May 30, 2017 2am
He doesn't write much anymore.
"Nearly forty", he thought, "I am nearly forty."
The bus is usually crowded on Monday nights, and most of the time he is stuck standing for the forty-five-minute bus ride home from work. Tonight, he managed, by some act of god, to weasel into a window seat. He didn't have to wait; it was there. He could rest his head against the window and take in the cities neon at midnight. Dreams of his past, images of rainy nights and the abstract forms created by passing car's head lights and brake lights bouncing off puddles and refracting through the bus window. He would ease his camera to his chin and sneak shots of strangers. He never wondered what they were thinking. He knew they were in the same place as he was; in a realm of leftover daydreams and tired ghosts of hope. In moments such as these, his heart (or the place where his heart was supposed to be) ached and sadness swelled in him, through him, over him, until it enveloped everyone on the bus, in the city, in the world. Often, a tear would form and sneak past his fingers to land on his lips. The salt of pain. Sad seasoning? Through his camera's lens, he could gaze past those strange eyes and into places where no one should go, but he felt invited. The surrounding atmosphere of sorrow wasn't, to him, what it was to everyone else. It was where he lived, always, and it was not a dreaded locale. If it was possible, he would call it happiness. Not the feeling of sadness, but the feeling. It pricked his skin and left blood. It was proof that this, whatever, was still active. It was reassurance that there remained potential and kinetic - the present was still just that. He was cursed with the knowledge (as if handed an apple by a snake if snakes had hands) of death, and that is not a statement one can make in casual conversation without some heavy explaining.
Of course, most people are aware that one day he or she will die, but most people can't wrap their heads around the concept of not being anymore. They try but the thought process takes the MC Escher staircase to up-down-left-right NOWHERE, the tongue is tied, and a friend must apply a pinch to bring them back. His awareness was full blown AIDS to their runny nose. It would hit him like a steamroller- slow, deliberate, painful, and it would last forever.
His dreams have been plagued with this knowledge since he could remember. He would be somewhere, like a cafe or his living room, and when he would bring his mug of coffee or a spoon of ice cream to his lips he would notice that there was nothing. He would remember that there used to be a, something, a taste? Then the boulder would gain momentum and boom, boom, boom! Down the hill, through the valley, knocking over homes, smashing children and grandmas and bushes and even that guy who always asks you for a cigarette when, for once, he really did not have any. He would remember being alive, and he would then know that he was not. His eyes would take in the room and he would know that this is now IT. Those other people are no longer with him, and his eternity is this nothing in a place of nothing with no feelings or sensations. Hell? That would be correct. That is what he thought, but not in a biblical sense. This was his personal hell; his place of eternal punishment for not being the best living man he could have been. Not that he was bad because he was not. He was decent at his worst. His fault was that he wasted so much life destroying himself with regret, guilt, sympathy, wonder and hope. The hours he threw away thinking to himself "I threw away twenty years on what? Booze, drugs, and woman who didn't give a damn about me? Now, it's too late. I am almost forty, what the fuck can I do? I fucking ruined it. I threw away my life." He did, but not with those common errors that stole time, damaged his reputation, and increased the level of difficulty in an already difficult game. Those errors are, even though they are unsatisfactory, part of living. The stagnating, the absence of action, the giving into his new demons, the loss of desire and passion, those are symptoms of decay and part of death.
In the desert at midnight on a Monday, he took the bus home from work. His window seat let him dream, and the dreams took him everywhere. They brought him back to his childhood, his first kiss, the day his dad died, all of his losses and gains. When the bus reached his stop, though, it was time for him to wake up.
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
March 6, 2017 At Home
The idea that I caused someone's death has changed the way I handle difficult times tremendously. I know I did not cause her death but I don't. Why don't I know? The only person who can ease my mind is the one who died and I doubt she will speak up. Sometimes I think that she would never blame me but other times I remember that what I thought I knew (in regards to how she thought) was not real. Not that she lied to me, she simply was not who I thought she was or she had changed into a completely different person. Unfortunately, no one can answer that question, either. As I became a part of her life, all of her past friends and family retreated. They were not around for the four plus years I spent with her; watching her deteriorate then heal only to once again fall apart and finally cease to be. I know that during the time when I left, and before she died, she had made new friends at her new job. I never knew them or what they thought of her. I do know they must have been fond of her for they were the ones who raised the money for her funeral, planned it and made it happen. I don't know what she was like before she died. I know she did not speak fondly of me and if I were to believe her family (which I have no exact reason not to) she did not tell them the truth about our relationship. I don't know if that was going on during our time together or not. We did fight a lot and I would leave from time to time only to return out of fear, obligation, and due to a familial love. I never went back due to romantic feelings. I fell out of love with her when she betrayed me. This is unpopular to state. I, although quite ill myself, helped her through the initial health problems that should have, according to three doctors, killed her. I also resolved several issues that would have led to the premature loss of her home and her animals. I also, of course, tended to her home and animals. Of course, those who were not there, for whatever reason, believe what they were told--that I sat on my ass during all of this, drinking and watching movies all day. Odd though, that for the more than 400 days she spent basically bed ridden, hair falling out in patches, her yellowing skin scaling off like dirty snow and her belly distended due to her swelling/failing liver, someone was feeding the animals, maintaining her home (inside and out), and correcting the mess she had made from years of abusing credit cards, borrowing against her home, and ignoring insurance claims against her. The last few things were areas where I was fully ignorant. Thus, it required me to spend hours upon hours learning this stuff on my own. She would not let me ask her family for help with these matters because she did not want them to know about her situation. I did eventually tell them that she needed a liver transplant and she had a discussion with them about that. It never came to what the doctors said was absolutely the only remedy. That is due to my care, my attention, and my many sacrifices. I lost out on plenty of, what could have been, life-altering opportunities. I could not leave her alone and no one else was stepping in to help me or her. I also called her family every time I had to call the paramedics to revive her and take her to the ER. Not once did they show their faces. Actually, that is not true. There was one time. The last time. I had moved back in because I needed a place to stay and she insisted that I stay with her. I made it as clear as the desert sky that if I had to call 911 at all I would leave. I was there no more than a month. One night her speech began to change into the "I am drunk and my blood sugar is way the fuck out of whack so watch out because a number of situations could arise from my usual mistake of eating nothing, drinking even the slightest amount of alcohol, and ignoring my potentially deadly type-1 diabetes. One, I could become violent and you will have to subdue me or take a beating. Oh, be careful when you subdue me for I may feel like calling the police, and be careful if you decide to take a beating for sometimes I like to use common household items, like ceramic mugs or metal bowls, as weapons (who knows, though, tonight may be the night when I go for a knife?). Two, and this is the one you are hoping for, I will quietly mumble my nonsense while staring at you as if you are the worst human on the planet (you've learned to ignore this one). Of course, there is Number Three, and that is when I collapse (my body all dead weight like lead), and I become unconscious; my breathing stops? Can you tell? Yep, it's time to call the old EMS because this could be it, I could die" voice and I was so god damn mad. I hated that voice. It meant that she was gone. GONE. That meant I could no longer communicate with her; not at all. I know it is mean but I wish everyone could have witnessed this side of her, just once. Then they would understand just a tiny bit of what I went through with her, and that tiny bit would be enough. It is THAT fucked up. You are witnessing a metamorphosis; watching her turn into a completely different person in less than a second. She has no recollection of it. She never understood what it was like on your end. Well, she did, because I would record that shit on my phone, and I would force her to watch it. She always refused and became enraged by the idea. Back to that night. I did what I usually did, and I pleaded for her to check her blood sugar. She mumbled that it was fine and then trailed off into nonsense. I told her to go to bed, to leave me the fuck alone, I did not want to listen to "the voice" to see "the face". She tried to get up, she fell, and she was out. Not from the fall, but from diabetes plus alcohol plus irresponsibility. I called 911. They took her away.
