After the Suicides

After moving back to Summerville with my parents, I went to work with my stepfather.  I went out "partying" a good bit while I was down there.  At the time, I didn't realize exactly how bad I was coping with things.  I was drinking more than usual and my temper was getting worse. Even I didn't recognize that at the time.  Law enforcement was still in my blood and I felt like I had been gone long enough so I decided to go try to get my job back.  The chief at the time told me that if I wanted my job back all I had to do was ask.  So, I asked, and was rehired.

July 14th, 1999 was my first day back on patrol and I felt like I was handling everything mentally.  Of course, I still wasn't attending church and hadn't even thought about it at all.  Over the next couple of years working on the "line" I became much more coarse and my range of emotions was not normal.  I didn't see any of that at the time though.  Things that would make someone cry or cause a great deal of sadness didn't have that same affect on me anymore.  All I knew was anger.  There were several things that happened while I was working between when I came back to work, and around 2001 that bothered me and stuck with me without me even realizing it.  There were incidents involving children being shot and sometimes killed, children abused in other ways, elderly adults being abused, and many other disturbing calls.  There were so many things that happened that fueled my anger without me even realizing it.  I was a very bitter person to deal with most of the time with the exception of a few people that I trusted.  

In 2001, a new chief took over the department and that summer I was promoted to detective.  Initially, I was assigned to property crimes.  That year I was pretty depressed around Christmas and in fact took the week off.  That week I stayed inside with no contact from anyone.  I refused to answer the phone and did not leave the house.  I began to notice even more anger and began to dwell more on the suicides in my mind but I didn't really talk to anyone about it.  In April, 2002, I began dating the woman that I would marry.  As we grew closer, I would share more with her but not all of it or at least not much about how I was feeling at the time. 

Also in 2002 (not sure what month), I was notified that I was to attend a post-traumatic stress course given in Columbia because of my previous events with the suicides.  By this time, I had stopped having dreams and such about the events.  I had tucked all of it away somewhere so I didn't have to think about it.  This was not to say that I had dealt with it but simply hid it.  I attended this class and the different exercises we had to perform really brought everything back to the surface.  One of the doctors in the class insisted that the program worked for me but I was telling him that I felt much more stress and anxiety at the end of the course.  He insisted I was better so back to the department I went carrying out my duties. 

I did tell my girlfriend (now wife) that I didn't feel like that class helped and it brought me more stress.  January and February were difficult months for me in 2003 because I thought about the suicides more since they occurred in February.  The holidays were difficult too.  

In February 2003 I proposed to my girlfriend and she agreed to marry me.   We were married in May 2003 and started our new life together.   I was very happy (and shocked she said "yes") about getting married and felt like this was my chance to start over but I still had yet to turn to God. 

The next post will go into my marriage and being in and out of church over a period of years.  God really started trying to move in me during this time.

Psalms 94:12-14 (NIV)

12 Blessed is the man you discipline, O LORD, the man you teach from your law; 13 you grant him relief from days of trouble, till a pit is dug for the wicked.  14 For the LORD will not reject his people; he will never forsake his inheritance.