Hate, the mirror and my world imploding?

The other night I saw a special on Robin Williams and of course it was late in the evening.  Let's just say it set me off subconsciously and now here I am wide awake a few nights later wishing I could sleep, but I can't.

I also can't see my therapist for a few more weeks as that person took a well deserved vacation but it has left me with a void and I kind of saw it coming.  And now what the hell do I do.  Because as with my idol Robin Williams, I am bipolar, don't do well when I am all alone and when I look in the mirror lately I hate myself again.

I'm losing all the ground I have gained over the last few years or at least it feels that way.  Because of my emotional safety issues I am literally all alone, oh don't get me wrong I have a few people I grew up around but I cannot burden them with my pain.  Because as past experience has taught me all that does is push them away faster.

Or the inevitable happens, they make me promise something I cannot guarantee I won't break ever again.  Because like Robin there may come a point in my life where my world isn't what it once was and when that day comes I might finally succumb to my need for peace or at the very least peace in my mind.

They want a world where I live to a ripe old age but for me that means more mental pain and anguish.  More being treated like I am a lot younger than I actually am and most people cannot understand what that feels like for me.  Although I know from past experience often times its more about my perceptions of reality than the reality.

And I bear so much pain that most people could never every understand how much it hurts to see someone else in pain or rather to feel their emotional pain.  I don't often even know what it is but I know something is eating at them and now it's eating at me.  And with each new pain I take on just a little more of me is gone.

People everyday try to tell me that both is a gift. As in my living well past what doctors thought I would live to age-wise.  And my ability to feel what others are feeling emotionally even at times being able to tell when they are lying to me.  No one can understand how much that can hurt when those who are lying to me are those telling me they love me.

I am carrying a weight on my soul, my being that is so heavy that I want to tear my eyes out, drink myself to death, wish for my health to finally fulfill the doctors prophecy that I won't grow to be an old man.   Even going so far as to ignore doctors recommendations for diet, meds, etc...

I know some people out there can understand bits & pieces of what I am feeling but I am likely never going to meet someone else like me who can help me bear the weight in my lifetime and for that I am saddened.

One of those days

In the last few days I have been dealing with a serious backslide and I have NOT tried to fight it off.  The main reason was when Ms. Grimmie was just getting started, her and I had interacted because of my Music Blog and performance history.  Now I am not the reason she is dead but it hurts someone like me just as hard as if I was.

I look in the mirror and I cannot understand how I have spent over 20 years wishing I wasn't breathing almost everyday while she was not only getting started but wanted to live and she's gone.  How am I supposed to understand why if there is a God he left me here and took her away?  How am I supposed to not let it eat at me that I could easily connect my sharing of her work with any possibility of her death?

And how do I not take it out on myself for months if not years going forward?  I just don't know, I just don't f'ing know.  I want to get drunk, I want to forget, I want to burn my skin and yes at moments when I draw a breath, I want to die.  I would easily take her place if I could so she could enjoy what is left of her life that is taken away but I can't.

I know this isn't about me and yet somehow I am so narcissisticly needing to blame myself because it hurts as much as when my idol took his life.  My tears feel like I am bleeding, my voice doesn't want to sing ever again.  I want to quiet my mind and my motorcycle aka "Scooter" is out of commission until I get the parts I need...So here I sit, in pain, in tears and wishing I could shut it all down.

My second Dad even called me today and I am quite sure there was another reason than his heart ailments of late.  He mentioned the mass shooting in Orlando and I hadn't known about it yet for whatever reason.  I wish I  had never heard about it... My soul is weeping, begging me for relief from the pain and I can't do it.  I can't take my life.

Some days

Some days when I wake up my heart aches and I feel a pain I cannot explain as it isn't physical in nature but rather is emotional pain.  It tears at my soul trying to stop my heart from beating anymore.  I can only hope that one day when I am older not near 50 like I am now but in my true elder years it will stop hurting so much.

You see there is a spot in me that feels others pain not just my own and when they are hurting it burns deep into me like nothing I have ever felt before.  From a young boy it seemed I couldn't escape that feeling that others pain was mine to bare whether I liked it or not.  As I grew I watched those I loved who were a lot older suffer and pass on eventually and it left an indelible mark on me. 

