Sept 11, 2004

It was three years to the day after “The September 11th” and one and a half years prior to my stay at the psychiatric hospital that I would first lay eyes on her.  But we actually did meet on September 11th 2004.  I am crying as I write this by the way.

I have a thing for dates.  It annoys the shit out of my friend JD.  But when something happens in my life that is kind of a big deal I will remember the date.  I remember when I moved down here.  My family and I left on August 19th.  They stayed with me for ten days and then left to go back up to Colorado.  My first day of work down here was August 30th.  Leaving Colorado was a big deal.   Leaving my job up there to come down here was a major upheaval in my life.  Turns out it was also a major upheaval in my ex-wife’s life as well.

Things were spinning out of control up there and something had to change.  The place I was coming to work was a great place to be employed.  The company is always or at least was always ranked in the top 100 places to work for either by Forbes or Fortune magazine.  All these years later, it turns out for me at least, they were right.

So this brings me to something I wrote a number of paragraphs back and that has to do with sex addiction.  It seems to be somewhat a controversial topic.  It also has a horrible stigma attached to it.  For some reason the term sex addict conjures up pervert in one’s mind.  I am not a pervert.  I am probably like 40 percent of the male population in the United States that seems to be obsessed with pornography on the internet.  With me, it interfered with all other aspects of my life that I sought help through the twelve step fellowship of Sex Addicts Anonymous.

There are a number of fellowships that deal with sex; SAA is one of them.  There are also Sexaholics Anonymous,  Sexual Compulsives Anonymous, Sexual Recovery Anonymous and Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous.  Since sex is a natural human/animal function similar to eating it is called a “process” addiction.  I am not sure why.  I was and hopefully still am in SAA.  Sometimes people will refer to these types of meetings as “S” meetings.  In 2004 there were two “S” meetings, SAA and Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous or SLAA.

My first SAA meeting down here was on the Thursday before my family left.  That would have been August 26th.  I drove myself to the church and as I approached the  entrance on the side there was a large fellow with long hair pulled back into a pony tail.   As I walked up he said, “So you got this thing too?”

“Yep.” There are more like me down here too, I thought.  I went in and maybe another person showed up and we had a meeting.  After the meeting, the large guy, Jeff, I will call him told me that there is another meeting that meets on Saturdays which is called SLAA.  He said it did not deal so much with sex as it did with “love addiction” which, as it turns out, I probably experienced with the first woman I had sex with.  I decided  would give that one a try too.  I mean I wasn’t going to be doing anything else other than going to work.

On the 29th my ex-wife, then wife, and three kids along with my sister drove back up to Colorado.  My sister had come out from Georgia to visit with us as we “transitioned” me down here.   The following weekend I flew back up to Colorado for the weekend.  That would have been the weekend of the 4th.  The weekend of the 11th was my first weekend her without my family.  It was on Saturday the 11th of September, 2004 that I went to my first SLAA meeting and saw her.

So there you have it.  I met the love of my life at a Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous meeting.  That meeting is now defunct.  That’s a whole story of itself.   In my opinion, I don’t think either of us had the love addict thing going on.  She didn’t have the sex addict thing going on in the slightest.

My first thought when I saw her is, “You gotta be kidding me!”  I thought this because she was absolutely beautiful.  The room, by the way, in which the meeting was held was and still is disgusting.  It is a very musty smelling room in the basement corner of a church.  The room was the same room the SAA meeting was in.  When I went to the SAA meeting, I thought, “Yeah, this is about right. A musty smelling shit hole of a room for a piece of shit such as myself.”  But then, at this other meeting she shows up.  I thought it was some kind of mistake.  Then as the meeting went on and I realized that she actually meant to be at that meeting, I thought, “She’ll be here for maybe this meeting or the next and then we’ll never hear from her again.”

I would actually go on to hold a resentment against her for being as pretty as she was and attending the meeting.  It felt like it was some kind of conspiracy.  It felt like life was saying, “You are such a decrepit piece of shit that here is this beautiful woman that is pretty much pure as the driven snow.  You get to look at her, see how wonderful she is, and watch her life just unfold beautifully as your life goes to shit.”  Such were my thoughts in those first few weeks after arriving.

My life did go to shit.  It took some time though, about a year and four months.  She along with a couple of other people were there to witness it all.  And they were there that Saturday night November 26th of 2005 when I came into that meeting and cried pretty much through the whole thing.

Thanksgiving 2005

Thanksgiving 2005, not a good one.  Yet it sure is one to put in the memory books that’s for sure.  The last fifty two hours prior to say nine a.m. on Thanksgiving is kind of a blur, a fog at best maybe.   I know I am going to be seeing my wife but more importantly I am going to be seeing the psychiatrist, the guy that I think is going to determine my fate.

Here I am on the side of the wall.  I can not down climb because I have no idea where there is a safe place to put my feet if I were to attempt to lower myself down.  A majority cause of climbing accidents happens on the down climb where a climber can not see where to safely put their feet.  Up is my only option.  To stay, and call for help, well, that’s just ridiculous. So, I stick my arm in a crevice between two rocks.  I frantically search above me for another rock to grab onto.  There are a couple of flat rocks maybe the size of pancakes but there really is nothing.  There are just featureless flat surfaces above me.   I actually have a go pro camera on the top of my helmet.  It sees that there is nothing to grab on to.  Later the video being taken of this event would confirm this fact.  If the camera could talk to me it would say, “There’s pretty much nothing up here.  Don’t know what to say to you dude but unless you can get your ass a little higher on this wall your’re pretty much fucked.”  Technically this is called “Cliffed out.”  I can’t go up and I can’t go down.  My attitude is, “Fuck that! I am going up.  And if necessary I will die trying.”

