micklikethejagger

[micklikethejagger]

I don’t know where to start the story. Every time I find the beginning, my mind wanders farther back to a piece that helped build to this moment. But the real start to recovery didn’t begin until Sunday. 

I was seen by a nurse. Then another. Then another. Then an ER doctor. Then finally the doctor I came to see. They all asked the same genre of questions, to which I gave the same basic response: I’m in pain. They all left me with the uneasiness that doctors give me--the feeling that they are about to discharge me for having no medical source of pain. The last was the one that gave me the faintest glimmer of hope. “It sounds like you’ve been managing on your own for a long time.” Finally. 

Apparently when someone tries to kill themself, the hospital requires a staff member to monitor them for the duration of their stay. This was a massive inconvenience for the understaffed weekend nurses. There were four of us, evidently, that needed to be monitored. I could hear them complaining for the entire 23 hours that I sat in that bed, waiting. They sent one home because he wasn’t bad enough. I felt that I would be next. They would look at my calm demeanor as a sign of health rather than a dying spirit. In those moments, the fear of going home gave me the clearest goal I’ve had in a long time: “If they send me home, I will not fail.” If a team of medical professionals sent me home, I would have exhausted all of my options. They didn’t end up sending me. But their comments cut deep and took away the hope I had left. “I’m more suicidal than anyone one of them.” A nurse loudly proclaimed to her friends in the way that one jokes about simple things like clothes or the weather. I wanted nothing more in that moment than to will my death and escape. 

In the morning, they took my bag. They took my shoes. They took the phone in my room. Apparently I wasn’t allowed to have strings. My phone needed to be charged so I gave it to a nurse to charge for me. (I wasn’t allowed to, because of the charger.) Food came an hour later. It was a bland, hospital meal but it was perfect. Plain toast, corn flakes and a hot coffee. All I wanted was a cup of coffee. One wasn’t enough to satisfy my craving but it was still appreciated. When I got the attention of the nurse, she returned my phone so I could watch Netflix and message my colleagues to my admission to the hospital. The same nurse gave me the update on where I was going. “Brookly,” she said. “We’re getting you a ride to Brooklyn.” She said they would be here around 12:30. Since it took almost a full day to find me a place to go, I was fearful that they were actually sending me to New York, rather than a closer place with the same name. I googled and found nothing, which furthered my fears. “Oh my god, they’re sending me to another state.” They arrived an hour and some late, of course, and I was strapped into the back of the ambulance. The ride was apparently forty minutes. I just remember trees. The autumn leaves that were all growing their winter coats. The reds and yellows that the city denied me were blazing just for me. The medic that rode with me was a small woman who tried to keep me talking but I was in no mood. She asked if I liked poetry. “I do,” I responded with a crippled tone that was all I could muster at this moment. She gave me her phone and asked me to read. It was Tupac. I knew this one and I had admired his words. She was trying. She wanted me to live. She couldn’t find the words so she gave me his. I couldn’t feel the life of his words at that moment. 

We arrived at Brooke Glen. I was relieved in my fault; it was in a suburb of Philly. An old white man with the humor of an old white man greeted me and tried making jokes. I hate white men and I was terrified of what this introduction was leading to for this place. To my relief, that was all I ever saw of him. He took my bag and packed it away with my phone and shoes. I waited longer than I would have liked. I was exhausted and uncomfortable waiting on the suicide-safe chairs that weighed more than me. I signed so many papers, basically giving away my rights to the hospital. I was given a lovely hummus wrap and water. Again, I waited longer than I would have liked but I got to lay on the “sofa” watching Step Brothers. It was uncomfortable and the TV was far too loud. A lively man came to retrieve me, carrying everything I brought in a nearly-empty laundry bag. We walked past loads of people and I was seated at the Nurse’s Station. They took my vitals and decided which of my belongings I would be allowed to keep with me. They took the laces from my shoes and all the strings from my sweatpants. I wasn’t even allowed to have my special pens I brought from home. Of all the toiletries I brought from home, I was only allowed my deodorant and toothbrush, both of which were kept in a bin, locked in a closet. I had to ask a nurse to give me my items each time I wanted to use them. I showered and slept until morning. 

Before the sun even came up I was woken by the nurse. She had to take my blood pressure and get my temperature. My roommate passed and didn’t get hers done. I learn by watching others so I took this as a normal and acceptable thing to do, though I never tried it. A loud voice woke me from my sleep, “Five minutes. Breakfast!” I just wanted coffee. I didn’t even want food, though I was famished from the days prior. I had to walk to the Nurse’s station and ask for my toothbrush. If you know me at all, you know that having me do anything or interact with anyone before brushing my teeth is a new kind of hell for me. I got my teeth brushed and waited in line to go to breakfast. We left together (though later than the schedule said we would) and stood in line for food. I was at the end. Either last or close to it. They served waffles. I didn’t want any but I always eat around other people so they don’t think I’m skinny for not eating. It was bland. No flavor. And most likely not vegan. I had a few cups of coffee. It was decaf and filter but it was perfect. I didn’t wash my hair the first day, though I desperately needed to. I am an over-planner. If I knew I was going to the hospital, there are so many things I would have done. Washing my hair was one of them. Another, I later realized would be painting my nails, which were chipping. But I guess the reason I ended up here was because I had lost my will to live and was operating on a primal instinct to survive rather than any conscious impulse. When I looked around the cafeteria for a place to sit, I saw section numbers on the table dictating which tables we could sit at. The first one I saw was not for our section so I moved on. A kind voice offered me to sit with them at their table of two. I didn’t talk much but we got onto the subject of books. She offered me a book she had read and I jumped at the chance to have anything to read. Another thing I didn’t plan for was all the time I would have to myself. I dove into that book like Steve dives into books when he’s looking for Blue’s Clues. I took that book everywhere. I read it in the moments I waited in line, or while the rest of the group was watching TV. 