It was not a horrible one. She needed to go to the hospital but she would be fine. They knew this. I knew this.
"You are going to follow us, right?"
"No. Not this time. Tell her to call her sister when she wakes up. Tell her I am not going to pick her up."
"Alright. Take care."
They knew me. They saw everything and had for years. They knew, one day it would be a corpse. One day, they would be too late or one day, I would not be here to make the call. How long would her body remain on the cold laminated concrete floor of her would-be once-upon-a-time mid-century modern home? What would the dogs think? How hard would they try to wake Mommy?
She called in the morning, asking if I could pick her up, "I am done. I told you, 'no more'. My stuff is moved out, and I am not coming back. Call your sister. Let her take care of you. Tell her the truth!", I said being careful to annunciate every syllable--to be as clear as possible.
"Don't you want to know if I am okay? It wasn't my blood sugar. Not really, I mean. The nurse said my blood-alcohol was super high, like, too high even for someone without diabetes. She said if I don't stop this, I'll die. I mean, like, I WILL DIE, like, soon." And she said this calmly, almost as if she was telling a joke or an unbelievable "did you hear what happened to so and so" type story.
"Who the fuck are you and where have you been? More than a year, do you remember? You lost your job! You didn't leave the bed because you couldn't! Your hair was falling out, and your skin was falling off! You turned fucking yellow? Ring a bell? You needed a NEW LIVER. That is what they said. Until I made you better. You remember all the shit I did, all the shit I lost? Did you ever say 'thank you'? Then I left you. For a year I left. I never wanted to see you again, but I came back and you promised, 'never again'. So, fuck you. Never again."
After all of that, though, I still hoped to one day run into her. I wanted to see her the way she was when I fell in love with her. I wanted her to think that I would be jealous of her new boyfriend. I wanted her to think that she, by getting better and moving on with her life, by finding love and happiness with someone else, had beaten me. I hoped she would laugh in my face. I wanted her to be beautiful again, but I did not want this for me.
That is my problem. I really do this. I really think like that. I never wanted her back. Even as I fell out of love with her, I never thought to myself, "fix her, take care of her, so she can be what she used to be. So we can be what we were, and so I can have what I had." When I was giving up my life for hers I never thought about myself. I did not want anything for myself. That is a problem. That is why I am here now. I have nothing. I have lost everything and that includes time. I never thought I would have a future. I guess I lost the idea of a future. I never planned for this day. I didn't think about me. I was lost in saving her life. Now, I might be lost in the idea that, maybe, I killed her. Maybe, I prolonged her suffering? Also, I think there is a chance I should not have stopped drinking. It floats into my mind lazily, the thought that my current onslaught of bad luck, mental illness/anguish, are the fault of my not killing myself with alcohol. As if I fucked with destiny by caring first about her life, and then about my own. Or, that this present life of mine is my punishment, my earthly hell.
You have to understand that I am logical sometimes. This is from recalling what I have felt and is not necessarily what I am currently feeling. My feelings are fleeting. I am a million emotions a million times a day. I never feel depressed when I need to, and I never have panic attacks when I should. This is why few people believe I am mentally ill, and that includes several doctors. When I go to see a doctor it is like going to the record shop, I forget what I came for.
Her death coincided with the death of my father. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September and she died in December. He died, um? Now, this does freak me out a bit. December to (now I am not exaggerating) early October of 2016 is mostly blank. I know I did things, but I can not recall those months the way I can recall others. Those months seem like they were decades ago, while the months before them feel like they're in the right place. I doubt that makes sense. I did not wake up from that haze until fairly recently. My brain just stopped recording, I think. I never mourned. I don't know how. I wasn't really allowed, and there was other shit to do. There was no time to heal. Like when I quit drinking, which feels like a million years ago but was not. Two years on June 23, 2017. That is all.
This time next month, I will have turned 38. I do not know where I will be, how I will be, or what I will be doing for a living.
It won't be taking photographs. Today a bottle of soda exploded in my camera bag, drenching my camera with DR. Pepper and ruining it. It took the kindness of others to gain that camera, three times, and I fucked it up with my stupidity.
Rent is past due as of today. That will be another action that will require hours (that do not exist) to materialize into being. All, while I cross my fingers so hard they break.
The above is not true. If a certain company would honor what they signed (which I lost when she died) instead of denying it ever existed, then, maybe then, I would have what I need? Or, if instead of drinking my face off for years, I would have noticed they were cheating me, maybe then. Or, maybe if certain people would have noticed my dedication, my work to help what was theirs and not mine, then I would have something. Or, if the first of the man-children I worked for would have done, from the beginning, what was right and human and just. Or, if instead of thinking so lowly of myself and punishing myself, I actually charged either of the man-children what I am worth, or what I deserve. They could easily afford that. Or, I could do what many doctors wished of me, and go way back to childhood so I could blame him for squandering his and her savings on his "dream" and then went running, running, running after it without a care. He chased his dreams and never imagined that those he helped create (for one that was all) may also have those things. Maybe, just maybe, you are supposed to give a fuck about the stuff you help create instead of burying your head in your suffering which was your doing; no one else's. Maybe if that "man" would have helped me when I was not yet a man? Maybe, then I would be fine? Instead, he sank his needy little paws into me, demanding my attention, my affection, my love, my time, and used my body as the only one to blame because it was the only one present. I did all of that by myself, too. No one made me care for him. No one asked me to be there for him and he certainly did nothing to deserve my kindness. I did ask him to do one thing, though. As he was dying, I asked him to apologize. He laughed a little bit and replied (a bit of the man he used to be was back for a second)"for what, Dan?", and he shrugged it off. He shot me a glance like I was a fucking idiot for asking.
It does sadden me that one of the things I have to change about myself if I want to be okay, is that I have to stop putting others before me. I have learned, those who I put before me are not going to return the favor. Most of the time, they won't even notice and they will find something about you to hate. And the universe isn't going to reward your selflessness. Karma isn't real. Shit doesn't have to get better because you deserve it or because you worked hard for it. Life can get bad and then get it can get worse. There is no balance, no harmony, to life. Life is chaos and disorder. Now, that isn't some bullshit, that is science. The Law of Thermodynamics not "The Choice" or some Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins, "don't you get it, people? These guys don't follow what they teach. That isn't why they are successful and happy. They are happy and successful because they found out they can sell you dumb shits anything. They charge 5k to spit bullshit and you lick that shit off the floor. Movement creates heat and heat creates disorder and disorder causes chaos. No, it isn't the happiest shit around, but at least it is not a fucking lie that makes you poor and someone else rich.
All of the world's problems could be solved tomorrow if people ceased being greedy, selfish and mean. It wouldn't take love. We don't need love. We need common sense, compassion, empathy, and water.
I could solve all of the world's problems.
If I had a million dollars, just that, I could do enough to generate enough attention to convince enough people to change enough minds to change this planet.
"Humanity, Saved by Pyramid Scheme" is what the headline would read.
But that will never happen. I can't even pay my rent. I am not going to save humanity.
This could be longer but I will stop. Tomorrow is not today.
