So, one morning I woke up and my nerves were shot. It was like being a frog in a pot of water with a real slow burner underneath; I didn’t realize what was going on until it was all over. And so, one cold morning in January, I had a nervous breakdown in a lunchroom at work. It was equal parts panic attack and just the crushing weight of realizing that my life had become unsupportable. It left me inconsolable. I mean, really… when you turn around and find that there is nothing you can do to make things better, what can anyone say? So, that morning, I was told to go home, and get some rest.
Once the dust settled, my company started saying some real pretty words about resources, support, and all the things I’d asked for before to no avail. They threw referrals at me as fast as they could find them to chuck. I decided that I wasn’t particularly enthused at the thought of trying to untie some rather tense emotional knots in my second language, and wasn’t terribly confident that there was anyone in the last bastion of north american urban francophone culture who’d be terribly excited to listen to me in my native language, and the health company tended to agree.
So, they found me a counselor from Halifax who was willing to take me on as a patient over the phone. I got a call later that evening from Dr. Jewers, an unbelievably kind man (and if you’re ever depressed in Halifax, look him up, he’s great). He found a blubbering mess. I was still all sorts of panicked, and terribly sad. I didn’t really talk much that first call, to be honest. I had trouble stringing together more than 6 words in a sentence. Yeah, usually I have a command of English that borders on the dictatorial. But under duresse, almost inevitably, words will fail me.
He didn’t really say too much neither, he asked a few gentle questions, and let me go to sleep when things got too hot. And then he called the next day. By then I’d calmed down some and could manage a little more talking, and we got to work. The single most important thing he told me in that first round was that I was and had to be the most important person in my world. I realize that sounds pretty saccharine from where even I’m sitting now, but at the time it was something I’d forgotten completely. Eventually, we came to a decision that I really should talk to someone face to face, if only to give me a structured routine of leaving my home. One of the biggest problems was I’d stopped doing that.
The lady they found in the city who was willing to talk to me in English talked more, and I answered more; the time of crisis had passed and it was time to take stock and rebuild. She was also excellent, and picked up on very different things that were quite valid in their own right.
By that time, though, I knew the only real recourse I had left was to pack all my toys up and go home. I’d gone out to find adventure, camaraderie, new horizons… and I’d found some of it, I suppose. But I certainly found more of the darker underbelly than I could have ever asked for. I’d left behind my family, my friends, the entire network of acquaintances and everything I had that gave me any form of comfort. It was too much of a break, too quickly. I know better now.
The real kick in the teeth is that I’d already come to the decision that hey, I’d come, I’d seen, and the hell with it I was done before the big break. But I’d let it fester too long, and I had run every mental reserve I had dry. So, my original plan had to go through in fast forward time. Instead of July, I decided March. And I got down to the grindstone.
Somewhere along the line, I realized that the thought of returning to work even once filled me with a dread that no job is worth. So I quit.
And that’s how the great flight west started. Now you know more or less what the hell happened out there.