I was peeled from my book by my social worker. She took me to an office with another patient. She asked all these intensely personal questions about my past and my traumas while this other man was in the next cubicle. This is where my need for privacy started to fall. He was there and in here for a similar reason and was not there to judge. Even if he was, so what? I was honest and it was painful. She expressed her uneasiness and apologized for my traumas as if it were somehow on her conscience. When I left, I was told that group therapy was underway. I had been part of group therapies before. I thought I knew what to expect but I did not. At all. We were having music therapy. I studied psychology and thought I knew what that meant, but it was not at all what I expected. She gave us directives to create a playlist that moves us from a negative emotion to a more positive one. Since I’m bad at introspection and was in my first day at the hospital, I didn’t get much done. I chose to move from Hopeless → Content. Looking back, I would have chosen hopeless to hopeful and created a more powerful playlist. But I was in no place to do much more than create that title and find two or three hopeless songs to add to my playlist. When we finished, or after a fixed amount of time, she had us play the first minute or so of any song we wanted to hear. I chose “We come together” as a more hopeful song, but as I previously stated I didn’t do very well with all that. I probably just wanted to hear that song. Everyone played a little something and it was nice but I walked out of there exhausted. I had to take a nap actually. The next one to see me was the doctor. She reviewed my chart and all the paperwork I had already filled out and she started me on a medication to help my depression disappear. At lunch, I overheard my roommate talking about being sent here by the cops and she spoke so freely about her plan to shoot up immediately after her release today. I hate to say it, but I was glad she was leaving. I don’t think I could have handled that for more than the hours I spent with her that day. Especially early in my treatment. 

The next group therapy was about relationships. He talked about codependency and how we interact with others. This cut me deep and I didn’t say anything past my name. It was exhausting and I went directly to nap. My next roommate came in the middle of the night and slept through breakfast. My girls I had sat with the day before also slept through breakfast so I sat with a boy sitting by himself. We hit it off and talked for a while. We became kind of friends and realized that he lived across from where I worked. I met so many amazing people here and it was so nice to speak to people openly about how I was feeling and sharing their own emotions. It wasn’t a burden to hear them and it didn’t feel like a burden to share mine. 

After three days, I asked to get some phone numbers from my phone. I thought I should let my therapist know that I was in here, I was going to tell my work I would be out longer than I anticipated, and I wanted to talk to my friend. When I turned on my phone, it erupted. My worst fear. My roommate, thirsty for attention, used my hospitalization for her own vanity. I didn’t read all the texts but I read one from her “I called the police.” Great. Well I got the numbers and first called my friend to deal with my psycho roommate. I didn’t want to speak to her. My next call was to my best friend. She was emotional to hear from me and I told her that I was fine and safe. She proceeded to tell me what had happened in the time that I was away from my phone. I was furious at the invasion of my privacy. I hung up on her. I was so mad. The same girl that lent me the book gave me coloring pages. Coloring became my obsession. I colored until the page was full and then moved on to a new page. When I learned of my roommate’s scheming, I colored three pages. It wasn’t a pain. It was soothing. I gradually came down from my madness and accepted it as a thing that happened. Something terrible happened and I got through it. I colored through it. I used a coping skill. I didn’t realize the magnitude of this until I left. I’m still processing everything that happened. The timeline from there gets fuzzy. The next group therapy I had was an art therapy class. We were told to draw a mask. One side is the way we feel and the other is how we look to the world. I loved the activity and drawing but I didn’t share with the group. I drew hair of flames and an exciting face on one side and a grey and dull expression on the other. I am a fire on the outside and I feel like a sheet of grey. Like those commercials that sell allergy pills. They feel fuzzy and dull until they remove the film that releases them from purgatory. Except my film doesn’t lift. It’s just masked on the outside. I didn’t share because I thought my thoughts were too dark to be shared. As the days went on, I shared more of myself. Both during groups and socially. We all lived together and were joined by this shared experience of mental illness. I honestly bloomed. I became the self that I painfully saw die over the past year in my most recent episode. I colored, read, played games, and even watched TV. I didn’t miss my phone for a second. I took some time to focus on the things that calm me and the things that really don’t. I like the quiet. Sitting in silence is comforting. Loud noises and voices and the television are not something I enjoyed. I missed my candles and the soft light of the morning. I wanted to drink coffee, though I haven’t had a cup since I’ve been back. I don’t think coffee makes me happy like I thought it did. I loved it like an addiction. I thought it added to my life but I don’t feel empty without it. 

The one thing that really got under my skin was a girl. She was lovely, but manic. She was everywhere and I was anxious all the time. I need silence. I thrive in the peace of nothingness. The one thing she said that was so powerful and extremely validating was, “You’re so nice, your parents must have been awful.” She gave me so much joy and I don’t think she will ever know it. Everyone always says, “Wow your parents raised you right,” when in actuality, everything I am is in spite of their actions. I loved her for this. 

My first full day here, I wrote my first journal entry. I was told to write while I was here. It said, 

“I don’t think this is a great fit. The doctor is how I know medical people to be--dismissive. THe nurses are kind and genuinely care about this work. The therapy sessions are fine, but they aren’t enough. It’s like a lecture twice a day; the info is good but I was expecting to actually talk about my problems to help me sort through them. Here, I’m left on my own as much as I want. I’m not a fan of everyone. I don’t have access to my music, tv, games, books, or the ability to cook. 

I need an intensive space to talk. I need to sort out my feelings, find my triggers and better ways to cope. I can’t do that on my own. I’m here for structure but there isn’t any. My hoodie was stolen and I’m freezing.”

