Intimacy

Keeping in mind I have no idea what love actually feels like as I grew up in a house with a dysfunctional family for the most part after all the last time I felt any intimacy of signs of love from my father was the day he pulled me from a river a mile from the falls when I was five.  After that it seemed that every mistake was on purpose whether it cost him money or not.

But I am missing one part of love that most people get to take for granted, intimacy.  The moment when you are holding someone close feeling their body showing love from their soul not just their word from their mouth.  Those moments when the passion is so hard that you forget you aren't one person entwined with one another feeling, touching, lusting, etc...

It has been years since I felt that closeness and I am reminded that it can be hard for someone else to love you when you don't love yourself.  I'm so socially inept and awkward these days it can be hard to even know where to attempt to start.  I spend a great deal of my time dreaming about it since I have not a whole lot to do most days.  I finally got the chance to not have to try to work but it leaves me with so much time that at times it can be hard to bare.

Like Dexter, I have to let go of others...

I might be late to the Party but as I finish up the Series Dexter on Showtime I was reminded of why I am better off being alone.  Though I am not a serial killer I do seem to destroy others lives who come in contact with me, my family, my kids, I mean my unadultlike behavior could easily by me be argued to have been part of the reason my father died of a bad heart.

For a great part of my adult life my world revolved around how much my parents were able to keep me out of trouble both financially and mentally.  Time after time, I was likely living in my car, hopping between friends homes or falling apart because of this or that.  Each time my parents insisted on taking me back in mostly to save their reputation as my father couldn’t stand having others find out I was living in my car.

All I can think about right now is how I destroyed his retirement, my kids lives and the long list of people with whom I have made them either fear me or hate me.  Until I finally got help from the VA to get on my feet I was dependent and so childlike that I feared even thinking about being alone and caring for myself.  And with a parent who treated me like I was still a child who needed to stay in the house in the summer supposedly to make it easier for them to watch while they were ill I was never supposed to grow up until my Dad passed away and they needed someone to take his place doing everything that parent didn’t want to do for themselves.

I don’t like being alone but I have gotten used to it because each and every time I opened up and let someone inside my emotional walls, I become like a emotional vampire sucking them dry.  I know I can’t keep doing it but when you live on a rollercoaster inside a small room with a tornado in it, you do what you can to keep going.  And that’s entirely the reason I am alone, so I don’t hurt those who want to care for and/or love me.

NCIS -Cracked

So yet again, I have failed to skip the episode guaranteed to trigger my mind to speed up and my eyes to eventually tear up within an hour in time.  I can relate to the woman who was killed in the episode for reasons many can understand, many more cannot even attempt to comprehend.  The chaos, the delusions, the arguing with no one aloud.

Many is the time I was caught talking to myself for decades going back to my childhood.  Often I just acted embarrassed but the reality is, you never tell others you talk to yourself unless you are sure they won't contact the authorities.  Often I was interacting in a world where no one existed except me.  I wasn't crazy, I was successful, I was doing good things with my life.  Not the craziness I was actually living in.

I hid inside myself hoping, begging myself to stop but I just couldn't even today I can be found doing it unintentionally about everything.  People I see (often women), things I think about become aloud verbal conversations regardless of where I am.  Music that triggers pain, anger or frustrations that I am even at my age not strong enough to fight it off.

I hurt people over the years as I struggled to contain what has been going on inside me out of frustration not real anger about them being near me, rather because I wasn't able to be me.  I needed to be able to talk to myself, as most of my lifetime I have felt alone no matter if I was "in love" with someone, married to someone, or with family.  Too many times my own loved one's didn't understand why I was unable to stop how I verbalized everything, my first wife often got hurt when she heard me say things I didn't really wanted her to hear.

The things I did to myself over the years, the drinking, the branding, the self destruction at jobs, even the suicide attempts were all from one source, the chaos.  Even today I fear being locked up if I admit to my mental health providers that I "hear voices" of course most of them are thoughts I have to ensure that I am alive, breathing and in charge of something for even a few moments of my life, at least mentally.

You would have no idea how many times I begged for death to make myself stop but to no avail.  I often lied to providers just to keep me from being put on some medications that would muddle my mind.  I don't need help frustrating myself and most of those types of medications are a guarantee that the creative side of my mind would likely stop from past experiences with similar meds.

I am not suicidal, just venting because even though I know I shouldn't watch the episode, like a moth to a flame I almost seek it out at least subliminally.  I know this to be true because when I purchased that season of NCIS on DVD... It was the first thing I did when I got it home...seek it out.

I'm sorry to those who have loved me or still care about me because no matter how hard I try, I can't stop and I will push people away by any means to keep my chaos in a more verbal way before I hold it in so long, I attempt yet again.

Why I don't blog more or write a book about my experiences...

I have often been asked why not write or blog about your whole life so others can learn from you and hopefully not make similar mistakes or inspire others to keep pushing forward.  It’s for two reasons that are hard to explain in one simple sentence you know “a long story, short.”

Growing up it never seemed to matter who I asked for protection or help and after a while I tried to avoid it.  And as I got older and my mind was clearly doing it’s own thing I struggled to hide myself inside while putting just about everyone else ahead of my own needs.

When I joined the military and was “Broken Down” during basic it triggered a mass exodus of any hope of fighting them off much more.  By the time I hit AIT having already asked once to go home during basic and being talked out of it was ready to run.  I made some bad choices and to cover up the real reasons which would have just gotten me pushed out the door with no honor left I lied about my reasonings.

If you weren’t there it can be hard to understand as I soon found out when I got home and confessed to a friend who’s wife knew the person involved unintentionally in the lie that transpired, it cost me the friendship after decades of his understanding based solely on a Christian belief system.  He failed to understand why I HAD to chose to do that in the service back then you didn’t show any signs of weakness and going outside the system for mental health help wasn’t an option.

So when they put me on Funeral detail at my first duty station my brain went on its own path leaving my possible career in shambles despite the choice to reenlist rather than going home to face a reality I couldn’t handle either.  During the funeral detail duty and I believe I mentioned this before in a blog, I had a nightmare that I had went under a semi-truck and flipped being killed that caused me to call my Mom and wake her up begging to make sure they brought my body home...three days later my cousin was dead, she went under a semi and died.

I was able to go home for the funeral after the Red Cross on my families behalf pushed the Army to let me go.  Because first cousins are NOT considered immediate family or at least wasn’t back then thus, you don’t automatically get leave to go home for the funeral.

When I got back I had eight months left of my enlistment contract and there was a push to reenlist early.  I talked to an older mentor Master Sgt. about it and I decided it was better than going home and I had no place else to really go after I got out.  I upped for Germany and got there and in less than eight more months I was dismanteling winding up getting drunk practically every night, the weekends was a long dark path leading up to a failed attempt at suicide that was more a begging for help. 

That cost me dearly as I was put in a small room and forced to have the people in my platoon I worked with watch me 24/7.  So every time I rolled over there was someone who didn’t want to be in that room staring back at me.  Which led up to my next attempt that was a bit more serious in nature.

A gallon of Jack, five or six long island iced teas, three or four german beers, a couple american beers, shots later I was in my room taking a large bottle of  tylenol.  I wound up in the ICU having slept for a week, two IV’s in my arms, my arms strapped down.  When I woke up an Army Captain Doctor told me I just hadn’t taken enough, dare I say his bedside manner was problematic for his career choice.  Then the shrink they had already sent me to earlier, a German conscript who first told to just “Stop Drinking” now offering me an exit from the service.

All of this and I still have to hide my shame and guilt from everyone.  I cannot express who I truly am because every time I turn around someone is telling me to basically “SHUT UP” and keep it to myself because their beliefs don’t match my own.

So I keep my mouth shut.

Triggers, Robin Williams & Me

So here I sit at 3 am, at 11:30 pm I was tired and took my meds, turned off the TV and went to bed.  I got up at 12:40 am to pee because after all I am an older man despite my baby faced appearance.  Anyways after I woke up to pee I was wide awake, groggy but wide awake.

I knew I was in for trouble two weeks ago when I saw a thing about Robin on TV but when it came closer and even Sirius Radio was talking about him again, I was done in.  I think I mentioned this before but I share a birthday with the man and also believe that at some point he mentioned having similar mental health issues as well as sensitivities.  So here I sit on August 11th at 3 am wide the frick awake thinking about him and me.

Yesterday I hit another hot button trigger when I saw an article from BP Magazine about relationships and how the opposite sex can help you cope with BP.  Of course this hit a trigger because my first wife had a miraculous way of keeping me on track and reasonably focused for a Bipolar and I will forever miss her for that reason.  She dealt with a great deal of my darker side including a deep depression where I threatened suicide if she didn't take me to the hospital.

As I get older I have devoted myself to staying alive until my body finally gives up on me for the sake of the children I fathered so they are not irreparably harmed by suicide. They don't want anything to do with me but I cannot harm them that way.  Unlike Robin who had plenty of money to be given to his kids after his passing if I do that there is no insurance payments from my life insurance and I know that they would likely take it personally as I know I would.

They respond to me as if I am a deadbeat Dad because my kids despite being in their teens now have never really been told what is mentally wrong with their father.  Despite having supervised visits while they were growing up because of my Bipolar according to my ex and her family I was never truly sick enough to be unable to provide for my kids and should have been able to find and keep working which I wasn't.

As I am now service connected for my mental illness through the Department of Veterans Affairs I receive a pension and they get a pretty good size chunk of that each month.  I haven't spoken to them since the oldest a year ago October decided I should suddenly give her money for a "School trip" though I wasn't given any information and I have no parental rights to those types of things as I am a non-custodial parent due to my Bipolar.  When I refused she told me off and I told her to not contact me anymore if she couldn't or wouldn't speak to me with respect as after all I am still her father.  Haven't heard from them since.

The ultimate sacrifice for love

We all know what they call the ultimate sacrifice for love but in the moment could you do it knowing what it would cost you in the end?  Can you let family go to save them from you and your mental health issues to keep from hurting them any further?  Can you walk away from your kids with little to no contact in order to keep you from making their lives a living hell while you fight off rage, cycles and manic behavior?

I did it and it cost me more than most would willingly give up who don't have my issues.  I couldn't deal with family who did not care about my feelings, my wants or needs.  That put me in the backseat because I was what they considered inferior but didn't completely cut me off because after all they likely would need me for something later, like paint a house, fix their car, move their furniture, babysit my own kids even though they didn't trust me when they were first born.

I will go through the rest of my life likely very alone because I wasn't there for those who needed me and cut off others who kept hurting me when I begged them to stop.  I will not see my kids marry, have kids of their own because I am the "lazy Dad" who didn't take care of them, wouldn't just give them money without even getting information about where they were going and whom they would be going with once I had some money.  No one ever wanted to tell them the truth that their Dad was considered nearly legally crazy and was barely able to take care of himself let alone care for them.

So I ask again.

"Could you make the ultimate sacrifice for love knowing what it would cost you?"

What some people call Father's like me on Father's Day

Some people would call someone like me on father's day a deadbeat dad because for most of my children's lives I struggled to keep up with my child support forgetting my amount in arrears never got higher than $11k.  While by most standards this is still rather high up in amount I did it while fighting Bipolar/PTSD/Depression/Borderline Personality Disorder not too mention the litany of other medical issues I suffer from as I struggled to find and keep work after the divorce.

I know I am a bad father even in my own eyes but it often upsets me when some talk about deadbeat dads like anyone who has ever gotten behind on child support or not seen their kids is one.  For a long time I struggled to see my kids borrowing a car and the money for the 200 mile roundtrip even in winter time.  I fought hard to keep my mind at bay for four hours with my kids and at times all I kept hearing was that they could do something with their Grandparents on my exes side if I wasn't there. 

What struck me as odd about that was their Grandma who made the plans rarely tried to work around my visits to which I was entitled to by court order.  But all that time I kept from saying anything till they got to a certain age in 2011 where I couldn't take them doing it anymore and had the order changed since they wouldn't stop and Grandma couldn't seem to avoid making plans on the ONE SUNDAY a month for FOUR HOURS.

The one thing I am quite most do not know is that during the entire time since the divorce as like before the marriage I have been struggling to keep myself from even attempting to harm myself anymore.  I can live with my kids hating me I couldn't stand the idea of them being harmed any further if I had taken my own life or even had yet another failed attempt at it.  It is hard enough for me to bear that the thought of them having to deal with it alone was enough to make me hate myself even more for thinking about it.

They may hate me for the rest of their lives despite being raised in a "Christian" household that apparently can forgive anyone but me for anything.  I was always Bipolar enough to need to be supervised during Parenting Time but was never Bipolar enough to not be able to work.  And of course now that I get a service-connected pension from the VA the only thing they want from me is of course Money.

I don't mind paying my fair share of child support but I cannot stand being described as a deadbeat daddy who is supposed to pay extra for school functions I am not allowed to attend or know anything about other than they need the money and expect some from me.

Not every Deadbeat Daddy/Father chooses to be that way.

Just don't do it

Don't even attempt to ask me to be happy that I am almost 50 years old this year.  I live with a demon inside my head that is manipulative, controlling and feels like a freaking roller coaster ride on a daily basis.

Over the years I have been told this or that about if I don't work harder to take care of my health.  They fail to understand that at times and that's more times than not after 20 plus years of the struggle I have just about resigned myself to the idea that dying a natural death while eating what I want and doing what I want just like my Great Uncles is the better way to go.  At least I am not stressing over how many calories I eat at each meal, am studying the clock figuring out how much time I have before I can eat again to keep on a diet without cheating...

As for the personality issues I am all too aware that some of my so-called closest friends make every attempt to avoid me when I arrive.  I know what I sound like and I know how hard it is to deal with me after all I have been divorced twice and if I could leave me somewhere and live a happier life don't you think I would have long since done that?  Of course I would.

So, just don't do it.  Don't tell me to freaking cheer up, think positively.  I have been spared death on several occasions in my entire lifetime all the way back to age 5 when I nearly went over the falls on the Baldwin River (my Dad jumped in just in time to snatch me before he wouldn't be able to)  and at times I am quite sure my family wished he hadn't.

Born July 1967 with a sense of death and foreboding

I was born in July 1967 with a strong sense of fear, death and foreboding as I became the constant reminder to both families I was born into as the Patriarchs passed away within the first two year of my life.

This left me with a sense that I was hated as a constant reminder which was only confirmed for at least two Grandmother’s who when we were alone told me how much I reminded them of their dead husbands.  I was very young when this started happening and it left an indelible mark on my psyche without fail.

While a young boy I watched some of my favorite relatives die slowly in hospital beds in their kitchens.  I can tell you that born under the sign of Cancer in Astrology only helped to confirm my fear that my life was brought about to bring about death to others.  With that sense came a fateful decision I knew would eventually one way or another come true, I was going to die all alone.

I could no longer bare to watch others die in front of me, go through their funerals, dealing with the nightmares.  Some of those nightmares were so real they would scare me enough to beg for someone to care for my body the way I wanted it done, no matter what. 

I couldn’t bare to fall in love for fear that they would either die in front of my eyes or they would be forced to watch my slow mental decline that seems to be unstoppable leaving me to hope my body would quit before my mind took my soul for good. 

I couldn’t stand to have anyone watch my mental faculties take over what life I had left so I would become so angry, outraged at them for doing nothing at all till I pushed them away.  Or begged so hard for emotional feelings I can’t feel inside like Love, I have no idea what real, true love actually feels like.  I know the emotional high of the beginning of a relationship but that’s it.

And so I sit in my home alone, my kids hate me because as far as I am concerned I deserved it.  I can’t deal with most of my own family who in my youth seemed destined to make me pay for reminding them of what they had lost when I was born.  Each family holiday was a chance for them to pick, poke and torment me in ways I’d rather they’d killed me instead. 

At times when I got older going so far as to tell me I didn’t even know how to my job in the Army for which was in charge of for a while after an unfortunate choice by the soldier above me in rank.  If I had told them they didn’t know how to do their jobs I would have been persecuted for it.  Most of my early twenties after having been discharged (Honorably) having began to lose my mind and attempt suicide several times.  My own father thought I was just a lazy bum till he finally saw me later in his life for what I really was, a man with a mental disorder that was eating at my spirit, my happiness, my soul.  It was too late.

I am a divorced father of three

I am a divorced father of three, a girl and twin boys who are in their teens currently and over the years I had to try hard as a Bipolar person with Borderline Personality Disorder issues of sensitivity to boot to be as good of a father as I could be.  The truth is, I wasn't.

I wasn't there very often when they fell down and when I was most people looked at me like I was some obtrusive idiot who occasionally showed up.  You know when they were all just standing around watching one of them cry and doing nothing.  I walk up, call to my then small child and amazingly they came to me all the while the adults who were doing nothing.

And then as they got older (My kids not the idiots doing nothing) I had to try hard to keep in mind I was there for them and not for me.  Especially when they started saying things like, "Dad if you weren't here we could be doing this with Nanna" or some such statement to that effect.  As I tried to remain calm and not take it personally which by the time I got into the car I was ready to cry like a baby.  After all I didn't beg to borrow money I couldn't pay back and a car I could not afford to fix should something had gone wrong to drive 200 miles round trip just to spend at the end of it four hours a month.

Then I finally gave up to give them what they wanted...the ability to do other things.  And despite all the "Christian Values" being taught in that home the one person they should have been respecting and being understanding of was relegated to being blamed for everything that was wrong in their world.  After all I spent twenty plus years struggling to find and keep a job all the while my mind was not in the mood to deal with existential variables I couldn't control let alone ignore.  Thus, I wasn't most of the time as they were growing up paying anything if at all capable of paying a minute amount.

And I didn't get school pictures, contact or anything else for being the father.  And as soon as I was found out that I had money then the elder child wanted a favor naturally...money for something.  To make a long story short which if you had ever talked to me would know wasn't and isn't easy for me to do...she got upset when I told her I didn't have it to give to her.

And now here I sit in my house with my mental problems and no children around with one hope that someday when I die they will at the very least show up to my funeral at the Veterans Administration National Cemetery in Battle Creek to see their father laid to rest with honors.  Yes I earned an Honorable discharge from the US Army in 1989...the one thing in my life I felt like I did honorably because I knew better than have children for fear I would only hurt them should I make that fateful choice my mind keeps begging for.