And now that I'm older I feel my time coming for that pain with a hope that when that time comes, I will no longer bare others as well because it may just be too much for my body to handle.  Since I have had health issues most of my adult life that most people don't feel or see until they are in the late to middle 40's I had in my mid 20's.

To watch friends and family being hurt emotionally for me over the years has left me scarred and bruised inside.  I know it's a perception but as I have said, for me since I was a little boy, it seemed my job to take their pain on.  From when my parents fought and I was alone with one or the other they used my quiet nature to air their grievances about one another.  To my Grandma's pain reminding them about how I look like my Grandfather's at least in their eyes, one passed the year I was born and the other the next year.

I just always imagined how much it must pain them to keep seeing me around but at least one of them as I got older didn't seem to dislike me for it.  She went out of her way to make me feel loved and cared for when most treated me badly.  I could always feel their pain but couldn't seem to take enough of it to ease the loss of their loved one I never really knew.

Why do I feel it still you might ask me if you could, I just cannot explain it.  But as people poured their private fears upon me as my quiet shy nature seemed to beg them to let it out I was too quiet to ask them to stop.  From childhood through the Army, college and even now at times some take it as a sign to let it out.  And sometimes when I get them alone I feel impelled to ask because I can just sense something not right about them, I can't help myself.

Some people call it a gift but if they had to deal with all that pain people try to hide inside from others they might just understand that this gift isn't a good thing when you can't take it on and then let it go.  I take it inside trying to release them from their pain so they can go on with their life as I slowly die inside.  And the number of times I seem to have cheated death in my real life begs the question of whatever God their might be...Is this what I am meant to do?  Is there more I can do before I die?  Are my words of poetry enough to keep someone else from hurting themselves?  Do I have to sacrifice my entire soul before I leave this world?

I let someone take something from me and I hate myself

It's Thursday morning and I am already regretting thinking about going back to music therapy.  Because Tuesday afternoon at therapy I let another Veteran take something from me and I hate myself for letting it happen.  Just because he didn't want to do a song for our next show on the 29th.

We wanted to the "Ballad of the Green Berets" and he being a Marine didn't want to.  So he was mocking the lyrics and I let something he did get to me.  Despite everything I am, everything I believe in and everything I want to become it ate at me.

My second "Dad" was a Green Beret and to do anything that tarnished what he had been through in Vietnam wasn't going to sit well with me.  That man had put himself between me and harms way when I was 13 without a second thought.  

To this day I can go to him when I'm hurting and need to get it out without judgement though I can feel the fear in him that one day he will get a call, the call, the one that say's I took my life.  And it hurts.

And then this guy, this Marine did something to disrespectful all because he didn't want to do the song.  And who do I blame? Me.  Always me.

It reminds me how much I can't keep a promise that I will never attempt again, or that I will always come to him when I'm hurting inside.  How do I go to him with this one?  How do I say to him, "this guy made fun of what you are and I did nothing."?

How do I look him in the eye after he protected me without a thought and I did nothing to honor his courage, his efforts, his Green Beret?

I SANG LIVE YESTERDAY AND IT ROCKED!

Yesterday I did the Department of Veterans Affairs Talent Show for my entries into the National Creative Arts Festival for Veterans obviously.  I haven't sang in front of a live audience with a band or choir in over 20 years now.  I was a nervous wreck but once I got on stage thankfully my overly-sensitive body was gaining strength from the guys that were with me that weren't nervous and I settled down pretty well.

We rocked some Lynnrd Skynnrd, I sang a Garth Brooks song that I've been singing since I first heard it and after the show was over I got to jam with some truly talented musicians who were both supportive and helpful.  It wasn't like back in the day when my own family might show up but then make fun of whatever I was doing.  It felt so good to get some of my old life back from before the Bipolar took hold and I gave into pressure to stop doing what I wanted to do.  Doing instead what everyone else said I should because I was so weak from the Tornado kicking my butt all the time.

