It was 10 months or so, in reality. I had just broken up with N - a vicious breakup that left us both bleeding profusely from everywhere but the places you can see. It was an ugly time and my response to overwhelming emotional pain was to simply not acknowledge its existence. I cut everything out of my life that reminded me of her, Taylor, our situation. I transferred with my job, moved far away, and changed every contact method anyone had for me. It was an immobile wall of distance that protected her from me, me from her.

I deleted those things I could out of my tangible files. Her numbers were erased, her emails were erased, her pictures gone, eradicated with a sterility of emotion of which I was newly finding myself capable. I couldn’t forget her numbers, but when I was compelled to find her, I would work.

I worked like a demon. I was promoted twice during that time, unheard of for my age, my experience, to find myself where I was, but I was hungry. My teeth had sunk into my career and I was chewing it down with a voracity that nauseates me to this day. I’d work all day, through the night, and only realize the volume of time spent at the office when the staff would return to see me, still sitting there.

I operated in a sense of suspended reality where there was no quiet time to think about anything other than work. I developed the gray in my hair during this time, it still peppers my temples as a reminder of those times - my father only started to go gray into his 50s.

When work was slow, I worked out. I suppose this could be considered a healthy step for me, if it weren’t for the pain I was seeking out of it. I didn’t go for the physical rush of exercise, I went to hurt myself enough so that I couldn’t dwell on anything else.

I didn’t write. I didn’t feel anything other than pain, not the kind I needed to feel, but the physical pain from my back, or knees or some other place where I pulled muscles, tore ligaments. I sacrificed myself for my inner sadist.

I didn’t live. I was there, I interacted, I responded, but I felt nothing other than what physical pain I had allowed myself. I didn’t sleep, I didn’t want to sleep, there was too much silence to be found in my bed. I aged 10 years in that time, erased them off of my life as if they never were - or never will be. I’ll die earlier for what I did to myself then.

It was my own personal hell. I punished myself, harsher than I would ever punish another, for failing so horribly. I failed myself, I failed N, I failed numerous others. I knew what my responsibilities were and neglected them.

It is only by pure luck that substance abuse didn’t claim me, or perhaps just some deep seeded evil I sense in them. I never drank, never touched drugs during this time - it was as if I knew how fragile my grip was holding me here.

Oh I wanted to die. I’d already climbed where I wanted to be. I had the things I wanted from my life. I had climbed the mountain, seen the top and fell from grace so swiftly that I impaled myself on my own egocentricity and self-destruction. I wanted to die, but only in the most utterly painful and time consuming way.

They sent me to therapy after an episode where I blacked out during a fit of rage. Over a missing paragraph in a contract.

I went for two months, every single day - I was on a leave of absence pending the outcome. An evaluation to determine if I still had a hold on my sanity, I suppose.

The final day, I mark as the end of my 10 months.

I’m not the person I was before or during this time. I don’t think my sense of humor has recovered. I doubt I will ever regain the optimistic edge I once had.
There are losses that I know I haven’t recognized, and may never grasp fully.

What I’ve gained.
I have gained an appreciation for the truth - emotional truth included. I never smile because someone else is smiling. I’ve learned that I am not a Deity, despite my more humorous moments of god-like arrogance. I no longer seek to gain everything I don’t have. I’ve learned that the world doesn’t rest upon my shoulders - even my own world. I’ve gained respect for my faith, despite its flaws. I don’t dwell in the past or the future, but in the moment. I’ve leaned that sadism, while a part of me, doesn’t define me as a person anymore.

And I write, even when it hurts to write.

I never waste my time anymore.