Lying there awake at 3 AM in the psych ward, terrified and confused, I recounted the day’s events. Had I taken my meds? Obviously I had not...or not enough. The depression had been consuming, clouding my judgment and my sense of reality. The downward spiral of my life had been like a domino effect for months starting with the fire at one of the restaurants and culminating in the closure of both restaurants, which meant the loss of our livelihood and the threat of losing our home. At the time of the fire, I was ensconced in my role as the entertainment chairperson for our community’s air show celebration. When I got the call from my husband that fire had gutted the kitchen at our fast food restaurant on the first day of the three-day event, I barely reacted. I knew that it would be a process to recover but we had insured ourselves well and my husband was available to deal with the immediate issues and details while I proceeded with the air show event. Even when I saw the devastation a few days later, I was over-whelmed but still tried to stay upbeat and began organizing the process of cleaning and restoration. Organized to a fault, I was proficient and timely in forwarding all the information the insurance adjuster would need to prepare his reports and make timely payments. As the weeks stretched to months, we became concerned that communication from our insurance company was almost nonexistent and payments were not forthcoming. Since our second restaurant had only been open for a few months at the time of the fire, it was not viable on its own yet and now, with no income from our first restaurant, it was becoming increasingly difficult to make ends meet at home. We were in constant contact with the insurance company but our efforts to get information from the adjuster were futile. The standard reply, if we got one at all, was that he “was working on our file”, and we continued to languish as we waited for payments. Four months later and after a complaint with the state insurance commission yielded no results, we had to make the painful decision to close the new restaurant that we had poured our lives into. This was a huge mental and emotional blow to both of us. This was our baby, conceived with our love and efforts and discipline, therefore almost as precious to us as our six children. This venture, unlike the fast food restaurant which was 30 miles away, was right there in my hometown. A place I had spent all but two years of my life. And with a large family tree and history in that smáll town, I knew almost everyone; and if not, my dad did. A very successfuì businessman both in farming and later in insurance, he knew that taking care of people was the key to success. Not just taking care of your customers but taking care of your community by participating freely with your time and money for events and benefits that support a better life condition. When I took the leap from discount store employee to management and started operating a convenience store in my hometown, I felt that I continued the family tradition of taking care of people and enjoying the financial benefits of their reciprocal patronage. Such was the community and family history that I was proud to be a part of. Such was the way of life I had taken for granted until it was gone in a flash – literally - with the fireball that swept through the kitchen of our fast food restaurant and culminated in the closing of the new restaurant. I wasn’t there when the doors to our restaurant were locked. By that time, I had descended into a black hole of depression that left me barely able to function and a self-imprisoned inmate in my own home. Every negative, traumatic memory from my life haunted me and I relived each and every one as if it were a fresh, mind-numbing wound. In my twisted mental state, I could take the few good pieces of news and moments in everyday life and turn them into something distasteful, disappointing and ominous. I felt like a huge failure – in business and in life. Any signs of joy had long since been replaced by sadness and despair. I had seen myself as a money-savvy person, which in the restaurant world meant that I was paying all my bills and living comfortably. As I sat with three stacks of unpaid bills – one for the fast food restaurant, a much larger stack for the now closed restaurant and a continuously expanding stack of personal obligations, I saw no end and no resolution. And so I found myself in an unbelievable situation – locked up in a psych ward. I had been verbally attacked when I arrived because I was standing on floor tiles that were the self-proclaimed territory of one of the other patients. I was advised not to use the bathroom between my room and the next by the nurses that said the patient on the other side of the bathroom door could “be abusive”. I knew I didn’t belong there and tried to convince the nurses of my sanity. But then, how many times a day do they hear that? So lying there wide awake in the middle of the night, I found my survival instinct and knew that I had to solve my own mystery. I had to trace my steps for the past few months and figure out how I had arrived at this cataclysmic point in my life. Then the answer became clear and I realized that it was my wickedly, stealthy old friend, Addison
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