And today I got in a ride on my new 150cc Scooter, my head is so clear right now I'm not blowing like the wind is outside my front door of MY Home.

If you know someone who is in their twenties and suffering from a mental illness feel free to use me as an example because despite all the medical & mental setbacks with a little help from the Dept. Of Veteran Affairs finally I'm doing it all on my own.  I have a car, my own home and I'm not behind on my bills to this date.  I was not expected to see 40 years of age with my health/mental health issues this year I turn 49!

I've been on welfare, I've been locked up in a locked ward for 30 days, I've lived in adult foster care before I know how hard it is to hold your head when it's one reason or another you feel like giving up.  Hell, last week I was there again due to the stress over the live show.  And I'm still here breathing, talking and trying very hard to let go of the guilt and shame to live my life.

Not a positive life but a life.  Because as they often remind me there is no perfect life, you make the best of it you can trying everyday to find something be grateful for, something to strive for, something to love when you look in the mirror.

A mistake is not an end of your world, it's just a mistake.

Some wounds just won't close

Some days wounds are opened that I cannot seem to bear but my mind keeps pushing forward because what else would I do?  For decades my mind has been a driving force no matter what to not quit even when I wake up to another failed attempt at suicide.  I always had it but a drill sergeant I had told me one time to “never quit on him again.”  So I haven’t at least not entirely.

And sometimes I see an old friend who is my Dad’s age, a Vietnam Vet whom I know for a fact would put himself between me and harm no questions asked.  But when I see him the floodgates open and it all comes pouring out because he’s been through some of it and has NEVER judged me for anything I’ve said to him including suicidal hate.  He would try to talk me down but he never, ever judged me or turned his back on me.

He knows I need to get it out and for me sometimes that’s enough to keep trying to let it go and other days it reminds me of one thing.  How many times I have cheated death in my lifetime while others who were mentally stronger than me and living a more positive life had their lives taken from them.  It brings up an unbearable guilt the likes of which I find hard to put into words despite my being able to talk about my illness freely often at the detriment of friendships that had barely even gotten started.

If there ever was a purpose for me to be still kicking past an age when doctors were sure I would likely never see.  In my twenties given my mental issues and pressing other medical issues they didn’t think I would live past age 40.  I can hold my head up at times and say “I am turning 49 this year.”  But that brings up my baby face that makes me look 18 to 20 years younger than I am and thus doesn’t bring with it the respect for having lived this long even among some VA employees I know.  I know I don’t socialize well but after years of taking abuse because of the way I look or act, I have earned that right, of that I am quite certain.


To turn 50 soon and not look my age is not all it’s cracked up to be no matter who you are trust me.  I want to be treated with some respect and knowledge that I have lived through a pain that has killed lesser beings either by their own hand or at the hand of someone who thought less of them simply because they didn’t act “normal.”    What I wouldn’t give to have just one day of my life seem normal but I guess that’s just the way it’s going to be.  But when people see you as a quiet, good listener you can get issues dumped on you that you may not be prepared for.

And in my case I often can’t let go of their pain as my sensitivities take all that on and cause me to act erratically making painful, costly mistakes.  In social situations, in financial situations, relationships practically everything.  I mean what would you do at 46 and for the first time you are having to be completely dependent on yourself without a parent/spouse telling you what you can or cannot do.  That’s how messed up I was, I often was unable to decide for myself for example, when I bought my second house in my lifetime I had to fix/replace appliances and furniture on my own.  I didn’t know how to do that.

I didn’t know how to always make sound judgments not jump in headfirst spending money I likely shouldn’t have on items I really didn’t need but had always wanted.  And that includes a motorcycle that didn’t fit me and the dealership really wasn’t looking out for me but I lived and learned on that one. 

Yesterday however I was reminded that I need to do my will and it has churned up a firestorm inside of me because despite my fight to keep going, I am inching closer to my mortal ends one day.  I have paid for my funeral but have stayed steadfast on my not wanting to make a will to ensure that people take care of my personal affects the way I want it done.  It’s hard enough thinking that the day when the preacher stands at my gravesite at Fort Custer National Cemetery
under the tent talking over my ashes (Lamentations) he will likely be alone except for the honor guard. 

