Monday, January 18, 2021

What Now? Part 2

Devastated. Angry. Scared. Sympathetic, Betrayed. Distraught. Anxious. My emotions were swirling around like a tornado in my head and heart. And physically I was empty of any desire to function or keep myself in check. I had no appetite and forcing myself to eat was completely out of the question. Sleep completely abandoned me as the physical symptoms manifesting my emotional pain continued to barrage my body in the form of intermittent trembling, severe headaches, and extreme fatigue. My ability to think and concentrate was inhibited by images.

It was while I was traveling with my brother that I received a frantic phone call from my son Mark. "Mom", he said in a loud frantic voice, "Dad tried to kill himself. The police and ambulance are here. I need to go, and you need to come home!" And then only suffocating silence remained as I tried to process what I'd just heard. My body began to shake uncontrollably. My head was screaming insanity and confusion. And my 14 year old daughter was sitting in the backseat.

"Who was that?", my brother asked, and a barely audible squeak was all I could get out. "Breathe", I kept repeating to myself over and over again. "In through your nose and out through your mouth". It was completely the opposite of the hyperventilating that was threatening to render me unconscious. "Who was that? What's going on?" my brother questioned in a tone that only added to my panic. "Just a minute" I screamed in my head...but nothing came out of my mouth. "You're really starting to scare me!", he urged one last time. With tears of hysteria streaming down my grief stricken face, I put my hands out and made a motion of cutting a wrist, in my best attempt to deliver a message I was still desperately trying to deny. Immediately, he turned to my daughter Rachel sitting in the back seat and said "You're dad's going to be okay."

To the best of my recollection, we still had a couple of hours before we were to arrive at my step mom's house, where my daughter Heather was waiting with great anticipation for our arrival. When we arrived, Rachel and I waited in the car while my brother went in to tell them about what had happened. A few minutes later, he came out and escorted us into the house, where we were met with hugs and floods of emotion. While I was grateful for the support, I felt overwhelmed and anxious. I needed to connect with Mark to see how he was holding up.

I pulled away and excused myself to a quiet room where I could try to focus on holding myself together. I dialed Mark's number, not really knowing what information I would be faced with when he answered. I wanted to know, but I didn't want to know. The reality of a suicide attempt of such close emotional proximity, left me feeling shattered into a million pieces...and I had no idea how I would begin to face the mess. I just wanted to bury myself in a deep black hole where I would be protected from the fall out of such incapacitating trauma.

"Hi mom." Mark sounded weary. "I'm at the hospital with Dad; he's being prepped for surgery. There's someone here asking a lot of questions I can't answer. I'm going to have them talk to you". I was so numb I didn't really hear who I was speaking with. "Your husband has damaged his jugular vein. He's being prepped for surgery..." Umm jugular vein. That's in your neck, I thought to myself as I laid back on the bed I was sitting on to try and discourage loss of consciousness. I lost the ability to concentrate on the rest of the conversation.

For several hours, I lay there crying and shaking. My emotions flipped erratically from fear and anger, to deep overwhelming sadness and grief. My head was pounding and I was left completely void of any strength to lift any part of my traumatized body from the bed.

No comments:

Post a Comment