Car Troubles?

Preface:  Need to keep in mind going into this, I chose not to edit a word of it, or bother to organize it in any way.  My brain lost the ability.  Chose not to get help from chat GBT.  You can look at it as lazy, or maybe kinda interesting?  Think of it as getting middle of the night long texts from someone crashing out, manic as fuck.  Most was written fresh out the Looney Bin, and bordering manic.  I had a lot of adrenaline and a lot to say.  I chose not to edit, because I liked what I wrote.  

 May 30th purposely crashed a car into a large rock wall in Weber canyon.  Planned it out for two weeks, petal to the metal.  Didn’t die.  This was my third attempt this year.   Each attempt has been thorough and well designed.  I thought the third would be the one.  As i live and breathe… still fucking here.  I can only describe me surviving this car crash as supernatural.  Along with the other attempts… supernatural. 

Back in October I had accumulated 90 high dose, heavy duty psych meds.  Serequill, Depicote.. a few others thrown in.  Depicote has been around since the fifties.  They gave it to patients they’d put in straight jackets in a padded room.  I swallowed all ninety.  Cracked open an orange poppy and down goes the hatch.  Glug glug glug.  I believe I half died.  I recall waking up in the middle of the night in a paralyzed other dimension.  I tried to get up to go to the bathroom and my legs gave out.  It was like my body weighed a thousand pounds.  It was a struggle getting to the bathroom.  I can only describe it as that scene in “Wolf of Wallstreet” when Leo’s ludes kicked in before he snorted the coke.  My brother Travis that passed years ago was asleep on my floor.  He had a blanket over him.  I managed to lift my heavy legs over him.  I recall trying not to wake him.  I backwards fell into the bannister and hit my ribs hard.  Made it to the bathroom.  I fell and hit my forehead on the toilet seat.  Thank god I taught myself to pee like a girl seated.  The fiber toilet seat saved me from face planting into porcelain.   The journey getting from the bathroom back to my bed felt an eternity.  Involving wicked rug burns as well as crawling.  Much to my dismay, my eyes opened the next morning.  I looked around my bedroom sobbing.  “How am I still here?” I felt like Bill Murray from “Groundhog Day.”  I found no evidence of me vomiting the ninety pills up.  I was fine the next day.  Aside from a goose egg on my head and some rug burn, it was as though nothing happened.  

The second attempt was in November.  I grabbed a box cutter and sliced a garden hose from the back yard.  Used the cut hose as a tube I ran from the truck exhaust pipe to the driver window.  Sealed everything with duct tape.  I laid down in the cab.  I knew all was working when I smelled that sweet gasoline we all love and can’t explain why?  I laid there for nearly an hour and became irritable I wasn’t dead, or at least delirious from brain damage.  Opened the truck door, threw the hose in the bushes.  Told myself we’d revisit.  Called it a night.  It likely I watch too many movies.  That’s where I learned this after all.  Works in the movies, works in real life.  I was even considered the boombox in the bathtub like Fester from the nineties Adams Family.  

I told myself the third attempt would be the one.  Which was probably why it took me from November to June to get to number three.  I’m a bit beat up.  I do have a titanium rod going down my right femur.  Lots of glass in the front part of my head and forehead gash.  It’s been almost a month, and I’m still pulling random shards out of my forehead and eyebrows.  My eyebrows have always been my crowning glory of my face.  It’s a goddamn Shame to see them the way they are.  I feel foolish complaining about any of my injuries, pain, the way i look… after all, i did this to myself.  Couldn’t really shower out all the blood and glass from my hair, so a nurse shaved it.  I once heard illness and trauma stores in the hair.  That shaving one’s head can be a fresh start and help the healing process.  I’d like to hope there’s truth to that… even a little.

I am discharged from the psych ward.  Current plan:  Physical therapy.  Learning to walk again.  

Trying to take it easy.  Needing quiet.  Distracting my brain from the pain as much as possible.  ICE ICE ICE.  Love Island seems to help.  I get sucked in.   Totally get it.  UK only though… love how trashy it is.  American version is prudish and try hard.  Can’t really go from UK to US. Real bummer.   I mostly watch it for the narrator, Ian.  God what a smart ass.. he’s a clever one.  

Long story long, drove car into rock wall.  Didn’t die, lived.  Went into surgery next day.

I had five euphoric days and nights in a lovely hospital room with very sweet, very young pretty nurses by my side always asking what I needed?  It’s different in Utah girls from young ages are bred into either dental hygienist, or nursing.  Safe to say it’s a saturated job field.  It’s competitive, and a lot of work.  All the respect.  They took such good care of me.  Felt like I was on delta first class.  They just kept bringing me snacks and soda, warm blankies.  Offered sponge bathes even… Even after my “car troubles” I could never.  I suppose there’s a little pride still in there somewhere.  