So what I am going to do is lodge my arm tight into the crevice between two rocks.  I test each rock again and again.   They are both actually really huge.  Essentially they seem to be integral to the mountain.  These rocks ARE the mountain yet I still don’t trust them.  I test some more.

My feet are on a ledge that is probably four hundred feet above the rock tailings below.  There are of course jagged rocks sticking out of the wall that I would probably bounce off of on my way down.  The next ledge I can put my foot on is probably at waist level.  Attempting this move is fatal.  I am thinking I would probably push myself off the side of the mountain trying to get my foot on that ledge.  This ledge has a landing of maybe four inches and is slanted downward at about a 45 degree angle.  So I am going to ask my bicep on my left arm really nicely if it can do me a favor.   I mean a really big favor and that is to raise my body up the wall so that I can get my knees on to that fucking ledge.  Once I get my knees onto the ledge there appear to be plenty of options for hand holds on my right side that are within reach.  Word back from the bicep is, “I’ll give it everything I’ve got but you only get one shot.”

Similarly, every word I choose to say to the psychiatrist must be carefully considered, vetted, and tested in my head again and again.  I’ve seen the movies – both comedies and horror films where the inmate/patient tries to convince the doctor or doctors that they aren’t crazy.  I know this is not done by saying,  “Look doc, I’m not crazy.  Really, I’m not!”  I know this is also not done by “trying” really hard to appear sane.  To be honest, I don’t have a clue how to convince somebody I am not crazy.  By crazy I mean not a threat to myself or others.

However before I meet with the psychiatrist my wife will be coming by.  I am hoping we can resolve this.  I can go home, we have thanksgiving, and move on.   I am also thinking this is probably not in the cards.

They come to get me or call my name or what ever.  I don’t remember.  And I go to the room on the right of the entrance hallway.  My wife sits across from me and the mediator sits to my left. The room seems to be warmly lit.  I remember she was wearing a white button up sweater.  This seemed to make her look more. . .  I want to say older but really I think the right word is “mature” or maybe “grown up.” I did a lot of talking; apologizing, acknowledging my wrong doing, begging for forgiveness.  I suppose it was just the same old garbage I was telling her over the phone.  I think I went on for maybe fifteen minutes.  She didn’t or wouldn’t say anything.  The mediator asked if there would be anyway we could come together.  I looked at her in anticipation of something soft.  And as if the mediator had said nothing at all  my wife says, “I want Floyd to go back and learn to love himself.”

I’m thinking, “What the fuck did she just say?  You gotta be fucking kidding!  Learn to love myself?  What kind of new age psycho babble bullshit is that? I am going to go  back and learn to love myself. Hmmm.   How will I know when I have succeeded.  How will she know when I have succeeded?  What are the measurables here.   If I achieve this lofty goal of “loving myself”, what then?  This is so fucking nebulous.”   I actually didn’t think these words but the dialog here is the essence of what I was feeling I suppose.

That was all she said.   It occurs to me at this point that when this woman is up against the wall or when she sets her mind to do something she will not under any circumstances fail.  It’s not that failure is not an option.  It’s that failure simply does not exist in her universe.  This also means that as an adversary, I don’t stand a chance.  At this point I couldn’t see this.

We both stood up, she handed me my suitcase and looked at each other.  I asked her if we could hug.  She had one tear running down her cheek, left or right, I don’t remember but it was one her cheeks.  She just shook her head no and walked out.  “I can go home, we have thanksgiving, and move on.”  Uh, yeah, right.

I started to feel a little bit smaller in the world.  I started to feel a bit more insignificant.  I started to feel like I was in the middle of the ocean.  And I think I heard someone or something say, “Ahhh, We may have something to work with here!”

Okay bicep, it’s go time.  I got called again to see the psychiatrist.  This time I went through the door on the left.  On the other side was a hallway.  Doors on either side of the hallway opened into examination rooms.  I was led into one of them.  I think I waited awhile until the guy came in.   I think we talked a bit.  I answered all questions as truthfully as I could. (bicep is doing it’s thing)  I gave him my assessment of my behavior and tried to convince him of nothing.  I did tell him I have no intention of harming myself.  What I want to do is go back and begin working a very serious twelve step program.  This was the absolute truth.  In fact, I wanted to go back and get so fucking recovered that I could ram my recovery down her throat!  I didn’t say this though.  Thank you bicep.

He said something like, “When you leave here we have absolutely no idea of what you are going to do.  We know what you have done.  We know what you have intended to do.” referencing my recent activity.  “We need you to sign this statement that says you are not going to commit suicide.”

Once again, I did not say this but thought,  “Really?  You’re joking, right?  I mean I can sign this but what are the consequences if I, say, engage in a breach of contract here.  What are you going to do put me on death row?”   I did question the purpose of signing such a document.  I don’t remember any answer.  I am sure he gave one but I don’t remember it.  I signed.

With that signature I was allowed to leave.  They said they could not take me home and asked me where I would like to go.  The bus stop for the bus that went to the airport was the only option.  Nothing else came to mind.

I did have lunch there.  I had my 2005 Thanksgiving day meal in a psychiatric hospital – an experience I had no anticipation of ever having.  I anticipated I would get married one day.  I anticipated getting a job, owning a house, owning a lawnmower, and having children.  Life sort of goes that way.  I go to college, get a job, and come to the part of the story where I meet a girl and we get married.  But somehow, “Okay, we have come to the time in the show where we have our Thanksgiving day meal in the neighborhood psych ward.” did not appear anywhere in the script – at least the last time I read it.  I had had some pretty lonely Thanksgivings before and even some family drama ridden Thanksgivings before but this one had a certain je ne sais quoi feeling of hopelessness – a quality of desolation I had never experienced before.  In fact, I had no idea the feelings I was experiencing even existed.

And of course, on this day.  On this Thanksgiving day, 2005, I ate my meal without the thought of gratitude entering my mind.  It didn’t exist to enter my mind.  We probably said something as a group before we ate but it was lost on me.

