Book that I am trying to write (ha)
If you are reading this, and you are from ntelos, you need to keep anything you read her quiet, as only if it ever gets printed (hahahahahaaa) will anybody there ever get wind of this...but I need to get this up here where some people can see it...in any event, this is just what I was able to get in an hour or so...there's lots, lots more, but I'm not sure if this is the end of the chapter, and the hospital part takes place in another chapter, or if it's just a new paragraph. Here ya go...
I drove down the familiar winding road and pulled into the parking lot. My palms were already sweating, and my stomach was doing back flips inside me. I sat in my car a moment, giving myself a little pep talk, “it’s just work, you go here all the time, there’s nothing to be scared of”. No amount of positive thinking could quiet my stomach, though. Heart pounding, I walked to the door, and flashed my key card to get in. The same stairwell I walked up every afternoon when I came into work somehow looked dark and uninviting in light of what I was about to do. With each step that I took the knot that had formed in my stomach tightened, and I was afraid that I would throw up. I hesitated for a split second when I reached the door. “It’s now or never.” I knew why I came here, and I knew what had to be done, the question was whether or not I could force myself to go through with it.
Once on the call center floor I calmed down a little. Afraid that everyone would be staring at my puffy eyes and red face, nobody noticed me. I walked across the room, my nervousness and my lunch suddenly returning. Normally, I am freezing to death when I am at work, right now, I was suffocating. When did it get so hot up here? I realized that my team was in a meeting right now, and that I would have to wait if I wanted to talk to my supervisor, Kandace. This was the perfect scenario, I could leave without being noticed.
I didn’t leave though. Something much greater than myself forced me to stay there. I leaned on the edge of another supervisor’s cubicle, gripping the wall as if my life depended on it, and focused my attention on the meeting. I was hearing what the woman was saying, but I really wasn’t listening. My thoughts played out angrily in my head, “hurry up bitch, before I punch you. I need to get this over with. If I don’t do it now, I might not ever do it.”
Those five minutes lasted an eternity.
When the meeting broke up, I caught Kandace’s attention. She smiled, “oh, hi.” I must not have looked half as bad as I felt, because she was as cheerful as ever, until I opened my mouth.
“I need to talk to you…preferably somewhere with a door.”
She lead me through the lobby and into a meeting room. I sat down on the table, and began to cry, as was my unfortunate habit whenever I needed to say something important.
It seemed like forever before I was able to speak. She knew most of what I was about to tell her, but probably hadn’t realized how desperate I was. I looked away from her at the dry erase board as I spoke. I have a very hard time looking people in the eyes when I talk to them. Through my tears and sniffles I asked for help in a much more direct way than I had been lately. I told her about the pills I was taking to make me sleep, that suicide was one of my only thoughts, that I knew I was capable of hurting myself (we’d all seen the scars on my arm) and that I was having thoughts about hurting and killing other people. I failed to mention, though, that some of those thoughts had been just moments earlier, and had been aimed at someone on our own staff.
She took this all in as graciously as anybody could, and I asked her how would hospitalization effect my job. I wanted to know, because if I was going to have to quit, then I wanted to go to Michigan where my family was, to be hospitalized, because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to speak to them from the facility here in Virginia without a calling card.
“I don’t know, but you have to do what’s right for you, not for a job. Even if it is a job that you’re good at, and a job that I think you like.”
I nodded, I liked my job, and considered myself lucky to have it.
She left me alone for a few minutes while she went to speak to one of our managers, Carole. I sat on the table and cried. I was scared to death. It’s the hardest thing in the world to take an image you’ve made for yourself, one where you are calm, and in control and destroy it because you know it isn’t the truth, as much as you’d like it to be.
My friend Mike was standing in the lobby, and could see me through the open door. “You alright?” he mouthed to me, as he was on the phone. I don’t remember if I shook my head or I nodded, all I remember is that he blew me a kiss, then disappeared around the corner.
Kandace came back shortly thereafter.
“Carole wants to know if you’d come talk to her.”
There were a million thoughts racing through my head at once. I had nothing against Carole, I just wasn’t too familiar with her. She was present at both my initial interview, and one about 6 months later for a different position (which, much to my relief, I didn’t get), but other than that, I hadn’t had much contact with her. I knew that she was familiar with the fact that I had been diagnosed as bipolar. I divulged that information voluntarily at my first interview, because I wanted to be completely honest with this company, and as far as I can tell, it’s paid off.
