cheapbag214s |
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Joined: 27 Jun 2013 |
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Location: England |
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An account from the homeless,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]
Imagine being homeless as it were -- in Duluth. You simply left a healthcare facility after being admitted for feeling suicidal. You will no longer feel suicidal,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], though still hopeless and horribly depressed.
You take a bus towards the homeless shelter downtown. About 80 men sleep on mats on the ground almost touching one another. The stench of unwashed bodies is overpowering. A shaky,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], skinny man sees the wristband you forgot to cut off whenever you left the hospital. He asks you for those who have some pills he is able to trade you cigarettes for. Other men listen in.
You feel trapped. You start to shake with fear. You have gone from wanting to die to feeling like cornered prey. You think about the family you lost,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the task you had been laid off from the time the plant closed,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and how events conspired to bring you to this point. You want to drink yourself into oblivion. You wouldn't want smokes. You want booze.
Previously,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], it's easy to drank some beers after work -- and perhaps too much together with your friends during Sunday football games. However it wasn't a problem; you'd it under control. Now,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the desire for alcohol is overpowering.
You ask the man together with your shaky voice how much cash you will get for 15 Clonazepam and 15 antidepressants. He says he has only smokes but knows a guy with money. A few minutes later a greasy short guy approaches you. He says he'll give you $20 for the Clonazepam and nothing for that antidepressants. You are taking out the bottle. He asks to count the pills. You dump the pills into your hand counting them out one at a time. He hands you the $20. You are elated that soon your feelings of despair,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], remorse and abandonment is going to be numbed. You cannot remember the walk in the street to the liquor store.
You walk into the store,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], looking for the least expensive and largest vodka bottles you'll find. The thing is some plastic liter bottles of vodka. You really can afford two. You bring these phones the counter in a hurry,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], like a lost traveler inside a desert dying of thirst. Your only focus is to get this vodka on to your teeth as quickly as you can so that your feelings of shame,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], abandonment and hopelessness is going to be gone.
You allow the clerk the balance. He hands you $3.98 in change and puts each bottle right into a small brown bag. You shove the modification into your pocket; you're out of the door super fast. Your thirst is really great that you begin to shake as you walk. You turn into an alley,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], sit down and twist the plastic fill up of the bottle. You bring the clear liquid for your mouth and drink it down deeply. It burns going down. You feel its warmth melting off your longing to hold your wife again.
You consider your daughter and her look of despair while you drove away. You remember going to work and how good it felt to possess a purpose. You consider the large hugs your son and daughter gave you whenever you came home from work,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], running so fast at you they thumped into your chest. Your spouse giving you deep kisses after supper. All these things are gone now.
The pain is so overwhelming that it feels like a spear driven through your chest. Each memory may be the spear being twisted back and forth,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], ensuring who you were and that which you had is dead.
The bottle desperately would go to your mouth again. You practically inhale the vodka now,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], but it doesn't burn just as much. You are feeling it spreading over the body. The pain sensation in the spear is a little less. You consider what you need to did that might make a difference. You can't imagine. It was like dominoes.
Your day you heard the plant was closing. Feeling terrified to go home. The countless job applications and several interviews for low-paying work. The bills piling up. The arguments with your wife. How the booze managed to get all seem less overwhelming. Everything happened in a flash. The next thing you knew you had been divorced and residing in a hotel. Whenever your money ran out,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], you were on the street and wanted to die.
Over fifty percent the very first bottle is down now. You feel warm and numb,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], head to toe. You try to walk down the alley. You stumble and fall,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], clutching your bottle. Your backpack makes you much more unbalanced. All your worldly possessions are in it. You walk over to a dumpster to urinate. The planet feels like it's tipping aside. You see another man passed out,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], sleeping by the dumpster,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], so you go to the other side. Relieved,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], you again sit down about the curb and have a long drink out of your bottle,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], leaving merely a third from it.
You tip to your side. Darkness overwhelms you. Your pain is gone till you wake up. When you do wake,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], you may be in a position to numb it again if you haven't been robbed of the second bottle. The antidepressant? It's not likely to help. That nurse guy told you it does not work if you're drinking. Next he said it might take two to five weeks to determine a benefit. The vodka is a sure thing. You are not dead but not really alive. You're lost in between. It is a composite,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], based on my work as a psychiatric nurse. I tell it because I hear so many people being callous to suffering people. I've come across many treat mentally ill/chemically dependent people as garbage. With contempt,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], hate and scorn. Little do they realize that at least 70 a little nick in their life that causes everything to unravel,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], as it did for this man. I've come across men and woman from every walk of life end up as mental health patients. My job provides me with perspective about my entire life and my problems.
However i forgot the hope. I've also seen many people through the years journey out of this into recovery. I run into them at gasoline stations,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], supermarkets,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Target and drugstores.
When it takes place my heart soars. They are available up,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], usually ecstatic,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], shaking me and saying thanks. It takes place about every four or 6 months. |
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