Goals and dreams

 In order to explain how hard it is to understand what mental illness does to you, I often use the analogy of a cancer patient. No one can understand what it’s like to go through a cancer diagnosis and it’s treatment without getting the diagnosis themselves. Yesterday, at my first appointment with my new counsellor, I had an exceedingly difficult time accepting that I deserved the help and hearing her say positive things about me. Even now, nearly a day later, just considering the possibility of getting better brings up emotions I am wholly unprepared for and the tears begin to well in my eyes. She wants me to spend this week focusing on my goals so I am trying to balance that prospect with my emotional stability.

I don’t know exactly where this comes from other than to say that I know my self esteem is extremely low and has been for many years. It may be a function of my BDP and the lack of sense of self that comes with it. It may be the lack of positive reinforcement I received throughout my life. It may be the bullying I’ve faced throughout my life due to my obesity. I honestly don’t know but I’m going to explore each possibility here. It is a core belief and I don’t expect it to change in the short term no matter what I do but it would be nice to at least have relief from time to time of the lies my emotions are telling me

Borderline personality disorder often leaves its wounded victims with a complete lack of a sense of self. This often manifests itself by removing any knowledge of what a person should do for a living or future goals (although, as I re-read this, my use of the word “should” is a sign that I need to rethink that perspective). This is my issue. I was asked by my counsellor what goals I have for the future, as it pertained to my treatment, and the only answer I had was to survive until tomorrow. That’s how I’ve been living for so long now that I don’t really have a healthy answer to the question. I know, in my mind, that I deserve to have something to shoot for but my emotions are constantly sabotaging me and nearly always drown out the logical thoughts. Does a lack of self mean I am inevitably destined to have a lack of goals and dreams or is it possible to have them. Maybe having them will help give me the sense of self I have been missing throughout my life.

When I was a young boy, I was playing defence in a game of hockey. We were killing a penalty but had control of the puck. It came back to me but I couldn’t hold the blueline, to keep the play onside, so I quickly turned and skated the puck backwards into our own zone so we could regroup. Once there, I wheeled around and fired the puck down the ice to give our team a chance to change the lineup and get some fresh legs on the ice. When I got to the bench, the coach came over and patted me on the back, saying “Good job.” That is only one of the two times from my childhood, that I remember, when I was praised for doing something well and neither of those moments came from my parents. In fact, neither of my parents ever told me that they were proud of me. My teachers were always critical of me, as school was tediously boring for the most part and I seldom applied myself, so school life was a constant exercise in not getting myself in trouble. As an adult, my employers and customers became the first people in my life to, on a regular basis, thank me for doing a good job. I became my job and my bosses became surrogate father figures for me. But even from them, positive feedback was such a foreign thing to me that it made me feel extremely uncomfortable, doubting the motives of the person giving it to me, and always questioning whether it was true or not. I simply didn’t feel that I deserved compliments and, to this day, they are distressing. 

Not all of my interactions with employers were positive. One of my former bosses knew that my coworkers were bullying me and did nothing to stop it. When I informed him, it was the first time in my life that I took it upon myself to try and end the torment that another person was putting me through. His response was that I needed to toughen up. I had been bullied all through school, from about grade four all the way to grade twelve. In high school there was a group of five or six boys who took it upon themselves to try and beat me up on a regular basis. I never asked for help from any of my teachers or either of my parents. Back then, you just didn’t do that sort of thing, especially in my family. As far as I was concerned, the correct action was to suck it up, accept that it was going to happen and try to move on. I was perpetually the victim in my peer groups, from school to sports to work. Maybe that’s another part of the reason I needed to be in a management position in each place I worked. It’s difficult to bully your boss and get away with it. 

