Fear and my own demise

As I sit alone on another major holiday where my kids don't call me and most of my family has been cut away to save my own sanity I come to my greatest fear yet again.  I don't fear dying, I fear dying while being pitied by medical staff because there is no one to come to see me at the end of my life.  I will have a grand military funeral paid for by me for no one.

I know some people will be there, friends who live nearby but no one I have to share what's left of my life because I can't do that to someone.  They shouldn't have to live through the darkened rage of my bipolar mind.  I can't ask someone to love me when I can't feel and give love the way others do.  I don't know what it feels like, what it looks like or how to truly give of myself without giving up on myself.

So I sit teary eyed, broken yet again awaiting my end, alone.

Bipolar & the threat of Cancer on two fronts

As I sit here on the Friday before Christmas I am awaiting big news that cannot come soon enough for me.  You see I have had Colon Polyps in the past and some were just shy of full blown Type A Cancer.  And on this past Wednesday I went to the Ann Arbor VAMC and was given an Upper/Lower Endoscopy where they took no less than 13 Biopsies from my Stomach & my Colon.

And now I sit here with no real information days before Christmas knowing that I will at some point be told at the very least I likely need surgery on my stomach for a hole that appears to be causing issues.  And I know they will want to redo my fundoplication (I'm sure I misspelled that word) for my severe acid reflux.

I would rather spend Christmas with knowledge of what's to come than sit here with nothing and no real opportunity before the holiday to be sure of what they want to do to/for me.  My Bipolar is on overdrive as I struggle to not worry myself to death over this thing that happened just days before Christmas.

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.

Am I what they thought I am?

Lately, I have been contemplating whether some people were right in the first place, I am a big ole pile of steaming...you get the idea.  It's just the way things are going, I am able to pay my bills but there just feels like something is missing in my life.  Maybe it's just a life itself.

After all, I have never really felt like I belonged anywhere past a certain age because once the doting adults saw me as an older child I was no longer that "Cute little kid."  I became something of a lesser being in many people's eyes, the same people who used to ooh and aah over me.  

As I got older I felt less and less of a connection and am fully aware that I often stare blankly at people but I don't know why I do it.  I do know it unnerves some, irritates the hell out of others.

I don't do any of it for that reason at least not anymore there is no point is there?  I learned long ago to hide most of who I really am and maybe after all these years its' why I hate myself so much.  No one should have to hide for fear of retribution, humiliation or abuse.

I know what you might be thinking, "who gives a shit anyway what others might think of me?"  Well if you ever have felt like you don't belong and need acceptance you'd understand otherwise like most you'd just give me that advice and move on...I can't do that.

 

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 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.

My lessons of life, regret and music

Yesterday for the first time in what often feels like a lifetime ago my vocal pipes were brought out of mothballs and let loose.  And as always I was thrilled at the time but invariably by the next day I am living with a pain in my soul.  The kind that can be hard to describe but maybe I can at the very least explain why it hurts so much.

When I graduated high school I had been singing in choirs/show choirs since I was 6 or 7 and singing in general since I was first able to talk.  I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame you could say because just about everywhere I went whether alone or not I was at the very least humming away often to the dismay of friends & relatives.  So when I graduated naturally I wanted to pursue a career in music but at the time the only way I could think of satisfying this desire was to attend college and so on.

I had one draw back in that, I was unable to sight read sheet music at the time and to be honest I can follow along pretty well but still can’t really read it and voice what I see.  So I struggled to attain a degree in Music as I had hoped.  Eventually giving up and going for a business degree that everyone thinks is going to lead to some major exec job somewhere but that didn’t happen either.

Because all along the way I lived with serious regret and my suicidal hate was a driving force back then particularly after I got out of the Army the way that I did.  Oh and that was BEFORE college since I joined almost a year after graduating high school to pay for college in the first place.  Which is where my suicidal hate began when the Army who takes care of their own except those with mental disorders in a time of peace especially because they can’t afford to keep someone with any weakness around.

I am babbling on as usual but my goal here is for you to share this one thing I’ve learned out of my lifetime, don’t give up on your dreams even if you have to modify them to meet your job needs, family needs, etc... 

Because even if you only sing once a week in a church choir it is still letting you be you and holding back something inside of you that may mean all the difference in the world when it comes to mental health of anyone, not just those with Bipolar or Depression.  Giving up a part of your soul can be devastating to your mental well being believe me I know exactly what I'm talking about.  After I got my business degree I pretty much gave up singing anymore as I was struggling to keep me from attempting to kill myself, satisfying a spouse's needs or working to put food on the table for a wife and kids. 

It's not easy I know but it can be worth it if you do it your whole life in some capacity not try to hide or diminish it to please others.  Being the real you is important at an early age not just when you've reached the end of your life and realize all the regrets you have over what you could have done with your life.

Be happy you've earned it just by being here.

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.

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.

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...

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.

Sometimes the slightest trigger pisses me off

Sometimes when I get triggered I am the reason and it pisses me off to no end when this crap happens, I get somber at the wrong times like today I have to see my shrink.  I am more likely to say something I shouldn't when this happens and today it was all my dam fault.  I got bored went into my "music room" at home and began to tinker on the keyboard and sing a bit with the karaoke machine.

This started a memory I had been trying hard to avoid for several months and each time it crawls back into my mind I get more depressed than most other times.  You see I gave up on myself and my dreams after years of being beaten down by those who supposedly loved and supported me to the point where I only believed what they said as the "gospel" of me, and I quit.

I gave up everything that made ME happy and smiling about life, Music and Acting.  The only two things I ever seemed to have a natural aptitude for or at least as far as the music was concerned according to others who know about these things I had a "Pure natural set of pipes." And I just let it all go, my dreams, my happiness and now near the end of my existence when most of me seems to be failing I am constantly thinking about that dream that got away...

Bipolar & College Education

I am all too aware of how extremely hard it can be to be dealing with Bipolar and trying to get a higher education at the same time.  I have been down the road that leads to mental breakdowns and then returning to school hoping no one brings it up.  I am also aware of having it cost you a career when your fellow students aren't required to keep what they know about you to themselves when they go out into the working world.

The thing I want to impress on my fellow sufferers who are attending college or thinking about it, you might fall down but it doesn't mean you cannot keep getting back up.  Of course my no quit comes from a military training but that doesn't mean those who haven't served can't keep that same mentality going for them.  After all a fall is not a total loss as if you got your car dented backing into a light pole for instance.  You wouldn't total the car over a dent now would you, so you can't just write off your education and career goals just because you fell down a step or two.

I hate foggy days

It's not what you think it is about driving in a heavy fog that is unless you are thinking about a fog inside your brain.  Because that's what I am talking about when I say I hate foggy days, those days when no matter when you wake up you just can't seem to focus.  Your being given directions and if you are visual like me you are trying to picture it in your mind but you can't.

The frustrations mount up as they keep repeating it to me not realizing that I cannot actually understand what they are telling me.  I wish I could just open my mouth and say to them, "I am sorry but I can't seem to focus on what you are saying at the moment."  But I can't.

The fear of opening up even sometimes to people who know about my mental proclivities might react differently based on the time of day, stress they are under, etc... leaving me afraid to even consider opening my mouth.  Because when my body senses that what they are saying isn't what they really want to say, my mind can find the rage button pretty quickly and often not at the person or persons I want to take it out on.

So I sit and stew on it remembering when I can get a second to focus on it, I hate foggy days.

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.