Anxiety

Anxiety is like a crippling fear that can paralyze you with its deep poisonous tentacles. it grabs on so tightly that it cannot be shaken loose no matter how hard you struggle. Once you become entwined in the negative emotions it becomes impossible to lose the feelings of dread. Unable to function due to severe hesitation, pacing the room wearing out a mental trench in your mind. Nothing gets accomplished and nothing moves either forward or backward. Your stomach is in knots and your mind in a scattered chaos. What does it take to break this cycle of evil? I would almost welcome the return of melancholia except that it remains a staple with the rest of the mixture. What is it that is so terrifying that has triggered this? Fears of aging and being alone, unable to finish my life's work. I have become so susceptible to these triggers that it's difficult not to succumb to them at the slightest thought.

Darkness

Here I am at the same point I've been what seems like a thousand times before. The darkness has settled in around me and I have no weapons to fight it off. I don't know why I keep ending up here. I take pills to try and make myself happy, attend my ritual head shrinking, but yet it always fades off. Then I let the pills fall from my fingers into the abyss and the talking fades into the background, and here I am.

Identity Theft

I used to know who I was, at least I thought I knew. We probably really never know ourselves as well as we think we do. I don't know if others around know either. Maybe if you took everyone's description and created a police sketch of all the different ideas you might scratch the surface. I realized that since I moved recently that I may have lost my identity. It didn't just happen with the move, although this was the culmination of it. I guess it's been fading for some time. I remember being a well respected flight nurse with the knowledge and skill to stabilize a critical patient and save lives. I was a firefighter that could help save a burning structure or extricate someone from a mangled car. I really don't know who I am anymore. 

GRIEVE

There's no time to cry, I have too much to do. I shed a tear then move on, but I don't go anywhere. I just sit with my sadness in my hands, staring at nothing. The nothing grows, but something never does. The something is what I'm missing, although even if I had it I would not feel it. All my sensations have been muted. All that is, except for sadness. It's unbelievable how someone who feels almost nothing can get such an overpowering wave of pain and sorrow. Guilt that things weren't said or more love was shown. But now I do the same thing. I don't show feeling, there isn't any to show. I'm annoyed and angry, disappointed at what I've become, or what I haven't. Everything gets on my nerves. I've reached a point of misery from which there seems no escape. I don't even know what I would do if there were. I can't go back to being happy when there's so much sadness to feel. What will I do to mourn the ones I've lost. I'm not allowed to be content any more. I have to suffer as my penance. Maybe I got too happy at one point. Things were going too well. The balance of the world was off so I had to make a sacrifice. I had to give up everything good. The darkness is my new home.

Drive

Tires turn over on the road

A road to nowhere

Leaving traces no one sees

The pieces gone

Gone are the remnants

Of a life gone past

Stories no one will read

Trails never followed

Follow the dream

That sours as it ends

Wake to a new path

Down a different road

A road not travelled

But warn with use

A place it goes

Does not exist

Exist in the now

Forgotten in a day

None can remember

Why we left at all

NEW YEAR / OLD ME

Even though we have entered a new year, we are only hours away from the previous. There was no magical switch or worm hole that has rocketed us into a new era with all our previous problems and issues erased. Life is a continuous minute by minute, day by day process. However, this is the time that we often take stock and review what has happened the past year. Remembering the good and the bad, happiness and sorrow. I don't want those things taken away, not even the most painful. Those are the memories that have shaped who I am and how I think. The loss of both my parents in 2013 was one of the most difficult things I have gone through in life. I miss them horribly and will take everything I've experienced with them into the new year and beyond. I will also hold onto all the wonderful things from this year as well. Even if they occurred for just a moment. I will continue to learn, love, heal, and even continue to feel pain. Most of all I will progress and grow.  At the end of this year when I take stock, I can look back and see how the times I have yet to experience will continue to mold me into the person I am to be.

Days & Nights

Days you don’t understand

Filled with mixed signals and emotion

Mornings you fear the day

And nights you fear more

Trying to make sense

Of jumbled wires and connections

Puzzled beyond solutions

Pain with every thought

Stop asking why

No one can tell you

You can’t tell yourself

No answer exists

Light to dark to light again

Time is escaping

Staring flatly at the clock

With defeat

Why can’t it make sense

At least a little

This may be tolerable

If I new what it’s for

WHETHER

Whether or not it will cooperate
The weather, its tethered
To my mind, there I find
It's all changed, rearranged
Back and forth from the extreme
To the mild, my mood
Seems to follow, like a feather
In the gust, yet I lust
For a peek behind the clouds
The illumination hides
Like a tacit secret it must
Be revealed to my insight
Nowhere in sight, but I fight
To crack the code, but whether
It is possible, I'm buried
In the nether, deep under earth
What it's worth, no one knows
And so it goes, like the weather
I'm just tethered

TEN YEARS PAST

How can it be ten years past

All the times, I thought they would last

I was younger a time, waiting for life

Thinking eternal, chances were rife

The angst of youth, kept me at bay

The wrong things to do, forget what to say 

Rising too high, a trip to planes

Faces put on and the things I feigned

Wanting to fall, maybe in love

To far up to fall from above

Waiting to have it, I already did

Beneath layers of life is where I hid

I carried it with me all along

The paths I’ve taken had been wrong

Why didn’t I see it ten years ago?

