March 23, 2016
7:30am
Morning has come, far too early for my liking. While snoring
is rampant here, my little corner is full of people very much awake and yet
somehow making less noise than those sleeping. In the hall are two people
sleeping on the thinly mattressed gurneys they put you on in here. Presumably,
mobility can become unexpectedly important, even in the psych ward. I'm curious
if there are leather straps stowed under these but I'm just too nervous about
the truth to try and find out. The small size could explain why I am curled
into a ball, hugging my chest, trying to keep my bulky front from spilling over
the side of the gurney. It's more likely that my extreme mental discomfort has
me craving the fetal position. It also explains why my back and hip are killing
me, although not literally. A large, vocal part of me is sad about that
literally thing.
Close to me is a new recruit to our little encampment.
Sitting up, he is talking to himself, embodying the lostness I feel inside. He
is mumbling in Punjab or Farsi, I can't tell the difference. His face is frozen
in a mask of concentration, as if spending all his energy trying to comprehend
what is happening to him. In this matter he is a kindred spirit and I feel a
little less alone.
Two curtains over is a young girl talking in her sleep. Her
words alternate between those expressing terror and bliss, like a scene from
Fifty Shades of Grey, unable even in her sleep to escape whatever it is that
put her in this place. Before I had realized she was asleep, I found myself wondering
if she was masturbating but although I am quite sure that is not uncommon thing
to happen here, I am now leaning to her being a scared little girl trapped in a
no longer naive young woman's body. She's in pain, likely both physical and
mental, her dreams desperate to understand anything that is going on, whether
that be out here or in her mind. I doubt her perception of reality can tell the
difference anymore. After all, they are both prisons.
I haven't eaten in over 14 hours, getting down only water
and extremely unconcentrated orange juice. I don't find myself overly hungry
but the bottle of Ensure I was offered a couple of hours ago is beginning to
sound appealing, despite my distaste for them. I know a headache from not
eating will be coming on soon, along with the stress and mindlessness which
will accompany it. I am the person in the Snickers candy bar commercial who is
"not himself" when he's hangry.
Mindlessness. In a world that seems to be pushing the
concept of mindfulness on everyone, the idea of existing in an exact opposite
manner sounds appealing right now. It is the premise behind self-medication,
which I have done many times. The tears live just below the surface, held back
now only by the paper I am writing on. They are a pressure bomb in my chest and
I'm terrified of looking weak in here. I'm terrified of the meds the nurse will
give me. I'm terrified of the others here seeing me as a target. I'm terrified
of having to acknowledge that right now, this is where I belong.
~
The Ensure is like a mouthful of Buckley's Mixture cough
syrup mixed with a pound of chalk dust. Buckley's was my mother's go to cough
treatment and I half suspected that it's terrible flavour was her way of
determining if we were truly sick and deserving of a day off from school. Over
the years I had learned to tolerate it, even looking forward to the soothing
feel of it running down my throat. I find it exceedingly doubtful that I should
ever expect to get to the point of respect with Ensure like I am with
Buckley's.
"What am I going to do now?" has popped into my
mind and the tears I have been holding back are moistening the pillow beneath
my head. I am reminded of the scene from Terminator 2, when right before
leaving the group to kill the engineer Dyson, Sarah Connors carved the words
"No future" into the top of the picnic table where she had been
sleeping. I am that lost as to what will become of me. Do I have a future? What
niche will I fill in the world if I even find an opportunity for another chance
and a new direction? People have told me to be like Dory, the fish Ellen
DeGeneres voiced in Finding Nemo. "Just keep swimming" they would
tell me but keep swimming in what? If you drop a fish into a vat of Sulfuric
acid should it just keep swimming or is it logical for it to panic? Where can
it go? Even if it ends up in plain water, what would swimming accomplish? Is a
life of simply being enough? Existence for the sake of existence? Without a
destination, there is no journey to learn from unless you account for a final
destination.
It's hardly a new idea or question. Is life's journey
towards death a sufficient reason for continuing life? Is life for its own sake
reason enough to keep moving from one moment to the next? While I don't have an
answer for that question it is something worthy of further exploration.
As a bit of a hobby, I dabble in religious
counter-apologetics; the examination and refutation of religious reasoning and
justifications of believers' views. There is a concept within this sphere of
study which deals with the sufficient and necessary. Specifically, is the
concept of a god sufficient to account, not only for the universe we
experience, but the entire universe we could ever experience? Can god
completely explain the 5% of matter and energy we have an understanding of as
well as the other 95% which we know is there but have virtually no
understanding of, AND any materialistic or non-materialistic reality of which
we may have no concept, imagination or ability to experience.
Further, it must also be shown that god is a necessity, that
there is and could never be any other proposition which would account for
existence. If anyone can propose a logically and rational concept which would
account for our local presentation of the universe, then the idea of necessity
is immediately falsified.
While I have opinions on these questions, I have neither the
intelligence nor the education to take them on when dealing with the
massiveness of our universe, let alone the possibility of the multiverse which
has popped out of current attempts at super-unification. I can, however, apply
these ideas to the question, "Do I have an obligation to live? “As I am an
experimental materialist, I have no belief in a god, an afterlife or an
immortal soul so the question of necessity can only apply to the universe I can
experience and account for. To whom or what would a necessity of life be
related to? When it comes to the nonliving world, it couldn't care less if I
was alive. Further, when my eventual end comes, microbes and insects will
likely be very glad to fulfill their destiny and consume my non-animated flesh.
When considering the living world, I have no pets, no children, and no
dependents of any kind. I hold no financial obligation to anyone. No one will
end up on the street starving if I cease to be.
The emotional stability of those in my life, as far as I can
see, is the only consideration which may satisfy necessity. I have few close
friends, most of whom struggle with these same thoughts. Those who do not
understand from experience have done well to understand by talking to me and
have come to accept how hard my struggle has been. So, if my life were to end,
by any means, it is safe to say that my friends would be able to move on with
an understanding, and while it would in no way completely relieve the resulting
emotions, they would be minimized with the knowledge that I had likely
struggled as much as I possibly could. Their lives would move on without me.
Obviously my family adds another level of thought which must
be considered. My brother and sister have attempted to help me in the best way
they can. Both of them being in the medical field give them an uncommon
perspective on how my thoughts work and I have been very lucky to have them
around. My Nephew has struggled with depression as well, including stints on anti-depressants
over the years. My nieces are teens and have been brought up in the social
media age where open discussion of topics once taboo are now commonplace. LGBTQ
rights are a comfortable topic for them. So is personal sexual responsibility.
Mental health is also a topic of which they are well versed and although I'm
sure they want the best for me, they understand that the best for me may be
ending my life someday.
My mother is, perhaps, the only trump card which I have to
deal with. We have lived together since my first collapse in late 2012 and it
has become obvious that she is uncomfortable with my illnesses in every way.
She wants to listen, to be the one I can talk to but it is awkward and
distressing for her, so I try to keep it to a minimum such as when things
directly affect her or our relationship. I suspect that the anxiety issues hit
far too close to home and that she's been dealing with many of the same
relationship problems and thoughts as I do throughout her life. It just hasn't
been acceptable acknowledge them personally, let alone discus them with others,
until very recently. I'm guessing that watching so many people discuss so many
personal issues without shame is off-putting, to say the least. While it is the
one final thing that saved my life, is it necessary to remain alive because of
the emotional turmoil that my suicide would cause to my mother.
I know she would do almost anything to want my suffering to
end but does that list include accepting my death. I simply don't know.
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