The doctor did turn out to be dismissive, but she served her purpose. The nurses did end up being the highlight. They were always looking out for me and genuinely cared. My hoodie really was stolen and I never got it back. But a friend gave me his to use and I was no longer cold. I did need a space to sort out my feelings and I got the chance to participate in group a few times, which helped. I also spoke to people during our free time that helped me sort through some of my things. My triggers were hard to identify but I did a lot of work with it. I also found some new things to enjoy. Coloring was one. I remembered how good reading can feel. I discovered that I do need an intensive space to talk, which is why I’m starting outpatient group therapies more regularly for a while. 

On my last day, I was social. I was ready to leave but I wished that I could have stayed because I will genuinely miss the bubble of comfort I was in. I had people around me who cared about me and shared my desire to grow. I was a person I hadn’t seen for a long time. I woke up for breakfast and put on jeans. I had an underwhelming breakfast. I was taught a card game, which I picked up instantly, and loved playing. The last therapy was a chance to see what others see in us. We passed a paper with our name around the table and everyone wrote something about us they liked. Mine was filled with kind words and one that stands out was “too hard on yourself”. I know I am but it’s striking that people I’ve just met can see that when I often can’t see it. I collected my things and secured my transportation situation. I left as everyone was lining up for lunch. I got to hug everyone as I left and I appreciated all of them for the part they played in my recovery. I hope they know that. I walked out as a free woman. I had my phone and was given directions to the train. I didn’t turn on my phone just yet because I wanted to enjoy this moment. This air. These trees. This feeling. It was freezing and I didn’t have a hoodie but it was perfect. 

[micklikethejagger]

I am the symptom of sorrow. I used to be a soft candy coating encasing a pit of dread and doom. I like to personify my depression. I haven’t discovered if this is for my own benefit, to visualize the forces that stand to defeat me, or to comfort others with an entertaining tragedy. I like to think of myself as some Shakespearean cynic. Though that’s redundant. Perhaps it’s both. Therapy cuts through the outer shell to reach the dread and unleash the power of evil; it’s melted the candy and left a thick, burnt substance that has been left bitter. Let me clarify this picture. The casing that has hardened and fossilized does not fully enclose the dread. A tear has broken through and solidified, incapable of coagulation. The evil that has been caged in my soul by the guise of extroverted geniality is now free to roam the Earth. My duty to this world has been compromised. 

How can I save the world from this evil? 

It infects my aura and spreads rampantly as my energy mingles with those of my peers. It cannot be contained. My delusions of grandeur are coping mechanisms rather than symptoms in this scenario. To any mental healthcare workers in the audience, I’m sorry that my writing isn’t better. My mind is poison and this is the best I can do. The answer to my death is hidden in these lines. I know that is the only reason anyone will read these words and that is simply the price of notoriety. I hope to be the initials in some off-brand medical journal some day. “MC: A fatal concoction of comorbidity.” I’d like to ensure that this be the headline. But I’m dead so what the hell do I care... 

I wonder how many tumblr accounts were created to battle mental illnesses. I wonder how many of these accounts belong to victims of suicide. Reading is so powerful. It tethers me to past lives and delivers a stream of consciousness that no longer breathes. I guess that’s only when the authors write happy stories. No one wants to hear my depressive waves that crash on the rocks. 

[micklikethejagger]

Web search: “How to stop...

...caring

...crying

...breathing

Welp. My search engine is catching on. 

[micklikethejagger]

You don’t have to do that, you know. Wrapping your feelings in a clever joke to make it more palatable--to keep from scaring me away. I’m not afraid of your emotions. I actually like you because you are so emotional. You let yourself feel and I love that. I think you want people to see you but you don’t want them to leave, so you soften your emotions with humor to make them more appealing to the masses. I don’t need you to do that. I want to see all of you. I think you like to hide yourself away until you’re feeling 100%. Or 90, or 80. Whatever your threshold is. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that! I just want to know if you’re doing it for the right reasons. If you’re doing it because you want to be alone and find peace in solitude, then I fully support you. If you’re doing it for fear of rejection, then I’ll still support you. But I will tell you that I know no one is their best self all the time. You don’t need to hide yourself away because you don’t feel good enough to be loved and enjoyed. I just like when you show up. 

[micklikethejagger]

Well now I feel terribly conscious of this journal. I know I’m not a good writer. I know my “stories” are directionless and trite. I know there are so many people who struggle with mood disorders and abuse, childhood traumas and poor self-esteem. I know plastering my misfortunes on some dumbass blog is not going to save me. I know nobody cares to read about the origins of Mickey’s sadness. I even know that I’m far more interesting as a mystery than I am in all my fullness and complexity. A stupid tumblr journal of my childhood traumas and endless abuse is so painfully unoriginal. I know. But I also know that it’s something that I haven’t tried. It’s a hope that will maybe be my solution. If nothing more, it’s a few months of placebo before I realize I’ve been tricked and recoil to my burrow. I don’t need original. I just need something to keep me from giving into my destructive impulses for a goddamn minute. If you’re behind the glass preparing your fresh fruit and rotting vegetables to assault my blog, all I ask is that you remain there. Don’t come to my side. This is for me. This is a temporary solution to keep me from destruction. I used to be a fairly good writer, actually. I had studies published in journals that people actually care about. Ironically, my area of research was group therapy as a treatment for depression. HA. I really used to meet with patients and analyze their cortisol levels and mood scores to distract from my own crippling anhedonia. I used to be good. I’m horrified to read the handicap of my depression. I know it’s shit. Trust me. I know. 

[micklikethejagger]

I’ve always wanted to be understood. To be heard. I rationalized that no one would ever be able to understand me unless they had suffered similarly. I believed the world was filled with happy, shiny people who were all just attracted to other shiny things. Nobody liked me because I was a dark and miserable thing that had to be avoided. My darkness would be caught if anyone came close enough. The only ones who could truly understand my darkness were the ones who had already felt the chill of their own darkness enveloping them. I’ve always searched for intimacy in the broken--the ones who suffer. These people understand pain because they feel it so profoundly. These are my people. My chance to be understood. The problem with finding intimacy in a shattered soul is that they bear the weight of their own burdens so completely that there is nothing left for me. I had a brief realization that anyone who understood my mind had to be at least as fucked up as me and that I should look for someone with a kind heart and an open mind. But then my mind did a great job of convincing me that broken people don’t deserve good people who will do all of that. I’m a bad person. I’ve done terrible things and I’ve been pretty awful to a lot of people. I don’t deserve a good person. I don’t deserve someone who is patient and kind and gives me love. Because I don’t deserve it. I deserve to rot in this consciousness.   