“Okay.”
I followed her back onto the call center floor, “everybody’s staring at me,” I whispered.
“Nobody’s looking at you. Do you want me to fall down so that they stare at me instead?”
This made me smile. “No, I just want somebody to hide behind,” I confessed.
I hesitated at the office door, and Kandace asked “Do you want me in or out?”
Fear had reduced my normally articulate speech to a more caveman-like “You, here,” with me pointing from her to the office. Caveman or not, she got the point, came in, closed the door, and leaned against the wall. I sat down in the chair in front of the desk, feeling like a suspect faced with interrogation, (or at least what I surmised that would feel like, as I’d never faced that situation in reality).
Tears were streaming down my face, and Carole handed me a box of tissues. This was a relief in itself as my sleeves were already soggy from a kind of gross combination of tears and snot. I took one, wiped my eyes and my nose, and she laid a few more out on the desk, my back-up, should one not be enough. I don’t remember what she said, I just remember utter confusion as I tried to figure out what was relevant to the situation and what wasn’t. I didn’t know where to start, I didn’t know if there was an end to what I had to say. I was scared, I wanted to die, and ultimately, I wanted it to stop, and was willing to go to the hospital if needed. I just needed to know would I have a job to come back to.
I couldn’t tell you how it all came out, the few details I remember was that I was able to look Carole in the face more easily than I had been able to Kandace, but that my gaze mostly rested on the design on the carpet or the edge of the desk, and that I had admitted that I was aware that what I was about to say could get me fired. The basis behind that thought was, that your employer generally isn’t too enthused when you come to tell them that you want to harm yourself and possibly other people.
My admittance was not needed, and my fears were unfounded. Carole accepted what I had to say with open ears and an open heart. Only later did I learn the reason why this went so much more smoothly than I expected.
The entire reason I was there (and I didn’t reveal this to anyone until later) was that I knew that I needed help, and that I knew that the hospital was most likely the best place for me, but that I needed that extra push from somebody else, telling me that was what I needed to do. I needed someone to tell me that I was making the right decision, and validate how I was feeling. Carole did just that. After some prodding, I said that yes, I did think that going to the hospital was the best idea, she agreed, and gave me the number to her direct line, making me promise that I would call her once I got there, and ensuring me that my job was not in any sort of jeopardy.
I left, thanking both Carole and Kandace, and wanting, more than anything to reach out and hug Kandace. In light of something that had happened earlier in the week, though, I simply stood there, wiping the tears off my face. (That is an entirely different chapter of this story, though). As I was standing there, I happened to look down the aisle (habitually avoiding looking her in the eye) and see my friend, (another supervisor) Barry. If my urge to hug Kandace had been strong, the urge to reach out to him was stronger. I felt like I was drowning, and he was the life savor thrown to me. I fought the urge, and simply walked away.
He may not have known it then, but he was my closest friend at that moment in time, and it killed me not to be able to simply throw my arms around him and cry to him. There were two things preventing me from doing that, one was the situation from earlier in the week that you’ll hear more about later, and that it just wasn’t appropriate to do to anybody at work, not while they were working I didn’t think.
The one thing I probably like the most about Barry is that, with one notable exception, he never reacts to what I tell him. He always listens, not just like hearing me talk, but actually listening to everything I have to say, and how I’m saying it. He will ask questions to make me think about the things I’ve said, and give me suggestions, but, except for that one time, he never reacts. Second place, in things that I like about him would be that I can cry to him without ever feeling ashamed. Even the very first time that I talked in depth to him, on my break one night, he never said or did anything to make me feel ashamed for crying about how I was feeling. He never even reacted to it. He just listened, and if it bothered him that I was sitting there balled up in the chair in his cubicle crying my eyes out about feeling like shit, he never, ever showed it.
I left the building, and got into my car, and headed toward the hospital with much more apprehension than I had had coming to work. At least at work, there were people I knew, and people I cared about, who cared about me. At the hospital, I was on my own. I had to find somebody to go with me. I thought for a while, and realized that my friend Jenn, would be the most willing to go. I called her, and she was already at the hospital, her grandmother had surgery the day before, and she and her family were visiting. She agreed to go with me, and stay with me in the emergency room while they did whatever they had to do.
