My family gets involved

I have to say my parents were really on top of things for me even though they were 1000+ miles away. My mother or father called me every day, once I left the phone off the hook, or my dog JJ might have knocked it so I thought nothing of it when my phone did not ring for 3 days. When I happened to look at the phone in the corner I realized it had been off the hook and my parents had left 8-10 progressively frantic calls over the 3 day period, the next stop was my brother-in-law the police officer was going to call Boston and have them do a "welfare check". I really got chewed out for that one.
My brothers and sisters did call very regular, much more so than ever before, I'm from a very large family. Someone put a bug in my mother's ear that I should be going to "group", it became a period of time when they tag-teamed calling me every day, at least 2 calls a day from a sibling or my folks to "attend group". I was suffering from Agoraphobia* and nobody was listening, I did make attempts, but it was very difficult for me and I was not going enough to satisfy the repetitive requests from my family. The last time I went to group was a meeting @ The McLean Hospital, a psych facility I had gone to for my brain scan while doing drug trials. The difference this time was I was going by myself and not using transportation provided to me by the hospital.
I took 2 subways and a bus, I was sort of proud of myself, this was something that involved planning what trains to catch and the bus schedule, and I was leaving the safety of my home and dog. By the time I reached the bus stop outside of the hospital grounds it was 6:30 P.M. or so in New England during the winter, very dark, windy and wet. The road leading from the gate to hospital wound up a hill and had old growth trees hanging overhead. Let's set the stage, I'm scared of being outside, psychotic and it's dark and unfamiliar. Remember the scene in The Wizard Of Oz when they are making their way through the forest, imagine that at night with my symptoms. I was so scared, I was crying as I walked from shadow to shadow going up an entrance I had never been on before, so I did not know what was around each corner, it was realistically a very long driveway, and as a mentally ill person it was very, very frightening. I got to the meeting right before it was to start, sat down for 5 minutes and got out of there and used my very limited funds to take a taxi to the subway stop that would put me on the train to my house directly.
This was not a matter of not wanting to do what others wanted me to do, it was being so frightened that your muscles are aching because you are so anxious you are in a constant "fight or flight" mode. Grinding your teeth with such great pressure 2 teeth actually shattered in my mouth. I am someone who has had 1 cavity his whole life, these were not diseased teeth, they just could not bare the pressure.
I tried on more type of gathering to get me in a "group" setting, Adult Psychiatric Daycare. The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts thought it was wise to mix severely mentally ill adults with people who had gotten busted for drunk driving or for drug offenses. Look at this picture, psychotic, depressed, men and women diagnosed with Schizophrenia and personality disorders being put in the same rooms and discussion groups as repeat offenders who are just getting their 160 hours of attendance out of the way. Looking back I feel it was the stupidest thing I had ever seen in my life. I went for a week and 2 days.
My saving grace was walking around one block with my dog, and than 2 blocks, than 2 blocks over and 2 blocks up, covering more and more area as time went by. People began to recognize JJ and I, I found a triangle shaped park that JJ could run and run and speed past me as I tried to touch his tail or back. There was a little corner store that was next to it and as time passed I spent my last Spring, Summer and Fall before moving to Colorado sitting on plastic chairs outside with the guys or sitting inside for a minute or two when it was cold. There was some really nice guys, Peter Bonjourno was the coolest one of them all, a Bosnian War military vet with the U.S. Army who was thinking joining up again because there was nothing for him in East Boston. He always treated me with the most kindness and JJ loved him, he would spend the whole time outside the store hanging with Peter and than when it was time to go he'd jump up and give Peter a kiss and come with me to go home. The guy who owned the corner store, Franco, who also named the store after himself was a wanna-be Italian gangster type, he spoke with this affected speech that made him sound like an extra on The Sopranos, but he was just a 25-26 y/o kid who lived at home with his mom and dad and his parents spoke simply with a Boston accent, no Mafioso edge to it. You would never beleive he was their son, but he was a cream-puff that was trying to be .38 Special...whatever.
I'll talk about the store later, it was a good time and also some really bad times as well.



*Agoraphobia is a fear of being in places where help might not be available. It usually involves fear of crowds, bridges, or of being outside alone.

Dominos delivers

For about the first 2 weeks I ordered pizza every other day. I slept alot and stared at the ceiling. As I wrote before I was involved in drug trials @ Massachusetts General Hospital and that way I was at least being monitored by a physician. That went on for about 18 months. Towards the end I was becoming psychotic and they passed me on to a physician in the hospital and took me off trials.

Some of the trials were simply taking medication. The one that stands out was a drug they were going to give me so I had to have an Magnetic Resonance Angiogram (MRA), which, if I remeber right is about 3x stronger than a MRI. I was taken from the psychiatric trials off to McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA. The idea was to inject a contrast material that piggy-back with the phosphorus in my body and see what the flow was in the frontal lobe. The chemical they were looking for attaches/travels with phosphorus and they wanted a before and after shot. I went to McLean, they prepped me and they put me on a table, I was strapped @ shoulders and hips and my head was secured in place with what were bookends with soft material so I could not move my head at all as well as lift it because it was strapped down across my forehead as well. They gave me earphones with classical music and told me I would be in the MRA for about 45 minutes. I was eventually pulled into the magnetic rings all the way to my waist, so my head was 2.5-3 feet inside it. It was dark, scary and I passed out fortunately due to anxiety, I was so frozen with fear I did not even try to break free, my mind just shut me off and as I was being pulled out did I wake up. They were somewhat concerned because I had no response or movement during the whole hour I eventually ended up being in there. Long story short, after 30 days on the medication I went through the same situation and passed out that time as well.

