Even on your darkest of nights, someone else's is darker. I know full well the suffering that takes your mind to the corners of your mind that should remain unseen. Sometimes for some minds lost in the dark those corners become a box so lonely there is no option.
Right now I should be stoked to have 100 Steemians pressing a button that I su an honor. Honestly I sit here depressed missing the streets. I miss the adventure and the unity. I get anxious and cabin fever sets in. Bad.
Granted it's not always united as with civil war human beings will fight amongst one another for the remainder of our existence I fear. None the less my mind is busy and my body remains in motion.
As I sit in a warm room writing and trying to convince myself to draw I'm confused by the fact this is troublesome for me. It is not the cabin fever or the temporary case of the blues, it's my the FACT my fucking life depends on me sitting here until morning. Oddly for a different reason than the point of this article. All this will leave me sleepless again and no doubt I will struggle through the night. My eyes continue to stare at the door only feet away telling me to put my shoes on and go. Go be with the people who know what I know. The people that don't give a fuck if I can write. Or just go be alone but free from my mind.
In a nut shell right now I'm a hopeless romantic just waiting for day break. I pass the time twiddling my thumbs trying to find anything other than drugs to slow my mind down. I hoped drawing would help but anxiety flows straight through my finger tips literally onto the page and can't stand it. I throw sketch after sketch somewhere close to where the trash is. In the back of my mind I plan to not need to pick it up so fuck it. Meditation is out of the question because honestly it's too fucking quiet. And to be straight forward if you've ever met me it's highly unlikely considering that which ails me has seemingly since childhood taken control of my self control both body and mind. Music generally is my alternative to drugs but my headphones literally froze and snapped as I pulled my ears buds from my smoke covered hoodie. Music sometimes can also bring me deeper into the corners I desperately fear for my life. I don't say this lightly.
I hoped and prayed for my girl to call from prison but another night without her touch is apparently upon me. Although I'm used to it after none months, she is the last time I've had any relief ever. Even if it we're only to be her whisper through another static line I'd find a little relief. A little goes a long fucking ways when you're desperate for hope.
Fuck. Anxiety easily out weighs my depression. I'm not generally depressed but I literally have anxiety all day everyday. All day. Everyday. I always have. No medicine, no blood tests, no doctor and no hope. I have tried anything and everything to find out why I'm so broken. My mind has no off. This has been the case since infancy. Again I don't say this lightly, but what remains of my tiny family all say it was amazing that an infant would not sleep. Of course I slept, I'll bet not like you did though.
I've convinced myself that somewhere in there there exists an on off switch for this thing that lives, as if a parasite, through my limbs and my mind. Endlessly fidgeting trying to solve the problem by touch if possible I've had not a single break through. Not one except for drugs and alcohol. Get this parasite drunk and it will pass out. That's it's off switch, whiskey.
All this time awake and wondering my mind's endless yet ever emptier halls I have braved some very scary thoughts. In fact I nearly died on more than one occasion. My mom did. My mom killed herself. I don't say this lightly.
I've always wondered why she took her life. Did she have anxiety like mine. I knew she was depressed. She left no note and she gave me no clues. She was once one of the kindest beings you'd ever meet. Kinds of goofy by accident, but kind. Kind to everyone. Kind to everything. The last time we hugged, kissed and said good bye I can't even remember. Sadly I think that part of my mind has undergone construction. I'll never forget me having to say goodbye to her knowing she'd never say good by in return. Sometimes, though, every once in awhile something will fall off the shelf a little further than gravity should take it. Gravity should actual in these cases imply it should still be on the shelf. Luckily my girl is a very unique creature and embraced witnessing this multiple times. I was thankful too to know I wasn't that far gone. This is the first and last time I'll ever admit this my girl on the other hand.
When you see a loved one in the funeral home you quickly learn what "someone" really means. It'll take your knees out from under you when this new unwelcomed knowledge "clicks". Clicking not like a tap dancer does but more like clicking the hammer of the biggest revolver any American has ever held. Click. Boom!
People had tried to stop me from going to say my good byes face to face. I still shoved right through the the crowd. Parting the sea of a faceless crowd. All I knew ceased to exist but I knew I had to do this. There wasn't a God damn person on the planet who was going to tell me I couldn't go say goodbye my way. I would have punched a preacher to get a closer faster look as I said my good byes. It hadn't fully clicked yet. I wanted no company. All was dead to me.