It’s difficult to believe one deserves to be happy when they are constantly being shown to be less than normal by their peers and then not receiving positive feedback in other areas of their lives. For me, I eventually just got to believe that making others happy, making others like me by whatever means, was the main goal of my life. I tried to make my restaurant patrons happy for twenty five years. As I type this, I am reminded of a couple who used to come into the last restaurant I worked at. If I apologised for anything, keeping them waiting for me or a problem with their meal, they would admonish me for doing so. They said that apologising made me weak and that I should stop. Their point of view made no sense to me at the time but looking back, I can see a curtain logic to what they were saying. I was constantly putting the happiness of others ahead of my own and eventually it got to the point where my own mental state was irrelevant. I was stuffing my dissatisfaction with my life down inside where it wouldn’t be anything I’d have to deal with. The longer I worked in restaurants, the easier it became to believe my own wellbeing was irrelevant to my life, and that’s a lesson I am desperately trying to unlearn to this day. 

And having written and thought about all of that I feel like I’m no closer to the answer to the question and it has raised another question. What comes first, the goals and dreams or the sense of self? If I don’t have a sense of self, can I even identify what my goals for the future are and, more frighteningly, does it even matter? Without a sense of self, will the goals I set be nothing more than arbitrary marks upon a timeline that may or may not even belong to me. Maybe wanting to find a sense of self can be a goal in and of itself. I have so many questions and so few answers and although I know that asking difficult questions is the path to wisdom, I am not feeling very wise today.

Casino Regrets

 Nearly a year ago, in July of 2021 I was drinking and frustrated and broke after blowing a few hundred dollars at the slot machines. Rather than going home, I went to sit at the bar and blow my last few dollars on a couple of beers. At this point I was already stealing money from my mother and yet in complete denial about my gambling compulsion. This was as close as I would come to realising how far gone I was until I hit rock bottom and began my road to recovery. As the piece goes on, my increasing inebriation becomes more and more apparent. I remember this night but looking back at what I wrote, the level of honesty I could muster at the time is a little shocking.

I don’t want to be sitting here but I had to do it. I’m typing this at the bar in the local casino, having wasted $300 and drinking away my problems. Well, drinking so that they feel a little less painful for a while. I used to drink like I was trying to punish myself but now I drink to just survive the day. I don’t drink a lot by most people’s standards. I’m only working on my third beer in four hours but I’m out of practice, so this small amount is enough to get the creative juices flowing, I hope. 

There is so little of it left in me. I used to write for fun, sober. The idea of writing without a beer in my hand is now completely alien to me. As is writing in private, now needing some sort of hustle and bustle around me to get the job done. I think about the great writers of the world sitting in their quiet cabins and producing true pieces of art. I am not like them at all, where sombre sobriety leaves me alone and overwhelmed with my thoughts and emotions.

I long for the days from my past, where life was so much easier. When I could ignore my problems, go to work, get a buzz afterwards then go home to pass out for the night. Now I have to face them and it is not going well. My mental problems overwhelm me on a daily basis and I can no longer get through the day without an anxiety attack. It’s extremely difficult just to get out of the house and participate in society without a drink in my hand. Years ago, on my days off, I used to hang out at a local Starbucks and the sound of my computer keyboard could be heard through the coffee shop. Today, it’s the sound of drunk people and slot machines which drown out the sound of my fingers upon the keys. My creativity, as lacklustre as it has become, is only part of a cacophony of lost hope and money changing hands, from the poor to the wealthy.

Now I ramble on my computer, without a belief that anyone will ever want to read this. Beside me sits an older man banging on the bar to get some service. Obviously a regular, he now does what I used to do each day, the after work drinks are his reward for a day of labour. The bar is filling up now that happy hour has hit (this was a lie and I don’t know why I wrote it. The casino has no happy hour) and I’m seriously regretting sitting here rather than finding myself a quiet corner in which I could write. The old man has his drinks, not settling for only a beer but adding a shot of whiskey as well, but his drumming on the bar has increased in its percussiveness as he pretends to be the drummer in the band whose music is competing with the ringing of slot machines around me.

