Patrick Says

I kind of snapped today.

Let’s backtrack a little. For the last two months, in our family, we’ve been dealing with some serious medical problems. Add to that the compounding money problems and you’ve got a recipe for grumpy me. But beyond that, things everywhere are going wrong. It’s all falling apart.

I was handling it okay for awhile, but it just kept piling up and piling up. And eventually, I had to snap. I was at work and Jen calls and says she has to go back to the ER. This would be the fourth or fifth time in the last month. And I’ve been missing a lot of work lately. I’m way behind.

So I lose it. I get to the parking lot and start slamming my satchel into any hard surface while screaming. I kicked my car a couple times and slam things. I fly out of the parking lot, get a block away and realize that I forgot to log out of the computer. So I spin a huge U-turn and fly back. I pull in the lot and there’s flashing lights behind me.

Yes. A cop.

I tell the cop I need to get home to take my wife to the ER and I came back to log out because I forgot and THE JERK STILL GIVES ME THE TICKET.

Dear Crestwood Police Officer,

I hope you get ass cancer. I’d wish you something bad on your heart, but you don’t friggin’ have one.

Signed, Me

I have never wanted to punch a cop so much in my life. I sign my ticket and go in to log out. Turns out I had logged out earlier.

[insert multiple expletives here]

More smashing of my stuff ensues in the parking lot, including my cell phone. And the best part, a co-worker saw my spaz-out and will probably be reporting me to…somebody.

Neat.

Jen and I discuss all this in the car on the way to the hospital. And she’s all ‘you need to see someone’. Fine. I guess I’ll be calling for an appointment.

But you may not know the back story on me and depression.

Depression and I go way back. All the way back to my early twenties. While in the military, probably due to family history, I realized that the thoughts and feelings I had were probably not good and I sought counseling. Eventually, it was diagnosed as chronic depression. I got on drugs (anti-depressants, not diet pills, I wasn’t fat yet) and responded well. I worked with learning to handle my depression over the next ten years and eventually, I didn’t need drugs.

But the last two months have been so hard. I just can’t hang anymore. I’m irritable all the time. I yell a lot. I’m incredibly agitated. I want the world to die. Painfully. All of you.

So, I guess I’m needing some help.

Dear Prozac,

I missed you baby. How you been? Let’s get back together?

Signed, Me

So, there we are…

Okay, truth be told, I really don’t like to write those umpteen paragraph posts. The problem is that usually with anything important, it’s hard to crunch it down to bullet points.

Also, I fancy myself a writer…and yet I don’t seem to want to write. Is that odd? Probably. It would be like if you wanted to pursue a sales career, but you didn’t want to sell your parents on the idea of financing it. I should want to do what I supposedly enjoy doing.

Maybe it’s just a motivational problem. I’m going to buckle down after I write this post and write something with some length to it. Let’s see where it goes…

So, this morning, before going to work, I decide to use the can. I’m sitting there just doing my business, thinking about non sequiturs like jobs in banking and I see an ant on the bathroom wall.

So, I squished the ant.

And he’s on my finger. I use my other hand to grab a piece of toilet paper to wrap him in for disposal and I look away for a second. I look and back and he’s gone.

I understand gravity and ants can’t fly. He fell down into my pants. I have neither the time nor the inclination to look for him. So I just finish up and head to work.

Good luck, little dude. Don’t go into any dark caves. You will regret it.

Oh, one more thing. In that last post, I thanked a lot of people. And I’m grateful to them for helping my family. Thank you.

But I’d like to address some other people in this post.

If you didn’t help my family and you don’t have a really good excuse for not offering, you’d better hope you never need a favor from me. Because I’m getting older and I’m finding it easier and easier to hold a grudge. And I will tell you where to stick your request for help.

Seriously. Shove off.