I often lose myself in my own noxious mind. “An addict alone is in bad company.” I hope y’all don’t mind, but I like to quote the bible when I’m feeling low. Well, not the bible, but my bible. Narcotics Anonymous. I have the sixth edition now. I dropped my previous copy in the bathtub. And the one before that I threw into the canal on a bender in Michigan. And the one before that I watched burn until its words had all been swallowed by the flame. And before you even ask, yes. My strung out, teenage brain was thinking of Bradbury the whole time. 

Just realized I’m writing to an audience of no one. There is no one listening. Then why am I still orienting my thoughts to an invisible recipient. My therapist wants me to be vulnerable and share my thoughts but I think I’m just going to address my silent words to an audience of none to beguile my consciousness into believing that I’m being open and transparent. Is this what tumblr is for? A public space for the suicidal manifestations of our traumas to linger and  beg for attention? I don’t tag or use this for anything but a net for my tears, but I still open the page hoping for a note from someone other than Cheezbot. I crave validation from anonymous depressos in the void. 

I’ve heard people say that it’s worse to feel alone in the company of people you love than to be alone. I have even said these words. But I don’t think that’s true. I think it’s much worse to push people away that you once cared for but no longer feel anything for. I think it’s worse to be alone because you don’t care for yourself or anyone else. 

Well this post had no direction. I’d typically apologize, but I’ll refrain. Because there’s nobody fucking there.

[micklikethejagger]

Today we had a visitor come to our class. He brought a bizarre puppet that I can only assume they give out at orthodontic conventions--it had remarkably large teeth for a puppet and, as puppets were for some reason in the 90s, it had solid teeth and eyes with a cloth body. He was the obligatory spokesperson that came to our class to instil in us a sense of urgency to brush and floss. It was terribly boring content and I’d heard it all before, but I was still amazed. I always enjoyed learning about topics that were conventionally unarousing. The droning of statistics and protocol was always fascinating to me. Learning about theories is fun, but I’m not the greatest at applying these ideas to my own practice. Since I have absent parents with mood disorders that prevent them from participating in the world, I was never educated on the importance of oral hygiene. Or really any kind of personal care, if I’m honest. But I had heard the speeches and the rhetoric: Brush and floss. Drink milk. Avoid too much sugar. I could recite all the slogans, but it never dawned on me that these words stood for actual things that I should be abiding by. 

Anyway, it was Tuesday. I remember it was Tuesday because Daniel got to put the pictures on the board to represent the day and weather. I really wanted to do it because it was the 12th. My teacher knew I loved the 12th and that I had been patiently waiting for this day. We only had nine students in our class and three of them were boys. Despite the apparently uneven ratio, she rotated boy-girl in our morning activities. I think she thinks this is fair, but it isn’t. The presenter said that since we brush our teeth so frequently, we develop a routine. We start at the same place every time and we don’t really even think about it. He asked if anyone wanted to come show the class where they started their brushing routine. I didn’t brush my teeth enough to have a routine and honestly didn’t know that was a thing, but I loved volunteering and presenting my ideas to anyone who would listen. So I shot my hand up so fast, as I do, and waited patiently to be called on. I’m never called on. Not in class. Not at assemblies. Not even randomly through luck-based drawings. I think that people are called on because they’re pretty. Intelligence is assumed with beauty. I don’t think I’m ever called on because I’m not pretty. When a stranger surveys a class of eager kids, no one wants to choose the disheveled child with weird glasses and wild hair, wearing clothes that were either gifted from the neighbor’s older boys that no longer fit them or found on the side of the road in a FREE box. Choosing this child is a risk. Poor means stupid in the eyes of an adult and by this logic, I was the dumbest one in the room. In every room. No, he chose my friend Adrien. She always had clothes that fit in gender-specific colors and wore straight, brunette hair in matching barrettes. This was the safe child to choose. She walked to the front of the room in a way that suggested she knew she would be called on. Maybe the presenter had told her before the class that she would be the one to march to the front of the room. He asked again, “So, where do you start when you brush your teeth?” and she took the oversized toothbrush and brushed the back of the teeth on the bottom of this doll’s mouth. I’ve never really watched her brush her teeth and we have never even talked about it so I don’t know if this was true or not. But the way she looked to the audience for approval when she did it convinced me it was a lie. I was furious. “Who starts in the back?” I seethed. I, of course, said this to myself within my own mental walls. I didn’t have the knowledge enough to even think to brush the backs of my teeth. This guy just came in to tell us how important it is to get all the surfaces and you’re going to try to pass that off as your own original idea? This happens a lot. My friends do bizarre things that I have never seen them do before. They act differently around adults in some weird attempt to impress. I like when my teachers are proud of me. I like when adults tell me that I’m smart. They just don’t think I’m smart. I don’t think so either. Adults tell people all the time how proud they are but they just never tell me. I’m just not smart so I’ve stopped trying to get them to think that I am. Adrien gets told all the time that she’s smart. She must be really smart. Or maybe it’s just because she knows what to say and do to earn these badges. I don’t know if we are friends. She makes me mad a lot. I get angry with her and I make her cry. I told her today that I didn’t want to be friends when we were on the playground. And she cried. A lot, I guess. Her mom called mine and told her how sad this made Adrien. My mother told me that I had to be her friend and hit me for making her cry. 

