Battled Bepression

By the fact that this letter has no name at it's end I can tell I never finished it. Well, I was depressed. 

In any case, I hope what is there makes good reading. 

6^th March 2014

Dear Mr. (YouTuber),

It was the fifth of March that you asked your audience, of which I am one, to tell you the stories of their depression. I have battled depression for the whole of my life, and so the story of my depression cannot be held in a comment. So long a story needs thought and introspection notwithstanding the need of all things done by the depressed: time.

My depression found its start in the rough handling I received in tender youth. The youngest of three children in an unsupervised home my older siblings would unite against me as a force of violence and so I would fight until exhaustion against them. This prompted my mother to send my older (sibling) to live with other family members for a summer, but it did little good as (they) had to come back for the school year.

These beatings of youth left me with what is called transient brain damage as a result of trauma to the back of my head. I struggled to read and struggled to write because of this problem, and even now I would be unable to write this letter coherently without a program that reads my work back to me as the written word and I simply do not get along.

My depression worsened with my mother’s second relapse of cancer. She fought the disease for as long as she could but lost and died a week after my tenth birthday. My father was what one may call an absentee parent. He would arrive at my residence on Friday night and leave Sunday evening, and so I would see him for the weekend. This left the home in the care of my older (sibling) who, mentally ill and violent, ruled by needless force.

At the time, in wake and sleep my life was a nightmare. In my waking times I stood silent looking after myself and staying away from siblings as best I could. I often had dreams where my hands were cut off, and I learned in college this is symbolic of the feeling of helplessness.  

By age fourteen my depression had reached its height, and I could hardly lift my hands. I had medical insurance, but my father refused to take me to see a psychiatrist. Why I cannot with certainty say, but he would always dismiss my maladies with “it’s all in your head” or “You’re a hypochondriac”.

For much of my high school years I felt like a piece of dead meat with a soul trapped within. There were times I would sit in bed unable to sleep but unable to stand as if a prisoner in my own flesh. Every morning I would vomit, I’m not sure why, before or when I got to school.

I made it past high school and suffered with depression my whole life finding what friends I made of little help. I learned in psychology that the abusers find the abused and that many of us accept abuse as we think it to be normal. I was twenty nine when I walked away from the abusive people in my life, and I still have trouble making friends often due to my condition. I take medication, and I live with my problem but there is little hope of recovery.

The one great silver lining to my condition is that I can relate to my clients as I work with the homeless population of Los Angeles. Many of them lived a life as sad or worse than my own. They find in me a listening ear and accepting mind a comfort. 

After the Doctor

First of the new year 2014

Dear Cassi,

So where was I? A client had come it drunk, gone nuts, and left me bleeding with my office a mess. It was only then that the supervisor came in and told me that I was bleeding.

I told her that the police were on their way, and then I documented things as best I could. The supervisor called my boss and he said that I should leave at once for the hospital, but I insisted on waiting for the police.

I’m glad I waited because the violent client came back and stood at the door watching me expecting to be let in. I can’t say as to why she didn’t force the door the way she did before, but maybe it just failed to close right.

The supervisor on duty asked me to pull up a picture of the client for the police then looked at my broken computer and said ‘I guess you can’t’. It sounds funny now but it wasn’t at the time.

The police came and asked me questions. They asked about what happened and the nature of the program. I was surprised because those officers had been to the shelter before. I mentioned this to them and they said that normally staff had not be so ‘polite’ as I. I guess they always wanted to know about the program but had never asked due to the rudeness of staff.

You have to ask what goes through people’s heads when the police arrive. Me, I was happy to see them, but then I called them. They finished up with me, and I drove off to the hospital. I spent an hour in the emergency room waiting and an hour after the doctor  saw me for some test results then I came back to work with the paperwork from the hospital.  

My boss was sitting at the front desk and was hoping that I’d finish my shift, but the night had been enough for me, and I was on my way home.

Stay safe, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

After I got Blooded

31^st December 2013

 Dear Cassi,

Two letters in one day, well, that’s something new. In any case I guess I could have just kept writing the last one, but I’m in a funny mood, and I have to go into work. I got my face blooded this morning and I’m still going into work.

I have to finish telling you the story of the person who bloodied it to keep my head clear.

In any case, that angry client left this morning after I tried to call the police, but she came back. I saw a figure at the door and went to press the button to open it, but I didn’t need to. The door came open on its own.

So there was that angry drunk, and she wanted her belongings at maybe an hour past midnight with her roommates sleeping. I can say this much she wasn’t drunk, not anymore, she was crazy angry, but not drunk.

This girl was the kind of angry that meant she couldn’t be permitted back to her room because she could hurt someone, and it was my job to keep people safe. So I told her to leave and she wouldn’t.

I called the police and she reached over the counter and ripped the phone off its cord. I pulled out my cell phone, and she tore the time clock off the wall and hurled it at my hands knocking my phone to the floor.

I had to put my phone back together and let it turn back on as she grabbed everything she could had hurled it at me as hard as she could. The papers and the mouse pad hit me. By the time she threw the computer monitor I was on the phone with the police. Next went the computer body and the police were on their way.

She tried to rip the security monitor off the wall, and I didn’t want that hitting me so I put my hands on top of hers to stop her, and she spit in my face. She tried to jump over the counter to get at me, but I knocked her back. Twice more she tried this before knocking over the Christmas tree and storming out.

I was safe, but I was bleeding. I was bleeding, and I didn’t even know it yet. I’ve got to go to work now so the rest I’ll have to tell you tomorrow. Funny, isn’t it, I got my face blooded at work this morning and they won’t even give me the night off.

Stay safe, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Blood has been Spilt

31^st December 2013

Dear Cassi,

       

New Year’s Eve and my blood has been spilt. I have had one of the most trying days at work in my long years of working in security and yet I only worked a half shift. This was not by any choice of mine as, you see, I was sent to the hospital before shift end.

       

It started simply enough with a client, a young woman, coming in drunk. She admitted to having been drinking and was stumbling and slurring her words so there was no question. As is the custom at my work she was asked to wait in the front until addressed by a manager.

       

This was all going well until another client came into the front and had a late dinner. When the other client was admitted back the drunk became agitated. She said it wasn’t fair that she had to wait and someone else didn’t, but I explained that she was waiting because she was under the influence.

       

I did my best to keep calm but she kept getting angrier and angrier. She started to scream that she wanted her belongings and that she would never come back one she got them. This meant nothing to me as she was clearly unsafe to be permitted back to get her belongings and would need to keep waiting until she calmed down.

       

Then she started kicking the door to get into the shelter. She kicked that door so hard that the manager called and asked what the sound was. When I told her it was the client the manager said she would have to keep waiting.

       

The client got in my face rather literally bending over me and yelling so that spit hit my nose. She said that ‘they’ were in her room right now steeling her stuff. I told her that the other clients in her room were just likely sleeping, and that she would be fine.

       

After an hour of this I told her she needed to leave and that if she did not I’d call the police. I picked up the phone and she knocked it out of my hand.  She left but she would be back.

For that matter, the sun is rising and I need to get some sleep so I’ll tell you what happened next at some other time.

Stay safe, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Violence - Issac Asimov