Depression or despair, where is the turning point?

Depression or despair, where is the turning point? “What a waste!” Darren, the middle age detective exclaims. “Another young woman has lost her life and I have to find out if it is murder or suicide.” “Suicide?” replies his partner Jeff. “Whatever has given you an idea like that to make you go off your rocker Darren?” Darren states “Look at how tight the plastic bands are, except the ones around the hands. As a matter of fact that is what came open and let one arm float open to the level a boat prop could cut it off I bet. Which is why we found the body at all to begin with.” Brooke Fairless lies in bed, having just woken up. She has been depressed and this time it is the worst. The sheets are evidence of that. They are gritty with dirt brought in from the dogs,not to mention the doghairs themselves. Brooke has not washed the sheets two months. That is not like Brooke. Brooke looks at the sheets and asks herself, “ How can I let it get this Bad” The really sad part is the house has gotten worse. Dr. Hilbert had adjusted her meds. Brooke was actually starting to feel better . Today she had set the alarm for ten in the morning so she would actually do some house work. Brooke looks at the phone, she has fifteen minutes so she pulls the covers back up over her head. “Red Alert” goes the cell phone. She starts to curse her choice of ringtones. She is a Syfy fan but it really can give one a headache in the morning. “Hello.” Brooke says in an half caring tone. She did not catch herself in time. She noticed it was her ex-fiance Peter Ballard. She would not have answered the phone if she had caught herself. Peter was handsome . He had just the right strawberry blonde hair to match Brooke’s. He was tall and had the muscles of a prison inmate that had nothing to do all day but workout. Peter had his own business as a plumber. Yet, when Brooke needed him most he walked away somewhat. This made it really hard in the small town of Fulwater, Texas, a town located in part of east Texas known as the Piney Woods Region. Brooke was now used goods. And, although everybody intown thought they knew why Peter broke up with Brooke they really would never know the real reason. Peter only hung around to make sure that nobody else got something he might still want to claim. “Hello. Brooke. How are you doing this morning? I was wondering if we could still have that dinner with my parents?” Peter still had not told his parents that he broke up with Brooke. He would not until he was sure that did not want Brooke. After all she did offer certain things. As a pharmacist, she would always be a respected member of the community. That was all messed up when she had the tumble on the bike. Why did she have to ride bikes? “Peter are you serious? Have you not told them that we are kind of broken up? That you still call me but you are the one that dropped me? If you haven’t told them I will go just for their sake. But you have to promise me this will be the last dinner we have with them as an engaged couple. It has been over a year since you broke up with me!” Peter answers her, “ I still love you Brooke. You never know what the future will hold. I said I needed some space. I am thankful Brooke. I promise this will be the last dinner as a fake engaged couple.” Brooke cuts the conversation short, “Goodbye Peter.” It still hurt because part of Brooke still loved hm. Then a greater part wanted to rip him into a million pieces. How could he feel like the victim? Brooke was working on herself. She had been a victim of a bicycle accident almost three years to the date in March. She was riding with a friend.. A storm grate had caught the wheel of her bike. This accident left her with two broken hips, a left broken arm , right broken foot, right broken knee, right broken shoulder and a mild traumatic brain injury. Brooke’s case was different from the start because things had been messed up from the get go. The accident report showed she was wearing a helmet but when asked by a nurse the next morning if she remembered anything Brooke answered, “Yes, I was wearing a helmet and..” The nurse told her those memories were false. The hospital also missed everything but the two broken hips and the mild traumatic brain injury. Brooke spent almost two long days being tested speech therapist about her possible return to work issue due to a brain injury. They further thought she was more messed up than she was due to medication overdoses that she was given at the time of that testing. Which Dr. Hilbert helped her fight the timing of the testing as well as its accuracy. Brooke won on getting these remarks put in the chart. The hospital was more than happy to make the deal if Brooke did not sue because of the mistreatment. Still it was hard to fight that battle and get treatment for the other injuries at the same time. Brooke was just happy that the last surgery was over. She now felt good enough to go back to work. Or at least attempt to see if she could handle it. This meant she had to go back to work in a supervised manner. This was like doing the last phase of pharmacy school all over again. Sherry Christopher, the vocational rehab counselor had not been of much help to her. That was in getting the place to do this supervised work or in finding a program to do it through. Brooke recalls asking Sherry do many things in assisting her. Sherry’s standard reply seemed to be “You can call yourself.” When Brooke asked if her Ticket to Work provided by Social Security provided for these services Sherry had a standard answer for that at first too, “Do you have the material with you are a web site that shows that? However, at the next meeting Brooke did just that. She had printed out the material from the web sites. Now Brooke was set. She should be starting this program soon. Brooke had only a few things left to do. She had to get liablility insurance and a couple of releases. One was from a Neuro-psycholsist., Vincent Black. Brooke hated testing by him and his type of providers. They always seemed to ask too many personal questions and appeared to consider themselves God’s. What right did they have to stick a number on one’s IQ. Did they consider that some people were really nervous.? Did they consider that their questions were like a personal rape? My gosh the MMPI itself is a rape. They only give you two choices to answer a question. Life is not all black and white. This plus Brooke wants to say to them that “What if my working memory is not so good. God gave us higher