Like this… {Sometimes} Until it’s not////

So it’s like this…

The bit of agoraphobia starts acting up and getting the best of you. You start to find it harder and harder to set foot outside the front door. Everything that typically takes place prior to exiting that front door starts to take longer. You don’t realize at first, but it’s because you are having trouble, or putting off doing these things. You don’t even want to get out of bed because the sooner you get out of bed, the sooner you will get dressed, gather your belongings and daily requisites to set foot out the front door. So, you hit the snooze button… again, and again.. Before long, you just get up when the alarm goes off and reset it for 20 minutes later. This way, you don’t have enough time to dwell on things. You simply get up, wash up, dress and fucking go. Did you eat? Should you eat?… Does your stomach feel okay today? Should you grab something on the way? Can you handle the process of standing in line for a smoothie or what have you? Are you going to feel okay today? How bad is traffic going to be? Are you going to be late? How are you going to make it through another 8 or 9 hours of this? The answers are typically not good, to all of the above. Instead you swallow a handful of (insert prescription(s) here) and you eat whatever you can manage.

This all happens before you even get to the car….

If you are lucky, the sedatives and anti-depressants and benzodiazepines and stomach meds, and vitamins and what have you, will kick in soon. You go from being afraid and tense about getting outside… to being furious about it. Everyone is a fucking idiot, and people drive like assholes. It’s the same thing every day. If you had any actual control over the chemistry of your brain, you would not only observe this, but you would act accordingly and understand that it’s not important. You can’t change everything, and everything shouldn’t have to change for you.

Yes… people are that fucking stupid.

No… you can’t expect the world to suddenly wizen up and treat others with respect, dignity and humility.

That’s the reality of life.

Yet, for some reason you can’t move on. You hate everyone and everything. Every billboard and bumper sticker makes you want to kill. Every person that is doing better than you is just rubbing it all in your shitty little face, and everyone doing worse than you deserves it, or isn’t doing anything to change it. You hate the guy in the $150,000 car, and you hate the guy working the same street corner for months just as much. Nothing fits. Nothing works. Nothing is easy. The only thing you can count on is that everything will go as horribly as possible. If something works out, it’s a fucking bonus at best. You hate your job, or you hate the fact that you don’t have one. You used to have a career, or you can’t handle the one you have. How does one hand wash the other when both are on fire?

The tension in your chest starts to feel like rubber bands being wrapped one by one around your heart. Double wrapped and twisted tight. As each second passes, another band gets stretched on. Respiration accelerates and body temperature rises, accompanied by tingling sensations in the extremities. Sometimes vertigo spells will set in, and you will start to shake a bit. It’s not a sensation that’s too much unlike being dopesick.

It’s like being dopesick for the rest of your life…

The medications will set in to some degree just enough to get you in the door at work.

People are fucking EVERYWHERE…

You walk in and your coworkers are eying you, they are greeting you and you are trying as hard as you can to just keep yourself inside your body. People joke that you always look so angry when you first walk in… they can’t even begin to fathom the battle that has taken place just to get you there. Now you have to endure an entire shift. You do this because you have to.. you must make money to survive and be an active member of this society. You also do this because for years, you used to do it and it was easy and normal. Before all the bullshit, before the hospitals, jail, institutionalization, groups and meetings, addictions, books and bullshit. You used to be what some would call normal and it’s all you want to do again…

Just, be normal. Just be… okay.

You develop something… some kind of exaggerated caricature of yourself in order to mask what’s boiling behind your eye sockets. You laugh nervously and crack jokes of cynicism and self deprecation… people laugh and laugh at your quirky jaded view of the world. They love you for being the grumpy guy who “tells is like it is”… Your heart beyond constriction now and your entire chest feels like there is someone, or something standing on it. You can hardly breath and your vision is blurry. Blood pressure spikes and you can literally feel every drop of blood coursing through every vein in your body. You frequently excuse yourself to the restroom to have panic attacks and focus on moot breathing exercises…  The reality is… you don’t want to be anything. You just want to be okay. You just want to remember what it feels like to not have your entire mind and body trapped in an ever tightening vice.

You don’t kill yourself because you keep hearing that eventually it’s going to get better. People tell you this, and you say it to others. You try to force yourself to believe it… even though you just lost your health insurance and can no longer support yourself. You have to move because you can’t afford your home anymore and you adjust your entire life in the middle of a shit storm… you do it anyway. One day, you just might be okay again.

Every asshole you know tries to tell you what you should or could do in order to “beat?” the state you are in. They tell you about working out, and about yoga and organic foods. They tell you so many things, and they don’t understand that if you didn’t have to literally fight every day to keep yourself from driving off a freeway overpass… you just might invest more time into those things. You work out sometimes, if you are doing well… ya know, upstairs. You try to create art, you write and make, or listen to music. You spend all of your time trying to occupy a mind that will simply not stop racing.