She had allegedly drank anti freeze. There was nothing other than her stillness and emptiness, even from a distance, to tell me she wasn't she. As I blasted by my friends they barely reached out. They knew better than to try and stop me but they had to pretend to and for the faceless crowd's sake. My friends and I had all been through this before. My best friend at the time had also lost his mother to suicide. We had all also buried a handful of friends together all ready. Death was our drinking buddy.
I heard from twenty different angles the beginning of my name covered by what sounded like hands trying to forcefully cover their mouths to muffle their warnings. In hindsight I think their words were finished but I took i don't want to hear it to another level. The look I had must have said more than all their gasps and words in a life time. A friend later told me that out of all the times he saw me get slugged but was yet to get right with the guy who had chosen to wage war he's never seen me have fire behind my eyes. Not until this night. I'm a determined man, but this night I was unstoppable.
Seeing her on a cheap gurney hands and arms awkwardly by her side visible only in form and shape of the white cheap sheet that rolled over then was appalling. It meant in this moment I have no direct blood left in my life. None that acknowledge one another. This also clicks very loudly.
Gasps lead to complete silence that still rings louder than anything I've ever heard. I was one of few who could actually see her. One room is all it was but she was strategically placed behind a screen made from what looked like the same cheap sheet that covered her corpse. I almost picked up threw the screen as I rushed in closer. I'm excitable but usually calm in situations like this. Not this time. Not with my own mother lying there from unnatural causes. I wanted to throw the screen and grab the gurney. I wanted to push her through the crowd aiming for the ER as fast as the creaky wheels of the gurney would roll. Obviously there was no good that would come from that. Maybe some jokes later considering my sense of humor, but I knew she was gone.
The make up, her wrinkles, her eyelids, and lipstick were all very fucking wrong. But even more wrong and quite literally crippling was the feel of her freezing forehead. Generally a place of comfort and warmth to us humans, her forehead felt like she'd been outside to long. Way too long. She was fridgid to the touch. She's been in the freezer I realized.
This all takes place in very little time but it's a moment, not my first or my last experience with this, that time doesn't exist for awhile. The echo of gasps muffled prematurely before their birth, the arms reaching to stop me and even down to people blinks everything was moving slow except for my heart beat. Frozen like my mother in time.
I touched her forehead. I held it for only a second. It was a moment in time burned into all my life times. From lives of the past and through all of the lives I'll live forever into the future. I could feel everything that had once hurt my heart all at once. I'm still not sure if it was God's hands or the weight of all reality that squeezed my heart, but it fucking hurt. It hurt. My heart. It sank.
It hurt so bad I fell. I fell. I fell to my knees at first. I fell from who i was before that moment to the person who now writes this. I fell far. I still fall. I fell further. I fell eventually into I think my friend's arms. I wouldn't open my eyes to find out. I remember eventually opening my eyes and being thankful for the hand up. I'll never remember who it was. I didn't and don't care. My mind was somewhere else and I wanted it to stay there. In ways I wish it still were there.
I didn't talk the rest of the night.
I didn't sober up until now.
Each night I struggle with sleep and anxiety. Every night I want to go get high or grab a glad of whiskey. I hate this. But for whatever reason I know my mom hated it more.
If you ever need anything to make it through your darkest night you better find it. If you know someone who needs help on their darkest nights you better give it. This is only the short version of why I don't hate God. I don't hate my mother. I don't hate myself.
I hate suicide. I hate anxiety. I hate for anyone including you to suffer. I want it to end, but not like that.
I have no brothers. I have no sisters. My father and mother were divorced at a very young age. My father and I don't talk. We did then. Not any longer. I've tried to kill myself. I've stopped others from doing the same. I found love but what happens if I lose that too. I don't fucking say this lightly.
Be strong my friends who suffer. Be stronger those of you who don't as much because there may be a day you do too hurt so bad no other option exists, but more likely your stronger because you were meant to be. Don't forget that we all have duties other than our jobs. We have a duty to serve our purpose. You might not think this is it. But what if your wrong. Don't turn your back on anyone and remember your family, your friends and just everyday people have things that go click. Their knees give out, their heart gets squeezed and they'll fall. You'll know what to do. Just be there to do it.
I'm sorry about this and my last couple posts being poorly written. I've been trying to keep my preoccupied mind occupied. Like I said I am a determined man. I am determined to clean these up until I am determined they are worth reading. Just not right now.
Thanks for reading,
AdamRant