My parents tell me that they don’t like me and it makes me cry. I wish someone would call their parents and tell them to be nice to me. Adrien cries a lot and everyone is nice to her. I don’t cry a lot and everyone is mean to me. I thought that I should cry more so people would be nice to me. I learned to cry. My dad doesn’t stop hitting me until I cry. I’m really strong and thought I should be tough and never ever cry. But yesterday I started crying right away before it even hurt. 

[micklikethejagger]

Fuck this feeling. 

The feeling of not being good enough. Of doing your absolute best and coming up short. Fuck feeling like a failure because you don’t measure up to someone else’s standards. Fuck giving everything you have and being outbid by someone more successful. Fuck internalizing someone else’s emotions as a reflection of your own self worth (or lackthereof). The knots in my stomach from the emotional separation that ensues. Despite being the only one invested. Fuck the heartbreak from the emotionally unavailable. Fuck this pain of shooting and missing. Fuck the undeserved self-loathing. Fuck the mental distraction. Moving on from an experience that was never real. Fuck serendipitously stumbling into this misfortune. Fuck the uncertainty! The vague indifference that makes you hate yourself for not moving on. The shitty lack of definition that holds you stagnant. It’s not even fuck you. It’s fuck me. I did this to myself because I knew this would happen and I allowed myself to be lured by the temptation of the fruit. Fuck feeling like an idiot in vain. The biggest fuck is the fact that I can’t have the last word. No. The biggest fuck is probably the fact that I’m in love with you anyway.

[micklikethejagger]

I’m not sure what evidence still exists from my childhood that can tangibly prove that I was present, but I stumbled upon a photo. It was wedged between the pages of my first copy of Journey to the Centre of the Earth; my favorite book as a kid and one of the few relics that I’ve somehow retained. I’m probably five here. I loved playing outside and being in nature. Exploring the Earth and all her beautiful creatures filled my heart and calmed my spirit. My capacity for enjoying the simplest things and finding such deep joy in my little world has always been a remarkable asset to me.

I admire this child and her simple strength in finding joy amongst the chaos that I know is ensuing around her. Although her qualities are remarkable and inspiring, I can’t understand why they were necessary at all. This photo has made me sad beyond words. How could anyone hurt that child? I am speechless. My adult mind cannot physically comprehend it. That little girl who spent hours making a school for worms so they could learn how to dig and wiggle. She gave love to every creature with more depth and intensity than anyone had ever spent on her. Love is a god-given right afforded to everyone. There should be no bargaining for love. No one should have to feel that love is a privilege offered to only those who can earn it. This little girl had more emotional capacity than the adults around her. Then why is she the one who suffered?

[micklikethejagger]

As a kid, I always thought that at some age, people would grow out of making fun of certain things about other people. In the lunchroom everyone commented on one another’s lunches. In the yard it mattered what you wore and how your hair looked. It even mattered who your family was. To my dismay, this doesn’t stop at any age. In fact, the adult world is far more critical than any child ever was. When a grown man criticizes my accent, it feels a lot worse than a peer making fun of my flavor of Capri Sun. Adults should know that these things don’t matter. It should not be something anyone even mentions. The reason my accent doesn’t make any sense is because of all the effort I’ve put in to cover up the original. Because people like you feel the need to interject your disapproval of the way I speak. My childhood accent was never the norm--Scottish lineage raised in Boston. When I was told that I’d said a word “wrong”, I internalized that as me being wrong. And I’d try to correct it; I listened to how others spoke and would mimic their inflections and pronunciations.This hasn’t worked at all. It’s like a wall that, instead of cleaning, you just paint over until it’s an inch thick with new hues and layered with dirt. The world is filled with accents and dialects and my brain has collected all of them. Often when it’s time to choose a word, I can’t recall which is correct. My attempt to self-correct what people say is wrong with me has led me to a place where I don’t even know what is mine anymore. Despite my efforts to be self-made, I’m a product of my environment. I’ve amassed a collection of pain that I carry in my vernacular, from which I am now indivisible.

[micklikethejagger]

Brace yourself for the most exhausting part of me. I can’t think back to why it all started, as if this could be traced to a single moment of conception, but I vividly remember the first time it got in the way. It was in gym class and I was eleven. I was having a particularly stressful day, which always made the thoughts worse. The teacher spent ten or so minutes explaining the game to us, but I couldn’t focus on her instructions because I had to count. We all got into formation and started to play. Almost immediately, I broke one of the rules that she had evidently just explained to us. My team was frustrated, this teacher was furious, and I was miserable. 

I count words. Remember when we all had flip phones and to send a text you had to push each number a certain number of times to get a letter? Like to type a C, you needed to push the button three times? That’s how I count words. Each letter corresponds to the number of times you have to push a key to get that letter. That makes C a three. So C-A-T would be a three-one-one word. Then I have to average out the numbers to see if the word is an “even” word. Since 3-1-1 can’t be averaged out evenly, I can’t stop counting because it’s not even. I have to count the next word that my brain wants. I can’t honestly tell you how it chooses which words it wants. The person may have pronounced it with a strange inflection or used it incorrectly, but it’s also just as likely that there isn’t a good explanation. I have to keep counting until I find an even word. I’ve found ways to cheat this evenness. I’ve come up with sly ways to trick my brain into believing it's found an even word. One example is “born,” a 2-3-3-2, what I call a dichotomous word because there are an even number of threes and twos. Another is called a mirror word. This means that the numbers can be rearranged to make two even sides if a line were drawn through the middle. An example is DANCING. This is a 1-1-2-3-3-2-1 word. Rearranging those letters would make it 1-2-3-1-3-2-1. A line over that middle 1 makes it a mirror image. Depending on how neurotic I’m feeling, these tricks are sometimes sufficient. Over the years, I’ve become pretty good at conducting all this madness in my head while still integrating into the world. I present myself with an air of mild aloofness, which works in my favor when I have to ask someone to repeat what they said. I can also use this process to help me remember exact conversations. This worked to my advantage in college when I had to recall information from lectures. But this also means that I can recall, almost verbatim, the conversations that have given me the most anxiety throughout my life, which is absolute torture. 

