No News is Bad News

It’s been a week since my last post. Generally not a good sign.

It means I’ve been avoiding the computer, emails and probably the telephone – trying to avoid all of my sources of stresses and, in doing so, all but minimal human contact. It means I’ve almost certainly done no work on my taxes, job hunting or re-engaging with old (good) friends. And it probably means I’ve spent a lot of time on my couch feeling Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired – the “Four Horsemen of the Relapse Apocalypse” in rehab circles.

This past week has been no exception.

I’ve felt as low as I have in months, spending hours on end thinking of nothing but how depressed I am. I put in a total of maybe 2 hours of productive work (taxes, job, etc.) all week, spending far more time in the self-hatred/anger/paralysis viscious circle. There were several days of spending a full 10 hours on the couch, watching a full day’s cycle of CSI (Miami and NY included) between Spike and A&E. And yes, I had a relapse.

But I’m not just writing to come clean on a miserable week’s worth of inactivity. No, far more important (both for me and for those around me) is that there were a wealth of warning signs in clear sight the whole time. Consider that, as of yesterday at noon, when I was within a minute of finishing this post and should have just wrapped it up:

I had 17 new voicemails on my cell phone.

At least 4-5 were from two of my closest friends, both aware of my situation, both hoping to hear a response to their dozens of unanswered phone calls over the last couple months just to hear that I’m okay.

At least 3-4 of those voicemails were from my dad’s girlfriend who not only knows my whole situation already, but is calling to offer further (and proven valuable) help going through months of old tax receipts in my “to-do” pile.

At least a couple were from my sister, my strongest family ally outside of my wife and in theory no source of stress whatsoever, calling yet again to see if I’m doing alright as I have not spoken with her in two weeks.

My wife picked up a voicemail on our home phone from one of those closest friends saying he had been trying to reach me for weeks and was worried. Could she call him and let him know I’m alive and okay?

I have no idea how many other messages I’ve missed on the home phone. Not only have I not checked voicemail, but I went out of my way not even to look at the caller ID whenever I heard the phone wring.

Every night when my wife returned home from work I was more and more stressed, always in a worse mood to talk, constantly too tired to spend the time and energy I want to with my two kids, and always promising that another couple days would give me the rest and time to get back to normal.

A week of mail has piled up unopened by the front door, including at least one letter from the IRS and probably a couple of overdue bills. I don’t know for sure because I haven’t even looked at them.

I hadn’t checked email in almost a month, so I suspect I have on the order of 30-40 real unopened emails, definitely infcluding some from friends and family above, but maybe including bill collectors, missed job opportunities and who knows what else.

A look inside my medicine cabinet would show that I am out of both anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications, with another 10-15 days still to go before they are due to be filled again.

I had been wearing the same pants and sweater for 5 days. I also haven’t shaved in the same period.

My point in rhyming off this list isn’t to whine about all the things I’ve done (or haven’t done) wrong. Anyone in my position has had weeks like this. What I hope I’ve done is help illustrate just how clear the warning signs are, both to our supporters and to ourselves. It’s far too easy to ignore them, either because our supporters want to give us the benefit of the doubt that we’re just having a bad couple of days, or because we ourselves revert to the old denial phase, telling ourselves that these warning signs are different, that we’re well too far along in recovery to worry about a few things like these slipping.

I hope my experience – and those of others, for my story from the last week is far more common than unique – has shown otherwise. With addiction and depression, smoke unfortunately does lead to fire more often than we’d like, and I believe that smoke is almost always in the form of withdrawal – from communication, from friends, from family, from obligations, and more.

We’re never too healthy to be immune to pitfalls, so whether observer or sufferer, listen to your gut when you see the warning signs, before a week, a month or more has gone by.