a messy life

Honestly, it's been a weird time. Really weird. (No, I'm not referring to the Corona pandemic and everything that has come with it, though that may play a part of it all). As I'm sitting here, typing my story, I am on a leave of absence from my usual job. (I'm a Starbucks barista.) The reason why is what I'm here to tell you all about.

See, nearly a year ago, I began being sexually harassed at work. I wasn't the only one. There were three or four others that made complaints to our manager about the same guy. He would touch my butt, tried to get one girl to come to his apartment to hook up, sat on another's lap, and offered another his "sausage delight," to which she wittingly told him that it would be a "sausage denied." This guy wasn't by any means a good employee either, so it isn't even as though the manager felt he would lose something if he dealt with the harassment, which would be a bullshit excuse anyways. He just didn't want to deal with it. He acted compassionately towards us when we would talk to him about it, but he had zero follow-through. And this isn't all.

In the coming months, I would be verbally and physically harassed by another coworker who transferred into my store. She yelled at me most days, slandered me both to my face and behind my back. The physical part? She threw tongs at me. Yes, the cooking utensil common to most kitchens, which we use at work as a tool for getting food in and out of the oven at Starbucks. I managed to move out of the way, but it came inches from hitting my face. I told my manager about this incident the same day it happened, the instant he got in that day. But nothing came of it. He acted slightly concerned for half a minute then moved on with his day. When I told him about the slander, he said he'd deal with it. But by this time, I had learned not to believe him. So I challenged him. I asked him exactly what he was going to do. Ultimately, he stabbed me in the back and then claimed he just didn't want to take sides.

Honestly, when I started this post, I wasn't planning on sharing all of this. But there it is. Though lacking a lot of detail, that is what half of my 2019 looked like. I was distraught and barely hanging onto my sense of self. Even my academic advisor tried to help me find a therapist because I was drowning and she could see it. But all the efforts to hold onto the nonexistent life ring was to no avail.

On December 7, 2019, I attempted suicide. In all honesty, I barely remember it. The beginning is fuzzy, then nearly a whole day went by without my awareness. But what I do remember, is the pain leading up to that decision. It wasn't something I just thought of that day and went through with. It was something I had been contemplating for months by that time. Most days, I barely made it through. I had panic attacks at work and at home. I cried while I made lattes and while I wrote essays. I would cut myself during work breaks just to ease the anxiety a little bit. I dissociated so often that my manager came up with a sign to be able to ask if it was happening. My flashbacks became all too present once again, and they would come at any time of day but especially at night. I was so terrified of them coming that I wasn't sleeping because they always came when I'd go to bed. I was so sleep deprived...that I was hallucinating. I had so much anxiety that I stopped eating. At first, I just didn't have much appetite. Then...then came ANA. Some of you may know her, but to others, this may seem like a foreign term. I was anorexic. For nearly 4 months before I tried to take my life, I was eating only minimal calories and drinking coffee and diet soda to keep my appetite suppressed. I focused on being skinny because anything seemed better than focusing on my actual problems.

Now, I had support from a few people. My husband tried to be there for me, but he didn't know about ANA or my suicidal feelings. My friends at work knew I was going through stuff because of what was happening at work, but didn't know the extent of my internal struggle. Even my manager knew a lot because, at the time, we were really good friends (or so I thought). But I'm the only one that knew I wanted to kill myself...so no one was there to try to stop me. So I did it. I tried, and I think I can finally say, several months later, that I'm glad I failed. I don't know if I'll feel that way tomorrow but I do know that I feel that way more often now than I did even one month ago.

In the immediate aftermath, I had SO MANY people surround me. Friends back home were texting and at Christmas time were extra supportive, friends and mentors here visited me in the hospital and made time to see me after I got out, and even the coworkers I wasn't super close with tried to help me out and make work easier and less stressful for me. It was like the whole world wanted to be my bubble. And then it was gone. It was over as quickly as it began. (I even had one friend tell me I couldn't text him anymore, and that hurt more than you can probably imagine.) Now I know people didn't mean for it to happen that way, but that doesn't change the fact that it did. I know it doesn't mean they cared any less, but my need for support was and still is just as high.

Now fast forward to today, July 11, 2020. A lot has happened but a lot is only beginning to change. For nearly 10 months, I have wanted to kill myself most every day. I have been anxious and depressed and self-injurious and constantly exhausted and dissociated and JUST PLAIN SUICIDAL. But I'm still here.

I had to take a leave of absence from work because dealing with people all day, every day only exacerbated my symptoms. I could no longer take the rude, the overly cheery, the emotionally normal...any of it. I could no longer play the fake happy human that customer service requires. I would wake up dreading it and leave feeling exhausted and like there was no reason for me to keep living. One weekend, I spent the whole weekend contemplating suicide. All I wanted to do was die. I wanted to try again. So I did the only thing I knew I could do to stay alive; I took a leave of absence and increased the frequency of my therapy. So here I am now, about three weeks in and finally starting to heal. I'm finally starting to feel stronger. Maybe this whole experience has helped me be closer to who I want to be or maybe it was a detour I was able to learn from anyways. Either way, I am finally starting to believe I have it in me to be whole, though I don't yet know what that really looks like.

I still get depressed, and anxious. And I still have days where I feel suicidal. But it's getting less troublesome. I'm learning how to take better care of me. I'm learning what that means and what that looks like. And I'm not always optimistic about it, but I'm doing it. I'm finding reasons to be alive. I'm barely managing some days, but there are now some that I flourish

I'm no longer sinking, reaching for the life preserver that wasn't there. But I am swimming. I found a lifejacket that helps me stay afloat and I am making the strokes and kicking forward...or at least floating in place on the rough days. So I may not be good, but for now, I'm good enough.