A lot of my compulsions are just silly little things to help distract me from the thoughts. Or at least to make myself appear busy while the bulk of my concentration is attending to the math. A common one for me is organizing my area. So at home I’ll stack my notebooks and line my pens or at work I’ll sort rubber bands and adjust the bags and mats. 

The most obvious thing I do is twirl my hair. It doesn’t take my attention away from anything--it actually helps me engage with whatever it is that’s commanding my attention. A lot of the time that’s thinking. But sometimes it’s reading or driving or some other useful employment. And that I’ve been doing ever since I can remember. In third grade, my teacher reprimanded me in front of the class for being a “distraction.” But even my eight-year-old self knew that her outburst was more of a distraction than my silent coping mechanism. I can now realize that this had more to do with her shortcomings than mine, but as a child I could only mourn the loss of another potential ally. 

[micklikethejagger]

One of the hardest parts about mental ailments of any kind, for me, is the lack of compassion. It’s treated as a valid illness or injury for a period of time and then, when the last grain of sand falls, everyone wants it to be over. You have X amount of time until you should be healed. They mess you up physically, since your brain controls every part of you, and also your pattern of thinking. On top of my brain deteriorating, I have to worry about how other people feel about it? Ironically, it takes longer for brain injuries to heal. Why do we give them any less compassion? I'll save my long-standing processing disorders for a later ballad; at present I don't have the attention to do them any justice. Just the concussion for now. My brain spent almost a full month making me nauseated, dizzy, and incapable of sleep. This received a lot of sympathy. Everyone can relate to a little headache and insomnia. But after four weeks, I should be better and it’s just annoying if I’m not. The part that never received much sympathy to start with, and has lasted almost three whole months, is the change in my temperament. 

The scariest parts of my entire concussion are the changes that only I could feel. The things that I don’t dare share with anyone. The changes to my thoughts that threaten me by their very insidiousness. My injury affected the prefrontal cortex of my brain--the one responsible for impulse control and decision making. And that’s pretty fucking scary for a recovering addict. My ability to control my thoughts and actions has essentially disintegrated. The thought patterns that protected me from the seduction of substances have been taken hostage. My healthy coping strategies have been torn from me and now I’m on the ground with a bloody lip and a throbbing pain in my side. Worse yet, my back hurts. After the meningitis, I always had mysterious nerve pains that would range from irksome to debilitating. Although starting as senseless nerve damage, this pain eventually became my body’s way of telling me that the drugs were wearing off and that I needed another hit. And it’s happening again with alarming persistence. When I’m overcome with thoughts of self-destruction, I walk until my muscles ache and my soles are worn. My brain and body hurt so badly that I can’t walk off the pertinacity of these thoughts, and because my ocular concentration has also been compromised, I can’t pick up my dog-eared copy of the Twelve Steps to counteract these thoughts with reason. To make matters worse, I can’t make a single sound come from my throat when my people check up on me. I’m losing control. I have no control. And I’m terrified. I’ve been to more meetings in the past two months than I have in the entire two years prior. I see my therapist way too much and I fear there’s not much even she can do to contain me. 

For whatever reason, I’ve allowed myself to drink alcohol socially since cleaning up. I guess a part of me believed that if I could still participate in recreational self-sabotage, then I would be perceived as a normal person. Or at least conceal my follies and vices for a bit longer. Despite my evident need for a structured framework to save myself from this, I was still drinking. I had a massive panic attack last night. Or today, I guess. I never know how to refer to an earlier, evening part of the same night. It’s almost 6 AM and I haven’t been to bed. Is this the next morning? Is it still night? Whatever it is, I’m here. And I’m sober. I had some beer in that earlier evening time to wash down my fear and anxiety. Ironically, my anxiety was offended by this offering and spent a few hours defending its authority. My concussed brain is down to very few functional cells that are working at diminished capacity. I no longer have the luxury of gambling with the health of my brain for some ineffective illusion of normalcy. In French, we call a concussion a commotion cérébrale, which doesn’t literally translate to cerebral commotion but I like the imagery of this. It’s an elegant way to describe the chaos. And one thing chaos absolutely does not need is an invasive chemical to scramble the messages and inhibit me from engaging in life with a more definitive presence.  

My brain needs fuel and a healthy cleanse. I have reasons to stay clean and I'm determined to keep it that way. Most notably, I know that I won't survive another stint. I still have a lot of living left to do and I need to leave this Earth in better shape than I found it. 

Cut yourself some slack, Mick. You’re injured! You aren’t perfect but that doesn’t mean you’re not yourself. You can’t control what happens to you; what defines you is how you handle what happens to you. 

I have this belief that the qualities we possess are born from the obstacles we overcome. When asking for patience, you won’t be given patience, you’ll be given tedious and tiresome trials to exercise and develop your patience. A monk told me this, but it works agnostically as well. In the same way, if you want to be a good person, the world will send you situations that make you want to behave badly. If I want to be stronger, the situations that make me feel weak are the ones that will breed strength. Rather than dwelling on the unfairness of situations, I can see them for their potential. This is rhetorical bullshit. I do really believe it all, but I can only appreciate this retroactively. No amount of theory will make bad situations feel good. They’re bad. But I can forgive myself more readily and accept the things that I can’t change.

[micklikethejagger]

I’m about to turn 25. I’ve lived so much life in these twenty five years that I don’t even believe that number. The author really crammed a lot of battles and misfortunes into that time. If I were narrating my story in real time, I would be as unreliable as Patrick Bateman. Not to say I'm a psychopath, but I have darkness that I hide from the world so it's a fitting simile. The mechanisms that shield me are the ones that make it impossible to follow along. Lucky for you, and I suppose for me as well, I can tell this narrative retrospectively through a disjointed collection of stories. 

