Yes, OE, it felt EXACTLY like I had been accused of a crime. I guess it's something about how I was raised, ANY little thing was a MAJOR thing in his eyes. I saw him fly into tirades over things very trivial. For example, one time, he went fishing and brought home enough fish for a meal for the five of us -- I was about 6, my two older sisters would have been in high school then. My mother cooked it, and at dinner time, she put malt vinegar on her serving -- not unusual at all, think of Fish and Chips restaurants that always have malt vinegar on the table. Well, for whatever reason, he went into a tirade because she "ruined" his hard work. So -- he broke about 8 windows in the house. Little things were always "big deals" -- so to me, being sent to a psych program felt like being sent to jail, the worst possible, most degrading thing in the world. And I took it to heart and took it really hard. It didn't help that the initial psychiatrist was a HORRIBLE, cruel person -- I found this out in spades during my dealings with her over 6-7 appointments, she was just insensitive, blunt, and just plain ill-tempered and nasty. Kind of a perfect storm all around.

Anyway, it occurs to me that I SHOULD have higher aspirations than purchasing the means of self-destruction from the hunting department of a sporting goods store. I DO want to do meaningful things in my life, move on from this, maybe make my 50's the decade that I enjoy some of the success and happiness that I deserved and never got. Stupid little things -- as you know, I want to compete in triathlons, I would also like to play softball and go back to the boxing lessons. But, I also am thinking what I really NEED to do is go to graduate school. I'm old, but I'm not TOO old - people do that in the 40's and 50's all of the time now.

At this point, ANY positive goals to work towards will help.