Fear and Loathing in Lake Tahoe

Last weekend (August 2-5, 2012) I traveled from Houston to Lake Tahoe, Nevada for my best friend Christy's destination wedding.  We've been the best of friends since being matched as roommates in college.  She has always been the more grounded of the two of us while I am the crazy, funny one that has the great ideas but in need of someone to help with the logistics...cue Christy.



Before I get into the details of my drama in Tahoe, let me offer a backstory on the past two years.  My husband, Jim and I separated after I was involved in a terrible car accident in New Orleans on July 29, 2010.  I had been out with some folks I shouldn't have been and on my way home I wrecked my car while trying to plug my dead cell phone in to call home even though I knew I was in the wrong.  I managed to jump a rail road crossing by my house, striking a parked car then flipping my vehicle 4 times before it was over.  Oddly enough, I was ok but in a state of shock while hanging in my seatbelt.  I called jim as my battery was now charged to tell him that i was in a wreck just a few blocks from the house....{/  ADD ADDITIONAL BACKSTORY HERE LATER...



i}After my trip to Tahoe, I was very depressed.  The fact that I was in the emergency room alone, no shoes, no phone and without my glasses that I desperately need to see.  I had no recollection of what happened that Friday night ending the way it did.  I was pissed off at Christy for what the ER personnel reported to me from their perspective...that my friend called 911 because I had overdose on pills.  What the fuck, the only pills I had with me were five wellbutrin my mother packed as she controls all my medication because of my history of poor compliance, abuse or whatever.  And to add to this misunderstanding, the pill bottle the five blue pills were found in was an old prescription for Trileptal, an anti-seizure med i was prescribed last year when I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality.  To my defense, I had just gone through my bitter divorce with Jim, my mom and Harvey were not speaking because of his repeated infidelity over the past 10 years ( news I learned during that time), the loss of my job, home and three dogs in New Orleans.  I was not in a good place to say the least but I was so over-medicated that I was not in my right mind even after seeing the doctor and psychologist.  I was upset to be living at home with my mother and all the entails specifically living with her two large birds, Bob and Cosmo.  I am absolutely terrified of them and their tallons and especially beaks.  I had been collecting unemployment from my old job in New Orleans and they way that relationship ended is another story completely.  After three months of collecting unemployment which I needed desperately to stay afloat on the few bills I had, I was ultimately rejected benefits after my old boss appealed my benefits and then wanted me to repay the money I did receive.  I was not happy but somehow I have not only endured all this but have been able to get it together for the most part for my mom, Chloe Sue and now my new boss Bruce.  I'm rambling and beating around the bush because it is so painful to recollect these events and then to try and add details for flare makes it that much harder.  But I must work through this for my ultimate goal right now is to publish my first book on all this crap that is undeniably unique to me.  I wouldnt wish it on anyone in the world but the worst of this being that I am to blame for most of my suffering in one way or another.



Back to Tahoe, I arrived on Thursday after a hellish travel day that included a missed flight in Phoenix when I was directed to the wrong gate in the huge terminal then finding out the error and rushing back across the beast airport to the correct gate to Reno when- the door for departures shut in my face and i was told that it was too late to board the plane.  I was pissed.  What, your telling me that you can't push open the door that was open 10 seconds ago?  Apparently, yes and there was nothing anyone could do about it.  What the eff?  I had been up since 4:30am Thursday morning with my two hour drive to Houston to make my 8am flight.  I should have arrived in Reno at 11:30am.  At the Phoenix hell hole i learned that the next two or three flights to Reno were completely booked and that I would be placed on the standby list.  Crap.  I decided to find a bar and have a drink, several actually.  I was upset to be dealing with this shit in Phoenix especially because of the history my family has there with my stepfather, Harvey.  That city ruined him and my mother forever.  He has since moved on with his new lady and my mom's self-esteem will never be the same, that SOB.



