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I got very sick on New Year's Eve.

Based on the amount of alcohol I drank, and that amount in relation to the amount I'd been drinking on a weekly basis for several months, and on the intense and extreme unfamiliarity of my reaction in relation to how I usually react to alcohol, I came to the conclusion that I had been drugged.  I then posted something on Facebook in the hopes that someone might know something about what had happened to me.

Based on what little I remember about that night, what I experienced matched that which had been witnessed by people I know who have seen people who have been drugged, as well as online accounts.  I did go to the emergency room a couple of days later, but (despite the several hundred dollar bill) I walked away with no answers (I read numerous things that said nothing would be detectable in my system that long afterward, later read things that stated the exact opposite, but I also had a doctor who spoke very little English and several nurses who didn't seem to know what I was talking about; nothing on the bill indicated I was tested for what I asked to be tested for).

And then I found out that my story was not only being denied, but being widely discussed by numerous individuals whom I don't know all that well, some of whom had seen me that night.

About six weeks into this year, someone confronted me about it and told me to my face that I was wrong, that he had seen me that night, and that I hadn't been behaving as if drugged, but as if extremely drunk.  The level of my sickness being what it was, if my reaction was entirely alcohol-induced, then what I experienced was alcohol poisoning.

I have not been able to stop thinking about this.

I don't know how I can ever know, with 100% certainty, exactly what happened, but doesn't either case come down to me not paying attention?  I spent the first six weeks of this year beating myself up by thinking of all the horrible ways in which I could have been killed or left for dead had I gotten sick on the street instead of at a party.  I've spent the month since I was challenged on it beating myself up by thinking about how I may have almost killed myself...how I could have died if someone hadn't been there to watch after me after I started throwing up.  And we're not talking about a little bit of self-flagellation here.  We're talking about me carrying this with me everywhere.  Looking at complete strangers at times and wondering if - for whatever reason - they've ever been in the condition that I was in that night.  And then I think they must be a better person than I am if they haven't.

I haven't been able to forgive myself.  I think part of that comes from the fact that I dictated the narrative on it early, by posting it on Facebook while I was still almost too sick to move.  I'm scared of what people think about me.  I'm scared that the people who saw me will never be able to look at me again without seeing me as they did that night.  I'm scared that I'm not the only one who hasn't let this go, that two and a half months later, people are still talking about it.

But most of all, I'm scared that I don't know what happened.  I'm scared that I don't know how it happened.  And I'm scared that I made a mistake and I don't know how to make it better.

I needed to write this out, because holding it inside of me has become toxic.  I read something online earlier that said that "anything past the point of learning is just needless suffering and excessive guilt."  What I've learned from this experience I can't even begin to adequately summarize, but needless to say, I've made many, many changes in my life so far this year.

But on the point of guilt, I haven't quite let it go yet...  I'm just hoping that the final lesson I take from this experience is how to forgive myself so I can move on...