Sunday, March 5, 2017
March 5, 2017 No more titles from now on
I don't know why I always try to come up with a neat title for my blog entries before I write a word. When I write in my paper journal I don't title entries. I date them and sometimes scribble the location where it was written but never a title. I only do this because there is a space for a title. Like a monkey to a banana, I see a space for a title and there I go as if it must be done. Then, I try, square peg in a round whole style, for far too long to label what is usually no more than a jumble of common complaints, improper information regarding my mental health, stream of conscience long-winded bullshit, the worst self-help advice, the occasional recipe, and endless listing of dreams faded. I believe it is easy to say that what I put down here needs no title. Maybe, when I attempt fiction. I mean, for real and not this fiction that just so happens to be my reality.
I can not write about anything other than myself here, really. For that I apologize and I wish it could be different but that's what this is. This is, for real, a huge part of my therapy and you, the reader, are of no importance. No one has to read this but I have to leave it open for people to read or it will not help me. If I put this in one of my many private journals it does not do any good and then someone finds it. When people read something that they are not supposed to they tend to overreact. That is one reason this is semi-public, it can not be that serious if I am willing to let just about anyone read my private thoughts. These can not be my most private thoughts, right? Yes, in a way. I am fairly honest here. I reveal way too much according to, well, just about everyone who acknowledges to have read this and actually communicates with me on a regular basis. I am sure there are those who read bits and pieces and think, "oh, Danny's drunk again" or "he's looking for attention and pity, how pathetic" and whatever, I get it, you think you know me. You don't and as much as I would like to say I don't care, I do. Not that much but I do wish those people would give me a chance. That, though, is not going to happen for those people don't give others chances. They make their erroneous assumptions and they move on.
See what I mean? I can not title this; it isn't anything in particular. It is brain diarrhea. I have the mental shits. That's why I wear a hat.
So, what was today?
Well, it's safe to say that it resembled those before it. Today was a series of let downs, a three course of failings, an extra large pizza of broken dreams all for me, a quart of disappointment eaten straight from the carton, and the stomach ache of tonight is upon me as a reminder of my overindulgence of hopelessness. So many things that have slipped through my fingers this year; too many "you almost had it but" situations for only two months. Now, this month is going to test my tolerance for disappointment and horror. I know I will get through it but I wish I wouldn't. I wish this was it. I wish all of this would fucking stop. I am sick of repeating myself. Walking talking dumb ass Sisyphus.
I can not write about anything other than myself here, really. For that I apologize and I wish it could be different but that's what this is. This is, for real, a huge part of my therapy and you, the reader, are of no importance. No one has to read this but I have to leave it open for people to read or it will not help me. If I put this in one of my many private journals it does not do any good and then someone finds it. When people read something that they are not supposed to they tend to overreact. That is one reason this is semi-public, it can not be that serious if I am willing to let just about anyone read my private thoughts. These can not be my most private thoughts, right? Yes, in a way. I am fairly honest here. I reveal way too much according to, well, just about everyone who acknowledges to have read this and actually communicates with me on a regular basis. I am sure there are those who read bits and pieces and think, "oh, Danny's drunk again" or "he's looking for attention and pity, how pathetic" and whatever, I get it, you think you know me. You don't and as much as I would like to say I don't care, I do. Not that much but I do wish those people would give me a chance. That, though, is not going to happen for those people don't give others chances. They make their erroneous assumptions and they move on.
See what I mean? I can not title this; it isn't anything in particular. It is brain diarrhea. I have the mental shits. That's why I wear a hat.
So, what was today?
Well, it's safe to say that it resembled those before it. Today was a series of let downs, a three course of failings, an extra large pizza of broken dreams all for me, a quart of disappointment eaten straight from the carton, and the stomach ache of tonight is upon me as a reminder of my overindulgence of hopelessness. So many things that have slipped through my fingers this year; too many "you almost had it but" situations for only two months. Now, this month is going to test my tolerance for disappointment and horror. I know I will get through it but I wish I wouldn't. I wish this was it. I wish all of this would fucking stop. I am sick of repeating myself. Walking talking dumb ass Sisyphus.
Sunday, February 26, 2017
Telling Lies To Save My Life
Another day on the strip. Doing my best to capture something meaningful, timeless, and impactful. These moments exist. They are everywhere but it takes a combination of timing, concentration, intuition, luck, courage, skill and knowledge to steal them from time. With street photography, there is not any room for error. The slightest mistake is the difference between a piece of art and a piece of shit. One has to realize that there will be a lot of shit to sort through at the end of the day this also takes a durable ego. In most activities, my ego is fragile. I damage easily but here, with my camera, I am tough; a man of stone. Take me away and a commercial can bring me to tears. A sad movie can ruin my week and an insult from a stranger can weaken my will and force me to contemplate my existence.
When I am taking photographs I feel what it must be like for normal people. Not that I presume normal people go about their days without worry or sadness, I know they experience a wide spectrum of emotions. I also know that most of the time they are even, neither horribly sad or jumping with joy. They do not spend any time thinking that everyone is going to abandon them or that everyone is plotting to destroy them. I spend around an hour every day convincing myself that this is not the case. It is difficult. I would say that I am used to it for it is normal for me. I know that those feelings are without reason, that they are not realistic. Still, they exist every morning, noon, and night. There is also the depression. The sadness that is constant and without a cause. Nothing bad has to happen for dark clouds to follow me around constantly. That is a twenty-four-hour a day battle. Do you know the feeling in your gut when you are about to cry, like when you contemplate death at a funeral of a loved one? That pain creeps in while in line at the grocery store, in the shower, driving on the highway, taking a bite of something delicious, kissing someone I am in love with, and while doing any and everything. Not daily but five to twenty times a day, maybe more. The trifecta would not be complete, though, without anxiety.
Along with the anxiety and depression come a number of physical side effects. These range from mild discomfort in the form of itching, pains in my stomach or back, and slight shaking to others which when they first occurred were mistaken for ER visit realm maladies. The ones I mentioned above (itching, stomach and back pain, slight shaking) are an every day, twice, thrice, a day thing, but there are others, odd ones, that are less frequent but frequent enough to annoy and cause hard to explain situations. For instance, the need to run as fast as possible (kind of like restless leg syndrome but during the day). Also, there are the more dangerous attacks that cause tunnel vision and blacking out. There are the times when those usual pains of the back and stomach become nearly paralyzing. Also, there are times when the uncontrollable shaking exceeds the "slight" and becomes so violent that it appears to be a seizure. There is my usual episodic crying that turns to uncontrollable weeping which then turns into the need to curl up in a ball or to find a small space for which to squeeze myself into. There is the urge to scream and the fear that if I do not I will punch myself in the face or pull out all of my hair. Then there is what I think is the worst which is an odd sickness that resembles the flu and can last days. This is not common and has not happened since the day after my father's funeral but the rest of those happen fairly regularly. I experience all of them at least once a month, the mild ones nearly daily and the severe but not the last one weekly. The most common being stomach and back pains, tunnel vision and uncontrollable weeping. It's normal to me. All of these have been a part of my life since I can remember. When I was young I would make up excuses, but now, if anyone notices, I try to explain. That doesn't work. So, what does work?
Basically, acting like I am fine is the only remedy to my problems. I live in a world of make-believe. I pretend like the "crazy me" is my alter ego, one that I must keep a secret. Like this, writing this blog entry it is not real. Are you confused? You should be.
This is not fiction but to me it is. No one will actually read this but they will. No one will take this seriously or believe what I am putting down but they might. This will change nothing but it could change everything.
This exists because I am all out of ideas. This happens due to the fact that my frustration has to go somewhere. The screaming in a pillow type of exercise that is "journal writing" used to help but now I have to put it out there for real people to read. I have a compulsion. For once in my life, I want people to understand exactly what it is like to live in my body and brain. Maybe then they could understand who I am. Maybe then, I could understand who I am. As I have stated before, I have only known myself for less than two years. Before that, I was drunk for nearly 22 years and before that, I was a child.
