Tuesday, July 7, 2015

SEVEN MONTHS AGO

It was in November of 2014, just a normal day when the phone rang.  Normally we don't answer because we screen our calls.  But today we answered the phone.  It was our long time friend Colleen.  She was very calm while she told us horribly bad news.  Our mutual friend, Deirdre committed suicide.  We were stunned.  Years ago Deirdre had a best friend who committed suicide and she never got over how angry she was that her friend did that to her.  Deidre talked about it whenever her friends name came up or she was thinking about the past.

As the phone call continued, we found out that Deirdre had parked her car at a Florida Target parking lot, plugged the exhaust and left the car running until it ran out of gas.  She parked the car in the far corner of the lot and no one checked on it for five days.  She had texted her sister to tell her to cremate her body but her sister didn't seem to think that was a sign because she didn't call the police or go look for her.  No one looked for her until finally a Target employee went to see why the car had not been moved.  That was how her family and friends found out she died.  It was a tragic end to a beautiful life.

The reason I am telling you this is because Tracy was devastated.  First she was depressed, could not get out of bed and cried all the time.  I was upset and cried a lot too but I was able to continue to work and get out of bed.  I was sad that a person I cared about died in such a tragic and senseless way and there would be no way to say goodbye since there was no funeral or memorial.  It seemed empty and sad.  But Tracy was depressed in a way that was scary.  I called her primary doctor and tricked her into going in for an appointment.  He assessed her and decided that she was not going to be a harm to herself.  He tried to convince her to come in and see a professional psychiatrist but she declined.

Tracy had been off her anxiety medication for about a year at this point and she declined to go back on the medication.  I didn't like how the appointment was left because I was worried how she was acting.  She began to act irrational, angry, obsessively cleaning.

The holidays were very isolating.  Neither of us felt like decorating the house and having Christmas music playing but I love the holidays and wanted to go out and be with people.  I wanted to go to a friend's New Year's Eve party.  Tracy didn't want to do anything.  She stayed home and would not go anywhere.  I went to everything but one event alone and the ride to that event was an argument the whole way.

more to come...

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