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crackopenabook · 5 years

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Cognitive Dissonance

I wake up in my college dorm, once again drenched in sweat - a common occurrence these days. An outline of my body is molded into the sheets and mattress. I put my headphones into my ears, turn on my iPod and play a song that is chock full of melancholy and sadness. I walk into the conjoined college bathroom, splash water onto my face and just look at my reflection in the mirror. A stranger looks back at me.

I grew up in an abusive household. My father is an alcoholic with a bad temper, and the alcohol only exacerbated his verbal abuse toward my mother, my younger brother and me. It was an onslaught of being called, “stupid”, “ugly”, and even one time he called me a “tramp”; I was only 13 years old at the time. I spent the majority of my life in extracurricular activities, from playing club soccer to Catholic Sunday school classes. Pretending you didn’t live in an abusive household was pretty exhausting, feigning happiness became an art form of sorts. This one particular occasion that stands out was in my 7th grade gym class. I remember how my face felt awkward when I smiled and laughed. When I got home that evening I examined my face when I smiled: the left side of my face was slower than the right. When I blinked my left eyelid took a few seconds longer to match the right in movement. When I drank water, the water dribbled out of the left side of my mouth, when I flared my nostrils only the right side would flare out the left stayed motionless. I remained relatively calm when I brought my mother into my room to look at this anomaly. She took me to the doctor the next day and I was diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy, which in my case, was related to stress. This was not one of those moments where we tell the doctor the type of abuse we endure day to day. I took my prescribed medicine and moved on with my life. Major Depression Disorder affects more than 16.1 million American adults, or about 6.7% of the U.S. population age 18 and older in any given year. [1] When I was a freshman in High School, I began having anxiety attacks during the day, it was as if there was a large weight on my chest and I felt my heart slow down. Normally these attacks would happen at night. I would be lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, but then I would see the walls start caving in around me. It would feel as if my body was being pinched between two fingers, a hard thing to describe. I had the impulse to jump out of bed and begin walking as fast as I could, sometimes I would I have to go outside so I can take a deep breath with fresh air in it. I would mention these events to my Mother but I think she just found it odd but nothing really came from my telling of these anxiety attacks. I don’t believe she really knew much about depression and anxiety, or at least, she didn’t put a label on it. My freshman year of college was out in Brenham, Texas, just an hour north of Houston. I was pretty excited to live on campus because that meant I was going to be far, far away from my Father. However, the loneliness I felt while I was there took me by surprise. Growing up, I had no problem sitting in my room reading a book. I wasn’t very social outside of my sports playing and church-going activities. I suppose my being holed up in my dorm room, outside of going to class, wasn’t the healthiest option. My roommate was cordial and on the occasion would include me when her friends came over to study. I found it must more pleasant when she would go home for the weekend, some peace and quiet, for me to collect my thoughts. There was a night that my roommate was away and I was feeling so sad. I was frustrated that I wasn’t doing well in any of my classes that weren’t electives, I missed my dog, and strangely enough my home. I began thinking about what would happen if I decided to kill myself. What were the pros of no longer existing, anywhere but here would have to be better; even as a God-fearing Catholic I was willing to take those odds of being sent to Hell for suicide. I put a large amount of my depression medication in my hand and put it up to my mouth to ingest but I couldn’t do it. I thought about how much my death would destroy my Mother, how much she has gone through with my Father and how she didn’t deserve to endure pain by my hand. I withdrew from Blinn College in April 2007, moved back home, my parents got a divorce, and I just began working full time. Since I was making some money from working so much I moved out of my Mom’s home and started working three jobs at the mall. I was so busy living a 21-year-old lifestyle I didn’t have time to dwell on my sadness. I still have major depression that rears its ugly head when I’m overwhelmed by work but I put on a happy face to power through. What else can you do? ________________ You begin routines to push you from sunrise to sunset. The industry I work in has the “same shit different day” attitude, I work as an estimator for a body shop. Dealing with the aftermaths of peoples hardships; their loss is my gain. Customers and insurance groups don’t see the monetary benefit I see from damaged vehicles that cost thousands of dollars to fix. However, when dealing with that amount of money from various companies across the country can become very stressful. Paperwork, the quality of work you need to sell back to the owners of those vehicles, and the hassle of collecting payment from insurance companies that might feel they don’t have to pay for certain items. I have worked for three different body shops around the city of Houston and each one has the same type of coping mechanism: drinking alcohol and ingesting various types of drugs. When I first began in the automotive industry I was still “green”, which was just another term for being new to the field. One of my co-workers, Josh, had anxiety issues and took a high dosage of clonazepam[2] which can help with panic attacks but can also lead to suicidal thoughts, memory loss, and drowsiness. Josh would give me a pill or two to take when he could see I was having a rough day. Normally after a long work week, my co-workers and I would buy a bottle of Crown Royal and hang around the shop for a majority of the night. Josh would tell me, “Fuck it, this job sucks anyway” and we would take a clonazepam with a glass of whiskey. One afternoon I couldn’t handle the clonazepam I took. I honestly can’t remember how many I took, but I remember having a major panic attack. I couldn’t stop crying or saying how much I wanted to die. It was enough that my manager at the time asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital and...I don’t remember how I got to the emergency room. After I was evaluated, my Mother and Step Dad showed up at the hospital and talked with me about what I was feeling. I was put in an ambulance and taken to a mental institution and held there for 7 days. This was a completely different type of outcome than my attempt at attempted suicide some 6 years prior. You have a routine from sunrise to sunset in that hospital. Nurses wake you up around five in the morning to take your blood pressure, take your meds, and then back to bed only to be woken up again at eight in the morning for breakfast. It was an interesting system to be in because of the different types of health issues you personally get to be involved with. My first night there I was woken up to a woman screaming for her cigarettes. Some of those women coming off of meth or heroin can’t miss an opportunity to smoke or else they will fight a nurse. This hospital was split between men and woman when it came to breakfast, lunch, dinner, and quiet time. You can’t spend too much time mingling with the opposite sex. I did notice a younger, dark-haired, Hispanic guy who couldn’t have been more than 25 years old. He was manic-depressive; the way he would just stare off into the distance but he had a look in his eyes that just seemed empty and lifeless. I would try to talk to him but he wouldn’t really say much of anything, hardly a grunt of acknowledgement. The other guys would say “he’s too quiet” and “very weird”. I saw something in that manic-depressive guy that I was so afraid to see in myself. I couldn’t shut myself off completely like that. I had one of my best friends from the body shop, Chris, come and visit me. He asked me, “How long are you gonna be held up in here? This place feels creepy, almost like jail but cleaner.” My best friend has been in county jail for street racing so I could see where he was coming from. “I don’t know when they’ll let me out of here. Once I have my evaluation and the doctors think it’s safe for me to go home.”, I told him. Chris had such a look of pity and confusion on his face and in his eyes. I’ve always been honest with Chris about my depression but he could never quite wrap his head around the issue of me just feeling sad. After 5 days in that hospital, I was ready to fake being happy. I missed my home, my dog, and fresh air from outside of those walls. On the 7th day, I was released. My Mother came to pick me up from the hospital and as soon as we drove away from the building I started crying. A cry of relief, of shame, guilt, and happiness to be free.