I opened the suitcase my wife gave back to me.  My cloths and any other possessions were just mashed into the suit case almost as if she was trying to optimize the distress level of the mashing and mangling of cloths.  “This doesn’t look bad enough.  I know I can do better.”  The image of her pulling a shirt out and then putting a belt in and wrapping the shirt around the belt then stepping back to get an over all view as if she was hanging a picture on a wall came to mind.  “Hmmm, no, I think it would be better if we wadded up his dirty underwear around his toothbrush.  Yes, that looks much better.”  My reaction to what I saw in the suitcase was, “Yep that’s about right.”

Under supervision I changed into clean cloths and was escorted out of the psych ward and into a van.  I rode in the front seat with the guy for the half mile it took to get to the bus stop.  Once again, as I think about it, it amazes me just how close and convenient every thing was.  Everything was within the neighborhood.  It seems like that could have been maybe a selling point for housing location.  Great location for mental breakdowns, conveniently located to a hospital, psychiatric hospital and bus stop.   I got out of the van with well wishes from the driver, waited for the bus, and then was off to the airport three days earlier than planned.

My feet are now on the ground at this point.  I think I have made a couple of steps and of course the altitude gain is negligible

The nightmare is fully realized and coincides precisely with reality.

The psychiatric hospital.   The pod is accessed by double doors.  A short hallway from the double doors leads to a common area and the central nurse station.  On that hallway to the right is  a room and on the left is a door to somewhere.   Major events, well, sort of major events would happen in that room and behind that door.  From the common area and nurses station another hallway heads off in the opposing direction of the entrance hallway.  On the left side of that hallway are class rooms on the other side are rooms for the occupants of which I was one.

In the common area is, of course, a TV which, of course is on. . . all the time.   There are the things one would expect in this room things used to pass the time, the TV of course, a shelf with board games and jigsaw puzzles, institutional chairs and couches.  The predominant colors of the room are pastel orange, yellow, and avocado green.  In one of the walls there is a little cubby with a phone, a land line phone.  That morning, anytime someone was not using it, I was.  Once again, all to no avail.  I started giving up after lunch.

I think I actually remember wondering what she was telling the kids.  I think I was wondering just, “What was she doing?  Please just get me the fuck out of here” was mostly what was going through my head.  I still wasn’t quite accepting of my situation yet.

Like I said, I signed up for classes.   I am thinking they might have to do with anger management.  I would eventually learn that one does not manage anger.   In my case when anger was present it reigned supreme.  I had yet to learn this though and it wouldn’t happen here.  I think some of the classes dealt with the “12 steps.”  Most people seemed to go to the classes as something to do, something to pass the time.  Me I went to the classes because I wanted to show them that I wanted to learn – learn how to not be there.  Just a heads up here but there is no class or number of classes or any type of education or knowledge that could have ever prevented from doing what I did.

Being the introvert that I am I really didn’t interact with any of the other patients/inmates.   I don’t think anybody there was really having a good time.  I remember there were a number of people that were severely depressed.  The following is from the category, “I thought they stopped doing that in the 1930’s” These people were so depressed that they underwent Electoconvulsive shock therapy also known as EST or EcST.  Look it up.  It’s real.  They stick something in your mouth to prevent you from swallowing your tongue and then they shock the living shit out of you.  I am sure there is more to it but I will just leave it at that.  These people seemed very very flat to me.  Almost no animation and no emotion and talked in a monotone.  But what the hell they weren’t depressed.  One guy swore by it.  I think he may have been in there for his ninth time?   The guy said something to the effect of, “Fuck the 12 steps, EcST is the way to go.”  It actually made me think that it might be for me too.  That thought evaporated fairly quickly though.

The 12 steps were talked about a lot both in the classes and in general conversation.  This is where I learned the 12 steps were actually only six at first and they came from a group that called themselves the Oxford Group.  I didn’t believe a word that guy said.

So I spent all of Tuesday and all of Wednesday there taking the classes and thinking, “I just need to get the fuck out of here.”  By Wednesday morning the obsession with wanting to call my wife to get me out of here had passed.  I knew it wasn’t going to happen.  What had taken it’s place was resolve.   It was probably on Wednesday that I found out I would be talking to a psychiatrist on Thursday, Thanksgiving day 2005.  I also found out my wife would be coming to visit me Thursday as well.

Sitting in the Wreckage

I woke up.  I woke up wondering where I was and how I got here.  Same questions I had about 4 hours previously went through my head.  I had to fill myself in on the details – kind of like they do on TV when they have a double episode.  The salient scenes of the previous episode are shown to give the viewer a sense of where the story left off.  In my case the story left off at me in a psychiatric hospital.  I had to list out the events using my fingers like I was counting.  See if you can count along with me:

I stick out my thumb; “going to bed with the kids,”

Then index finger; “woke up,”

On to the middle finger;  “wife not at home,”

Ring finger;  “wife out drunk,”

Now the pinky; “I got pissed,”

Next hand stick out thumb; “threatened suicide,”

then the other index finger; “cops showed up,”

On to the middle finger; “took me to the hospital,”

And finally I stick out my ring finger; “ambulance ride to psychiatric hospital.”

The light in my head begins to dimly glow orangeish red.  “I am in a psychiatric hospital held against my will.  Hmmm, interesting.”   I felt the need to scream.  This can’t be.  Holy shit, this really is reality!  I am in a fucking psychiatric hospital!  Yeah, I’ll put an exclamation mark on that last one.

A brief google search was fruitless on the matter but judging from the 1937 video on youtube it took the Hindenburg maybe 45 seconds to go down.  In 45 seconds the ship goes from a buoyant sound structure to a heap of metal on the ground.  In a similar fashion and maybe just as spectacular so did my life.  That morning my life was a mangled skeletal smoking frame amidst burning puddles of diesel fuel.