I’ve been here waiting for myself to let go
Kept waiting for the changes to come

So Tired of being angry and numb

I’ll travel to there and stop over here

Keep running into all that I fear

Another drink will pass the night

But merely enhances the inner fight

Lost in the song, can move the mind

Deep in the lyrics is where I can find

Some meaning to follow something to guide

Ends up being somewhere else to hide

The learning comes, new places to tap

Won’t stand out here, can’t take the rap

Too many here to remember the names

The ones close by still handing the blame

Let me sleep on it, start it tomorrow

Within the out, some things I’ll borrow

Get up, get out, nothing has changed

Let down, let in, not rearranged

NOT TO BE ME

I don't want to be me anymore, maybe someone else. I'm not sure who and I'm not certain that I care. I could be somebody that I envy, a guy who has everything I've always wanted. All the qualities I'm attracted to. I could be more motivated, more together. Not so scattered. A focused mind versus distracted, calm as opposed to frantic. Not to even mention the physical appearance....

Then again I could be someone in worse shape, one in true suffering, destitute and forlorn.  Perhaps that would make me appreciate my own life more. How about a monk who has come to peace with the lack of outside forces. One with the spirit, totally at peace with myself. Enlightenment!

But I am me, and regardless of my magical thinking, I doubt I have the power to change that. I wish I could say that it's ok, but for now it isn't. I have not reached acceptance yet, nor am I at peace. Not to say that I am totally miserable, but I have a long way to go. So in reality I guess I am changing who I am.

HURDLE

The pistol echoes around the circle of spectators following a commanding READY, SET! Lean bodies lunge forward in a concentrated, well-planned stride. As their speed approaches sonic the first obstacle appears. An L-shaped hurdle with a brightly colored bar. The athlete leaps forward like a gazelle, the only hint to the bar is the wind he creates. As he begins his decent the last part of him to glide over caresses the hurdle and it falls as if in slow motion. It strikes the ground with barely a sound, but he knows he has failed.

         Like the athlete, my stride is often complicated by the nuisance of the proverbial hurdle. Although there is no time to train for these events, they materialize with little warning or clue. From such a low starting point, the jump seems futile. Even if I attempted it, not only would the hurdle be toppled, but I would be wounded in the venture. It’s not like the hurdles are placed in an orderly fashion where one could plan the next jump. They are random and of different heights and weights. Only if you strengthen yourself through past experiences can you make the jump. Anticipation of the next one can be a deadly strategy, setting yourself up for failure through worry and a defeatest stance.

         Each catch of the foot or banging of the shin leaves a bruise or abrasion of learning. The hurdles will continue to form on the track of infinitum which is life. Ready, set…

POINTLESS

The pencil point is dull

Worn from years of sketches

Faded to grayscale

Black and white memories

Views of obscure shading

Achromatic twisted figures

No color or movement

Graphite on bristol

Deep in the fibers of pulp

Layers of a point

Once was sharp and fine

Detailing life gone by

Depth and contrast

Meaning and interpretation

An artist’s view

Tainted by critics

Peer further into the outline

Delineate the truth

How beautifully macabre

The depictions turn real

Shadow and dark entwine

Filtered light illuminates

The figures dance

And the page is turned

HEAD SHRINKING

I started seeing a psychiatrist today for the first time in over ten years. The antidepressants I have been on have been prescribed by my Primary Care Physician. Although she's a qualified professional, that's probably akin to having her treat a broken bone or remove my appendix. Although I was not initially impressed with his approach and really bad jokes during our session, we did work out a starting regimen. Unfortunately I felt like he was minimizing my feelings, like I wasn't depressed enough to meet certain criteria. Even though at one point he actually stated "I'm not trying to minimize you're symptoms", it was perceived that he was. I'll admit I'm able to get myself out of bed and even take a shower (some days), and get my ass to work, but not without pain and difficulty. I'm not actively suicidal although I have had passing thoughts about being dead. I needed to convey to him how desperate I felt, how nothing felt right. No pleasure, no joy. In the end we decided on two new medications to be started a week apart. In addition, he recommended a therapist that would be beneficial for my particular symptoms and issues. I knew there would be no magic door opened today, no instant cure. However, there was a door that was opened. An opportunity to move forward and work toward healing. I refuse to not get the treatment that's right for me, even if it means changing therapists or psychiatrists. I'm too determined this time not to fail or give in.