I believe in balance, or the law of averages. Pain and pleasure are balanced forces that will eventually counteract one another and offer equal opportunity with each. If this is true, then the next twenty five years will be pure ecstacy for me. Is this hope? Based on the eerie start to this narrative, it's easy to assume that I'm a grumpy miscreant lacking positivity who draws power from misery and misfortune. This simply isn't the case. Yes I am those things, or I once was, but that's only a portion of my palate. I am many things, the least of which being that I’m a hopeful, optimistic sap. 

It’s also possible that I just need my struggle to mean something. If I can channel my life into some more noble pursuit, it will make all of the suffering I’ve endured to keep my heart beating for these twenty five years somehow worth the fight. Like the pain is more digestible if there’s a cause. Since I don’t believe in any creator or deity, I had to come up with my own purpose. The purpose that keeps me fighting and brings me to peace with my past is to be what I always needed. My past is written and there’s no amount of rumination or substance that will change that. It exists as a part of my story.

I don’t believe in miracles, 

or any kind of magic.

There isn’t much that I can change, 

which is super fucking tragic.

I wrote that when I was dwelling on some tragedy. It was mildly out of anger but mostly about acceptance. Accepting that things are a certain way and I have no control. But that isn’t true. I do have control. I can change a lot. I might not be able to change the beginning of my story but I can sure as hell change the end. And I’m capable of changing someone else’s story. I didn’t have a positive role model as a child. When I was in third or fourth grade, we were given an assignment to write about the person who inspires us. I remember being dumbfounded and spending a lot of time synthesizing a character for my paper. No one made me feel powerful. No one made me feel heard. No one made me feel like anything worthwhile. No one made me feel calm--a feeling that I now associate with love. I also remember being beaten for not choosing my mother to write this paper about. I was a bad daughter, and a bad person, for not choosing her. I now know this wasn’t my fault. It was unfair and there’s nothing I could have done to change it. No amount of perfect actions could have changed the way I was treated. 

I needed a protector. I needed compassion. I needed someone, anyone, to look at me and understand. That I was a product of my circumstances. That I wanted to be good but didn't know how. That I wanted to be loved but didn't know how. That I was a child. The problem, I've come to realize, is that people struggle to empathize with situations they're unfamiliar with. The reason no one was able to help me, is because the only people who understand what hell looks like are the ones who have been there. And unfortunately, a lot don't make it back. At least in any condition to be what I needed. The ones who are swallowed by the depths of hell, struggle to find their road home, if ever. I've taken every wrong turn to find my footing, but I'm making my way. I'm climbing the walls as fast as I can, though I haven't reached the top. The really great thing about being on the wall, as I put it, is that I am in a perfect place to bridge the gap to the surface. I can be what I always needed for someone else. I can be the person who looks and understands. I can help someone at the bottom of the well start their climb. This was my mission for a long time--to help other people find their road home. But I've since realized that I don't want to simply help people find their way home. I want to be the reason someone finds peace in their little world before it falls. I want to be the reason a child chooses to look for hope rather than turning to drugs or men that don't appreciate her. I want to help prevent the spiral. I'm a teacher. I give love to everyone who crosses my path. I give understanding to the downtrodden. And I give forgiveness to the lost. I don't want to be a savior, I want to be a protector. I don't need to be a hero, I just need to change some child's story so they don't overdose on the mistakes of other people and carry the weight of an abuser's insecurities. If I can change a single child's path, my pain is not in vain. If I can offer one person a pocket of serenity in the chaos of their world, I will feel peace in my struggle. 

I can tolerate the trials as quests that will prepare me to fight the boss stage. The quests can be irritating. They might use too much of your resources. They can seem pointless. They might take so long that you forget what your main objective is, but they help you unlock new skills and powers. I’m scoffing at this metaphor because it’s lame and reads like a tacky Andrew Lloyd Webber play but I refuse to delete it. I’m currently in the part of the game where you’ve just reached the person you need to find; you sit back and watch the dialogue while you shove all the Doritos in your mouth before you have to fight something else. It’s nice to take a break from button mashing but I still need to concentrate. I still need to turn up the volume so I can hear over the sound of chips crunching. It’s no holiday but it’s different. And different is good. I spent way too much time on this comparison but it was a necessary digression. 

Welcome twenty five.

[micklikethejagger]

I have this impactful memory from my teenage years. Getting perfect marks by putting in little effort conditions arrogance and apathy. Which is a perfect recipe for pissing off the teacher. Every teacher. The number of positive experiences I had with adults growing up could be counted on one hand. Anyway, I had a woodshop teacher who was one of the good ones. For one project I made this box. It wasn't necessarily spectacular but it was made well. I chose the right wood, a good stain, and my measurements were pretty good. I got an A but this guy wouldn't let me take my box home. He said it was great but I didn't try for it. 

-What the hell does it matter if I try, it's perfect! 

Apparently that was not a good response. He wouldn't let me have it without an offering of effort. This man made me memorize the Greek alphabet in order to take home this dumb box. I was livid. That had absolutely nothing to do with woodshop. That’s not even a skill that I would use in the contemporary world. But I had to prove that I could do it. And that I could do it easily. But why did this matter? People often confuse intelligence with power. Intelligence has no power. No one gives a shit how smart you are, history only cares what you make of yourself. Along the same lines, it’s not necessary to prove your intelligence to anyone. Or to assert your dominance by belittling someone else’s intelligence. This is not necessary. I think about this situation a lot. I’m sure this teacher was very smart and rather than ever arguing his intelligence, he would assert it with his actions. I respect the hell out of that and strive to live by a similar set of standards.