Everything goes hazy here.  Bits and pieces come through but the exact details are not quite clear.  I made more attempts to call my wife from the phone in the common area – all to no avail.  In total I am guessing that I tried to call my wife maybe 125 times.  She answered twice.  Her only words, “I am protecting me and the kids.”

So, I probably had breakfast.  There were classes.  I really don’t remember what the classes were about but I signed up for most of them.  Just like in “One Flew Over the Coo Coos Nest”, I do remember a lady handing out meds at the center counter of the “Pod.”  Yes, I was in a Pod for severely mentally stressed people – the kind of people that you had no idea what they were going to do next.  You know the unpredictable ones.  I was one of the unpredictable ones.

I was considered crazy.

It all starts with one single snowflake.

14erQuest Summit 11/59, Route 9/42. Humboldt Peak. On a ridge, solo, in a whiteout with 60mph headwind, all I want to do is turn around. Every step forward is a battle. It’s psychological tug-of-war. Emotionally- this is scary, you don’t belong here, go home. Logically- you are warm, you have plenty of food and water and clothes, the wind isn’t picking you up off the ground yet, you have gps, you have backup gps, you’re fine, stay positive, keep moving upward, you got this.

-Will Seeber, on Humbolt Peak January 10th, 2017.

The start of a climb or hike begins by simply moving one of your feet, either one, it doesn’t matter, in front of the other one.  I guess I could say in some cases it means turning my body sideways so that I am facing toward the outside of the car, scooching my butt to the edge of the seat and placing both feet on the ground.  I am getting out of the car to begin.

The beginning of a climb can be so unassuming.   A simple sign that says Kilpacker trail and next to it an interruption in the grass meadow, the path.  At the end of the trail are two peaks that are over 14000 feet tall with a ridge called a traverse linking the two, where all the drama unfolds.

At 3:00 in the morning it is dark and the temperature is about 30 deg F.  My teeth are chattering.  I have 20 lbs in my backpack.  I am wearing long johns under my hiking pants.  My Goretex bycicle jacket covers my synthetic turtle neck shirt which covers my synthetic tee shirt.  A winter hat covers my head.  I have my head lamp on.  The spot light of my head lamp lights the sign and then the barren earth interrupting the grass meadow.  I lower my hiking poles held in my gloved hands to the ground.  Almost without a thought I place a foot (one of mine) onto the path and start what will turn out to be an 18 hour journey up though the forest, up unstable rocky inclines, then up one mountain, over a traverse to the next mountain, down back over the rock, through the forest again in the dark, and back to the car.   To be honest, the journey started when I turned the key in the ignition back in the garage at home.  It is almost like that first snowflake of the first snow storm that hits the earthen rocky mountain side that will not see light until the snow has melted in the spring.

At this point in the hike it is important NOT to think about hanging by one arm lodged in a crevice between two rocks on the side of a wall four hundred feet in the air completely exposed with no ropes.  Of course I don’t know that this will happen. (It did.)  But I know something there is a chance of something like this happening other wise I wouldn’t do the climb in the first place.  No. What is important to think about is only the path that stretches out in front of me lit by my headlamp.  What is important is to concentrate on the cadence and follow the path.  I will get to the “fun” part soon enough.  The fun part is the real terror felt when truly faced with mortality.  That “fun” can not be bought.   -Too much liability for the seller.  Yeah, sentence fragment, I know.

Concentrate on where I am right now.  Now is not the time to be thinking about the future.  I can’t do anything about it.  I should have thought about the future before I went out to the garage with my wife on the phone to tell her I was going to end it all.   I certainly thought about the future before I went on my climb, hence the clothing, the 20 lbs of supplies including food and water, gloves, hiking poles, and headlamp.  Also, now is not the time to think about how I should have been thinking about the future before I went out to the garage to kill myself.  Now is the time to be thinking about now.

As the intake guy left, closing the door behind him, I lied in that cot listening to the air handlers fill the room with warm air, listening to two other guys snoring, and staring into the blackness of night.   My entire body tensed.  All of my muscles contracted as if I was trying to squeeze myself back through some wormhole in time – the time before the nightmare started.  “This had to be some kind of sleep paralysis thing going on.” I probablythought.   It was maybe only five hours ago that I was drifting off to sleep with my three boys up in their bedroom.  How the hell did this happen in only five hours?  How did I get here?  Apparently, I lost the route.  I think there is a good chance though I was never on it to begin with.

I was sent out on the journey with no map or compass.  I knew a lot about how to do a lot of stuff but had no tools to do the stuff.  I heard my head say to me, “Breath.  Take a look at what you got. Breath.  Take inventory now.  Oh yeah, and by the way if you happen to think of it, Breath.”

Breathing.  Turns out it is fairly important.  Breathing is the most basic thing that keeps us alive.   You stop breathing you die. . . . soon.   When buried in an avalanche, you don’t die of hypothermia or frost bite.  You die of asphyxiation.  And you die soon.  Your rescuers have fifteen minutes to find you.  You pass out and then you die.  Kind of not a bad way to go maybe?  Question mark.   Breath.

 I listened.  I listened to the air handlers, the fans that moved the air.  I listened to the motors that ran the fans.  I listened to the snoring.  I stared into the dark and though,   “Nothing bad is happening to you.  I mean really right now nothing bad is happening to you.  You are warm. You have a full stomach.  The cot is actually kind of comfortable.  Breath.”  And then I went to sleep.  I actually went to sleep.

So I had a lot written the other night. . .

I went to see where I left off and there was no where I left off.   As I typed my previous post, I would see in the left side bar from time to time “saving.”  I believe I even hit publish but all the stuff that I had typed the other night was fucking gone.  So word-fucking-press, I don’t trust you anymore. I need to save what I write on my computer as well.  I will try to recreate it. I guess.