I am sure extensive therapy would help. I don't have the money nor the time to do that. I can barely (not really at all) make ends meet now. I need more work and I can't spend money on shit I can't afford. I am trying to stay sane. I am trying to stay alive. I am trying to improve but I am fighting someone or something at every turn. Whether it is others who wish to deceive me, who just don't want to pay me what I am worth, who don't understand why I would charge what I charge, who don't realize they are getting a deal, who don't realize when they should toss me a bonus for going that extra mile or hour or day or week, or who are just plain cheap and mean who pose a tremendous obstacle or if it is something like my camera taking a shit, the car breaking down, my computer malfunctioning, someone dying, my insurance rates going up, my phone bill increasing, any bill increasing and all of this while my rate of pay has not increased much over the past ten years. Maybe it is my love of run-on sentences that make little sense? Who knows?
I am lucky enough to have a few people in my corner but I am sick of my inability to do anything for them, to always be the one asking and never giving, and wondering when the absurdity of my mental illness will hit them. Borderline personality disorder makes me imagine abandonment. I think that everyone who cares will leave me, basically, any minute now. I know this is not real but I don't sometimes. Sometimes the real and the imaginary get confused. It is only a matter of time and it is nearly guaranteed that at some time in the future I will turn on them and accuse them of plotting against me. If they have read anything I have sent them about my illness, then they should know this. Pills can't stop my fate, therapy is not there, so like a time bomb here I am, waiting to lose those I love.
Keeping up with this blog is impossible. In order for me to include what I do every day to trick myself sane would take nearly the whole day. It would take pages. I have tried and it is overwhelming. It is also ever changing. I have to think up new tricks daily. My stratagems are fundamentally the same. First, remember that your fears are not rooted in reality. Second, remember that depression, anxiety, and fear can not kill you or even hurt you but acting on them can. Third, no one benefits from your death. Fourth, this is not over, you still have time. This is not over, you still have time. Time is not for me but it is all I have. I must work harder, always harder, always more, this will never stop. Everything has to be work. Every movement must have meaning. I am not a victim. I am not hopeless.
I am tired, though.
Before I go...
There are also "the strangers". These are people who hardly know me or do not know me at all, but still, have helped me out one way or another. I don't know why. I will tell all of you strangers that I am not giving up. Your help has not gone to waste. I will always have proof ready for you. These were taken today. There are more, and as long as I have a camera and a computer there will always be more. That is all I need, my camera and my computer. A phone helps, of course, and a home.
When I am taking photographs I feel what it must be like for normal people. Not that I presume normal people go about their days without worry or sadness, I know they experience a wide spectrum of emotions. I also know that most of the time they are even, neither horribly sad or jumping with joy. They do not spend any time thinking that everyone is going to abandon them or that everyone is plotting to destroy them. I spend around an hour every day convincing myself that this is not the case. It is difficult. I would say that I am used to it for it is normal for me. I know that those feelings are without reason, that they are not realistic. Still, they exist every morning, noon, and night. There is also the depression. The sadness that is constant and without a cause. Nothing bad has to happen for dark clouds to follow me around constantly. That is a twenty-four-hour a day battle. Do you know the feeling in your gut when you are about to cry, like when you contemplate death at a funeral of a loved one? That pain creeps in while in line at the grocery store, in the shower, driving on the highway, taking a bite of something delicious, kissing someone I am in love with, and while doing any and everything. Not daily but five to twenty times a day, maybe more. The trifecta would not be complete, though, without anxiety.
Along with the anxiety and depression come a number of physical side effects. These range from mild discomfort in the form of itching, pains in my stomach or back, and slight shaking to others which when they first occurred were mistaken for ER visit realm maladies. The ones I mentioned above (itching, stomach and back pain, slight shaking) are an every day, twice, thrice, a day thing, but there are others, odd ones, that are less frequent but frequent enough to annoy and cause hard to explain situations. For instance, the need to run as fast as possible (kind of like restless leg syndrome but during the day). Also, there are the more dangerous attacks that cause tunnel vision and blacking out. There are the times when those usual pains of the back and stomach become nearly paralyzing. Also, there are times when the uncontrollable shaking exceeds the "slight" and becomes so violent that it appears to be a seizure. There is my usual episodic crying that turns to uncontrollable weeping which then turns into the need to curl up in a ball or to find a small space for which to squeeze myself into. There is the urge to scream and the fear that if I do not I will punch myself in the face or pull out all of my hair. Then there is what I think is the worst which is an odd sickness that resembles the flu and can last days. This is not common and has not happened since the day after my father's funeral but the rest of those happen fairly regularly. I experience all of them at least once a month, the mild ones nearly daily and the severe but not the last one weekly. The most common being stomach and back pains, tunnel vision and uncontrollable weeping. It's normal to me. All of these have been a part of my life since I can remember. When I was young I would make up excuses, but now, if anyone notices, I try to explain. That doesn't work. So, what does work?
Basically, acting like I am fine is the only remedy to my problems. I live in a world of make-believe. I pretend like the "crazy me" is my alter ego, one that I must keep a secret. Like this, writing this blog entry it is not real. Are you confused? You should be.
This is not fiction but to me it is. No one will actually read this but they will. No one will take this seriously or believe what I am putting down but they might. This will change nothing but it could change everything.
This exists because I am all out of ideas. This happens due to the fact that my frustration has to go somewhere. The screaming in a pillow type of exercise that is "journal writing" used to help but now I have to put it out there for real people to read. I have a compulsion. For once in my life, I want people to understand exactly what it is like to live in my body and brain. Maybe then they could understand who I am. Maybe then, I could understand who I am. As I have stated before, I have only known myself for less than two years. Before that, I was drunk for nearly 22 years and before that, I was a child.
I am sure extensive therapy would help. I don't have the money nor the time to do that. I can barely (not really at all) make ends meet now. I need more work and I can't spend money on shit I can't afford. I am trying to stay sane. I am trying to stay alive. I am trying to improve but I am fighting someone or something at every turn. Whether it is others who wish to deceive me, who just don't want to pay me what I am worth, who don't understand why I would charge what I charge, who don't realize they are getting a deal, who don't realize when they should toss me a bonus for going that extra mile or hour or day or week, or who are just plain cheap and mean who pose a tremendous obstacle or if it is something like my camera taking a shit, the car breaking down, my computer malfunctioning, someone dying, my insurance rates going up, my phone bill increasing, any bill increasing and all of this while my rate of pay has not increased much over the past ten years. Maybe it is my love of run-on sentences that make little sense? Who knows?
I am lucky enough to have a few people in my corner but I am sick of my inability to do anything for them, to always be the one asking and never giving, and wondering when the absurdity of my mental illness will hit them. Borderline personality disorder makes me imagine abandonment. I think that everyone who cares will leave me, basically, any minute now. I know this is not real but I don't sometimes. Sometimes the real and the imaginary get confused. It is only a matter of time and it is nearly guaranteed that at some time in the future I will turn on them and accuse them of plotting against me. If they have read anything I have sent them about my illness, then they should know this. Pills can't stop my fate, therapy is not there, so like a time bomb here I am, waiting to lose those I love.
Keeping up with this blog is impossible. In order for me to include what I do every day to trick myself sane would take nearly the whole day. It would take pages. I have tried and it is overwhelming. It is also ever changing. I have to think up new tricks daily. My stratagems are fundamentally the same. First, remember that your fears are not rooted in reality. Second, remember that depression, anxiety, and fear can not kill you or even hurt you but acting on them can. Third, no one benefits from your death. Fourth, this is not over, you still have time. This is not over, you still have time. Time is not for me but it is all I have. I must work harder, always harder, always more, this will never stop. Everything has to be work. Every movement must have meaning. I am not a victim. I am not hopeless.
