that my small dog was scared of.  One night my little dog woke me up barking at the stove.  I go up to look and from out of the stove top was a rat peeking out; guess what, I never used the kitchen area again.  I just kept putting out rat poison.  I think they liked it.   My daughter finally decided that she’d had enough and she moved in with a friend and who could really blame her.  By now it is the beginning if 2022, and I am working 2 jobs just to make ends meet.  I felt like I was meeting myself coming and going.  In April it came time for the divorce hearing.  We went to court,  and I  was without a lawyer because I couldn’t afford it.  My ex-husband managed to get everything and pay me nothing on the house or anything that I had paid into.  How was I going to continue financially?  God, why?  What was I going to do now?  I was barely managing to pay everything at this rat infested place that I was living now.  I wanted to talk to my Mom; she would know what to do, but she wasn’t here and I wasn’t there.  My Uncle was dropping things off at my doorstep for me when I was at work or if I was taking a nap to try to help me out and he would never know how much I was appreciating that.  I was stuck here in ratville.  I felt horrible for my little dog.  If my ex-husband had cared for me at all he would have given me the amount we agreed to so that I could relocate to where my job was, and it would have been easier.  My ex-husband could not see it in his heart to help.  

Other than my job as an ophthalmic technician, I was also working at a pharmacy about 40 hours a week as a pharmacy technician.  I had never worked in a pharmacy before and this was completely new information and and job skills for my 44-45 year old brain to try and learn.  The cost of living was not cheap, and I was driving 35-40 miles, one way, to work every day.  I was missing my Mom more and more each day.  I was a person that talked to my Mom every morning on the way to work and again in the evening on the way home from work when she was alive, so being without her now was very lonely. It seemed like a whole part of my body had died too.  I tried to talk to God about it, but I felt so distant from God.  I felt lost.  There was a big thing on tic-tok about people overdosing from an over-the-counter antihistamine called Benadryl.  It was all over the television news that people , a lot of them teenagers, were dying from this.  When I went into work at the pharmacy one day I nonchalantly started talking with the pharmacist about this.  I was always very happy-go-lucky, so no-one ever figured that there was anything serious going on.  The pharmacist gave me information that my brain probably didn’t need at that time, but he didn’t know that; he thought I was just trying to learn and when I am in my regular mind frame I would have been.  On that day, I was depressed, desperate and wanted to see my Mom.  I needed her and I wanted to talk to her.  I was going to get to her any way that I could and I wasn’t thinking clearly.  I have always kept Benadryl in my home because I am deathly allergic to wasps, bees, anything that can sting.  I am highly sensitive to many bath products and other things so Benadryl is just a staple.  I am off on Friday afternoons and thru the weekend at my primary job and so I decided to take the weekend off at the pharmacy.  I went home on Friday and took out my bottle of Benadryl and set it on my bedside table and I looked at the bottle and the next morning I put in back in my cabinet and took my dog for a very long walk.  On Monday I scheduled an appointment with my Primary Care.  

On Tuesday I went to see the Primary Care that I was seeing at that time, her name was Kerry.  I explained to her that I was not feeling myself.  I explained how much I was missing my Mom and that there was something going on in my mind that was not “right”.  All she said was if you feel like you are suicidal you need to go to your local emergency room.  I went about my week and struggled with all of my thoughts of wanting to be with my mother and knowing that I could not be there and that obviously there was nothing that my Primary Care could do to help me.  My best friend was out of town at the time, but I honestly don’t think I would have told her what was going on in my mind.   I was very irritable at work, but no one ever would have suspected that I was having thoughts of suicide.  Friday finally came and I  was actually off this weekend from my job at the pharmacy.  When I got home about 10:30 from the pharmacy I did all of my nightly routine, fed my little dog again and climbed into bed with my bottle of Benadryl on my beside side table, but this time I added the Xanax that I had been prescribed when my Mom was sick in December of 2019. Remember it is March of 2022 now so that is an older bottle of Xanax but it had 8 pills in it.  I took 2 Benadryl and went to sleep.  When I woke up in the morning I took my dog for a long walk, fed her, bathed her and I wrote some letters and left on my desk.  The I took half a bottle of Benadryl and all 8 of the Xanax.  

2 Timothy 1:7. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgment.