The magnitude of my depressed mood, if described in qualitative terms of stickiness, is akin to the sweat-saturated diseased nethers of a Shanghai rickshaw driver in mid-August. Wait. I can do better. The magnitude of my depressed mood, if described in qualitative terms of itchiness, is akin to the sweat-saturated diseased nethers of a Shanghai rickshaw driver in mid-August. Hold up. That still isn’t a solid enough comparisson. Give me another go. The magnitude of my depressed mood, if described in qualitative terms of pan-nausea sinus-scorching face-melting (think of skin dripping off the face, like that Sado-Nazi at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark) omnipresent stench, is akin to the sweat-saturated diseased nethers of a Shanghai rickshaw driver in early-July and not mid-August. That does it there. Nailed it.
I’m full-on depressed.
Now established, my depressive mood is akin to that exotic Asian aroma in stenchy magnitude. Very sciencey. My depression . . . It’s everywhere, and try as I might and calling to arms every mindfulness tool, every coping strategy, and every DBT skill in my trusty depression-annihilating arsenal, I cannot escape this depression. It’s exhausting, it’s depleting, and it’s unavoidable. Mightily scouring my WRAP for any scrap of “something that worked the last time I was this depressed” insight, I found it most useful . . . as tinder in my backyard fire pit last evening. What a useless stack of collated dried pulp. The only good thing about my formerly six-meter-thick WRAP, compiled over the last eight years, is a vast forest of trees covering all of eastern Idaho died so I could compose that valueless “living document” meant to be an archival tome authored by me in order to keep me alive based on my lived experience. It’s worthlessness is almost comical, but isn’t, because I just watched Jim Jeffries on YouTube and that dude is comical. Find his two part presentation on our Second Amendment (Jim is Australian). His observations as an objective non-patriot is beyond insightful, unlike my WRAP which is now ash. If ever I compose a new WRAP, I’m just going to torch an entire national forest and cut out the middleman.
So I made it through to today, Sunday, December 8, 2019. How I just happen to still be here I’ll share with you later if I survive until the end of this article. If not, it’ll be my last and greatest unpublished folk tale. Belay that. I’ve got a smashing unfinished article about Becky’s screechy, pouty, cloaked-sexuality friend who is a peer and who claims no accountability for her symptomatic behavior. It’s all tied up in an My Chem analogy that is exceptionally clever. So, if I survive to the end of this article, I’ll consider finally topping that article off. For now, let me share that the Rolling Stones are not very good and I don’t like them and that’s my choice so, Coddled the Hutt, lay off and attempt adult maturity.
Before moving into a patchwork of circumstance and happenstance that brought me to pecking away at the keyboard, I’d like everyone to take a quick training course in “Own Your Emotions.”
How’s that sound? I’ll be sharing bits and pieces of stories and names might surface. I’m also dealing with the bitterness borne of bipolar symptoms. You know, those artificial emotions. There’s no intent to hurt feelings, and even though some Brown University healy-touchy purveyor of logically nebulous nonsense assures me I’m wrong, without any intent on my part I’m only able to lament inadvertent ouchiness felt. Bits and pieces, and, magic from my hands. Name the song. Point being, we all have our own sensitivities and this is my story.
Disclaimer down. Sigh. We live in a “World of Reaction.”
I’ve been staring at the screen for . . . 20 minutes? I’ve been in a holding pattern for a while trying to pull on just one thread to make my past few weeks unravel into a narrative. Indecisiveness, inability to organize thoughts, even some confussion. T’is uncharacteristic for me to feel so befuddled and . . .
Hey! I wrote a note to Amanda this morning whilst still in the midst of doing a Little Dutchboy on my tears. It’s the perfect framework for expository, emotive, and symptomatic throughput. I’m either clever or lazy, and since I need one in the win column, I’m jacking this in as clever.
My Sunday Morning Message to Amanda
Today, I’m making a choice which way my life goes. It’s been close to a week since we last spoke. I have called twice and neither times have you returned my call. This has been bad for my health.
I hope your communucation silence is because you decided to do as you intended, and that you are healing.
Other speculations have kept me awake. With missing my family, Thanksgiving alone, and SAD, my health is plummeting. In addition, no one has called me or checked on me all week. My dad messaged a couple times, only to check on furnace repair. My furnace froze up.
