Tag: attempted suicide

Lost Confidence

I’m actually going to go off topic with this one. Just a real quick note, I’ve been staying in Germany with Stefan again, just not as a patient this time. There’s a door on both the guest bedroom and bathroom this time! I’ve been here a little over a week now. I’ve been having seizures and Iji just isn’t strong enough to easily maneuver me if necessary, and Stefan’s wife is a nurse. So I’m here to have some tests until I at least have a cause and treatment plan, then I’m back home again. I’ve been here a couple of days now, and I’m ready to go home. My first appointment was a few days ago, they took a couple of blood samples and a plasma sample and that’s about all I know. After I that it’s an MRI, EEG… I can’t keep track anymore.

The point is I hate my body. I never used to. No matter how I feel about my father, my genes are good, I took care of myself, I’ve always felt pretty good. After July I put on about 15 kg pretty quick. The scars on my back already didn’t bother me too much, but now I have new ones. None of my clothes fit the same and they all look terrible. I found a few things that work, but not so much with the tube running across my face. I was almost starting to feel OK then I pulled that suit. It went straight in the fireplace, silk burns up quick. Isn’t it unfair that no matter how I try, I can’t see myself the way I used to?
I have managed to work off roughly 5kg with my leg and foot fully back in working order. Cardio is a challenge I’ll have to work on later, I just don’t think I have it in me right now. Iji and I had a routine of stretching together, and we’d walk to the store together once a week. I’m trying to keep the walking up while I’m here, and he was able to take a few days off to visit during my stay so we walked together, but I don’t know why I keep getting so damn stressed out walking out by myself. I used to run every damn morning and it was fine, I’d walk around the middle of the night just to relax but now I feel like I’ll drop out of my own skin when I’m off alone. Stefan’s wife goes out with me when she’s restless, but she’s a little over 6 months pregnant with twins and wears out as quickly as I do with my heart so we’re not good for motivating each other. It also serves as yet another unnecessary reminder of how badly I fucked up, yet I still don’t regret what I tried to do, only how

I started writing this about a week ago, but I haven’t been doing well and set it aside. The update since I started writing is that all of my tests have come up with exactly nothing so they’re focusing completely on the medication angle. Unfortunately, there aren’t many options they can try because their risks are too much with the damage already done to my heart…. Right, that part where I screwed up again. There was a time I thought I was intelligent. Now I come up with new reasons every day to feel like a moron, a failure, a coward, a pitiful excuse for the man I used to be and I really can’t figure out why. I know I shouldn’t hate myself, I know I didn’t cause what happened to me, but I do, and I did. It was my fault. I should have been guarded, I shouldn’t have had that bit of wine, I shouldn’t have turned my back, I shouldn’t have ever been with him in the first place …  Then I just feel guiltier because I’m better with Iji around, but that isn’t his responsibility. He deserves more than that… he deserves for me to be better on my own so I can be better for him.

He deserves so much better than someone that came a little too close to breaking a promise today. I nearly made myself a liar and I don’t even know what came over me. I haven’t got a clue what I was thinking, I just couldn’t handle anything. I had this moment where I felt so overwhelmed. I had taken a nap and I woke up, again, feeling hands on my neck and I was so overwhelmed and terrified of something I couldn’t fight … Stefan is an intuitive genius that suddenly started worrying about me, so he stepped away from a family event and got back to his house just before. Twice now he’s saved my life, I forgive him for it this time. As much as I’d like to pretend this time didn’t happen, here it is. I don’t even know if I’m brave enough to tell Iji myself. He deserves to know, he’s putting his trust and his faith in me and I’m just spitting all over it.

Spiral

I tried for weeks to convince my friends nothing happened. I was so ashamed. I should have known better. Being on guard is a natural state. When I was a kid, my older brother was a lot tougher than me, and he wasn’t gentle. There was no reason I shouldn’t have been able to defend myself. I should have seen there was something wrong with him. There’s no end to the list of should haves and I still struggle to convince myself it’s not true. I look in the mirror and feel disgusted. I couldn’t sleep in my own room. I threw out my sheets and blankets, I put a rug over the blood on the carpet. It didn’t matter. Every time I walked in I knew it was in my mattress and on my floor.

