My best friend left a note and killed himself after he got off the phone with me an hour later. He asked me to go over his house, but I, being an asshole was too preoccupied with a girl I currently had over my house. So I talked to him for about an hour and thought I talked him off the ledge. He was really depressed. He ran his Mercedes SL55 AMG into a tree at about 140+MPH (guesstimated). Prior to this 2 accidents in within 3 weeks where both times the assholes ran into tha back of my Hummer while I was at a light. Anyway, I was not on gear for probably a year. 2 days later I sat down on the bench for my first set of presses. Felt a little funny, but in my mind I always ignored ailments and pain for the better of the sport, thinking I was superman. Stood up after my warm up set. Felt extremely dizzy. Weirdest feeling I ever felt. I hung on to a leg press machine and tried to stand straight without wobbling, because being as vain as I was back then, I wasn't going to let anyone see me have any weakness. How fucking stupid huh? Then the worst part hit. Starting from my toes on my right foot, a tingling sensation and numbness occurred. It flowed up the right side of my body paralyzing the right side and making me lose vision in my right eye. After about 45 seconds while I still stood hanging on to the leg press machine (you know Mr. tough guy, that can't be hurt) pins and needles started in my toes on my right foot and traveled up my body as the numbness and paralyzation subsided. My vision however didn't come back quickly. I can't imagine people that lose both eye vision, because just losing one is horrific. As a matter of fact, it took about a day for 90% of it to come back. My pupil was dilated so much I had no color showing in the one eye for 2 days. Just black and white. Spent 5 days in the hospital where the doc, because of my size (at the time 6ft, 225 really lean) thought I was currently on gear. He tested me for everything under the sun and gave me an attitude when he first met me. He came in the room 3 days later and said something on the lines of this, "You know I have to appoligize, I looked at you and figured you were on some type of steroid. Then when that idea didn't come to fruition, I thought you were on some type of recreational drug. This doesn't usually happen to people your age", he said. I then explained to him the problems that I had been going through and how tore up I was over my friends death and my shortcomings in helping him out. He told that might explain it because your blood pressure is perfectly normal now, but when you came in it was 220+/130+ and unstable.
Art this point I am 99.9% recovered. I am lucky I wasn't paralyzed and half blind permanently. I am only left with a little blurriness when I look to the upper right peripherally.
Anyway, after all of this time that has gone by I have allowed myself to forgive myself for my lack of action when my friend needed me most. To this day, however, when someone talks out of depression or seriously puts themselves down kind of like what Razorcuts has done over the last week, it makes me extremely nervous, and brings back a little of that feeling.
Good thread BN, thanks for starting it.
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