I will either outlive the remainder of my friends or I will have alienated them so much that they don’t show up.  I will likely go out exactly as I had predicted decades before I will die alone and be buried alone.   I can’t keep family around me who were making me feel like a lesser being for whatever reason because that is too hard to deal with anymore. 

So here I sit wide awake early Sunday morning tearing up yet again because the grief, the pain of losses and the inevitable demise alone is tearing at my soul once more.

I was so close to getting some answers from you Robin...........

It was 0520 and I was moving along in my dream with no pain, no tears that is until I saw you.  You were there shaking hands and we made eye contact, I was within moments of talking to you getting the answers I wasn’t able to get while you were alive and kicking.  Then I woke up, I had to pee yet again, and when I got back into bed I was in tears...Because I couldn’t get back to sleep.

I keep seeing you on TV but it’s not the same as when I see you in my dreams.  Where I get to talk to you, share my thoughts and fears.  Where we can sit down have a drink and feel comfort from your company.  Because as my Idol I never met, I live in the pain of knowing, we never met.

I had so much to ask you, so much to learn from you about how to harness the pain, the manic powers for good.  How to keep some semblance of a positive relationship without imploding it each time I open my mouth.  I to live a moderately happy life when I know in my heart my pain is so unbearable at times I don’t care if I don’t wake up. 

But today I cared because for a moment I was so close to talk to you... I know no one else may ever understand how it hurts so badly, so deeply except maybe you...you who struggled with the same pain and made others laugh at a moments notice, hiding your pain deep inside.

Advice to self

I wanted to give you some advice from your past that I know in your weakest moments you won’t be likely to remember...

You are worth more than those you love even though it can hurt so deeply when you feel they no longer love you.

You didn’t make a major error, it was just a faulted and those can be picked up, dusted off and keep going.  Don’t let it bury you deep, keep moving forward.

You are not what people make you out to be, you can be so, so much more, if only you’d believe it.  Even in your darkest hours of depression and despair.

You attempted in the past and you grew from it don’t let others get you down when they judge you for your mistakes.  You are still here and that’s what really matters, ignore those who can’t or won’t see that for what it is.

You made it this far, just a little further.  One day at a time.

You don’t have to let your perceptions clarify each and every event in your life.  Sometimes it is what it seems and not what you perceive it to be.

You don’t need someone else to keep you going.  Remember you got this far pretty much on your own.  You had help but you did the hard work yourself.

You made it this far and no matter what anyone say’s or does, inside you there is some self love left.

You don’t need to let others get  you down all the time.  You are what matters in your world, let them have their opinion because that is all it is, an opinion.

You don’t need others to validate you all the time.  Self validation is important too.

You keep smiling and as always remember to breathe.

I awoke to an anger and realization...

That is now stuck in my craw, yesterday I was in a pretty good mood for a person who often goes through various mood shifts in just a few hours depending on the environment, etc...

Yesterday for instance I waited around the VAMC when Music Therapy wasn 't a go for two hours because I thought I had an appointment with my Therapist.  When I went to sign in, I found out it was actually for Wednesday and not in fact Tuesday.  I laughed all the way to the car.

After I awoke this morning I was on the toilet talking to myself (this is my normal) pissed off because my kids hate me, I had to cut most of my dysfunctional family out of my life for my own mental well being and I am going to die alone.  I know it won't be this week as I am NOT planning anything so please don't call the Police on me, I just know someday when it's my time....I will be alone.

I however, would rather be alone than surrounded by people who didn't treat me the way I thought I deserved, not the way they wanted me to think I earned by being me or being born.  The hostility that this brought about in me after the thought is gut-wrenchingly disturbing and heartbreaking at the same time. 

My ex, the mother of my kids works with people like me for a living and I assume because she is advancing there from what I can tell as some compassion for them, just not for me.  I know she told a Church Magazine that she thought I was her "soulmate" and honestly the feeling was reasonably mutual till she decided to put what her Mom wanted us to do in front of what I wanted to do.  And now she hates me (rightly so I guess).

