Doctor, doctor tell me the news, say it isn't so. Life is funny, the experiences that we have and the people we meet along the way. My life, if nothing else has been interesting. Nearly 15 years ago a series of catastrophic events upended everything that I knew to be true and sent me close to the gates of Hell before I saw the truth and began to turn things around. I've never claimed to be a perfect person and in fact thought for many years that I had to be awful. It was my opinion that I deserved to suffer and be miserable. I didn't deserve much of what happened but my lack of faith made it impossible for me to emerge from challenges. Consequently I fell deeper and deeper. At the time it was horrible but I've since come to believe that all of my experiences were valuable learning and growing opportunities. I have to believe that with faith every challenge has a silver lining.

A major turning point in my life was the loss of my career due to an injury. But it didn't stop there. The city for which I worked as a cop, tried to get out of paying my worker's comp benefits by proving that I was faking. Unfortunately for them I wasn't faking and there was no way to prove otherwise. I wanted more than anything in the world to work again but it wasn't meant to be. So, when they were unable to prove that I'd faked my symptoms, they set about proving that I was crazy. They nearly made it so. They had private detectives following me for a very long time. They lied to the court and doctors about the detectives. They were eventually found out, I have it in writing. But in the mean time I suffered. At a pain clinic I once told a psychologist that I felt worn out and stressed about being followed all of the time. That psychologist referred me to a psychiatrist who thought that I possibly suffered from schizophrenia and was suffering from delusions. She thought this after the city's risk manager and doctor lied to her about the private detectives. They even told her that I was considered a danger and should have my duty weapon taken from me and be committed into the hospital. She didn't see this and declined to commit me. And the chief said that they'd never been concerned about me harming someone else. The out and out lied! Why didn't I ever make them pay for this? The doctor did eventually find out that these two lied to her - I have her notes. But the interim was hell.

Everybody that I saw and everybody that I talked to, during that time, were subpeoned to testify against me. People who were friends began to treat me like I was the plague. Old lovers called saying they didn't want to get involved. Those private detectives, who were supposedly not following me, tracked down everybody they saw me with. Eventually I didn't feel safe to talk to or date any one. I didn't know who they were or didn't want them to get pulled into my ordeal. It was such a horrible and lonely time. I became paranoid, wondering who could be trusted and who couldn't. Anyone would have reacted the same way. This was not an experience that a person walks away from being the same as they were before. I went into a deep isolative mode. I haven't had a significant relationship in all of this time. Only recently has it felt possible to get involved. But it took a long time. I had to slowly re-enter society and get to know myself and others. I had to re-open my heart and quit hiding. I've met some really great people who will be life long friends and I've met some not so great people.

The people that I like are the ones who allow me to be myself and who are themselves in return. I see bits of my former self in others and gain a fuller understanding of what I went through and the fogged glasses from which I saw the world. When I recognize that people are mirroring the way I was, it means that I've finally begun to move away and mature. During that time on the police department, while going through my retirement, they demanded extensive testing of my psychological health. Three psychiatrists, armed with the truth of what I was going through, found me to be perfectly sane and perfectly stressed, with good reason. They wrote that my reaction to the stressors was normal under the circumstances. I'm bringing out this point because a person who fantasizes that we were "involved" suddenly got his medical degree and put it upon himself to diagnose me as paranoid schizophrenic. For once in my life I know what the truth is and recognize that most of the time what a person faults someone else for, they most likely own. I've spent too many years questioning who I was through other people's eyes. Now I look through my own eyes and take the advice of others.

What I went through, that changed the whole course of my life, was awful. My low self-esteem contributed to the sequence of events. Eventually I decided to re-create my reality and quit living a life filled of self-pity. Not saying I'm perfect now, but oh soooo much better. I have my moments. But since I like myself better, I can make more appropriate choices of who I want to associate with. When we don't feel good about ourselves, we don't know that we have choices - at least that is my experience. I like being able to say yes or no. I've exercised this right quite a bit lately and it works for me. I still want to believe people mean what they say but do so with my eyes wide open. If they aren't for real, I eventually find out and now choose to move on. That is what I've done. I think that there are a number of doctors who saw what happened to me, and who would really be delighted by how far I've come. At times it would have been easier to just be sick and give up. I wanted to curl up into a ball and forget the rest of the world. To suck my thumb and forget reality. I wanted to give up but it wasn't me. I've written about what happened back then but don't often talk about it to people. I didn't tell people because it was my belief that I was horrible to have had those things happen. Now I know that there are just mean and unhappy people in the world who will seek out your weakness and exploit it. Now, I've begun to tell my friends about what happened because no one deserves to go through a thing like that. But here in America, in corporate American, it happens a lot. I'm not hiding any more and I'm not seeking out others who will put me down. As they say, I've come a long ways baby!

debydixon©