Have you ever noticed that the airline staff at customer service are absolutely worthless?  They are.  After begging a nice couple for their place on the standby list, I made the second flight later to Reno.  I usually would have been frustrated and upset to be going through this alone as I had always depended on Jim before but now I'm on my own.  But thank the Lord, I made it to Reno.  The small airport and super friendly employees made it a pleasurable experience.  Christy felt bad for my travel horror of a day and drove from Incline Village in Lake Tahoe to pick me up.  She and Chris rented a convertible Camarro for their road trip/honeymoon from the hotel to sonoma valley wine country in California down along the Pacific coast to Los Angeles where they would fly to Bora Bora for a few days.  The crappy day was soon forgotten when Christy and I reunited.  Old friends together one last time before her big day. I was super excited and truly happy for her. 



This is dictation of my journaling from after the trip..



What would happen if i did kill myself?

I still would have missed Christy's wedding and someone else would have taken my place as her bridesmaid in Lake Tahoe.  I actually have had suicidal thoughts for the past two years at times and even though things have gotten progressively more difficult as the challenges and obstacles and knockouts at the knees and brokeness and hurt I have endured and watched my mother endure, I never would have taken my life at Christy's wedding because her brother shot himself a few months before she and I met at college.  I would not have traveled all that way and then taken her thunder and happiness away for my own self-loathing. 



My life was already a mess especially just before her wedding this time with my boss, bruce.  I expected to get fired at work as I began making more and more careless mistakes and bruce was disappointed and irritated with my performance as he should be.  How many more pieces of mail would be returned for missing a stamp, address or another invoice I created without items like mileage and such.  This coupled with my already present paranoia and poor self confidence, near crippled mother, her broken heart due to my step dad which caused her to enter a psych hospital for suicidal ideation in early June and then losing her monthly/only income with their divorce being finalized on July 3, her recent knee and wrist surgeries that she needd recovering from and the recent babysitting fiasco when I babysat Bruce's girlfriend's two teenage kids at his house while he and his gal vacationed in Tennessee and their breakup after because the kids threw parties at his house while I was at work then told their mom I was smoking pot with them after Bruce asked them to apologize to his neighbors for their friends tearing up the yards in his elite country club neighborhood, and finally my best and only friend I have here at home checked herself into an exclusive rehab for smoking pot of all things....jeez that aggravates me, and has been gone for almost two months, it is certainly obvious I have a lot on my plate emotionally outside of work.

  Not sure if that is making sense but you get the jist..



I need my job especially now since i paid so much for my flight to Tahoe and after getting shit from Christy b/c i purchased it a month before which irritated me because i didnt have the funds several months ago like she did as my current situation is drastically different.  I would not have missed her wedding, she was a bridesmaid in my wedding in new orleans and has been there for me for the past 10 years.



I visited Christy and met her fiancee whom she met online about two years ago over this July 4 holiday.  Ironically they began their courtship while christy was staying with me in my new house in new orleans over my birthday exactly two years ago, just before my tragic car accident. 



Ironically, as i'm writing this mine and christy's favorite girl power movie from college just came on TV.  The Sweetest Thing with its crazy funny moments that she and I knew so well and always referenced.  I'm tearing up because of the shock i'm feeling from my awful experience this weekend at her wedding.  What the hell happened??  I still haven't a clue.



I have so many stories to share that are my own experiences both good and bad, most recently they are double whammies of the worst of the worst. This recent catastrophe is very difficult to discuss as it is just another reminder of my "little girl lost and scared" mentality getting me in another mess.



I wish i had a a ghost writer to take all my material from over the years and do it all for me, but that is being lazy and irresponsible at this time. 



Tonight, i have cried and cried. I lost Jim, my old friends in NOLA, Mike, Martinique, Rebecca and her family here in Victoria, my boss Bruce and now the worst being Christy.  I have researched mehtods of suicide to find myself feeling guilty for entertaining the selfish idea.  I will not let my selfish, hurt self destroy my mother, sister Brandy, brother and as shitty as this is gonna sound, I could not leave my beloved pet boxer Chloe Sue.



Oddly enough, two separate publishing houses contacted me earlier this week to discuss my manuscript.  After being asked what my book is about, i was not sure what to say exactly so i just rambled  on a summary of the big hits in my life and even discussed this wedding weekend nightmare for me.  They both encouraged me to "just write" as it sounds like i have a story to tell.  Later on after the conversation, i realized i should have just said it was about "addiction and its consequences"



How can I help others with addiction, co-dependent personalities, low self esteem, impulsive and rebellious natures like myself aware that they are not alone and that God is with us and knows us better than ourselves?