I am tired, though.
Before I go...
There are also "the strangers". These are people who hardly know me or do not know me at all, but still, have helped me out one way or another. I don't know why. I will tell all of you strangers that I am not giving up. Your help has not gone to waste. I will always have proof ready for you. These were taken today. There are more, and as long as I have a camera and a computer there will always be more. That is all I need, my camera and my computer. A phone helps, of course, and a home.
Monday, February 20, 2017
Having a seat next to Artaud
There is no more room in this theater.
I should just leave it at that, or write the rest in my own feces, call it art, and retire. Maybe, not even in that order? Why? To create some consistency in this, whatever, that is my life. My life can not be random acts of absurdity with flecks of the usual thrown it. It has to be either one or the other. Completely nonsensical, random, and chaotic or ordered, mundane, and predictable You cannot mix the two. Life isn't salad dressing. You can't just add a bit of Dijon and expect two things that don't mix to exist harmoniously. Life isn't that way no matter how much you shake the shit out of it. Crazy and normal don't come together, um, go together. Shit.
So, I pass the playbill to my old friend. He glances at it, looks at me, and shrugs a "no, this isn't going to work at all" kind of shrug, balls the playbill and tosses it to the sticky theater floor. Then he whips out his dick and begins to jerk it. Two large women quickly escort him off premises. I pretend like I've never seen him before and thank the female security guards for their diligence. They give me two free drink tickets to apologize. I except and order two orange sodas. They don't have orange soda? What kind of theater is this? Cherry coke? No? Mr. Pibb? Okay, Dr. Pepper. Thanks. I forgot how much I like Dr. Pepper. It is so sugary, taste like cavities. Tastes like rotten teeth in a small mountain town. Tastes like an old timey store, a shoppe. A Cracker Barrell gift shop, shoppe, but real, not manufactured. Olde. Reminds me of hash brown casserole and root beer and rock candy and that occasional breakfast that would come out of nowhere when I was a kid which was not for long, when all us, the whole family, would go out to eat. Like once every six months and that felt like never. So, it felt important. Pancakes and bacon with syrup on it and "what the fuck is fruit?".
Since when is Artist an insult? Fuck you. Really, no, Really FUCK YOU
That happened because you can not call someone a "faggot" anymore. I know that. People used to call me a faggot and now they call me an artist. Actually, no one calls me anything to my face. Why? They must all be artists, fucking artists.
I don't care what people label themselves as. I don't ever think about it, and am only doing so now because someone called me an artist like it was an insult the other day. "Oh yeah, I forgot, you're an artist, blah."
A new one to me.
I never cared when people called me a faggot. I knew that I was not a homosexual. I did not care if people thought I was a homosexual. I wished I was a homosexual. I still do. I don't enjoy being attracted to women. I don't enjoy being lumped in with straight dudes, they are fucking assholes. There is nothing good about being straight. Not when you are straight the way I am straight. As in "kinda a fag" but not really gay. I am just a sissy. A pussy. Never considered a "real man".
Fuck all of this. I hate it here.
I should just leave it at that, or write the rest in my own feces, call it art, and retire. Maybe, not even in that order? Why? To create some consistency in this, whatever, that is my life. My life can not be random acts of absurdity with flecks of the usual thrown it. It has to be either one or the other. Completely nonsensical, random, and chaotic or ordered, mundane, and predictable You cannot mix the two. Life isn't salad dressing. You can't just add a bit of Dijon and expect two things that don't mix to exist harmoniously. Life isn't that way no matter how much you shake the shit out of it. Crazy and normal don't come together, um, go together. Shit.
So, I pass the playbill to my old friend. He glances at it, looks at me, and shrugs a "no, this isn't going to work at all" kind of shrug, balls the playbill and tosses it to the sticky theater floor. Then he whips out his dick and begins to jerk it. Two large women quickly escort him off premises. I pretend like I've never seen him before and thank the female security guards for their diligence. They give me two free drink tickets to apologize. I except and order two orange sodas. They don't have orange soda? What kind of theater is this? Cherry coke? No? Mr. Pibb? Okay, Dr. Pepper. Thanks. I forgot how much I like Dr. Pepper. It is so sugary, taste like cavities. Tastes like rotten teeth in a small mountain town. Tastes like an old timey store, a shoppe. A Cracker Barrell gift shop, shoppe, but real, not manufactured. Olde. Reminds me of hash brown casserole and root beer and rock candy and that occasional breakfast that would come out of nowhere when I was a kid which was not for long, when all us, the whole family, would go out to eat. Like once every six months and that felt like never. So, it felt important. Pancakes and bacon with syrup on it and "what the fuck is fruit?".
Since when is Artist an insult? Fuck you. Really, no, Really FUCK YOU
That happened because you can not call someone a "faggot" anymore. I know that. People used to call me a faggot and now they call me an artist. Actually, no one calls me anything to my face. Why? They must all be artists, fucking artists.
I don't care what people label themselves as. I don't ever think about it, and am only doing so now because someone called me an artist like it was an insult the other day. "Oh yeah, I forgot, you're an artist, blah."
A new one to me.
I never cared when people called me a faggot. I knew that I was not a homosexual. I did not care if people thought I was a homosexual. I wished I was a homosexual. I still do. I don't enjoy being attracted to women. I don't enjoy being lumped in with straight dudes, they are fucking assholes. There is nothing good about being straight. Not when you are straight the way I am straight. As in "kinda a fag" but not really gay. I am just a sissy. A pussy. Never considered a "real man".
Fuck all of this. I hate it here.
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
And There It Goes
Some things just are not meant to be. Sometimes you have to be vague. Some days it's better to just stay in bed, turn off your phone, and wait until tomorrow.
I could have done without today but it had to happen. That's just the way days are.
My throat is sore from screaming. So, pretend this is a whisper a whisper. pretend.
now. can you still hear me? okay. Today I lost a friend. No one died, that is not what I mean, but my actions caused someone to vacate from my life most likely forever. It's too bad. He is a good guy. A great one to have in your corner. You know what? I would not do anything differently. I am tired of explaining every step I take. This unfortunate incident which went down today had been in the works for years. No one listened to a word I said. No one thought I was correct. They still don't. Well, the ones who know they are wrong know I am correct but they are going to stick to their guns. They have nothing to lose, really. You see, in the end, I am the only one who really loses anything. But that is okay because these other people won't take from me anymore. It is a tiny victory that means nothing. Still, it sucks that I had to lose a friend. He'll understand someday. Or he won't. It is important that I don't worry about those things that are beyond my control. That is the stuff that makes me nuts. Nobody likes to feel like they are hated and that is how I feel but all I did was stick up for myself. I have to do that more often. No one expects me to. That is what made these other people mad. They got used to pushing me around. Then, one day, today, I wouldn't budge. They called me names. But I am okay. I won't get what I deserve but I did not expect to. It is not a win. Life is not about winning because it is not a game. Do you understand?
I could have done without today but it had to happen. That's just the way days are.
