Psychotic Views Part Six:
Well, I’ve done it now, I tried to kill myself yesterday. It’s the first time, the first time it went this far. Oh, I’ve thought about it before, plenty of times, too many to make a reasonable guess. I’d close my eyes and picture what it would be like, what it would be like to die at your own hand. How much pain would there be? How long would it take before I’d take my final breath? I thought of these questions while running through the various methods in my head. Before now, it had never gone past thought and into action. There were times I came close. There were times when I would walk right up the edge of the abyss and look in. Sometimes I’d be so close to the edge, the tips of my shoes and stick out in the open darkness. Sometimes I’d get close to falling in, so close it scared me. So much so, It rattled my body into the cold shakes. Something had always stopped from falling in, something had always stopped from that next open step. I don’t what it was that reached out and pulled me back slowly and carefully away from the edge. Until now, I took that next open step this time. Whatever it was that reached out and pulled me back before, failed this time. I’m not sure why, maybe the reach came too late, or maybe its grip was too weak. I don’t know. So, this time I fall into the abyss. The darkness seemed to have no beginning or no end. There was a chill, but there was no wind. The chill was coming from within. I closed my eyes as I started falling. I was fully prepared to hit bottom, but I didn’t hit bottom, something broke my fall.
So, the secret is out, the soup is out of the can, the cat is out of the bag and the fat is in the fire. When I say the secret is out, I mean officially, which means, other people know it now. It wasn’t a secret to me, not for a long, long time. I knew I was a manic depressive. How could I not know? So now others know. It had to happen sometime, but I would’ve preferred no one ever knew except me, or maybe I’ve just been lying to myself ever since I’ve known, maybe others already knew. Maybe others have known for a long time too, but these others would be people who knew me personally. That couldn’t be very many people. I’ve always kept to myself for most of my life. I haven’t been close to a lot of people. I hadn’t wanted to, maybe the reason is I didn’t want people to know. Once people know something like that they will never look at you the same. They would never treat you the same.
Mental diseases frighten the holy hell out of people. It scares them like nothing else in the world scares them. Why? What are they really afraid of? That it’s going to rub off on them? That it’s highly contagious? Or because it is a deep, dark unknown? Something you can’t see, something you can’t touch.
Well, the others who know about it now are doctors and anyone else who comes in contact with me. They know now, maybe they should have known a long time ago. Maybe I should have told them. Maybe it was a deep rooted irrational fear to tell them. I don’t know.
In today’s world, almost everyone blurts their entire being out into the air for everyone to hear. Here, take a good look everyone: my heart, my mind, my soul. Can you see them? Oh, just look at them. Just look at them, will you? What makes people do this anyway? Is it vanity? Ego? Is it the absence of real connections in their life? What is it? Is it over inflated self-importance? A need to be seen, to be heard everywhere you go. Childish self-absorption. I don’t know, I do know that I’ve never been so inclined. I’m a private person, intensely private. I’ve had things happen to me that I’ve never told anyone about. I’ve had thoughts and dreams I’ve never told anyone about, but so much is coming out, my manic depression, and this prolonged action of putting so much of myself down by way of pen and paper. I don’t know why I’m doing it, I don’t know why at all, but I do know that I can’t stop doing so until I’ve reached some sort of acceptable end. Whatever the fuck that is.
I mean I’ve written before and nobody’s given a damn, not the tiniest whiff of a damn, no interest at all. I’ve written novels, short stories, opinion pieces, all to no avail, never been published, but hell, book publishers are cowards for the most part. Like most of supposedly high minded people involved in the arts. High minded about money, not just simple, small scale whoring, big time, big money, large scale whoring. No risks, no chances, nothing new, just mindless repetitive plablum. Give the people what they want. We make truck loads of cash feeding mind candy to all types and sizes of children. Has anyone famous, even for five minutes ever been turned down on a book deal? No, become famous and you get a book deal with a six figure advance. It doesn’t matter how long you’re going to be famous. Hell, it doesn’t even matter if you’re fucking illiterate, never read a book in life, don’t know how to write, no problem. Someone will write it for you.
Your face and name are there on the cover and you’re famous, that’s all that matters. So, the only reason I’m even writing of this is just for myself, because who else would care? Who would have any interest in it? No one has before, so why would anyone do so now. No, I don’t think I’m carrying out any delusions of grandeur here. This is by me, for me, and of me. Maybe once this writing is over, I’ll be over. Maybe it’s the only thing I have to live for. Maybe it’s the only thing keeping my alive. Maybe it’s the only reason I’ve survived my fall. I’m in for it now, they’re going to pop the top skull open and take a peek inside. They’ll be nodding heads, furrowed brows and a revolving door of people coming in and out of the room. Given the course my mind had steered itself onto all those years ago without ever veering off, it was inevitable I would end here. It could’ve been sooner, much sooner, I know no rhyme or reason why it wasn’t I don’t know how I held out against its dark calling for so long and this dark calling, dark calling for so long and this dark calling almost certainly going to come again and again and again. How can I find the strength of will to hold it off the next time? Or the time after that? Do I have such strength still inside me? Or have the reserves all been siphoned away? They were all troubling questions, questions which had no answers. I struggled to let the questions go for a time, put them out of mind long enough to get some sleep. Finally, the questions faded into nothingness lets my mind drift off into a quiet place of ease, but then, with my eyes closed and my mind nearing the world of dreams, another question played across my cerebral screen and do I even want to fight it anymore? The question lingers there for a minute or so before fading into nothingness like the others. Then sleep came and the world of dreams
It’s the bluest blues
And it cuts me to the bone
It’s the bluest blues
When you can’t find your way back home.
Bluest Blues—Ten Years After