[micklikethejagger]

Your unfortunate protagonist exists as a divergent consciousness that was born from the ashes as some pathetic symptom of sorrow.  A miserable opponent to the charismatic shell worn by its physical counterpart. The membrane between these entities once existed as a permeable juncture but has long since been cauterized to incarcerate the evil just as a villain is inevitably apprehended by the law. This dialogue exists as an attempt to renegotiate the terms of this barricade; to clear the infarction and allow the sun to once again pass through these dusty panes.

[micklikethejagger]

My brain is the smart one,

it knows we should move.

It’s sending out signals,

but somehow it loses

 the message to drop you

when it gets to my chest.

The atria fill,

and the ventricles press

 the blood from my heart

with a corrupted directive

to carry you with me

and while all of these hectic

 instructions mingle

and continue to bicker,

it effectively terminates

all of the rigorous

 effort I’m putting in

to let you go.

When I’m close to forgetting

it all explodes

 with fire and force,

with heat and passion,

followed by feelings

of love come crashing

 back to me

and makes me doubt,

my own intelligence

for suppressing the amount

 I want you here

to help me grow,

to be my armor.

But just so you know

 I’m doing my best,

just like you taught me,

I put on a smile

and when the world tries to stop me

 I take a deep breath

and hold my head high.

But if I’m as strong as you say,

then why do I cry

 every time

that I’m all alone,

when I have a question

and don’t really know

 who to ask,

or what can help,

when I’m in trouble,

or filled with doubts,

 about myself

and about this journey.

This path that I’m making

it’s twisting and turning

 in a fervent attempt

to find some answers

but every day

is a new disaster

 that I’m facing alone

without your comfort.

I know that you love me

but I’m looking for some sort

 of deeper meaning

to keep me going.

A faith or a spirit

with the power of knowing

 tomorrow’s solution

for today’s painful puzzle.

Some noble explanation

for my never-ending struggle

 to understand myself

and to cloud their perception

of who I am and what they see

through meticulous deception.

[micklikethejagger]

It’s Thursday morning. It’s raining. Of course, it’s fucking raining. Why wouldn’t it be raining? It’s always raining when someone tells a sad story. The storm is a literary cliché that helps the reader understand the figurative storm that occurs within us; perfectly analogous to the psychosomatic symptoms that we feel yet somehow remain anonymous to the world. The rain that falls, the wind that blows, the thunder that screams; it’s easier to paint a picture with the phenomena of nature than it is to describe the human experience. But is this all human nature? Is it natural to feel an entire hurricane in my chest when the sun’s shining down? What natural process can describe the seismic wave that radiates through me, breaking my heart in ways I didn’t know still existed, and strikes me with debilitating loneliness while in the company of my dearest friends? Is there a name for the insatiable waters that breach their harbors and flood my face at the thought of the beloved? What can explain the rage and ferocity that thunder through me as a violent manifestation of the energy of chaos?

 Grief.

 I hear that ignorance is bliss. Unfortunately, ignorance is one of the many experiences that my childhood denied me. There’s peace in the credulousness of believing only what you can see and fearing only what you know. Or at least that’s my romantic view. Knowledge is the food of the soul. I guess Plato said that. I'd like a word with him because knowing has only ever functioned as a toxic paralytic rather than any kind of sustenance for my soul. Knowledge is an infinite rhythm of perceiving and brooding until we manipulate the puzzle to discern its foundation and solution. This has been treacherous while navigating sorrow because, apparently, sorrow has no solution. Sorrow is an unsolvable puzzle. Not like frustrating brain teasers that have trap doors and secret levers that amusingly lead to the solution after many trials—this one simply exists as an obstacle with no benign resolution. The relief that will come is merely a diminished frequency and duration of the intensity I feel. I’m also told there’s a benefit to being able to explain how I feel; a calming relief that comes from an unencumbered dialogue. I, however, fail to see how the vivid depiction of the source and symptoms of my pain should have a depreciating effect on their intensity whatsoever. Although the written form betrays the reader when conveying tone, I hope the use of context clues leads you to the unmistakable recognition that I feel little relief in this exercise. The loss of my beacon has forever left me faithless to no avail. Any release that I encounter is merely a gratuitous expenditure of rage at the expense of me and anyone so unfortunate to be found in its wake. To half of the world my monologue sounds like a babbling asshole using ten-dollar words to paint a sandpaper scene and to the other half, I’m dismissed as another commoner who can’t regulate the emotions that accompany life’s turbulent ebb and flow. This isn’t me. I’m not the guy that snaps under pressure. At least not historically. As of late, the manifest of my character is being corrupted. The features that I’ve come to admire are disintegrating and being dominated by a ghostly and aggressive combatant. The chimeric beast that now resides in this soul is belligerent and frightening. Should I welcome this beast a catalyst of change—as a snake sheds its useless skin when it’s time to grow—or condemn it as a toxic infiltration that should be thwarted on the spot? Either way, I fear that I don’t have the strength to face any kind of beast. I’m not the warrior that you always believed me to be—I’m defenseless and brittle on my own. It turns out that confidence and bravery come to any soldier wearing indestructible armor. And my armor was torn from me. Her unyielding patience that could tire any adversary; the inherent strength that gave you hope and conviction in any battle; the rigid morality that left no room for interpretation and kept you on a steady course; the unwavering allegiance that endowed you with the courage and tenacity to fight every fight. That was me. The confident one. The adventurous one. The one that took an extra step away from home because I always knew I had someone to catch me and pull me back in when the storms would gather. I had someone to save me. So many times, and in so many ways. I was salvaged from my circumstances and rescued from my decisions. “She was born of poor luck and poverty and raised by ignorance and Solitude.” Jane Austen wrote that but I often recite these words to mitigate my present-day struggle. I’ve had no one before. I entered the world ignorant of compassion and knew only of anger and fear. Battling these demons should not be a novel experience, but as it turns out, having and losing is much less straightforward that having none at all. Having something worth losing is a torture beyond words and that’s where the pain of this chapter begins.