What if? Then what? But? How? Why is it? What then? If only? Only if? On and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

You get through the day if you are lucky, because you have to. You have doctors telling you things… telling you that you should be on disability and collecting benefits, but you USED to be fine doing everything so you don’t take hand outs. Until you do… either from programs or from people.

You walk out of work and make your way to your car, trying to best to be jovial with the others that exit the same time you do… but you can hardly get to your car fast enough. You rush home… you medicate, and meditate and occupy and try. You pass out eventually and you do it all over again.

After years of this, you develop ulcers. The ulcers cause chronic gastritis that flares up seemingly without warning. The lining of your stomach starts to come apart and the pain is agonizing. You get stuck like that…

You have ulcers, or migraines or whatever, because you have such terrible anxiety and your life is a giant panic attack. The medicine you need to take for your stomach costs money so you have to work, work exacerbates your panic which increases your anxiety so you have to take meds for that… and those meds are hard on your stomach. Which then, increases the frequency of complications with your stomach or a laundry list of other side effects…

You do it because you have to.

But… HOW does one hand wash the other when both of them are on fire?

It’s a cyclical game..

chimp a cage..

rat in a maze..

It never ends.

Might as well kiss and tell blah blah sique sique skuzznik.

It’s been quite a while since I have taken the time to write anything online. I don’t really know why I do this in the first place, but some of my friends tell me they enjoy reading the things I write. 

 It has recently been brought to my attention in a casual manner that sometimes the stories of my life and/or my past come across as a little far fetched. This doesn’t upset me at all, and in fact it makes me smile a bit knowing that enough wacky shit has happened that I sound like a bullshit artist. I guess my life is interesting… or at least dramatically troublesome. 

Yes, I got into drugs at a very young age… as in before Jr. High. Yes, I was going balls deep into all kinds of potent psychedelics by the time I was all of a freshman in high school. My sister, as well as countless friends (whom were likely involved) can attest to this. Hell, a couple of them were the ones selling it to me… and for this I thank them. Yes, I have had some incredibly strange and volatile relationships. I also have been known to spout off my mouth and despite being a pretty mild mannered guy, I’m ready to ride and I am pretty much up for throwing down at any time. I have been in situations where guns were involved in the worst of ways (yes by that I mean idiots were shooting at other idiots and one time someone that we all knew got shot multiple times and lived). I have a handful of friends and a girlfriend of quite a few years whom can attest to that, because they were there too.

I grew up in a part of town that was okay at best and was in constant decline. It has since become another black hole in the PHX metro map. Home to more gangs, more crime and more drugs than when I was there. My sister is one of my best friends and we have been through some shit together that sounds unbelievable. I know people that have even more insane stories than I do… REGULARLY. (though I doubt you are reading this, yes I’m pointing at YOU Ryan H.) 

I grew up in an early divided household that became two dramatically different families. Yes, my mother has worked in a mortuary since I was a child and my stepfather is a Funeral Director. I did some removals as a kid and watched an embalming preparation, step by step in person. I played hide and seek in the mortuary as a kid with another kid my age who’s mother was the manager. Yes, we dared each other to touch dead bodies. 

 Yes, I have been hospitalized, locked up, down and out, and on top of the world. I’m an alcoholic that no longer practices. Yes I tried to drink myself to death at a pretty early age and it was not uncommon for me to put down a few good pints, and a 12 pack of miller along with a half a quart of whiskey. Actually, it was incredibly common as I did it every night for years. 

I have been through some amazing things, and as you can see here, some really embarrassing things that I am not proud of. However, it is the collection of my mistakes that makes me a living breathing (piece of defecating meat) human. 

What’s the point? 

None really, other than the fact that I am going to start attempting to document every retarded thing that happens to me or around me. Perhaps before I check out, there will be a body of work (?) worth a read or a chuckle. 

We shall start with the fact that for Xmas I got the flu and I have been incredibly sick since the night of Xmas eve. I haven’t been able to breath out of my nose at all, and I have been spiking fevers for days. Just a bit ago I took the longest, hottest shower I could stand and became frustrated by the fact that I still could NOT breath through my nose. As I was about to turn the shower off, I plugged my left nostril and blew as hard as I could… and what LAUNCHED out of me was something so hideous that it will haunt my dreams forever. Some people whom know me really well, know that snot is my only real weakness. I can watch pretty much ANYTHING and not be disturbed by it really. However, I was gagging just trying to get the bad picture I got. The THING was stuck to the side of the shower and when I got out I grabbed my phone to snap a picture. The quarter is there to show size… though it does nothing to represent the girth of it. I just couldn’t do more with it and had to flush it. I can now kind of breath, but I think a chunk of my brain is missing…. Enjoy you fucks.