She likely wouldn't even cry over my death rather, she would be standing there wanting to know what our kids were entitled to instead.  How do I leave something to someone who only wanted what they could get from me that was worth anything beyond the fact that I would have gladly sacrificed my life to save theirs, in other words, my LOVE.  I have them on my life insurance policy after I have paid whatever isn't prepaid for my funeral (Paid for that when I got my service-connection like I had planned on doing for years while waiting for it.)

I just really want to know why I give my love so freely when I let someone inside my walls only to in the end be rebuffed by them no matter how hard I try to get them to see I was doing the best I could all things considered.  I spent so many years hating myself for failing in the Army mentally (Proven to not be my fault), for not being there when my friends died when had I been mentally stronger I would have been and for everytime I looked in the mirror, hating the man or boy I was looking at...

It's 11 AM on Veterans Day

I'm here and you're not.

I'm sorry

My mind failed both you and me and left you alone in a world of violence and death.  When you paid the ultimate sacrifice I was in tears when I wasn't there.  I had to find out about you by seeing your name on my TV screen.

I hope you are at peace now because I am in my own living hell for not being there and each and every Veterans Day I punish myself by not going to any events I am invited to.  It's a day where I don't feel that proud of my service because I failed you.

Veteran's Day, Thank you's and my personal hell

It’s that time of the year again, the holidays bring on depression but there is one day in the fall above all that brings on a personal hell that is truly hard to describe.  I find it difficult to put into words why I hate this day more than others including Memorial Day.  I would imagine it has something to do with two simple words, “Thank You.”

For being thanked for my military service is a reminder of what I didn’t do in my mind.  It might seem an innocuous couple of words for most people, including many other Vets.  In my mind it triggers a pain I have lived with each year I get older my friends won’t.  Each year I grow more mature and live more, they won’t.  They won’t grow old to see their grandkids or become the wise patriarch of their family.

And when someone asks me to go to a Veteran’s Day event I want only one thing, to stick a gun in my mouth and make it stop.  I am not going to do it but that’s how I feel inside despite whatever that person might hear come out of my mouth.  I hide in my home and wait desperately for the day to end because I don’t want to hear those words.

To hear them even once a year is more than I can sometimes bear which for those who don’t understand would often seem overly sensitive and attention seeking.  That’s just it I don’t want to hear “Thank you”, I really don’t.  I just want the same respect you would give any other Veteran who went willingly into the military with the knowledge they might actually die in service to democracy and freedom.

The Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall

Recently the Traveling Wall had appeared at my local VAMC and a friend noted a few days later that I didn't make an appearance.  He was curious as to why I opted to not show my condolences to those Veterans who paid the ultimate sacrifice.  My reasons were actually for several reasons and most of them would to some just sound like excuses not the reality of what that means to me.

You see I saw the Traveling Wall once before in Grand Rapids Michigan and I was torn up for several months after though I kept most of it to myself at the time.  It was and is hard for me with such sensitivities that even walking up to something like that can be emotionally devastating for some time after it has passed.  And knowing that because of my mental illness issues causing me to be discharged prior to the First Gulf War I will likely never be honored for anything I've done in my life beyond what has already been arranged as far as my funeral honors that I have been promised by the Veterans Administration.

Let that last sentence sink in a moment, yes it does sound selfish doesn't it but imagine that you worked for several years to prepare for something and then a year or so before it comes to fruition you can't do that anymore for whatever reason, you'd be disappointed too.  Wouldn't you?  By the time the nightmares started I was certainly willing to die for my country if not begging for the chance to die with some dignity and that likely won't happen for me now.

I can't face that wall of honored men with what little I have done for my country after I how I both failed and was treated at the time by the Army who promised to take care of their own.

Someone once reminded me...

A therapist once reminded me after I felt like I failed at attempting something while inpatient at my local VAMC for treatment that just because I faltered didn't mean I had actually failed like I was thinking.  Because at the time I was like many who believe that every misstep is a complete failure because we have no gray in between our black & white vision.