functioning brains. We can utilize tools such as a pencil and paper to write things down. What is wrong with that? Plus my long term memory more than makes up for that….I have almost 100% recall of things once I get them into my long term memory. Which important to the practice of pharmacy.” Brooke stops herself from whinning and gets out of bed finally. She goes to the Y for a swim and to do some walking. She knows that barring any unexpected surprises she will be back to work finally on Monday. She will have to be supervised but only for three months. She smiles to herself. This time her judge will be someone she respects and that she feels is qualified to judge her return to pharmacy work. Brooke returns home and takes care of the dogs. She does the minimal amount of house work she has to. She still is not quite out of this depression. What is the problem she asks herself? Then she tells herself to shake it off. Everything is going good. She has fought so hard to get well with the final return to pharmacy now happening. Brooke goes to bed attaining sleep in about 2 hours. Monday comes with Brooke bouncing out of bed. Brooke truly is almost happy. She lets the dogs outs, takes a shower and eats something. The drive to the free clinic is about forty-five minutes. She parks the car and goes in. Jacob Powers, the Chief Pharmacists, shows Brooke around. Everything is in alphabetical order. Even the antibiotic and dermatalogicals are in this order. The only thing that is separate is drugs that are considered “patient assistance.” That is given to the patients by drug companies. The clinic just keeps track of it to make sure the patient is compliant. Brooke remarks, “It couldn’t be much simplier than this. If I have any questions should I has you are another pharmacist? I guess I am asking if I will be under you or someone else?” “I will be introuducing you to Steven Cotch shortly. I would have done it sooner but he comes in from 10 to 6. So the answer is you will be under me for about an hour and then Steven most of the rest of the day. But, Sandra, we do not plan for you to be kept under us forever. You will be back to doing pharmacy by yourself before you leave. Which brings up something program ‘Network of Good Health Retreads’ wasn’t clear with you about. You will be here about 5 months. You will be completely supervised for three months and the last two will be like you are on your own but with our support. Does that make sense? We felt that three months was not enough for your situation. Please don’t think that I find you not cabable. We just feel that three years out of pharmacy is a long time. We want to give you the best we can of this oppourtunity. And we felt like five months would help you learn the new drugs that have come out in the last three years. How does that sound to you?” Brooke chokes back her true feelings and says, “ I understand completely.” Deep down Brooke did understand. Yet, her emotional response was that this was just one more setback. Did they find her to be stupid? In need of a longer than normal re-entrance program. She had to stop this. Her therapist told her she did this to herself. Why were these last six months so hard for her. She had overcome so much but now the mental stuff was killing her? Brooke shook it off Brooke remembered the verse Proverbs 20:10 “Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the Lord.” Brooke had taken this to mean that letting one’s self to be bogged down by the thoughts of depression and the toll that depression took on one , was an abomination to God. So Brooke tried very hard for some time to force the depression back down to its core. How could she tell someone that she did feel better in some ways but more worthless in others? All of this time she was taking from everyone, her parents were spending so much time worrying about her. All of the money on counseling she was wasting. She should be able to shake this off. Brooke had been strong and gotten to through the fight of getting better but now did not know how to face the unknown. What if no one wanted a young pharmacist that had already had a stop gag event so early in her career? One day while at the clinic a man by the name of Jeff, a physician’s asissitant, asked Brooke out. Brooke replied, “For sure if you take me to see Yogi Bear in Yellowstone it is a deal.” Jeff quickly answered, “You’ve got it Brooke. I will pick you up at five tonight. We will get a bite to eat too.” At that moment Brooke looks down. She has almost made a mistake. She knows she should be glad she caught it. But instead she is so hard on herself. How many mistakes have gotten past me? Should I really be back in pharmacy? What have I done? What am I doing? Brooke goes on the date with Jeff. She almost has a good time. She smiles that fake, “ I am having a great time on the outside but really I am depressed beyond what you can imagine on the inside smile.” Brooke goes home that night and can’t sleep. The depression had become despair. Brooke no longer sees life as worth living. Peter wants only what he can’t have. He has left her. Jeff wants the shell of what he sees. Brooke was wrong in thinking she had the fight left in her to go back to a job that required so much attention from her. But what was she if she was just going to sleep around the house anymore. Brooke could not deal with this anymore. She had a plan from earlier in her recovery. It was due mostly to pain but she summons it now. She thinks back to verse about diver’s weights. How much that will be the symbol for her life and her depression. As a pharmacist she has calculated the time she will need to work on binding the plastic ties she takes from the pharmacy. She has enough drugs that can put her under fairly easy. Brooke knows which lake she wants to rest in for the rest of her life. All she has to do is figure the half life of the drugs. Which ones will allow her to finish the work and then send her into a coma? Hopefully her life will be a message to some people. Maybe it is the brain injury that has left her in this circle of depression? Brooke doesn’t know . She just knows it seems like her best option to end her pain. Darren thinks to himself, “ I wish I had been wrong. I sure would have loved to put a person a way for this as if it were a murder instead of a wastful suicide. This girl just \ needed a little better care at first. She had to fight too much. She was worn out at the end and had no fight left. In a way the people that treated her from the start deserve some of the blame. “