Not sure how it happened, suddenly there I was in the hospital, what’s more the mental health ward.  I don’t remember being admitted, for that matter do not remember much about arriving at the hospital.  My last memory was me running into my bathroom and downing a bottle of sleeping pills.

Before all of that. Let me back up I knew something was happening, sliding into the abyss.  Here I was in Toronto living in a rooming house because my second marriage had just ended.  Trying to keep things together at my job, manager of the breakfast shift at a fast food franchise.  That didn’t last either, I handed in the keys, outfit and waved goodbye. 

Around the corner was a walk in clinic which I had used before.  There I was telling a doctor how I was feeling, the feeling like I was on an island and the water was rising all around me.  Ten minutes later prescription of Prozac in my hand.

I can imagine this is not strange for some who read this, but, to me it was defeating.  My head felt like it was twice it’s weight.  My arms and legs heavy like iron, I was moving but not connected to reality.

Finally I moved out of Toronto away from the rat race. I moved back to the area near where I use to live.  A bachelor apartment on the main level of a converted house.  Down the street a new grocery store had just opened twenty – four seven.  My friend went with me to buy some groceries.  I thought I was safe going at midnight avoiding a lot of people. I was wrong, a cart full of groceries and then a severe panic attack. I left the cart and bolted for home.

So, that was the slow spiraling trip as a cast away!

(the story continues)