I drove down the familiar winding road and pulled into the parking lot. My palms were already sweating, and my stomach was doing back flips inside me. I sat in my car a moment, giving myself a little pep talk, “it’s just work, you go here all the time, there’s nothing to be scared of”. No amount of positive thinking could quiet my stomach, though. Heart pounding, I walked to the door, and flashed my key card to get in. The same stairwell I walked up every afternoon when I came into work somehow looked dark and uninviting in light of what I was about to do. With each step that I took the knot that had formed in my stomach tightened, and I was afraid that I would throw up. I hesitated for a split second when I reached the door. “It’s now or never.” I knew why I came here, and I knew what had to be done, the question was whether or not I could force myself to go through with it.
Once on the call center floor I calmed down a little. Afraid that everyone would be staring at my puffy eyes and red face, nobody noticed me. I walked across the room, my nervousness and my lunch suddenly returning. Normally, I am freezing to death when I am at work, right now, I was suffocating. When did it get so hot up here? I realized that my team was in a meeting right now, and that I would have to wait if I wanted to talk to my supervisor, Kandace. This was the perfect scenario, I could leave without being noticed.
I didn’t leave though. Something much greater than myself forced me to stay there. I leaned on the edge of another supervisor’s cubicle, gripping the wall as if my life depended on it, and focused my attention on the meeting. I was hearing what the woman was saying, but I really wasn’t listening. My thoughts played out angrily in my head, “hurry up bitch, before I punch you. I need to get this over with. If I don’t do it now, I might not ever do it.”
Those five minutes lasted an eternity.
When the meeting broke up, I caught Kandace’s attention. She smiled, “oh, hi.” I must not have looked half as bad as I felt, because she was as cheerful as ever, until I opened my mouth.
“I need to talk to you…preferably somewhere with a door.”
She lead me through the lobby and into a meeting room. I sat down on the table, and began to cry, as was my unfortunate habit whenever I needed to say something important.
It seemed like forever before I was able to speak. She knew most of what I was about to tell her, but probably hadn’t realized how desperate I was. I looked away from her at the dry erase board as I spoke. I have a very hard time looking people in the eyes when I talk to them. Through my tears and sniffles I asked for help in a much more direct way than I had been lately. I told her about the pills I was taking to make me sleep, that suicide was one of my only thoughts, that I knew I was capable of hurting myself (we’d all seen the scars on my arm) and that I was having thoughts about hurting and killing other people. I failed to mention, though, that some of those thoughts had been just moments earlier, and had been aimed at someone on our own staff.
She took this all in as graciously as anybody could, and I asked her how would hospitalization effect my job. I wanted to know, because if I was going to have to quit, then I wanted to go to Michigan where my family was, to be hospitalized, because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to speak to them from the facility here in Virginia without a calling card.
“I don’t know, but you have to do what’s right for you, not for a job. Even if it is a job that you’re good at, and a job that I think you like.”
I nodded, I liked my job, and considered myself lucky to have it.
She left me alone for a few minutes while she went to speak to one of our managers, Carole. I sat on the table and cried. I was scared to death. It’s the hardest thing in the world to take an image you’ve made for yourself, one where you are calm, and in control and destroy it because you know it isn’t the truth, as much as you’d like it to be.
My friend Mike was standing in the lobby, and could see me through the open door. “You alright?” he mouthed to me, as he was on the phone. I don’t remember if I shook my head or I nodded, all I remember is that he blew me a kiss, then disappeared around the corner.
Kandace came back shortly thereafter.
“Carole wants to know if you’d come talk to her.”
There were a million thoughts racing through my head at once. I had nothing against Carole, I just wasn’t too familiar with her. She was present at both my initial interview, and one about 6 months later for a different position (which, much to my relief, I didn’t get), but other than that, I hadn’t had much contact with her. I knew that she was familiar with the fact that I had been diagnosed as bipolar. I divulged that information voluntarily at my first interview, because I wanted to be completely honest with this company, and as far as I can tell, it’s paid off.