The head line read, “Hi, my name is still Floyd”.

Anyway my fucking name is still Floyd.  A lot of people say this at meetings when they share for a second time or any subsequent times they share after their first.  I don’t quite get it.  I mean did I miss something?   I mean have there been instances where a person suddenly changes their name right in the middle of a meeting?   Judging by the number of people that say, “My name is still so and so”,  mid-meeting name changing must have been common.  I say “must have” past tense because in the thirteen years I have been going to meetings I have yet to hear someone say at a meeting my name is Joe and then when they share again they say,”People,  I have changed my name. I am no longer Joe,  Now, I am Bob.”  I could go on about this but won’t.

Let’s see, as I last recall I was in the back of a police car picnicking.  Wait, no, panicking.  Yes, that’s what I was doing.  I was panicking.  I am not a good enough wordsmith to put together the right set of words to adequately describe what was going on in my head.  I think all I can come up with is feeling like a caged animal, like a fish on a hook or wild bear in a cage.  Some people say, “You know, we think we are free but it’s just an illusion.  Really we’re not free; we are enslaved by “the system.””  I am pretty sure these people have never found themselves suddenly in the back of a police car.  I think I have a pretty good idea of what “not free” is.  I am pretty sure the people that think they are not free have no more idea of what “not free” is than a person blind from birth knows what the color “blue” looks like.  For me, it was a tremendously horrible feeling.

Sitting in the back of the car with my hands zip tied together in a compartment not much larger than my body blew my mind.  I was having a feeling that I had never had before.  I can say, “trapped” but that doesn’t quite cut it.  The closest I can get to that feeling was the first time I went to a native american sweat with my late wife when we were dating.  This was four years after the incident that I am writing about.

A safely run sweat is held in a canvas covered tent.  This is called a sweat lodge.  It is completely dark and in the center are very hot rocks anywhere from the size of grape fruit to bowling balls.  The rocks are so hot that they faintly glow red.  After the tent flap is shut and it goes completely dark, the leader pours ladles of water onto the rocks.  The ensuing steam immediately consumes the tent and in seconds my nostrils and then the back of my throat begin to burn .  My face feels like it is going to burn off or melt away.  It is intense enough that some people, and in later sweats I would be one of them, put rags over their heads to soften the onslaught of heat.  At that second I want to get out but I can’t.  There are two many people and it is too dark.  The population density inside the sweat lodge approximates that of a Toyota Camry loaded with ten people.  The panic and the need to get up and go are intense.  I even start to do it just out of instinct but just as quick as the steam assaults my face it leaves.  In the squad car the steam did not leave for an hour and there was no way out.   It was when the two cops got in the car that I began to calm down a little and start to get a grasp of the overall situation.  The steam seemed to dissipate.

As the cop turned the car around at the end of the culdesac I could see that in that hour two other cruisers and a fire truck had joined the party.  I could also see all the neighbors standing around looking at the house and at me in the car as we drove by on our way out of the culdesac.  I remember the scene of the red and blue lights painting the houses as the neighborhood faded away in to a fog.

As we drove down the street one of the cops gave me the choice of going to jail or the hospital.  For a second I thought of “Let’s Make a Deal.” like I was a contestant and this was the choice Monty was giving me.  “Is he going to take the all expense paid trip to jail or will it be rest and relaxation at the hospital?” he might say to the audience to peak their curiosity.  “All expenses will be paid, of course, by our contestant.”  Just an aside here, there was no door number three.  Millennials will have to google or look up on wikipedia “Let’s Make a Deal”.  By the way, I chose the hospital.

As they pulled me out of the car at the hospital one of the cops, I think it was Monty, said “You better stay away from your house, your wife, and your kids.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she puts a restraining order on you.”

We walked into the hospital and it kinda reminded me of the scene in Alien as they are zooming in on the crew of the Nostromo eating dinner.  In the movie after all the excitement on the planet, the place where they were eating seemed so clean and cool and sterile.   It was nice and peaceful.  This of course, is the scene where the partially incubated alien/alien infant pops out of Cains chest.   A nurse I think rather quickly came to get me and take me to a room.  This wasn’t like the ER where you wait for at least four hours before the guy at the desk will talk to you.   I was laying on the examination table within minutes after arriving.   As I was laying on the table I saw my phone along with all the other stuff I had in my pockets laying on a counter.   I got up and dialed her number and was met with about fifteen rings followed by, “The person you are trying to reach is not answering.   Please leave a message. . .”  So I dialed again and again and again.  I kept dialing and finally she did pick up.  I forget what I said but I remember what she said.  The exchange probably went something like this:

Me:  You gotta get me out of here.  I am so sorry. Please.  I fucked up.  I know it.

Her:  I am protecting me and the kids

Me:  You don’t have to.  I’m alright. I just messed up.  It was the alcohol.

Her:  I am protecting me and the kids

Me:  Okay! But I’m telling you . I promise this will not happen again.

Her:  I am protecting me and the kids

Me:  I promise.  Please.  I won’t. . .

Her: Click

Me: Fuck!  Fuuuuck!   Oh Fuck!

A doctor came in and examined me.  He or she I totally forget the gender asked me about my medical history.  Then asked what happened.  I tried to convince the non-gender specific medical person (NGSMP) that I was just trying to get her attention, that I had no intention of harming myself.  The NGSMP probably said something like, “You’ve already proven to us that you can and will take action to harm yourself and are not thinking about the consequences to others (your children) when you do this.  You need to be seen at the local psychiatric hospital.”

