Excerpt from Election Night 2016

Four years ago today was Implosion Day. My absolute worst, my bottom. The day by which all other "bad" days in my life will forever be compared. Nothing since has come close, and although the future is by definition uncertain, I truly doubt any day will.

By some quirk of the calendar, Election Day 2016 happened to be November 8th, the second Tuesday of the month. I know this, because it was also my first night spent in residential treatment. I am going to take you back to that fateful evening. Oblivious to any events outside my own skull, I remember being surprised to look up at the TV in the residents' lounge in the Big House to see CNN's John King standing beside a giant map of the U.S., states colored in red, blue, and yellow:

After the meeting, I wandered into the residents’ lounge, a large, hospitable room with a sitting area, two computer stations, a refrigerator stocked with high-calorie “nutritious”snacks, a juice fountain, cushy oversized furniture, and a huge big-screen TV mounted to the wall. It was not lost on me that it was encased in a protective Plexiglas box to protect it from damage when a resident occasionally lost his shit and became violent. I sat in a soft chair and made forgettable small talk with random faces. It was not until I looked up at the TV screen that I realized it was election night, and the talking heads on the cable networks were discussing how Hillary might redecorate the Oval Office once in the White House. I barely gave it a second look. Any enthusiasm for politics in me seemed to be extinguished along with my interest in ... well, anything.

Anything, of course, except successfully navigating this treatment center ASAP and graduating summa cum laude.

Big animated maps of America flashed in front of me, with states colored blue, red, and yellow. I recalled actually once being excited for these historic nights, rooting for candidates during what had now become my past life. I remembered twenty-four years earlier, during my medical internship, I had arrived home one evening from a long shift in the ER back to our tiny lovebirds’ apartment in downtown Baltimore, where my fiancée and I excitedly watched as Bill Clinton cruised to victory on election night. She had prepared loaded nachos, which we consumed heartily as the returns came in. We were two young kids in love, defying our families, uncorrupted by life, sitting joyously on an old, beat-up, second-hand sofa in our tiny apartment high above Charles Street.

The flashback caught me by surprise, and I felt strong emotion welling up inside me. We were so innocent. How did I screw everything up so badly?

It had been a long day, and after a short time, I decided I’d had enough, so I bid a quiet congratulations to Hillary on her election as President of the United States and shuffled back down the hall to my room. Although it was only nine o’clock, the room was dark; Mike was doing the characteristic deep breathing of someone sound asleep. Wearing my sweatpants and T-shirt (still my only clothing), I slipped in under the sheet and cover of my bed. Welcome, JD, to the residential treatment center, your home for months to come. My body merged with the mattress, which consumed me.

I'm still blown away over what transpired in the ensuing hours, days, weeks, months, and years....both with me and with the world. Truth is truly  stranger than fiction. But that's when my now well-developed four year-old acceptance muscle kicks in....