In these five days, I finally got the rest I’ve been needing.  Visitors every day, flowers, balloons, my fav Trader Joe’s snacks.  I saw the love.  Feeling it has a delayed factory setting.  I didn’t do what I did for the reasons most do.  I am loved, I have never felt invisible or insignificant.  I truly believe I have all the potential in the world.  I know I have value.  I just got exhausted.  A dark indifference took hold of me and locked me down for several weeks all the way up to the crash.  Whatever that dark, indifference choke hold was, I left it in the car.  I killed off a version of myself in that wreck.  In terms of the obvious “ZACH?!?!  DO YOU KNOW HOW LUCKY YOU ARE??? You could be completely paralyzed, having a feeding tube!  What a miracle you lived through this… I saw footage of the car, and it makes no sense you’re even alive.”  Let me get there… I promise I will.  I am aware of the miraculous aspects of it all.  But like I said, my factory setting is delayed.  Also, it just happened.  

Fifth day in my cozy hospital room with a view, two security officers come to take me to the psych ward.  It was a shock.  The plan was to go from the room I was in into the physical therapy section of the hospital.  Apparently it’s summer, lots of boating accidents etc. so the hospital got busy.  They needed my room.  It would have taken 24 hours to go through my insurance to move me up to the PT ward.  Because of the nature of my accident, they were able to admit me to the psych ward.  That’s the thing I regret most of all.  When they were sawing the door off to yank me out of the car, rather than telling them the truth, I wish I had just said “I was texting.”  Would have saved me a world of pain.  

The Psych ward was freezing cold, smelly, moldy and the most degraded I’ve ever felt in my life.  Literally Arkham Asylum.  I ate gray orphanage sludge with a spork every morning.  The worst part is that I felt I deserved it.  I won’t say I enjoyed it.  Not even close.. but there was a quiet satisfaction in the punishment of it all.  It felt fitting for the crime.  We’ve all heard “fight or flight” at nauseam.  It’s buzz termy, new agey, therapy lingo malarkey.  But we forget the “fawn” response.  Fawning is a survival mechanism where you try to appease, or comply.  Appear as calm or willing.  There are several dimensions to fawning.  Being flirtatious is even an aspect.  The whole point is to distract whoever you’re in danger of.  It’s upsetting how developed and efficient my fawning skills came to the surface in the psych ward.  It was so effortless… so familiar.  It’s obvious I became a pro as a child.  Regardless of how fucked up that is, fawning came full circle to get me through the psych ward.  I could have never prepared myself when I was in delta first class for what I was about to go into.  At this time, I have to be brief in my description of the facility.  I’m not feeling it in my stomach as I write about it.  It was as icky and dank as the movies portray.  Bottom basement floor of the hospital next to the morgue shit.  Flickering fluorescent light, ominous dark hallway, blood curdling screams coming from the cells.  Tiny box window in the door for flashlight night check.  I’ll leave it at that for the moment. 

I was the only inmate in the psych ward with serious medical needs.  An entire hospital wouldn’t provide a proper wheelchair.  I waited two days before they brought me one.  I laughed out loud when they wheeled it into my cell.  I can only describe it as a narrow shopping cart.  It was a tight squeeze getting my ass into it.  No padding, no seat cushion… metal mesh.  Extra pillows or blankets to cushion were forbidden.  Bed sheets were forbidden.  You have essentially a cot, one pillow, and thin, scratchy smelly old blanket too small.  You had to decide if you wanted your feet covered or your chest.  

Absolutely no exception to extra pillows to prop up my new titanium femur.  I partially get it.. if I could find a way to suffocate myself with the extra pillows I’m sure I would have.  I was never left to myself once.  I’m not sure why I was the only inmate who was appointed what I called “my babysitter.”  They were by my side every moment of the day.  The bathroom in my stall had a very awkward horse stall of a door.  It was basically a thin strip yoga mat with Velcro as the door.  I was taking Miralax, everything ran right through me.  I will say I was grateful that every one of my babysitters I convinced to break the rules and stand outside the cell door so I could blow that shit up without knowing they’re in the room.  My babysitters, all but one were young college aged kids.  They couldn’t bring their phone or books, so we talked quite a bit and it helped pass the time.  I helped one girl with her boy troubles.  They were all sweet kids.  They all ended up working for me.  You’re going to give me a babysitter I’m putting them to work.  We had to scheme and plot to get my medications.  Pain meds aside, I had blood clots from my surgery, so I needed medication for that along with my regular psych meds.  I saw what a zoo it was for the nurses with the meth heads I was serving time with.  They threw tantrums asking for their “Roxy” which I’m not sure even is?  I understood why the nurses were burnt out, but I needed my meds.  I had to plot, scheme, charm, flatter… fawning 101.  The moment I had finally got the nurse where I needed her, her shift was over and I had to start from zero.  It was stressful, but those fawning skills made sure I got what I needed.  There were a couple days I didn’t.  Completely neglected.  Those days were hell.  