My throat is sore from screaming. So, pretend this is a whisper a whisper. pretend.
now. can you still hear me? okay. Today I lost a friend. No one died, that is not what I mean, but my actions caused someone to vacate from my life most likely forever. It's too bad. He is a good guy. A great one to have in your corner. You know what? I would not do anything differently. I am tired of explaining every step I take. This unfortunate incident which went down today had been in the works for years. No one listened to a word I said. No one thought I was correct. They still don't. Well, the ones who know they are wrong know I am correct but they are going to stick to their guns. They have nothing to lose, really. You see, in the end, I am the only one who really loses anything. But that is okay because these other people won't take from me anymore. It is a tiny victory that means nothing. Still, it sucks that I had to lose a friend. He'll understand someday. Or he won't. It is important that I don't worry about those things that are beyond my control. That is the stuff that makes me nuts. Nobody likes to feel like they are hated and that is how I feel but all I did was stick up for myself. I have to do that more often. No one expects me to. That is what made these other people mad. They got used to pushing me around. Then, one day, today, I wouldn't budge. They called me names. But I am okay. I won't get what I deserve but I did not expect to. It is not a win. Life is not about winning because it is not a game. Do you understand?
Sunday, February 12, 2017
More of The Same: Deja Vu for The Mentally Ill
Truly, it is awful that the best news I have had in decades in regards to my mental illness is that all of my feelings of being useless, experiencing horrid and abnormal levels of depression, and my haunting fear that everyone is either plotting to destroy me or leave me are normal in the abnormal world I inhabit. I am only a freak among nearly everyone but somewhere there is a place where I am just like everyone.
Of course, that is not true. The mentally ill are scattered amongst the populations. There exists no utopia where we all live together in harmony. No, we are to live with those who can never understand us and why? Why when all of the data is there, the scholarly journals, the research, the years of case studies are all there. Some would call this PROOF. The proof that mental illness is, um, you know, AN ILLNESS. Just like the common cold, cancer, shingles, or Alzheimer's my chronic depression, my borderline personality disorder means I am sick. So, why am I treated like I am fine? Do you know when the mentally ill are taken seriously? Do you? You do because all of you have said these words either to yourself or out loud, "if only I knew maybe I could have done something to help". Do you remember saying those word? Remember where you were? When you found out you had lost someone close, and to what? Suicide, a drug overdose, or maybe liver failure? Suicide being the number one killer of the mentally ill by far and drug overdose and alcohol induced liver failure trailing behind but always there, ever present. You see the junkie or the drunk and you think to yourself, "there is a fool who lacks self control, why doesn't he put down the bottle and get his shit together?". Behind that bottle is illness. Now, I am sick of people calling alcoholism a disease because it is not. Addiction is a symptom. Behind addition is an illness but addiction itself is not an illness. No one has an in born predisposition to brandy or barbituits, Chardonnay or coccaine, Hennessy or heroine. It is the darkness of depression, the evil attack of anxiety, the chasing fear of paranoia mixed with the discovery that some of us stumble upon that enough booze can shut down our depression, or that the simple prick of a needle eases all the anxiousness witch usually freezes us. So the story goes and unless you can afford a drug or alcohol addiction those two remedies are out of the question.
So, what is left? The pharmaceutical industry with their promises of rainbows and moonbeams? While there are some useful drugs out there, they usually are not cures and in my experience are bandaids at best. I only take them because they are inexpensive and it shows those around me that, at least, I am trying something. Doesn't that sound odd, "it shows those around me that, at least, I am trying something". For they, and most, assume that a trip to the psychiatrist and a script for some pills will end any suffering. Maybe it does. Maybe some people are just that curable. Or maybe some people confuse sadness with depression. Maybe some people confuse the psychological effects of traumatic events with mental illness. Maybe people do not understand that people who suffer from something like depression don't need a reason to be depressed or that people who suffer anxiety don't need a reason to be anxious. We feel what you feel when a loved one passes for no reason, everyday and we feel the crowded airport, "I can't miss my flight" pounding in the chest just because today is another day and you say, "you'll be fine everyone has a bad day".
"Everyone is a little crazy". Maybe? I don't know. I can not disprove that but I do know that everyone is not a little mentally ill. A little crazy is not consistent with the pain the suffering the constant gut punch of being sick. A cold ain't cancer. A paper cut is not like a severed limb. Spinal trauma is not a bump on your head. Why is my borderline personality disorder a bad day to you when it's an awful life to me? When it is not a life, it doesn't feel like living by any definition. It is constant, relentless fear and pain. It does not stop. There is no cure. So, you are left with a couple of choices: deal with it or give up.
The first struggle is trying to make sense of it. You learn, very early, that you are not like the people who surround you but you have to blend in. You must learn to pretend, to act, to lie, to deceive in order to survive. Hide those tears or you won't go far. Let go of mommies skirt or the other kids are going to kick your ass. Find the feeling of safety somewhere. For me, it was a secret world. From the moment I left the car and headed, alone or with my brother, to school I became a different boy in a different world. I had rules and I developed tricks to create the illusion of safety. If I could avoid stepping on cracks in the sidewalk I would be okay. If I could count to ten three times before I reached the flag pole I would be okay. A red car might grant me temporary invincibility or tails up penny could make me ivisable (I know heads up is supposed to be good luck but my rule book was not consistent with this universe). As a boy, I had to concentrate, work hard, before and after school to convince myself that I was not me. I had to be Silver Surfer gliding through the galaxy, untouchable and invoulnerable. Or, I would fake a stomach ache. Stay home from school, safe on my island couch, the master of my universe of tiny toys and television. Those things I could control and the things that could not hurt me. Every year I missed more school days than most kids and as I got older and my partents had their own problems missing school became easier. No one really noticed, and school was easy enough so my grades didn't suffer. They didn't really want to fail an A student because he missed too many days. They never did. I never failed a class.. One class, I remember, I attended only three times. Five grade points were deducted from my final grade and I received a 92 which is a high B+. My senior year I had to meet with the principal. Due to the amounts of days missed, unexcused absences, I was not supposed to graduate. They were not going too give me my diploma. This is what I don't understand about my illness. Everyday, and with no cause, I am anxious, sad, hurt, fragile but then, sometimes, and almost always when I need it like a super power, reality is pushed aside and that fictional figure I have created for survival takes over and I shine. With the confidence of James Bond, I explain, simply and concisely that the rules others have to follow just are not the rule I follow. I explained, with the evidence of my grades, standardized test scores, and behavior reports how irresponsible it would be of the school district to hold me back, to deny me what I earned due to the their trivial attendance policy. I remember also stressing that the not only did my lack of attendance do no damage, it actually saved them money, freed up much needed desk space, and allowed teachers to concentrate on those students who needed extra attention.
I graduated on time.
I walked across that stage with fists clenched white, a stomach about to explode, and tears of fear--utter confusion--and the weight of sadness like a million oceans crushing me. And as I sat down in my cap and gown, I knew that this was the end. I knew that what I had thought of, for so long as an unsurvivable as hell, was nothing compared to the world which stretched itself out in front of me. No longer would I have my mother to come home to. That one person who no matter what was a constant. The simple, always and forever, never again.
I was crushed but by the time I was eighteen I was a physically dependent alchoholic with three years of hiding this fact under my belt. So, I would be fine. Fuck psychologists. Fuck psychiatrist. Fuck suggestions. Fuck being a big baby. I had my solution to my stunning sadness and my emotional immaturity, my crippling anxiety, and the creeping fear that everyone was either going to destroy me or leave me. I had my first and most destructive addiction down at eighteen. I had what would shadow the next seventeen years of my life in a fog of muted feelings, a trail of poor desicions, a reputation for the unpredictable, and what would earn me the title of "that drunk", "asshole", "not him" and other disparaging remarks.
Everything was done.
intoxicated until I decided to stop at 35.