The psychiatric hospital actually was local.  So was the hospital I was in.  In fact our children were born in the hospital I was in.  The hospital was across the highway from our neighborhood.  At the end of the hospital drive way was the psychiatric hospital.  We passed it on the way into the hospital.   I actually didn’t know it was a psych hospital until then.  I drove by the facility on my way to and from work probably a couple hundred times when I was working up there.  All I knew about it was, was that there was something that looked like it might have been a “confidence course” behind the ten foot high fence that surrounded the place.  This was confirmed when I woke up the next morning and got to look out the lunch room window.

They got an ambulance – one of the big square box truck type ambulances.  They put me on a gurney and rolled me right out into the truck, closed up the truck, and drove the fifteen hundred feet to the end of the hospital driveway.  That is one of the most expensive trips I have ever taken.  It cost one dollar for every foot.  The “all expenses paid” thing, yeah.  The contestant foots the tab and insurance doesn’t.  It turns out that my insurance plan, although it was pretty good, did not cover mental health issues resulting in self harm like attempted suicide.

I remember the intake guy being pretty cool.  He kind of calmed me down.  At intake I was wearing a Led Zeppelin t-shirt with one of their album covers printed on it.  The album was their first album – the one with the zeppelin burning at the mooring tower in Lakehurst New Jersey.  The guy was a Led Zeppelin fan and started a conversation about how he liked them and so started talking about them.  As he was talking his voice faded out as I was thinking, “Here I am.  My life is in flames and plummeting to the ground like the Hindenburg and this guy is talking so nonchalantly about Led Zeppelin as if we are passengers on a cross town bus.

I was also wearing khaki pants, socks, shoes, a belt.  I had my keys, some change, and my cell phone, and wallet in my pockets.  After intake, I had no keys, no change, cell phone, and no wallet.  I was wearing socks, shoes without shoe laces, and khaki pants without a belt, and my Led Zeppelin shirt that was depicting exactly what was happening to my life at that instance.

The guy then led me back into the room in which I would be staying.  It was dark and there were multiple sources of snoring.  We ambled through the room bumping into the cots yet not waking their occupants.  We found mine and I laid down in it.  It felt like very thick felt and was concave and just as wide as my body.  My body just naturally slid down into the middle of the thick concave felt.  I pulled up the cover and laid there listening to the hum of a fan and the movement of air through air ducts.

My breathing became more quick and more shallow as I started to panic.  Here would be the first step I would take on my ascent.  This step was to convince myself I am alright and nothing bad is happening to me at this moment.

Hi, My Name is Floyd

I am a sex addict among other addictions.  I have four; spending, eating, drinking, and the drug of choice, sex.  This is not a 12 step self help book/blog.  I am not going to 12 step anybody here.  I can say that when I stepped out of the car that day, I looked back and the car was gone.   It was dark, windy, and I think a little rainy.  It wasn’t that cold,  I mean I gotta cut myself some slack on the metaphor here otherwise it would just be some kind of loony unbelievable fantasy.  If it had been cold, snowy, lightening, and maybe a tornado, well, come on that’s just ridiculous.  No, I had walked a number of steps, just enough so when I looked back I could not find the car.  It was dark, windy, and rainy.  I immediately realized I was in a world of shit.  No biggey though.  Who hasn’t been there?

As soon as I realized this I just stayed put. . . for about 6 months.

On the afternoon of  November 21st of 2005, I was visiting my wife and kids in Colorado.  The kids were at day care and my wife came home for lunch.  I think we had lunch together and I know we had sex.  This would be the last time we would engage in the activity and when she left to go back to work the the next time I would see her would be three days later, Thanksgiving day, at the local psychiatric hospital.  It really was local.  It was like right across the street kind of.

A little background here.  I took a job in another state at what turned out to be a really good place of employment.  I would have to notice stuff like this if I were to survive the climb.  I made the decision unilaterally to take the job and expected my wife would follow.  I actually took the job one year and a couple of months prior to the events about which I am writing.  She would not move with the kids until I got my sex addiction under control.  So I would go back and visit about every three weekends or so.  I went back for the Thanksgiving week.  I got there on Friday and was supposed to leave the Sunday of the following week.

That prior year and few months we would have very big verbal fights about once every three months or so.  My visits up there were getting icier and icier.  Yeah, no crampons or ice ax.  Like I said, just shorts, t-shirt, and tennis shoes.  Our previous blow up happened in September so we were due.  Okay, so I was due.

She was to go out with her friends for her birthday and told me she would definitely be back by 10:30.  She said she would call if she was going to be late.  This wasn’t quite in line with me being the center of her universe but it was her birthday and I thought I would be magnanimous and let her have some fun with her friends.  What the hell.

My oldest son who was 5 at the time was having a hard time getting to sleep and asked if I would lay down with him until he got to sleep.  My other two boys, three and two years of age were in the same room.  The three year old up on the top bunk and my five year old, two year old and me were on the bottom bunk which folded out into a double sized bed.  We all went to sleep together.  Everything was in alignment or so I thought until I woke up at eleven o’clock and my wife was not home and had not called.

I went down stairs and listened to music to calm myself down.  Finally at eleven thirty she called and in very slurred speech told me she wasn’t going to be home for a while.

“Uh yeah.  You told me you would be home by ten fucking thirty.  You told me you would fucking call if you were going to be late.  And here you totally drunk out of your fucking mind.  Get the fuck home now.”  And I hung up and got a bottle of vodka and drank six shots one right after the other.  I think I may have called her back but we somehow got on the phone again and she said she was getting a taxi and would be home.  About ten minutes passed and once again I may have called her or she me and she said she was having a hard time getting a taxi and was going to stay longer.