The Babysitters helped keep my mind distracted from the pain.  At least once a day I reached a level of depression and pain so high I involuntary wept.  Sobbed.  Bawled my fucking eyes out.  It was hard having someone right there next to me in those moments.  Under normal circumstances no one would see that.  Never.  If I felt it coming on, I would make sure it was in my cell.  I couldn’t let anyone see my weakness.  I knew I was being tested.  A psych manager or someone not a nurse came into my cell after my first night.  Saw my gray breakfast sludge on the tray untouched.  Asked “how’s the food?” I saw something subtle, but antagonistic in his face.  “It’s great!” I said in an upbeat, non sarcastic tone.  

I was assigned a psych doctor.  I run game with doctors.  My goal was to get him to find me mentally sound enough to release me as fast as possible.  Tall order, being a week prior I crashed a car into a mountain.  The psych doctor showed up at the tail end of my time down there.  He couldn’t have been an easier target.  He was an older white gentleman.  Soft voice, struggled making eye contact, wore a busy pastel Vineyard Vines button up.  Our first visit, he was following protocol, but I broke him down enough to go off script.  He shared that he never signed off to have me in there to begin with.  That he finds that sending someone in my particular circumstance down there the way they did is often a large set back.  That he’s sorry I’m there.  It was the first real humanity I had experienced down there.  Bless him.  Still following protocol, he left me with several sheets of questions I needed to fill out.  Along with  golf pencil, lead replaced with wax.  I did manage to talk him out of further medicating me with new psych drugs.  I don’t think I would have made it out of there the way I did if he put me on Lamictil.  

The questioners he left made no sense.  It was a list of egregious questions where there was only the yes box to check.  There was no “no” options.  Questions like “I am thinking of hurting myself and others.”  I left it blank.   The doctor came in my cell the following morning.  This is where my fawning came through most.  He was following protocol.  I asked him what part of Louisville he was from?”  His whole demeanor changed.  He lit up.  “How do you know?!? Oh my days!”  It was honestly endearing and a tiny bit adorable.  (I have you guys to thank.  I have a few collectors in Louisville, so I know the accent.)  He grabbed the stack of questioners and told me to forget about them.  He told me he was going to do the best he could to get me out that day.  It was a Sunday so he couldn’t make any promises, but the very next morning first thing.  I was discharged the next morning.  This was the one person who makes the final decision on how long I’m admitted.  I needed to break him down.  I needed him to like me.  That’s all it boiled down to.  A basic sales skill.  Comment on where people are from.  Make them feel seen in some way.  I truly wonder on how much longer I had been there without my Louisville reference.  Shout out to Louisville.  Never been, but so far I’ve quite liked everyone I’ve met.  

As of most current.  I’m in physical therapy three times a week.  They’re killing me.  The pain that wakes me every night 3AM sharp is other worldly.  Deep bone growing pains X 10.  But I’m down to one crutch.  I’m making extremely quick progress for the injury.  I can put weight on my leg.  I’m more worried about my broken thumb.  I won’t know what’s going on there until next week.  Just sucks because it’s my right thumb and I can’t hold a pencil, which means I can’t make art/work on your commissions I’ve started.  Drives me insane thinking about them in all the strange development phases they’re in.  Gives me so much raging anxiety thinking of that.  No one is harder on me than me when it comes to me fucking it up with work.  In my mind everyone hates me right now, and doesn’t give a fuck I tried to kill myself.  And my crash was over a month ago… I should be back to work by now… 

I hear how harsh that sounds.  Logically I know.  But Logic and me have never seen eye to eye. 

My thumb doesn’t hurt all that often, so I do see myself returning to work soon.  Won’t say when.  There’s a relief in there being a physical reason I can show for why I can’t work.  I’ve spent my life with invisible illnesses and you never stop assuming that everyone around you believes you’re making excuses for the slack you pull.  Same for the crutches.  I have an accessory to match my pain.  

I feel supernatural.  I may have not physically died in the crash.  Someone died.  Something died.  I feel like a different person.  It’s subtle.  Not good or bad.  But less heavy.  

Thank you for reading.

❤️ Zachary