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.

Reasons I haven't written in a while

Honestly I haven't had much to say or express so I have not been writing obviously despite my belief that someone might actually care what I say.  I know there is younger suicide survivors who might be in need of positive support and when I'm not in that mood I just can't.  When I am not writing it is best to think that despite being a Suicide attempt survivor I am out enjoying my life, because that is what I am likely doing.

I have bought a different Motorcycle/Scooter earlier this year and since I have gotten my motorcycle operator permit for my state and have been able to ride.  I have to say it's not for everyone but for me I get off that bike and my head feels so clear and quiet if only for a few hours...it's like being a Bipolar Heaven...

If you are struggling, keep in mind at your age that there is someone out there that managed to live as long as I  have with thoughts of suicide riding my back too.  I am turning 49 this summer so if you think in your twenties you can't make it through the tough times of the dark thoughts, think again.

Keep your head up, your ability to fight through it shows you have inner strength you may not even be aware of.  A mistake is not the end of the world for you it is merely a mistake no matter how hard it feels like a reason to attempt again. 

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 needed to be around the Music

Yesterday, I went to Music Therapy even though I had sworn I wouldn't go as long as that guy was there but at least he didn't get what he wanted from me.  I sang when I wanted and only long enough to help another Veteran get the feel of the song then I stopped.

What he said is unforgivable when he failed to really apologize for what he said and I hate myself still for letting him get to me but having grown up around a "Green Beret" from the Vietnam era I couldn't let it go and still cannot.  But the need to be near the music and get it out is so strong once the door was opened I knew I wouldn't be able to close it again, not that I really want to anyway.

The one thing in this world that could have kept me sane for twenty years I gave up for everyone else around me for the most part, I certainly wasn't performing on-stage anymore.  But I need that rush, that sensation is calling to me with such a demand it hurts me deep inside to hold it back.  I guess that 's why any chance over the years I have had to sing for girlfriends or my kids when they were babies was taken advantage of.

Please don't let anyone stifle your creative need as long as your creative need doesn't hurt someone else, let it go.

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?