“Okay.”
I followed her back onto the call center floor, “everybody’s staring at me,” I whispered.
“Nobody’s looking at you. Do you want me to fall down so that they stare at me instead?”
This made me smile. “No, I just want somebody to hide behind,” I confessed.
I hesitated at the office door, and Kandace asked “Do you want me in or out?”
Fear had reduced my normally articulate speech to a more caveman-like “You, here,” with me pointing from her to the office. Caveman or not, she got the point, came in, closed the door, and leaned against the wall. I sat down in the chair in front of the desk, feeling like a suspect faced with interrogation, (or at least what I surmised that would feel like, as I’d never faced that situation in reality).
Tears were streaming down my face, and Carole handed me a box of tissues. This was a relief in itself as my sleeves were already soggy from a kind of gross combination of tears and snot. I took one, wiped my eyes and my nose, and she laid a few more out on the desk, my back-up, should one not be enough. I don’t remember what she said, I just remember utter confusion as I tried to figure out what was relevant to the situation and what wasn’t. I didn’t know where to start, I didn’t know if there was an end to what I had to say. I was scared, I wanted to die, and ultimately, I wanted it to stop, and was willing to go to the hospital if needed. I just needed to know would I have a job to come back to.
I couldn’t tell you how it all came out, the few details I remember was that I was able to look Carole in the face more easily than I had been able to Kandace, but that my gaze mostly rested on the design on the carpet or the edge of the desk, and that I had admitted that I was aware that what I was about to say could get me fired. The basis behind that thought was, that your employer generally isn’t too enthused when you come to tell them that you want to harm yourself and possibly other people.
My admittance was not needed, and my fears were unfounded. Carole accepted what I had to say with open ears and an open heart. Only later did I learn the reason why this went so much more smoothly than I expected.
The entire reason I was there (and I didn’t reveal this to anyone until later) was that I knew that I needed help, and that I knew that the hospital was most likely the best place for me, but that I needed that extra push from somebody else, telling me that was what I needed to do. I needed someone to tell me that I was making the right decision, and validate how I was feeling. Carole did just that. After some prodding, I said that yes, I did think that going to the hospital was the best idea, she agreed, and gave me the number to her direct line, making me promise that I would call her once I got there, and ensuring me that my job was not in any sort of jeopardy.
I left, thanking both Carole and Kandace, and wanting, more than anything to reach out and hug Kandace. In light of something that had happened earlier in the week, though, I simply stood there, wiping the tears off my face. (That is an entirely different chapter of this story, though). As I was standing there, I happened to look down the aisle (habitually avoiding looking her in the eye) and see my friend, (another supervisor) Barry. If my urge to hug Kandace had been strong, the urge to reach out to him was stronger. I felt like I was drowning, and he was the life savor thrown to me. I fought the urge, and simply walked away.
He may not have known it then, but he was my closest friend at that moment in time, and it killed me not to be able to simply throw my arms around him and cry to him. There were two things preventing me from doing that, one was the situation from earlier in the week that you’ll hear more about later, and that it just wasn’t appropriate to do to anybody at work, not while they were working I didn’t think.
The one thing I probably like the most about Barry is that, with one notable exception, he never reacts to what I tell him. He always listens, not just like hearing me talk, but actually listening to everything I have to say, and how I’m saying it. He will ask questions to make me think about the things I’ve said, and give me suggestions, but, except for that one time, he never reacts. Second place, in things that I like about him would be that I can cry to him without ever feeling ashamed. Even the very first time that I talked in depth to him, on my break one night, he never said or did anything to make me feel ashamed for crying about how I was feeling. He never even reacted to it. He just listened, and if it bothered him that I was sitting there balled up in the chair in his cubicle crying my eyes out about feeling like shit, he never, ever showed it.
I left the building, and got into my car, and headed toward the hospital with much more apprehension than I had had coming to work. At least at work, there were people I knew, and people I cared about, who cared about me. At the hospital, I was on my own. I had to find somebody to go with me. I thought for a while, and realized that my friend Jenn, would be the most willing to go. I called her, and she was already at the hospital, her grandmother had surgery the day before, and she and her family were visiting. She agreed to go with me, and stay with me in the emergency room while they did whatever they had to do.