Absolutely literally, I could have been dead for a week and no one would have noticed. Maybe Turquoise Lodge, but only a quick call to ask if I was coming in. However, they’ve never checked on a missed Laugh It Off gig before, not that I can recall.
I was prepared to kill myself yesterday. I thought “Well, it’s proven. My passion for helping others, it’s not been equitable exhange of support. And that’s had to be okay.” And mostly it is. Remember Chris losing his nut in the middle of group, saying something along the lines of “It’s not comfortable when you talk about you having problems. We count on you to be our rock, Steve.” With comments of that variety, it’s an easy move to feel “I’m only a tool to fix others.” But that’s selfish. I get depressed and I get selfish. Artifical thoughts and feelings. Chris has a good point, I’ve been letting people down. A lot. Inlcuding you.
It’s so cliche. The “I’m a burden, I’m a drag, I ask too much, I should be stronger, people are better off without me” thoughts prevailed. And then, the serenity. There’s the serenity, that resignation and calm knowing I can be gone and that’s okay. It’s always the finest moment where debating myself isn’t necessary. It was 4PM yesterday when I chose to kill myself.
Yesterday, I sat in the parking lot of the Eastside Shelter, ready to take Happy and Roey in so they could have a good home. I sat and waited too long. The place closed. Good thing? I asked a young mother if she would like the rabbits. She spoke only Spanish and I scared her. Dude, I must have looked like Nancy Pelosi’s head on Donald Trump’s body.
It’s hard to ask for help. Asking for help shows I’m unpforessional. I saw this at MHRAC. As soon as I went into that CPTSD tailspin, David Ley was right. I’m despicable and didn’t think things through and cmopose myself. It wasn’t that he couldn’t see the CPTSD symptoms I was having. He justly needed me to pull it together if I wanted to be on MHRAC. Nancy Konenberg the same. She said it was a peronal problem with Paula that I shouldn’t bring to MHRAC. I never know when to ask for help and it’s hard. There’s appropiriate times and inappropriate times and I always trip over the latter.
I want to call you, but you don’t need me to disturb your healing. I’ve never been selfish. It’s hard to ask for help. Still, with you gone, I thought someone might make the effort. This is coming for weeks now, thumb in dike, pressure building. I told a few memebers I spent all of Tuesday group fighting off weeping. Chris was there which thankfully reminded me I had a duty to keep things composed. It felt good saying it out loud but it made it harder yesterday because I couldn’t tell someone out loud again.
And I can’t reach out to warmline and that sucks so bad. I told you I got done with mental health court and emaiiled Mary and she said they didn’t want me “best of luck in all you do.” So . . . I guess I don’t …
Do you know the only conversations I had all week were at group (which was very hard to concentrate hence not much meaningful contact with people) and on Facebook mainly to get a solid social media presence for you and Megan. STS needs to continue. It’s a good idea although I’m not pulling my weight enough.
God, Facebook. One last ditch effort. I can’t be one of those facebook people who say “I need five friends to reply and comment or I’m done.” It would ruin STS and I need to leave something behind
One last try. I posted songs from Youtube instead.
I’m Not Okay – MCR cover
Help! – The Beatles
Adam’s Song – blink 182
Lost Like This – Oingo Boingo
English Beat – Click Click
Numb – Linkin Park
You Know My Name – Chris Cornell
Fragile Thing – Big Country
All Apologies – Nirvana
Not Enough Time – INXS
I sat and asked God, “Let just one person notice. Just one. I can’t ask social media in any other way. Please. Just one.”
One person did ask. And only one. And not from behavioral health. A random ska friend in England. And I’m alive today.
No one from behavioral health noticed. Not. A. One. What is God telling me?
It’s Sunday the 8th. I can’t call you because I can’t take the rejection. I won’t call you. So, I need to decide
Do I move on without you? Do I sit here obsessing? What is best for my health? What will keep me alive? Do I want to be?
I’ve prayed. Let’s see how this goes.
As an afterthought, I can see people in behavioral health saying, “Why didn’t he reach out? I would have been right there. He knows it’s temporary. He’s been so strong. Why didn’t he say something?”
I did say something. I did reach out. For weeks. I haven’t had strength for weeks. I really did and I felt so guilty for doing it.