Others did but I did not forget what I was before the booze. With them, I was optimistic that this one simple kill shot would end my mile long streak of mistakes. Destroy the drunk and with it his problems, but the drinking was not the problem. It was a symptom. I drank to mute my illness. Now my illesss was all there was, unmuted, and untarnished by its twenty two years spent shackled and gaged. With the booze gone where would I find an excuse for my fear, my look of lethargy, my seeming slack, the boy in man's skin? How would I explain me?
So, it was back to the doctors and the pills. Being at the bottom of the socio economic barrel you get the doctors who are either new to the game or poor at it. Sure, somewhere in the world there is that one great doctor who does the hard unrewarding work because, Damit, that is why he got into pyschology/psychiatry in the first place, to help people who really need help. Take your PG feel good movie of the week, brought to you by hallmark, and place it where dreams and sunshine never touch. I don't know about you, but I don't like hacks messing with my brain. People are picky about mechanics but when I mention that I don't like shit psychologists I am some sort of snob. I've seen enough of them to know, after one session, that they are not going to do any good. I am too much of a patient for any of them to take on. I know that. I have been told that more than once. I take my pills though. It's a kin to placing a torn piece of toilet paper on a chainsaw wound but I do it.
I also have my bag of tricks. Those actions I have learned over the years that I use to trick my brain. Some of them are simple, some extremely drastic and require anything from sleep deprivation and starvation to repeating phrases like "today is a day and tomorrow will be the same" under my breath from the moment I wake to the moment I lay my head to sleep.
No matter what, though, I have come to the conclusion that over the last, I'll say 20 although its not quite there, years of my life the way people view mental illness has not really changed. It is still widely understood as a recognized illness. A "real thing". At the same time, though, it is swept under the rug. If you are mentally ill no one really gives a damn. They have a "well, you are not that bad, I mean, you're not 'crazy'", attitude. Until you blow your fucking head off, end up a drunk or a junkie, or homeless.
If you are homeless, it's because of the booze and not the mental illness. It's your fault. If you choose to end your life, though, well every one is your best friend but you'll have missed the benefits of having so many loving friends by just a hair. Or, you'll continue to suffer alone or amongst friends. Maybe you'll get lucky and you'll find someone who will listen. I don't think that is the case for most.
I look at my life, the people who surround me, and they are all intelligent, educated people. Still though, even after knowing our family history, knowing what they have gone through, and they still don't exactally have a reality based view of mental illness then who the fuck does?
Of course I am not saying that my family has not been there for me but what I am writing about here is not about devotion to loved ones so don't get a sour grin when you read this, Family Members.
People have to understand that it has to go beyond the blind love of family. Mental illness has to be treated as illness. That means evaluating addiction as a symptom of mental illness and treating addicts as a society would treat its ill. Not with some 5 day detox then you are out on your ass bullshit. You have to treat the sick until the illness is either gone or in remission. An addict needs no less than 90 days.
I know this. I was in a hospital for five days for my alcoholism. A symptom of my mental illness that destroyed 3/4 of my life. FIVE DAYS. After that, it was all, "hey buddy now that you are all better you best be looking for a job. Times a wasting!" Now, we say that people who suffer alcoholism are sick, right? Then tell me another person who after 19 years of being ill, spends five days in a hospital and is then told to BOOM get back to normal life? You can't because there is not another situation where that would be acceptable. Not one. I am only using myself as an expample because its easier. I am not trying to gain sympathy. I am stating facts about how mental illness is viewed in our society. I know that the people in my life are caring people but there is such a stigma attached to it, or maybe it is not a stigma? Maybe mental illness has become so common place that it is not taken seriously? Maybe someone who has been prescribed a Zoloft once or twice thinks that they know what it is like to be me? I don't know what it is. All I know is that it's a problem for a whole bunch of people and it did not start on April 2, 1979.
I have written this over and over. The same shit basically. Why? I am frustrated. I am disappointed. I am astonished by the lack of support. I am sick of this being something I am supposed to be ashamed of. I am sick of being told to be quiet. If I had any other type of illness would I be told to keep it a secret, to watch what I say, to be careful, because people judge? "Because people judge", is exactly why I will keep writing this. There is a chance that no one gives a damn, but I know that my life would be drastically different if I knew, when I was 18, what I know now.
I am poor. I am actually a fucking idiot because all I do is think of ways that I can help other. Meanwhile, I can't even take care of myself. Which makes me question my motives. Is this a distraction? Are my feelings of caring real?
I am a 37-year-old man who has only known himself for two years. So, who knows what I am, who I am. I don't.
Of course, that is not true. The mentally ill are scattered amongst the populations. There exists no utopia where we all live together in harmony. No, we are to live with those who can never understand us and why? Why when all of the data is there, the scholarly journals, the research, the years of case studies are all there. Some would call this PROOF. The proof that mental illness is, um, you know, AN ILLNESS. Just like the common cold, cancer, shingles, or Alzheimer's my chronic depression, my borderline personality disorder means I am sick. So, why am I treated like I am fine? Do you know when the mentally ill are taken seriously? Do you? You do because all of you have said these words either to yourself or out loud, "if only I knew maybe I could have done something to help". Do you remember saying those word? Remember where you were? When you found out you had lost someone close, and to what? Suicide, a drug overdose, or maybe liver failure? Suicide being the number one killer of the mentally ill by far and drug overdose and alcohol induced liver failure trailing behind but always there, ever present. You see the junkie or the drunk and you think to yourself, "there is a fool who lacks self control, why doesn't he put down the bottle and get his shit together?". Behind that bottle is illness. Now, I am sick of people calling alcoholism a disease because it is not. Addiction is a symptom. Behind addition is an illness but addiction itself is not an illness. No one has an in born predisposition to brandy or barbituits, Chardonnay or coccaine, Hennessy or heroine. It is the darkness of depression, the evil attack of anxiety, the chasing fear of paranoia mixed with the discovery that some of us stumble upon that enough booze can shut down our depression, or that the simple prick of a needle eases all the anxiousness witch usually freezes us. So the story goes and unless you can afford a drug or alcohol addiction those two remedies are out of the question.
So, what is left? The pharmaceutical industry with their promises of rainbows and moonbeams? While there are some useful drugs out there, they usually are not cures and in my experience are bandaids at best. I only take them because they are inexpensive and it shows those around me that, at least, I am trying something. Doesn't that sound odd, "it shows those around me that, at least, I am trying something". For they, and most, assume that a trip to the psychiatrist and a script for some pills will end any suffering. Maybe it does. Maybe some people are just that curable. Or maybe some people confuse sadness with depression. Maybe some people confuse the psychological effects of traumatic events with mental illness. Maybe people do not understand that people who suffer from something like depression don't need a reason to be depressed or that people who suffer anxiety don't need a reason to be anxious. We feel what you feel when a loved one passes for no reason, everyday and we feel the crowded airport, "I can't miss my flight" pounding in the chest just because today is another day and you say, "you'll be fine everyone has a bad day".
"Everyone is a little crazy". Maybe? I don't know. I can not disprove that but I do know that everyone is not a little mentally ill. A little crazy is not consistent with the pain the suffering the constant gut punch of being sick. A cold ain't cancer. A paper cut is not like a severed limb. Spinal trauma is not a bump on your head. Why is my borderline personality disorder a bad day to you when it's an awful life to me? When it is not a life, it doesn't feel like living by any definition. It is constant, relentless fear and pain. It does not stop. There is no cure. So, you are left with a couple of choices: deal with it or give up.