I know what it feels like to be making really positive strides in your life only to feel that misstep as a complete and utter falling down of sorts.  The emotional turmoil it can cause can feel totally overwhelming and devastating at times but it is what it is, only a misstep and not the actual end of the world.

Often people who are bipolar and some other mental health survivors take every falter as the end of the world.  Keep going and work through it no matter what your mind is telling you because if someone like me who suffers from PTSD/Bipolar/Borderline Personality Disorder/Major Clinical Depression and achieve two college degrees, nearly a bachelor degree as well.  I was also in 20+ years of suffering able to survive a cancer scare that did put me into a down spiral but guess what despite my own father in law firing me when I got out of the hospital I survived.

And you can too.

There is something behind the decision of Suicide

I have often heard people claim that people who choose to commit suicide especially famous people such as my idol, Robin Williams are selfish for making that choice.  I believe they are wrong because it isn't about anyone else except for the fact that we often feel others would be hurt less and be better off without us around do cause this pain.

If you have ever lived with a Bipolar, PTSD, Major Clinical Depression person for an extended period of time you will find it can be frustrating, tiring, emotionally draining not only for you but for the person struggling with it as well.  To maintain any type of relationship when you have that going on inside your mind and you face a world filled with triggers it can feel like everyday is an emotional rollercoaster you cannot get off of.

As the struggle continues inside the idea of maintaining a relationship is catastrophic for some because you know you are hurting someone else and you are seemingly incapable at times of preventing that pain.  Thus the choice becomes a black or white issue for many who suffer as their is no gray area in the mind of many of us.  So we either stay and torture someone else, separate or for some choose to commit suicide to spare them and anyone who might have been involved with in the future.

To this day I have people who worry each and everyday that I might choose that again and cause them to be hurt by my choice.  It doesn't seem to matter how much I tell them I won't do it again, they don't believe me.  I broke several close friends hearts when I broke that promise long ago and now I don't even attempt to make it anymore.  It still hurts to think they won't look at me, talk to me or interact with me in public where safety is pretty much assured because I broke a promise I begged them to not ask me to make in the first place.

There is no way to get past it, get over it or move on from it, it will always be there in the back of the mind calling you to the darkened abyss it brings.  There is no need for guilt and shame to try to keep someone from making that choice, it only adds weight to an already struggling back trying to get the monkey known as suicide off their backs.

So the next time you shame or guilt someone who has attempted and failed, or who mentions they have been having those thoughts keep in mind there is something behind the decision you may never understand or have the ability to do so.  It is not about religious beliefs or fear of hurting someone else it is about the pain they are feeling that won't go away and like a heavy winter blanket it is suffocating them, they can't get out from under it no matter who tries to help them.

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.

Waking up at 6 something PM...

Nothing like staying up after being up too long the night before then going to bed at say 11pm and not waking up the following day at say 6:44pm.  The problem then becomes can you go to sleep that night or are you going to lay down tossing and turning for hours.  Likely no matter how positively I think about it I am going to toss and turn all night unable to fall asleep.

It was hard to want to get up while I was having a dream where for once I was doing something right in my life, if only in my dreams.  I was successfully dodging my Bipolar and serving my country in the Army again.  My brothers were there and we were getting along and I wasn't acting all crazy like making up excuses for my behavior.

I hated lying to so many people to cover the fact I didn't know what was happening to me inside.  I worked hard to drink and cover up my reasons for outbursts followed by remorseful tears.  I even lied about things that happened in my life because back then you didn't tell people you were having mental health issues.

After I had made a poor attempt to slash my wrists they put me in the hospital and made my coworkers watch me, literally. They were in the room where I was lying in a bed crying when I wasn't sleeping for nearly a week.  Everytime I rolled over they were sitting looking at me and want to guess what happened next, I started crying again.

When I was discharged from the hospital they sent me back to work with a house arrest kind of punishment, that's right punishment.  I could go to work, stay at the barracks and if I was lucky go back to work after hours to give me something to do after all back then there was no game systems to play and the only TV was either in German or military services channel.