There is a good question I can ask. You’ve been gone three weeks. No one asked how I was doing with you gone. No one invited me for Thanksgiving. It’s been one week without a phone call or text. From anyone. My phone log is spam. One week since I talked to you.
If people cared, why am I alone?
I prayed. I asked God, “Please, just let one person hear me. I’ve tried. Just one person.”
There was one person and only one person.
Mathew Wright, a man I never met, God sent him.
Mathew understood me asking for help through songs. It’s just like what Clare used to do to express herslf to me when words failed. Did I get the idea while praying?
So, I’m alive. Me and the dumb rabbits.
I miss you.
I was ready to kill myself yesterday. I prayed for one person to notice. One person did. Mathew Wright, a man I never met, two thirds of a continent and an ocean away.
Ahhhhhhhh-ha!!!!!!!! You see what I did there? Set up and pay off. “I was ready to kill myself yesterday. Thanks for noticing.”
You thought it was pained sarcasm. You thought it was a guiltfest. Not so! I’m not filled to the gills with Disney Princess Joy right now. I do feel more in touch with my head and the ground. From 33 years of life experience, the worst has passed.
It’s a happy ending, lads and lasses. Dude, this would actually make a really great screenplay.
I’ve saved the best images for last, screen captures straight off Facebook. Check it. Here are the few texts Mathew sent me. I could tell immediately he heard me. Immediately.
Was I ready to die? Yep. Did I know how I was going to do it? Yep. Was I able to draw upon 20 years of acquired life skills to hold on until today? Yep. Did Mathew’s kindness really help keep me breathing? Yep.
Was Mathew’s Facebook comment the one and only? Yep. He’s exactly how many people I needed to hear me.
Thanks for noticing, Mathew. Thank you for the bottom of my bottomless heart.
THIS NEEDS TO BE IT’S OWN BLOG BUT I’M JUST NOT UP TO IT SO I’LL NIP THIS OFF LATER.
A few final words I’ll share. I was close to being done. It wasn’t due to anything explicitly external. While there are always truths running through my thoughts during a symptomatic crisis, the truths and thoughts are badly distorted by a malfunctioning brain. And the organ on the fritz loves to lie to me when in a depressive episode. My brain can be such an asshole sometimes.
I haven’t shared as intimate of article in some time, I think all the way back to the Paula Burton/MHRAC/APD thing. Without question, there will be some irrate words about “You shouldn’t say everything. Learn to edit!” Okay, I appreciate your words. I counter with “Why?
When I launched this site the idea was triple-purposed. First, I wanted an in-the-moment archive of my recovery journey, a reposistory of where my mind and emotions are and quite often when I’m at my worst. Although my WRAP is now ash in my rabbits’ poop box, having the immediacy of somewhere to jot it down for later is prime source material for my WRAP. Much of what I torched I can restore from old articles on Thoughtcrimes.
The second purpose will answer the question “But why make your mental illness public at all?” C’mon. What do I do every chance I get? Like many peers, I openly share my story to help others understand what it’s like to live with bipolar, schizoaffective disorder, and CPTSD. Both for peers and Muggles. Edited material published here is a lie.
And the final purpose… I love to write, the world is fun to take part in, and I like to comment on the wacky little rock and the biotic infestation on the surface. And, as a comic, it’s an easy place to jot down potential material.
Okay, this is a must-do addendum. My very good friend Mat Tibble came by to visit because he was concerned for my wellness and safety, last Tuesday. Mat and I met inpatient at Kamp Kaseman in 2012. We’re always here for each other.
The thing is, he’s got a new squeeze in his life and he was busting to tell me about her. Recall, my dirty rotten liar of a brain had me thinking in “I’m a burden, I can’t get Mat depressed like me, toughen up” terms. So I slapped on “The Mask” and supported Mateo the way he would me. I know, I know. Oxygen mask in a crashing plane analogy. I made things worse for myself. Whatever. It’s who I am.
Of course, all of this is meaningless if I don’t survive until the end of this arti . . . spoiler alert. I survive until the end of the article.
Reprinted with kind permission of Steve’s Thoughtcrimes and Stand Up To Stigmabpeer support groups.
I feel it’s a disservice to peers to perpetuate a diagnosis of “codependence” where none exists, and it’s a detriment to a peer’s recovery and wellness mistakenly believing so when “codependence” does not exist.