Taking my pulse

 Some things in my life are just very painful to recollect.  One night in particular.  I had taken great pains to make my little apartment a pleasant and loving place.  I had bought "black cherry" votive candles.  

Ron had talked me into taking in a coworker who cheated on her boyfriend, he threw her out.  Ron wanted her to move in and he paid all the bills, pulled rank, so she did.  She was an alcoholic and a sex addict, every time she got drunk she would have sex.  Ron had a lot of fun with that and used to force me to stay in the bedroom as he "did' her in the living room.  

And I remember sitting there in the dark one night, looking at my cheerful little votive candle burning, smelling "black cherry" perfuming the air, my heart breaking.  It was one of the worst nights of my life.  The night he died had nothing on that night.  

Further back, in my teens, I had terrible depressions.  The medication they gave to help just added suicide to the mix.  I was a pretty hot mess to begin with but now I wanted to die, and they kept forcing the pills on me every day.  It was a very bad combination.  

I am one of the reasons they have the "black box" warnings on antidepressants for teens now.  I was actually hospitalized for a month.  Came out still wanted to die and 2 pills every morning.  

My caregivers were told the pills would keep me alive so they were determined to get them in me every day.  Apparently I am pretty compliant taking medication if you wake me up very early that's how they would do it, 2 pills and a glass of water every morning, back to sleep.  

So I would lie in bed at night, most nights, just wanted to die.  The thought of waking up to do it all another day was just torture.  That, to me, in retrospect was far worse than anything that happened in those walls back in California.  The depression.  That overwhelmed even the good times.  

Ron didn't understand either.  He followed "Transactional Analysis" and the teachings of Eric Berne, who did not believe in organic mental illness; to him it was all some version of "bad mommy" and once you cleared all that out people could go have a good life.  These guys were in no way prepared for organic mental illness like I have.  Therefore, Ron was ill equipped at best.  

Ron didn't really "get" I had a "real" problem until I started taking the medication and "became my old self again".  He was sobbing clutching me to his heart screaming "You're back!" and you would never find someone more motivated to take me to the pharmacy to get a refill.  Of all the terrible things he did he never once touched my medication.  

So, back to teen years, lying in bed in the dark, wracked with a mental pain that's impossible to describe.  I pray you never experience it.  I would cry out to God.  

One night, shifting in bed, I found my right hand on my left wrist, taking my pulse.  I kept it there, and found it very soothing taking my pulse.  I fell asleep.  And I started doing it every night and bad nights after I moved out.  Taking my pulse.  

I was thinking about that the other day, me, lying in bed, taking my pulse.