________________

I was fired from my job at the body shop a month after I returned to work from getting out of the hospital. I honestly can not remember my final month at the shop. I am fairly certain they kept my workload to a minimum. When I was let go it was the shop foreman, TJ, that brought me into the manager's office, “I’m sorry, Ashley, but we’re gonna have to let you go. Clean out your desk. You’re done for the day.” No one is a fan of being fired and I remember feeling calm at first as I packed up my desk and said my brief goodbyes to Josh and Chris. As I was leaving though I saw TJ again and that was when I started crying and he hugged me. Apologizing. So only a month away from my hospital stay and I was home alone with only my dog and bills I couldn’t afford. This was November 2013, just a week before Thanksgiving. Ah, what to give thanks for? It actually took over four months for me to find a job as a receptionist at a moving company and over a period of six months, I was promoted to an accountant. Thus began my love for accounting, or more specifically the love of counting money. During this time I also started having a friends with benefits relationship with my current boyfriend. I have not had another major depressive episode since working at the body shop. When I told my boyfriend, Jonathan, about the mental hospital I was in he was very supportive. One of his best friends, Clayton, was in a mental hospital for three weeks, I have actually spoken with Clayton concerning this and he describes how generous Jonathan was, “Jonathan would come and visit me almost every other day just to see how I was doing. He was the only one of our friends who would do that. Jonathan is one of the kindest guys you’ll ever know.” All of that is true. On me and Jonathan’s second anniversary, he told me how he really feels about me, “When I look at you I see someone that’s felt sadness and hard times just like me. I see someone that hasn't quit. Someone that hasn’t compromised being themselves.” Knowing you live with this overwhelming amount of sadness inside of you and having to carry the burden of that knowledge alone is tiring. To have someone by my side through toughs times is very helpful. My family has all but moved to other sides of the state or out to other states so seeing them becomes more difficult. I’m not one to attempt contact with friends. I prefer to be alone so my old friends are just distant memories. My dog passed away a couple years ago so it was tough waking up alone and not having someone to get you out of bed every morning. However, having Jonathan, even his cat Pablo has made a home with us, is a blessing I would have never known I deserved or needed. I have found my way back into the body shop business. I have learned from past mistakes and I don’t drink on the job or do any drugs; which is funny to even say considering that should be a give-in with any job. I came back into this industry because I know it pays and I already know the routine it asks for. I have worked at this particular shop for over a year and I have come home crying from stress more than twice but I had Jonathan to catch me as I am falling. However, I find myself drinking just a little bit more every day just to get out of the reality of my current workload. I know though that the harder I work and more accounts I take in the more money I can make, which has paid for the college classes I am currently taking, and the car I am saving up to buy. To keep me from making my past my present I try to keep up a healthy lifestyle with exercise and eating correctly. Running helps create dopamine which creates happy feelings.[3] Although as I’m running I just wonder what it would be like to run away from everything I currently hold dear and never look back; I don’t think I could do that. ________________ [1] Facts & Statistics, Anxiety and Depression Association of America, ADAA, 2018, adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics. Accessed 22 Sept 2018 [2] Medline Plus. The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, Inc., 1 Oct. 2018, medlineplus.gov/druginfo/meds/a682279.html . Accessed 18 Oct. 2018. [3] Healthline. Exercise, Depression, and the Brain, 2016, www.healthline.com/health/depression/exercise. Accessed 17 Nov. 2018.

#english 1301 #memoir

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