Some how the conversation ended up where I am saying I am just a total fuck up and she would be better off without me.  To be honest I don’t really remember.  While I was talking to her, I went out to the garage which was directly under my kids’ bedroom.  I turned on the car and told her that when she got home she would find me dead.  And I remember for some reason I told her I was listening to some CD in the car and it was an artist she did not particularly care for.  Of course I thought she should like this artist because I did.   But I remember telling her something like, “Oh yeah, and I am listening to so and so, you know the guy you can’t stand.  So fuck you.” and I hung up.  She called back and I pressed the hang up button.  She called another time.  Once again, I press the hang up button.  She calls back a third time and I think, “okay, enough is enough.  I’m done.  This is ridiculous.  There is no fucking way I am going to kill myself.  I am going to answer.  However, I mistakenly hit the hang up button when I meant to press the green answer button.  Ooooops.  Big ooops actually.

I tried to call back but it went directly into voice mail.  I tried again.  voice mail again.  I tried again and again and again.  Voice mail. Voice mail. Voice mail. and then ringing until voice mail.  I tried again; ringing until voice mail.   She wasn’t on the phone anymore and she wasn’t answering.   I vaguely remember thinking that this can’t be good.

I went back into the house and a couple of minutes later a cop car shows up.  They knocked on the door.  I opened and I told them that my wife, the one that just called you is out drunk at the bar.  “You should be going after her.”  They started questioning me about what was going on and I started lying.  They were on to me and finally asked if they could go out to the garage.  Of course they smelled the exhaust and determined that my wife’s story was checking out.  I think they then called her on her cell.  She told them about the conversation about the CD that was in the car’s CD player.  They asked to see it.  The artist’s name on the CD matched that of the artist I had told her about in that oh so stupid “By the way” rant.  One of the cops repeated back to me almost verbatim what I had said to her.  At that point I gave up.

So while my kids slept (I so fucking hope they slept.) in the room above the cops put my hands behind my back, zip tied them together and led me out to the squad car.   Red and blue light passed over the houses as they opened the squad car door, put one of their hands on my head, pushed me down into the fiberglass formed bucket seat and closed the door.  To my right was a door with no handle and no feature to unlock it.  To my left was steel mesh that went from the floor up around the back seat and on up to the roof of the car.  In front of me was the front seat with steel mesh going from the top of the seat to the roof and behind me a glass window.

I sat there for about a minute or so and then started to panic.  I writhed in terror.  My neighbors were coming out of their homes and looking at me in the back seat as I was gyrating and contorting myself into odd improbable positions.  It seemed like I was in the back seat for an eternity.

I couldn’t see out the left side of the car.  This was the side the house was on.  Further the squad car was parked to the rear of the house. For about an hour I sat there in the car alone with no idea what was going on.

Preparation to Climb

I get up to the trail usually the night before.  It is usually a 6 to 9 hour drive.  I’ve done this 6 times now and will be doing it again this weekend.  My preparation begins a couple of weeks in advance when I start to visualize the trail, the look of the mountain, youtube videos of people doing it, the routes as described on 14ers.com,  the pictures with blue, green, magenta, and yellowish brown lines that show the routes on topo maps on the site.  the pictures at various points on the mountain with lines indicating the path.  As I drift off to sleep while listening to music my head is consumed by all the images.  As I review the pictures and snippets of video in my head I begin to convince myself I can do this.

The Monday prior to the climb I start looking at the weather reports from the national weather service for the geographical coordinates for the actual peak.  What I am looking for is a mostly sunny day with a low probability of stormy weather in the afternoon.  I look at the days preceding the climb day and the day after.  What I want to see is if there is bad weather I want to see it tapering of as the day draws near and I want to see good conditions for the night when I am leaving the mountain and good conditions the next day.  The conditions before and after don’t have to all that good it is just the trending I am concerned about.  A 60 percent chance of t-showers on the climb day means I am staying at home.

So if the conditions are favorable, I’ve down loaded the kml file and the concerned topographical maps of the region into “backcountry pro” on my phone, I gather all my gear and get ready for the trip.  I pace my eating so that I don’t have to do a number 2 on the mountain.  I can’t stand that.  However, I do bring toilet paper and I am sorry but I am not packing out my excrement.  I will dig a hole and bury it as deep as I can.   According to the leave no trace rule  packing out excrement is a must.  This means I don’t eat much the day before until I get to the trail head.  I usually make a big pot of spaghetti with sauce and Italian sausage during the week to take up with me.

In my pack I have the following, hat, extra jacket, at least 2.5 litres of water, cliff bars, compass, knife, bear bells, extra socks, bivy bag, extra contact lenses, a big ass battery for my phone, a pill bottle with excedrin and ibuprofen, and a head lamp.   One time I took one of those 5 hour energy things.  I think it actually helped. I also have hiking poles and climbing gloves.  My cloths are wool socks, synthetic long underwear, synthetic regular underwear, synthetic t-shirt, synthetic turtle neck shirt, quick drying and wicking hiking pants, sunglasses, and a helmet.  I also take a go pro camera and a sony video camera and my phone.  When I drive up I am usually in shorts, tennis shoes, and a tee shirt.  Oh yes, I also have good hiking boots with very “grabby” tread.  In addition, in the car is extra water, crampons, an ice axe, sleeping bag, blankets and sometimes I take a couple of pillows and maybe an article of Wendy’s clothing.  And last but not least I take a shit load of butterflies in my stomach.  These do not leave until I am about a quarter of mile into the hike.

It’s usually on a Friday morning I get up, load up the car, turn it on, release parking break, put my foot on the break, and take the car out of neutral and put it into drive.  I release the break and all four wheels on the 2005 Forerunner begin to rotate.  As the wheels rotate through the first couple of degrees I think, “Holy shit, I am really going to do this.”

When I was in my twenties, I would decide to climb a 14er on some weekend.  I might decide to do it on say the previous Thursday.  On Saturday morning I would wake up and if it was sunny and for the five times I did it, it was sunny.  I lucked out really.  I would put on jeans and a t-shirt some cotton socks and bring along a “hoody” just in case.  I would get up fairly early and head on up to say Mt Bierstadt, park the car at the trail head, get out and start walking.  Now I would take a back pack with some food in it.  Water was hit or miss.  I don’t really remember taking water.  This is how I would begin to climb.  Essential I would climb on a whim with basically no advance preparation.

