i've been poisoned

 Welp. Over the last two months, I've realized I've been being poisoned.

Not by someone, but by something.

That something being Carbon Monoxide. In two separate locations. No lie.

So, about maybe mid-July, my department moved to a new office location that solely hosts us. Around the same time, we moved into another house. Since then, I'd been slowly going downhill.

I would wake up sad and not wanting to go to work but didn't understand why. I'd started pulling my hair out more and more. I felt drowsy, paranoid. overwhelmed about the slightest things. One day I spent like 30 minutes at the computer trying to figure out why the vendors I always always always did entries for were no where to be found in the system. I finally gave in and went to my supervisor and she looked confused when she reminded me the specific location I was working on had their entries done differently, i.e. those vendors never existed in the system I was working in. I legit thought I was losing my mind and/or dying. It didn't make it any better when I stood up at work and almost passed out. I've stood up too fast before, but this was not that. I was light-headed, so I kind of stood still to settle myself before moving more. But the more I walked the worst I felt, so much so I had to make myself sit down. I thought my blood pressure was either skyrocketing or plummeting. Then, a few weeks later, I went to lock our office up, and I completely forgot the code to lock the door. The code I'd been putting in for months.

After opening the doors and windows to let fresh air in every now and then, last month my boss looked at me and goes "Have you been feeling weird? Like, off?" She proceeds to tell the story of her first experience with carbon monoxide and everything she experienced. Some of her symptoms were the same as mine, dizzy and forgetting routine things. I told her I felt fine for the most part, but I did relay what had happened at work. After talking with us, she was adamant about their being a leak somewhere or mold in the vents. So she called our air conditioner guy and he came out and couldn't find any mold. What he did notice was that our water heater (that is stored in a closet right next to my work area) was gas-powered and the funnel that is made to expel gas out of the building was broken. So the gas that should've been going up and out, was just coming out and filling the space.

September 24th - gas company comes to the office and kicks us out so he can look around. So we're all chilling on the roof outside when he comes to us and confirms their is, in fact, a gas leak. Turns off our gas and goes about his merry way.

Fast-forward to October 1st and I only know this because it was the first time I got high as a kite (story's on the way lol).

I'm high but I here this never-ending *beep beep beep beep beep* and I look at my friend and go "Am I really high or do you hear beeping?" And she goes "Yeah, that's yall's fire alarm. It must need batteries."

So after I get sober the next day, I finally pick up the beeping device from this chair and take out the batteries. I take a closer look at it because it wasn't circular like fire alarms usually are. Surprise, surprise-- it is not a fire alarm. It's a fucking carbon monoxide detector.

After a few hours, I read the back of this thing and then go to my mom and ask her about it. She confirms that, yes it's a carbon monoxide detector and yes it has been going off non-stop since she plugged it in. She thought it was faulty so she unplugged it and sat it in the chair. I put the batteries back in, reset it and plug it in two different spaces. Beeping, non-stop.

October 27th - Gas company comes out, reader doesn't pick up anything, but they follow procedure and turn off all the gas until we get our lines inspected.

October 28th - Water guy suggests it may be coming from the damaged water heater funnel (punch me because, irony and I also run on the treadmill right next to it at least twice a week). Air guy takes a look at the unit and says coils have so much damage that carbon monoxide has been filling this house for at least the past two years.

I'd been being poisoned unknowingly, not in one but TWO PLACES. Which explains why I didn't ever notice any drastic difference in how I felt at work vs at home.

The whole time, I just think I'm losing my grip on everything around me. I can't even tell you how it feels. The best thing I have come up with: the gas is potent enough to make you feel crazy, but not strong enough to make you know something is wrong.

Every since last week, I honestly feel like I have a new lease on life. My gag reflex is aching just by typing that! I hate when people say that but now I can fully understand why. I'm trying to put it into actual words.

In my normal life, my anxiety makes me thing everything can go all kinds of wrong. It makes me afraid to try things, do things. But in this instance, everything I thought could go wrong, didn't. It was a variable I never ever would have or could have accounted for. Out of all the things I spiral out because of, the thing that caused me the most harm was invisible, (in a sense) untraceable, and completely unexpected.

While living in fear of so many things, the literal air I breathed was the biggest threat.

I'm not saying I'm about to go jump out of a plane, but I am going to do more for myself from now on. I spent the last few months thinking I was the problem and my life was out to get me. I missed a lot of things, I beat myself up over trivial things, everything that would normally make me anxious turned into anxiety driven degradation. Looking back there were so, so, so many signs, even ones that I didn't put in this blog.

I also started going to therapy around the same time, so this all feels not really symbolic but meaningful. Even when the air I depend on to keep me alive turned my brain against me, I still managed to push through so much. And now I'm going to jot this down and save it for therapy because I almost cried.

I'm thankful that I am positioned to reflect on this, highlight key areas, and have someone to help nurture me along the way. I'm also thankful that my boss spoke up and made sure we were ok. Had she not, we would've slowly deteriorated and me even more so. Not only did she save us at work, but she saved my entire household. I'm forever grateful to God. Because even if she wasn't a believer, coincidences that strong I believe to be ordained.

Now, prepare to be caught up on my life during this time because even with a little CM, I was still able to enjoy so much!