The first struggle is trying to make sense of it. You learn, very early, that you are not like the people who surround you but you have to blend in. You must learn to pretend, to act, to lie, to deceive in order to survive. Hide those tears or you won't go far. Let go of mommies skirt or the other kids are going to kick your ass. Find the feeling of safety somewhere. For me, it was a secret world. From the moment I left the car and headed, alone or with my brother, to school I became a different boy in a different world. I had rules and I developed tricks to create the illusion of safety. If I could avoid stepping on cracks in the sidewalk I would be okay. If I could count to ten three times before I reached the flag pole I would be okay. A red car might grant me temporary invincibility or tails up penny could make me ivisable (I know heads up is supposed to be good luck but my rule book was not consistent with this universe). As a boy, I had to concentrate, work hard, before and after school to convince myself that I was not me. I had to be Silver Surfer gliding through the galaxy, untouchable and invoulnerable. Or, I would fake a stomach ache. Stay home from school, safe on my island couch, the master of my universe of tiny toys and television. Those things I could control and the things that could not hurt me. Every year I missed more school days than most kids and as I got older and my partents had their own problems missing school became easier. No one really noticed, and school was easy enough so my grades didn't suffer. They didn't really want to fail an A student because he missed too many days. They never did. I never failed a class.. One class, I remember, I attended only three times. Five grade points were deducted from my final grade and I received a 92 which is a high B+. My senior year I had to meet with the principal. Due to the amounts of days missed, unexcused absences, I was not supposed to graduate. They were not going too give me my diploma. This is what I don't understand about my illness. Everyday, and with no cause, I am anxious, sad, hurt, fragile but then, sometimes, and almost always when I need it like a super power, reality is pushed aside and that fictional figure I have created for survival takes over and I shine. With the confidence of James Bond, I explain, simply and concisely that the rules others have to follow just are not the rule I follow. I explained, with the evidence of my grades, standardized test scores, and behavior reports how irresponsible it would be of the school district to hold me back, to deny me what I earned due to the their trivial attendance policy. I remember also stressing that the not only did my lack of attendance do no damage, it actually saved them money, freed up much needed desk space, and allowed teachers to concentrate on those students who needed extra attention.
I graduated on time.
I walked across that stage with fists clenched white, a stomach about to explode, and tears of fear--utter confusion--and the weight of sadness like a million oceans crushing me. And as I sat down in my cap and gown, I knew that this was the end. I knew that what I had thought of, for so long as an unsurvivable as hell, was nothing compared to the world which stretched itself out in front of me. No longer would I have my mother to come home to. That one person who no matter what was a constant. The simple, always and forever, never again.
I was crushed but by the time I was eighteen I was a physically dependent alchoholic with three years of hiding this fact under my belt. So, I would be fine. Fuck psychologists. Fuck psychiatrist. Fuck suggestions. Fuck being a big baby. I had my solution to my stunning sadness and my emotional immaturity, my crippling anxiety, and the creeping fear that everyone was either going to destroy me or leave me. I had my first and most destructive addiction down at eighteen. I had what would shadow the next seventeen years of my life in a fog of muted feelings, a trail of poor desicions, a reputation for the unpredictable, and what would earn me the title of "that drunk", "asshole", "not him" and other disparaging remarks.
Everything was done.
intoxicated until I decided to stop at 35.
Others did but I did not forget what I was before the booze. With them, I was optimistic that this one simple kill shot would end my mile long streak of mistakes. Destroy the drunk and with it his problems, but the drinking was not the problem. It was a symptom. I drank to mute my illness. Now my illesss was all there was, unmuted, and untarnished by its twenty two years spent shackled and gaged. With the booze gone where would I find an excuse for my fear, my look of lethargy, my seeming slack, the boy in man's skin? How would I explain me?
So, it was back to the doctors and the pills. Being at the bottom of the socio economic barrel you get the doctors who are either new to the game or poor at it. Sure, somewhere in the world there is that one great doctor who does the hard unrewarding work because, Damit, that is why he got into pyschology/psychiatry in the first place, to help people who really need help. Take your PG feel good movie of the week, brought to you by hallmark, and place it where dreams and sunshine never touch. I don't know about you, but I don't like hacks messing with my brain. People are picky about mechanics but when I mention that I don't like shit psychologists I am some sort of snob. I've seen enough of them to know, after one session, that they are not going to do any good. I am too much of a patient for any of them to take on. I know that. I have been told that more than once. I take my pills though. It's a kin to placing a torn piece of toilet paper on a chainsaw wound but I do it.
I also have my bag of tricks. Those actions I have learned over the years that I use to trick my brain. Some of them are simple, some extremely drastic and require anything from sleep deprivation and starvation to repeating phrases like "today is a day and tomorrow will be the same" under my breath from the moment I wake to the moment I lay my head to sleep.
No matter what, though, I have come to the conclusion that over the last, I'll say 20 although its not quite there, years of my life the way people view mental illness has not really changed. It is still widely understood as a recognized illness. A "real thing". At the same time, though, it is swept under the rug. If you are mentally ill no one really gives a damn. They have a "well, you are not that bad, I mean, you're not 'crazy'", attitude. Until you blow your fucking head off, end up a drunk or a junkie, or homeless.
If you are homeless, it's because of the booze and not the mental illness. It's your fault. If you choose to end your life, though, well every one is your best friend but you'll have missed the benefits of having so many loving friends by just a hair. Or, you'll continue to suffer alone or amongst friends. Maybe you'll get lucky and you'll find someone who will listen. I don't think that is the case for most.
I look at my life, the people who surround me, and they are all intelligent, educated people. Still though, even after knowing our family history, knowing what they have gone through, and they still don't exactally have a reality based view of mental illness then who the fuck does?
Of course I am not saying that my family has not been there for me but what I am writing about here is not about devotion to loved ones so don't get a sour grin when you read this, Family Members.
People have to understand that it has to go beyond the blind love of family. Mental illness has to be treated as illness. That means evaluating addiction as a symptom of mental illness and treating addicts as a society would treat its ill. Not with some 5 day detox then you are out on your ass bullshit. You have to treat the sick until the illness is either gone or in remission. An addict needs no less than 90 days.
I know this. I was in a hospital for five days for my alcoholism. A symptom of my mental illness that destroyed 3/4 of my life. FIVE DAYS. After that, it was all, "hey buddy now that you are all better you best be looking for a job. Times a wasting!" Now, we say that people who suffer alcoholism are sick, right? Then tell me another person who after 19 years of being ill, spends five days in a hospital and is then told to BOOM get back to normal life? You can't because there is not another situation where that would be acceptable. Not one. I am only using myself as an expample because its easier. I am not trying to gain sympathy. I am stating facts about how mental illness is viewed in our society. I know that the people in my life are caring people but there is such a stigma attached to it, or maybe it is not a stigma? Maybe mental illness has become so common place that it is not taken seriously? Maybe someone who has been prescribed a Zoloft once or twice thinks that they know what it is like to be me? I don't know what it is. All I know is that it's a problem for a whole bunch of people and it did not start on April 2, 1979.
I have written this over and over. The same shit basically. Why? I am frustrated. I am disappointed. I am astonished by the lack of support. I am sick of this being something I am supposed to be ashamed of. I am sick of being told to be quiet. If I had any other type of illness would I be told to keep it a secret, to watch what I say, to be careful, because people judge? "Because people judge", is exactly why I will keep writing this. There is a chance that no one gives a damn, but I know that my life would be drastically different if I knew, when I was 18, what I know now.
I am poor. I am actually a fucking idiot because all I do is think of ways that I can help other. Meanwhile, I can't even take care of myself. Which makes me question my motives. Is this a distraction? Are my feelings of caring real?
I am a 37-year-old man who has only known himself for two years. So, who knows what I am, who I am. I don't.
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