But when I went to go back to work hardly anyone would work with me because they were afraid of me.  Afraid of me!  Like I was going to try again and take them with me, I had no interest in taking anyone out except me.  Within a month or so I attempted yet again only this time I overdosed on alcohol and pills.

Ended up sleeping for a week in ICU and when I woke up the same shrink they sent me to after the attempt before who had only told me to stop drinking walked in and offered me nothing more than a "Happy Divorce" while I was still strapped into the bed.  He had also mentioned that they took my clearance so I wouldn't be doing my job till I passed another set of checks which would likely take years, after all they didn't like people like me back then because I was showing signs of weakness.

Which brings me back to the dream that naturally I didn't want to wake up from...

It is funny how one night of no sleep...

Can create an avalanche effect inside of me, I am tired but can't sleep.
I see my therapist who triggers me unintentionally by asking the simplest of questions at the end of our session.
I go for nights without real sleep that I so badly need despite having taken my medication.
I dream of things from my past that haunt me to this day. 
Mixed into those dreams are people from my past some of whom I could only wish to go a day without thinking about them.
My guilt feels so overwhelming at these points in time because the lack of sleep causing my mind to drift into the dark abyss of my depression causing me to wish for the one thing I fear may never come, the end of me.
Those I no longer want to think about are in my mind because they died before it was their time all the while I was begging for it to be my time to go, for decades since I buried brothers my age in the Army.

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?"

Someday, maybe

Someday, maybe I might actually become more accepting of myself and less worried about what others think of me.  It drives me crazy when someone stares because they don't like the way I let my beard grow out or my Veteran hat.  I keep hearing from those who care to "Just ignore them" but if I could do that I wouldn't be the overly sensitive idiot I am today.

I stare in the mirror and want to shave it off but something is telling me inside that I should leave it alone to become my own man.  I know what it looks like but I can't shave it off and show my baby face anymore.  I want so badly to be treated for my real age and life experiences but I am often wrote off as some blow hard who knows only what he has seen on TV.  But I am 48 in two weeks and I lived in the 70's and 80's I know what I saw, what I experienced and shouldn't be penalized simply because I look younger than I am.

Too many people judge me based upon what they see and my immature nature which is often attributed to my hanging with older people when I was so young.  And the seemingly inability of my family to at times allow me to grow up and be an adult along side of them.  I know for many I am a constant reminder of what they lost when their fathers, my grandfathers passed away within my first two years of life.

I feel at times as if that is the reason why I was so often the butt of the jokes at holiday gatherings or the one they chose to torment on overnight stays at grandma's.  I only wish that someday before they or I pass on I hear an apology that I know isn't coming anytime soon. 

Survivor's Guilt

I have not served in a combat zone but I am what the VA considers a Dsyfunctional Veteran that suffers from PTSD and Bipolar.  I suffer from survivors guilt because I buried guys who wanted to be alive and that led to my self hatred and guilt from just being alive.  It started with one nightmare that seemed to never end and has left me feeling unaccepted, guilty and wishing that I never had to discuss it again it would be none to soon.

But that isn't the way things are in real life now is it?  I relive it each time someone asks me a question about when I served, where I served and what happened that led to my becoming a service connected Veteran.  I have to tell how I watched names of men I knew and many I didn't go down my TV screen in January 1991 and how I begged, that's right begged to go back in with the recruiters telling me as politely as they could, "Thanks but no thanks."  After all I was a RE 4 which means the Army wanted nothing to do with me ever again.

I know what drives a man who suffers from the pain and anguish of surviving when others didn't to the point of even contemplating suicide.  Although unlike most guys I can cry about someone I never even met when I think of how much I would gladly have taken their place in the ground to give them life again.  It would also take my pain away from my guilt, my sensitivities, my bipolar roller coaster with a tornado in a small room with no exit.

I survived several things in life that should have taken mine that doesn't include combat and each time I think about them I feel that much more guilty that I am here and those I cared about are not here anymore when they wanted to be.  Each day I hear of someone I know or care about having health issues that threaten their lives and they have no idea how much I would gladly take their pain away if it meant an end to mine.