DAD

Sometimes the death of someone close to you acts as a proxy for your own mortality. We grow attached to those who are meaningful to us. They become part of your daily existence just as a part of your own body. When that piece of you goes away it immediately feels like a traumatic amputation, or more poetically as if a portion of your own heart or soul has been excised. Although the pain is severe and intense, like other pain in life it will dissipate. What you are left with mirrors that of phantom pain, a remembrance of what you have lost. Although this pain may never fully go away, it is joined by a new growth. Memories of both happy and sad times you have shared. But more importantly is the realization of how that person helped you grow into the person you are now. Everyone who touches our lives has a way of leaving an indelible mark on our very existence to be carried with us always. I am grateful to all those that have passed and those who are still with me continuing to help mold me into a better human being.

My father has contributed to me both through genetics and years of nurturing. I am glad to have your wit and talents live on through me.

-Your loving son.

WAIT A MINUTE

         As I approach each day with trepidation lately, I wonder what the future truly holds. I can’t think far enough in advance for long-range plans or goals. People in recovery from drugs and alcohol refer to the idiom “One day at a time”. Each day can be chewed off in little pieces, not concerning yourself too far into the future. If they can get through this present day, they have succeeded. It continues on in chanting repetition like a mantra until it becomes a new habit, or new way of life.

         A simple day, only 24 hours, seems like an eternity when I’m facing sadness in the early hours or haunting isolation late at night. Getting through that day is overwhelming at times. But one minute, sixty seconds of time, may be doable. Every minute I can survive, I’m closer to getting through. Moment to moment I continue on, making mental slash marks on my prison wall. One day the marks will be too numerous to count and seem less and less important. That is when I can combine them into hours and days, then weeks and months. From a very humble start I will fly

BEYOND

I long to drift high above my non-reality

Beyond the dream

Swaying back and forth like a lost feather

Caught in breeze

Opening my thoughts to new possibilities

Prying the door

Entering as a new player into a script

Of nonfiction

Take me away on a trip through the pain

And beyond

Passing along with my kindred spirits

With love

Materialize the hope and the goodness

The desire

Emanating from a powerful stability

Stand tall

Learning to fly with all my brothers

A different route

Those who share my deepest pain

With assurance

We will never be the standard normal

But extraordinary

No expectations of false hopes
Only real

A Can of Worms

I have inadvertently opened the proverbial can of worms, not realizing that I still had it tucked away in a dark basement behind years of accumulated compensatory mechanisms.  I’m not sure exactly how it happened as the process took a few months to build up. The past year has been a text book list of major stressors; the end of a relationship, family illness, job changes, and financial stress.

I had become pretty skilled at maintaining a façade in my interactions with other people. Witty, smart, flirty or sexy depending on the audience. In my mind these were appropriate coping skills I had carefully crafted in order to overcome severe depression and a host of other issue. When I recently met someone who was very open and honest about his battles, I became empathetic. I suppose in the past, by not dealing with others issues, it was easier not to deal with my own.  Soon my tightly closed eyes began to open. As they did I started to see myself, not as one who had defeated and overcome, but instead a weak and scared man with no idea how to deal with this new flood of feelings.

Finally I reached a breaking point and completely lost a grip on my ordered existence. I lost my appetite, couldn’t sleep, and I cried like a blubbering idiot. But what of the worms? I can’t just put them in the same types of containers from my past. I need to use them as bait to lure in more honest emotions. For the first time in years I am looking my fucked up mind square in the eye, and it scares the shit out of me! 

Disclaimer:

Although the beginning entries may be dark and wrought with despair, keep in mind it is only the start of my journey. There will be tears, smiles, and eventually laughter. Feel free to join me on a painful but very real expedition through my mind.

The sun is shining on a cool spring morning

I struggle to feel the warmth on my soul

But the cloud that covers me like a death shroud

Allows it no entry into my darkness

There is a bright glimmering blue

The eyes of an angel watching over me

I beg for an embrace of warmth and touch

But I receive only a caress

The solace I seek is far from reality

Loved and held by others but not by me

My outstretched arms are tired

There is not enough strength to hold myself

Tears form and fall onto despair

Like a bloodletting of my heart

They provide no comfort only wither me

My shield is thin and worn

Despair is a weight heavier than any can take

It does not let you breathe or rest

No one can lift it for you and nor can you

It must dissipate through time

Time that goes like mad in times of joy

Causes madness in the long hours

Forward or backward anywhere but here and now

The present is unbearable

The Unsettled Mind

I don't even know where to begin, mostly it is because I am paralyzed. Held in place by emotions that won't release their grip. They steal my breath and crush my soul like a weight on my chest. I've cried more tears in the past month than I think I did as a child. Tears that have clouded my vision and made it nearly impossible to start chipping away at the pain. There is no worse fear than to believe that you will be like this forever and nothing will lift you from the cavern of darkness. It might be easier if I had a reason, one stupid situation I could remedy, but there is no one thing. There isn't even a list I could review to make changes and start climbing. There is no flight for this spirit right now, no calming for the unsettled mind.