I decided to stop trying to give up and I feel much better.
I have to admit that the plan was to kill myself… ignoring temporarily that I have not been able to accomplish the task in the past due to some weird inner-need to survive. The way I was going to accomplish this was to make things as miserable as possible… hours away from living on the street, in the heat… leaving myself no option but to kill myself — the easy way out.
But, again, I had to look at the past and realize that I would never kill myself. Instead, I would just be living on the street, in the heat, and mad as hell that I screwed up so terribly and on purpose.
In 2008 when I went homeless, it was because I was reckless and ignored my precarious situation.
If I become homeless now, it’s intentional grounding and a stiff penalty to my already lacking self-esteem.
I now want to admit that I started using DXM again occasionally back in the winter. As happened before, it messed with my moods and I had more bad days and responded by using the drug more… making things worse.
I stopped using the drug again about a month ago and I don’t think it’s any coincidence that I’m feeling better.
Right now I’m stressed because of the situation into which I’ve put myself and I feel guilty because I walked out on a boss, partner, and friend… and his customers.
My aunt Wendy and uncle Marty offered to let me stay on and work around their horse ranch in Maryland. The offer alone warms my heart, but I think the responsible thing to do would be to pull myself back together and stay in Shawnee. For one thing, I have three months left on my apartment lease… a lease I almost didn’t get because of how I was evicted from my last apartment in Tulsa (before I became a homeless person).
Incidentally, I’ve experienced some of the scrounging/drifter lifestyle recently. It wouldn’t be possible for me to sustain that mess at all by myself. I’m sure a regular job is (a) easier, (b) more fun, and (c) better paying. But, God please bless, protect, and forgive those who ramble around our towns and try to make ends meet whatever way they can.
At the thrift store yesterday, I purchased a book. It was $1.98 and not $0.99 because of the little “y” written on the spine. My mistake. It’s a collection of transcripts from lectures given by Carl Sagan in the 80’s about how science is really the best way to search for God. In the second lecture Dr. Sagan completely blows away my “hey, there had to be some intervention to create humans because the numbers are just too improbable.”
The editor of this book did a great job of reproducing Dr. Sagan’s visual aides. He said that all he removed from the text were the notations, “[Laughter].”
It was said that Carl Sagan could extemporaneously speak in complete paragraphs. This, my friends, is an awesome skill to learn… to develop complete thoughts in your head and organize them before (or while) you speak.
One great skill I learned from my mentor, John Carter, was to think, think, think before responding to something a coworker tells you. I used to shoot my mouth off without thinking things through. The benefit of responding quickly rarely offset the embarrassment of being a jerk.
I may have gotten all the study of and practice in the interesting effects of DXM that I’m ever going to have. If you look at the cycle of my use, you would naturally conclude that I was participating in an addiction cycle.
Part of what I like about DXM’s action in me is that it anesthatizes whatever little part of my brain that discriminates good ideas from bad ideas and all the grey levels in between. I know, it sounds crazy, but being able to carry along with a borderline idea for a while that you would normally have rejected early can really pay off. The side effect is that I would get used to the universe being exactly the way I imagine it to be.
Reality of my own creation is so much more comforting and predictable and configured just like I like it.
When that effect starts to wear off and I am reminded (by myself) that I actually live in a reality where I am required to change and grow in order to get through life… it’s a real bummer and I start to rebel and I start to remind myself that I really don’t think this Earth-life stuff is worth the hassle anyway.
Oh, how does one get around the fact that other people are depending on him and that other people would miss him if he intentionally died??
Some people just don’t care anyway. They don’t have much of a struggle leaving others behind.
In my case, it was a matter of convincing myself that I’m actually causing more problems for others than I solve… and that I’m quite likely to make a mess of things in the future. The most humane thing to do is to naturally put me out of their misery.
In 1998 or so I saw a psychiatrist. I told him I was always depressed and frequently thought about killing myself. All he said was something like, “Oh, don’t kill yourself. Your kids will never forgive you.” We never discussed suicide again.
I miss my babies.
I showed a friend pictures of my babies this day including my 15-month old son in his Halloween costume signed by Steve Irwin and his wife and pics of the day at the zoo my daughter and I (and her mother) spent when she was tiny.
I appreciate the concern expressed for me on Facebook
Don’t worry…
Douglas Adams: Don’t Panic.
October 24th, 2010: It’s been three months since I wrote this. Here’s an update: EVERYTHING SUCKS. I’ve taken to polluting my own blog instead of polluting timelines on Twitter and Facebook with new, negative postings. I’m thinking about just deleting this thing entirely.
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