I was scared to go anywhere, but up to a point I could force myself to go into Boston on the "T", the Boston subway. I had to get something down around Massachusetts Ave and Commonwealth Ave and it was going pretty good, I was very regimented and was at the stage of looking at the ground, shaking and walking like one of those Christmas nutcrackers come to life. I was making my way down the middle of Commonwealth Ave (they have a green strip with a sidewalk down the middle and a lane on each side) and I remember coming to a street to cross, and looking @ oncoming traffic and I could see cars and trucks, but are they actually passing me or had they already passed, that how my brain started to work. Should I cross or should I wait for the real/delayed perception of a car or truck to pass me. I stood there and after about 3 groups of people crossed, the 2nd and 3rd group looking over their shoulders oddly at this guy looking up the street. I got my courage and crossed with someone between me and the traffic that might or might not be there. A walk from one end of Commonwealth Ave to the other usually took me 30 minutes, I was a former runner and fast efficient walker. I ended up walking to a bench and sitting there with my hands under my thighs (I shook so violently if I was not walking, I shook really bad if I just stood). I would sit on 2-3 benches on each block making my way down to Boston Common where I could catch the Blue Line home to East Boston. It took me over 2 hours to make that trip and another 30 minutes to cross Boston Garden/Boston Common. It was the start of a really scary time in my life. 

I would eventually get to the point where I though people could read my mind and I would sing to myself so my thinking of the song would block what information "they" were trying to see. Yeah, I know, sounds really, really fucked up. This was my life for a block of time until some new things that I never expected happened, but that is a year or so down the road. I'll get to it in this blog.

Let's start in the very beginning, a very good place to start

I don't know how long I was starting to become mentally ill, but I do remember the moment that I consider the point I fell off the edge, per se.
I had a really good job working in The Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston as an Administrative Assistant for a GI MD that was a really nice guy considering he was the #1 practicing physician in the world in his specialty, people flew from Asia, Europe and Middle East to see him. I had started the job as a temp agency employee, having temped for a colleague of his who was the #1 research MD in the world in the same specialty. I had done a good enough job for the 1st MD that I was referred to the 2nd for trial before hiring. After giving me a test run for 3 weeks, might have been  only 2, I was offered the job permanently and I was taking over the position held by a woman named Cheryl who trained me those 2 weeks or so before she moved onto her new position. I was the only Administrative Assistant that had only 1 doctor to work for, the women that made up the rest of the office had 4 or more MD's each to work with.
I did a good job and I had my issues with being late sometimes always under 5 minutes, but late is late so I cannot argue with the policy. The really frustrating thing that evolved in my job was the woman before had just stuffed referrals, Dr notes, test results, etc... that should be included in the patient record in drawers and filing cabinets in the work area. It was very frustrating and it became known that there were medical records not being filed from the previous employee, we are talking records from May up to right before I started in late October. I was busy enough and not wanting to rock the boat I tried catching up and only once handed a pile over to another employee who said she was bored and looking for something to do, which resulted in my manager racing into my cubicle asking why she was doing that. I reminded her that she constantly told me if I needed help to ask for it, so when the co-worker offered I gave her some of the files I was finding stuffed everywhere in my work area. I think Cheryl knew that her activities, or lack thereof was coming to light and told her that she felt I was not keeping up with the job. I was so busy trying to make sense of finding files bundled with rubber bands I did let some files sit in my cubicle that were a month or so old. By February I was throwing up everyday before work, I was really depressed and by early March I was actually shaking, my hands, my legs if I did not plant my feet square on the floor. I remember it was a Friday at the end of shift and I was going to file some patient records and my vision went black. I always remember a feeling of a 'snap', a fat rubber band being stretched and all of a sudden a quick release. I stood in place, I could hear people, everything but I could not see anything, and than after whatever amount of time after a blink it was all back. I went home, hugged my dog and other than letting him out and walking the length of a few houses so he could take care of business I never left the apartment. That was March 8th, 2002.
I called into work sick the following Monday and Tuesday, I had been in a smoke cessation program through MGH and went to the offices to tell them I was feeling depressed, something was not right and a Dr wrote a letter stating I was not to return to work until this mental illness/depression/hopelessness was resolved.
My work got the letter and it was pretty straight forward I was not returning until further notice.
OK, enough of that, I had a job and I started having some mental issues. What I want this blog to show is what happened after March 8th, 2002. How I sought care, how mentally ill patients and members of society go through the system.
--------------------------------------
I called my parents, told them something was wrong and I could not put a finger on it. It is a grey time memory-wise, somehow I was evaluated and put in drug trials for my depression and sense of fear I always felt. I think I was on 12 different drugs in different combination and strengths and forms of administration.
That's enough for now, I'll write about the rest tommorow or the next day. It's 1:44 AM.

Introduction

This is an outlet for my descent into mental illness. I'll try to write how I got there and how I fought and continue to fight my way through life to see one more day, care for one more person, and maybe help myself put this all into perspective.