Today I finally got a text from Christy re: this weekend and the details of what really happened at her bachelorette bash.  And now I'm not sure which is worse - not knowing what really happened other than waking in th ER hooked up to IV's and catheter and learning from ER staff that i was being treated for accidental overdose, alcohol intoxication and being alone, without a phone, my much-needed eye glasses, shoes and without anyone to pick me up at discharge.... OR- getting the following text with what really went down...



From Christy to me:  "I dont want to dwell on this while on my honeymoon but I dont want you to think I'm ignoring you either...here's what happened:  Tiff (her sister) and I were walking to the room and pass security along the way.  They tell us that they escorted you to the room and 'good luck" getting in because you bolted the door from the inside behind you.  It took us 20 minutes of knocking, calling you and yelling through the door when you finally let us in.  We sit on the bed with you and start laughing about it trying to get you to talk to us.  Tiff starts shaking you to get a response and then you swing around and punch her in the face.  I get pissed and yell at you.  Someone hears and calls security who show up while tiff is crying.  They ask if we want to press charges and I say absolutely not, we dont want the cops involved.  The cops show up anyway.  Security tells them that you were threatening to kill yourself at the hotel bar when they see a pill bottle in the room and call paramedics when they see it was empty and you were passed out on the bed.  During this they forced me out of the room and I'm beggin them not to take you away.  You then come out on a stretcher yelling at me while I'm standing in the hotel hall bawlin my eyes out.  The next morning you tell me that youre leaving...



Back to my story...  Yeah, I think i was better off not knowing those details.  How could I do that to my best friend ever?  With our history  and her being there for me throughout everything, how could I do that, really?  To be so selfish enough to even mention suicidal thoughts THAT weekend with all that happened to her and her family with her brother's suicide.  This is definitely the most messed up thing I've ever done and that is not a short list with all my over the top crazy stories in my past that unfortunatly I've been the center.  THIS event, has without a doubt forced me to face my demons when several near death experiences in my past have not.  The top of which being my addictions which are the direct source of my self-destrutive behavior.  I have no one to blame now but myself.  In the past, I've been able to push my codependent nature and faults on someone ellse and become the victim who blames my issues on my messed up childhood, growing up ashamed of myself and always haveing a low sense of self and turning to my rebelliousnesss to show off being "an adult" either to Jim or friends to prove something or whatever - all this let to my many humiliating, and often super scary experiences.  I have documented these stories with the hope of becominig a legitimate author but until now, TODAY, have been too lazy and cowardly to be woman/adult enough to take responsiblity for my life and get it done. 



Christy has always been my backbone knowing me better than anyone and now for me to have been so messed up after a long day of drinking, this had to be the time I would be so out of my mind at a bar taking shot of Jager, to be so disrespectful on her wedding weekend.  My new motivation is to make a public apology, dedicating chapters directly to christy with the chapter titled "Dear Christy".  Hopefully she will find this and see that i actually took my "one day I'll be a writer" talk and know that i finally took responsiblity for my behavior, addictions, demons and overcoming them to become a person worthy of her friendship.  Not only to regain her friendship but also to publicly explain my side of what happened to everyone who ever loved me but had to slowly watch me self-destruct - especially my own mother, brother and sister, Jim my ex-husband and anyone else.  It may be a blessing in disguise this awful weekend that I finally start the process of taking the bull by the horns and doing somehting about it already.  It sucks it had to be THIS weekend in tahoe to push me toward real self-awareness. 



After all the disastrous times in which I faced death and was spared by only God's hand, and even escaped serious legal trouble/jail or hurt/killed someone else, I have lived to see this day to tell a story on my inner demons, including my long history ofmental health issues such as the recent diagnosis of borderline personality, I mask under the cover of drug and alcohol abuse and being the victim, little girl type ... I cannot do that anymore after this mess i found to be in, I will not do that to myself or Christy. 



So the stories in my book are all true and unfold with my journal entries over the past 10 years that highlight what my life was like throughout ultimatley to this personal hell in am currently residing.  My calling in life is to use my God given talent to help others aware of God's kind favor and mercy even in the darkest of places. 

I was there for two days only when hell broke loose. I arrived on Thursday.