My nervous breakdown.
Before I worked a great job, paid off my student loans, took a risk and went to Pastry School to follow my dreams. I lived and worked in NYC (yup...could afford a huge apartment in SoHo on my own with just my savings while in school). Took the subway, road the bus, walked the streets at all hours of the night after rock concerts, or to go get food, or to hang out with friends. I dated a guy who said we were going to get married when he finished his PhD. I had friends and was happy. I traveled and volunteered at soup kitchens and with at risk youth.
Then I took a job offer that paid a great salary with great benefits, but was all smoke and mirrors. I was sexually harassed, harassed for being Jewish, for being white. I was called more slurs than you can imagine. I had Swastikas carved into my car. My windshield was smashed with a baseball bat. I was cut with a box cutter (superficial cuts, but I still have scars) and locked in a walk-in freezer (thanks to the freezer, it slowed the blood flow).
I reported EVERY incident to HR and corporate HQ. I started documenting every incident. I made police reports. They just made matters worse. I was stalked. My family was threatened. My parents begged me to leave. I couldn't just quit...I needed the health insurance, and the company kept promising to transfer me.
This all happened over the course of 9 months. And every day, I was suicidal. The last straw was me being taken to the local ER after being stabbed (it was right across the street from where I worked).
I went home and tried to kill myself. It was the first of several attempts.
It is 8 years later, and I still have horrific nightmares. My bf left me (after 5 years). My friends want nothing to do with me. I had to move home with my parents. I have such severe PTSD that I am legally disabled...something I loathe about myself.
I am so ashamed of what my once full, prosperous life has become...nothing...a shell. I am too terrified to go out. Aside from my parents, I literally have no one...and nothing at all. I can't even go to the store to buy groceries because my PTSD is that bad...and and yes, I have tried therapy (several therapists and medications).
I still think only I am to blame. And not a day goes by that I don't wish that I was dead...but it would break my mother's heart.
I am so lonely and desperate and depressed that nothing really matters. I want to be the old me, but I wouldn't recognize her if she was right in front of me.