The weirdest things drive you to something good sometimes. That kid I babysat for Hitoshi that was being adopted by a man in Japan, his adoptive cousin, being raised by her uncle as Ijiro’s sister was in the states practicing at Hitoshi’s school. He visited a lot as he grew and I continued helping Hitoshi watch over him while he was in town until he was 7. He liked me a lot so we kept in contact. He’s in his 20’s now. He inherited his adoptive father’s store and house. And he invited me to stay with him and even offered me a job. So here I am, I went from a confident, decorated martial artist, to an easily panicked accountant working for a guy 10 years my junior. It got me away, and I trust him. And not to insult him, but he probably couldn’t threaten me if he tried, even with the state I’ve been in.

He even set aside some home renovation funds to add a security system hoping it would make me feel secure. Really, I feel guilty. How could I be so pathetic that someone just starting their adult life feels a need to protect me? I reported Raph under the urging of my friends, I didn’t want to but I did. I was keeping up with a lawyer by phone and email, but I had to go back for the trial. I ended up staying in a hotel, I couldn’t go to that apartment again. Bubbles’ older brother was coming to help me prepare for the trial and clear out anything I wanted to ship out of my old place. He’s not a lawyer, he volunteered to help as a friend, but I knew it was his profession (and his little sister) that drove him to help, I’ll get into that later. He was going to pick me up in the morning to go to my apartment before the trial so I could get out again as soon as possible.

I spent the whole evening imaging the way people would look at me. My own brother had agreed to be a character witness against me on Raph’s behalf. He probably resented me because of a lawsuit when his negligence put our little brother in danger. He was calling me unstable, telling people he believed I would ask Raph to hurt me. I spent the evening dreading seeing Raph again. Then I started drinking. A lot. About halfway through my bottle of vodka I realized I couldn’t face it, and I swallowed as many of my antidepressants as I could.

I’ve never felt more crushed than when I woke up in the hospital the next day. I had forgotten I put Stefan’s name on the room. I had been sleeping terribly and I wanted him to be able to get a key if I wasn’t awake. If I was ashamed before, being found unconscious in a pool of vomit on a bathroom floor didn’t help. So I was alive, but I spent so much of the night vomiting that it tore up my throat. They put in an NG tube because I couldn’t swallow at all. My blood pressure was wrecked, I could barely breathe, and Stefan was still dragging me to court assuming I could be released. I was released, into Stefan’s custody as a therapist. Instead of going back to Japan I ended up living in Germany in Stefan’s house. He took the door off the guest bedroom and bathroom, and locked all the cabinets. He took my wallet away, he also took my phone and computer, I was only allowed to use them with supervision. I couldn’t even leave by myself. If it wasn’t bad enough already, I was having a real problem getting air stuck in my stomach with the tube feeding. I was also having a real problem trying to force burps with the tube in my throat. The only way to relieve it was to let Stefan slap my back like I was a damn baby.

I hated him. I hated his wife. I hated his house. I didn’t really, I was just so damn mad. I spent most of my time at Bubbles’ house next door. As often as Stefan would let me anyway. Fortunately it was only a week before they took the NG tube out, I probably could have had it out sooner. My leg wasn’t getting any better, and two of my heart valves were damaged in the overdose. They said my heart wasn’t receiving enough oxygen, and I needed to carry a portable tank. This was my life now, is my life now. And I did it to myself, I know. And there was Iji, have I admitted yet how much I really cared about him? And I knew how he felt about me. He didn’t push anything, but he didn’t hide it. He was going to hear what I did, and it was going to hurt him. And no matter how sorry I was for that, I still don’t regret what I did. I’m angry about how it turned out. I’ve promised him it will never happen again, and I mean it. But… I wonder if it would have been better if Stefan hadn’t saved me. I’m alive, but I’ve ruined my health. I’m alive, but the memories I have are frequently overwhelming.

It was a few weeks before Stefan was confident letting me leave. Iji came to get me, it must have been an awkward car ride. Stefan doesn’t know any Japanese and barely any English. Iji doesn’t know any German and… can communicate in English. I could tell he was mad when he saw me. But he didn’t yell or anything, he never does. He just cried and I hated myself more. He forgave me and it’s so much more than I deserve. And he brought me home.