This is also how I began my climb, a different kind of climb, the climb of my life, on November 21st of 2005.  The climb started the last 15 minutes of November 21st.  Metaphorically speaking, okay writing, this would be when I would get out of the car put my feet on the ground and take the first step wearing just a pair of shorts, socks, tennis shoes,  and a t-shirt.  Once again, metaphorically I was beginning a climb up a fourteen thousand foot mountain requiring advanced climbing skills just shy of technical rope climbing sometimes called class 4 hiking/climbing.  I was starting it in the dark and I had no idea I was starting out on this journey.  If you were to actually start a climb like this the chances of survival while not totally suicidal are at best slim.  I am still alive and sober.

A Book Really – Ascent.

I was an asshole.  As my ex-father in law would say, “the deluxe model type.”  That seems like a good way to start a book?

I have been told two times today and on other occasions that I should write a book.   Everybody writes books these day.  This book would be about my story.  Everybody has a story.  Lot’s of people have a story.  They have a story very similar to mine so this will not be a book.  It will not go that far.

See, my wife died a year ago December 6th.  She had been battling cancer for fourteen years.   I really miss her.  At least, I think I do.   I question myself on lots of stuff.  I am constantly suspicious of the way a feel and the way I think.   The reason is, is that for most of my life I was really unaware.   That’s right, unaware.  Simply, unaware.  A better description might be “not self aware.”  So I really have to ask myself, “Do I miss her?” or is it just that I miss drifting off to sleep spooning with a really wonderful woman or do I just miss having sex.  I do not like being alone right now.  So, do I really miss her?

At this point you may be thinking, “Yup, you’re an asshole.”  Well, it is true I do not like being alone.  It is true I would really love to feel the warmth of a woman.  And of course, I want to have sex.  However, I haven’t been able to take the ring off.  I haven’t been able to remove her coat from the coat rack that she put it on.  The last time her coat was off the rack it was in her hands.  Many of the items in the refrigerator (non perishables) are still in the refrigerator.  Essentially the house has not changed at all since the day she died.  So although I would like be in a woman’s loving arms again, if it is not Wendy, then I can’t do it.  As for the sex, because of her illness, we were not able to engage in the activity during our married time together which was three years.  This was primarily due to the medication she was on.   She would get nervous about this and I would say I didn’t marry her to have sex.  I actually didn’t. . .  I may or may not be an asshole but I think I miss her.  To remove her coat from the coat rack would be letting her go.  I am closer these days but not quite there.  It has been thirteen months.

The next question I ask is, “Is this just guilt?”  because really I just want to have sex but I feel too guilty.  “Yup, he really is an asshole.”  I don’t know.   I just don’t know.  I would like to think that because I am asking these questions I really do love my late wife and miss her dearly.  I can say I am brought to tears over her easily.  I hear a song in the grocery store and I start to well up.  Yeah, I know, I am trying to plead my case for not being an asshole.

It’s fine if you think I am an asshole.  I’ll take it.  But finally, I will say that about three weeks before she died I asked her if I was able to do it.  “Do what?” she asked.  I asked her if I was able to make her life better by being in it than not.  She said, “Well of course you have my love.”  I was able to believe her.  I knew our relationship and it seemed believable to me.  Before we even thought of becoming a couple I would hear her say, “If a man can’t make my life better by being in it than I don’t want him in my life.”  She had been married twice before and the stories she told were horrific – especially with her first marriage.   Her second marriage was a nightmare however I could really relate.  I could relate to the guy that made her life a living hell.  I had done it myself with my now ex-wife.  In fact if it was a competition between me and her second husband in the mental anguish department I would win hands down.  Yesssssss!  Imagine a fist pump here.  I am good at something.

So Andy, do you think you are an asshole?

Like I said, I don’t know?

What’s all the questioning for?  and it seems like you are just badgering yourself.

It all goes back to my motives, I guess.  What are my motives?   Why am I doing what I am doing?  It seems to distill out at awareness of my motives.  Once I have awareness then I have a choice.  I have a choice to be honest or lie – to myself.   I actually do not want to lie.  So the questions, “Do I miss her?” and “Am I just doing this out of guilt?” become pretty important to me.  Because the fact of the matter is I really do want to be held in a woman’s arms.  I want to be loved.  I want the pleasures of sex   I want to feel like I matter.  If I don’t ask myself questions like these then I am poised to make someone else’s life along with mine fairly miserable.  It’s worse.  It’s life threatening.  I become a danger to myself and others.

If I simply don’t have awareness then I am flying blind.  In order to achieve “feeling like I matter” I will do things like threaten suicide in order to get someone to make me feel like I matter.  Here, that “someone” is my ex-wife.

It is actually very simple.  We’re not talking rocket surgery here.  The thought process goes something like “I am not feeling like I matter enough to her.  She is spending the day with her friends when she should be home with me.   That’s it!  I am going to have to show her!  or as I liked to say, “I am going to bring her into understandment.”  “Understandment” isn’t even a word.  She will plead with me, beg me, and cry for me not to do it.  Oh it is going to feel so sweet!”

These thoughts are going through my head but they are not high enough in my conscience for me to know it.   All I know is is that “She needs to show me she cares.  So while she is out with her friends, I am going to go into the garage, call her up, and let her listen to me turn the goddamn car on.

This is all I know.   In fact, it’s worse.  I don’t even know that I feel bad!   I don’t know that I feel bad because I have this perception that she does not care about me.  Her not caring about me doesn’t come to mind.  I am just plain pissed.  I am angry and I am going to do something that will be catastrophic to me but more importantly to my kids and my now ex-wife.  This is where my ascent starts.