I am the odd man out here. Each of these men come in often based on their camaraderie. Many people would accuse me of wanting to be a part of this friendliness because I sat at the bar but the truth is far from that. It is simply a matter of comfort for me to plop my ass upon a stool and take a seat at the bar. This is where I have sat for years, the bartender always being the person I could relate to after eight hours of serving customers at my own job. Well, this is where I did sit for years but it still feels far more comfortable than sitting at a table in the corner, no matter just how desperately I want to be left alone. At least, so far, they have taken the hint to leave me alone. My laptop open and an earpiece slapped on the side of my head have kept their inquisitiveness at bay but I don't expect it to last forever. Sooner or later, one of them will accuse me of working when I shouldn’t be or they will simply ask me what it is that I’m doing. My solace is a short lived one as their increasing inebriation will eventually break open their box of questions and someone will disturb me. At least for the time being, their attention is more focused on the legs of the waitresses walking past us than on me, which is fine.

Perhaps it is the beer I am imbibing but those legs are beginning to attract my attention as well. 

The drumming from the end of the bar wouldn’t be bothering me so much if it were in time with the music but it is way off. It reminds me of an ex-friend of mine who once said that he hated when people would harmonise with whatever music was playing because, to him, you could sing any notes and they would work. Years of choir and music composition back in the day taught me about harmony and creativity and the friend was talking out of his ass but he was too ignorant to know it. That’s how the guy at the end of the bar reminds me of that friend from so many years ago. He is so ignorant of music that he thinks his drumming is somehow in time. It is becoming distracting as he becomes more forceful and is becoming like a jackhammer in my mind.

I hate that this is the place I am comfortable. Unlike these men, I have no woman to go home to after their drinks. I have only my ailing mother and her sore ankles which I will once again be rubbing down with ointment later tonight. I used to sit in this place to forget that I had no one. Now it is only a reminder. 

The other men at the bar have begun to sing along with the music. I have bad drumming at one side of me and off tune singing at the other. Soon I will be forced to put away this computer and resort to gambling again to occupy my mind. I can only ignore this for so long.

The bartender is trying to prepare for the evening shift, stocking the bar and filling the ice wells, which is far more interesting than the conversations which have broken out on either side of me. Their blandness is at least cancelling themselves out.

Eight hours to the east, my girlfriend has picked up her cell phone and has decided that midnight is the best time to tell me about her day. Now I have an actual excuse to put away my computer and focus on something important, far more important than I.

An Unexpected Epiphany

Fifteen or twenty years ago, I used to come here every Monday night. I'd sit right here at the bar after my shift at the restaurant and drink as many beers as I could with a couple of other guys before they closed the bar at midnight. I am still friends with one of them, Facebook being reasonably good at creating opportunities to stay connected with people who would otherwise drift away over the years. That man, Andrew, and I keep our contact up despite him now living in the United States.

But here I sit and who should be beside me but another one of the those men who I had lost track of, now misplacing his name somewhere in my grey matter. This is the first time I have seen him since those days and I was, to say the least, rather surprised to see him. He’s in his eighties now, a frail façade of the man he once was. At first I was glad to see him, his face bringing up many good memories but as I realized what he being here meant I became sad. He has literally been coming here every Monday in the decade and a half since I stopped. He drinks until he can barely walk and then gets in his car and goes home. 

What an existence. What a waste of so many years. Drinking in a bar by himself day after day and going home to an empty house is a life which I, from time to time, have dreamed of. Just enough social interaction that I could not be accused of avoiding the world but never having to deal with people on anything other than a cursory level. My mental illness has made me idolize this man’s existence, something which he would likely say is a choice but is probably something which has been thrust upon him. I’m not sure who I should be more sad for: he and his life of solitude and monotony or me and my streak of green running down my spine as part of me envies his life.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that there is an uncomfortably large part of my soul which is awaiting the death of my mother so I can be alone once again. She is a pain to live with. She drags me down on a daily basis. My mom is responsible for a great many of my negative coping mechanisms which have led me down the path I am on and I struggle seeing her do those harmful things she inadvertently taught me so many years ago. I crave what solitude this man of a forgotten name has every day. I am resentful of the things he makes me focus on, no longer able to ignore that dark side of my mind. Self examination is a healthy thing when done in a controlled manner. This is nothing but a trigger and I am facing the consequences as my fingers clack on these keys and I am tempted to sit here and get as drunk as I used to be to try and forget these uncomfortable thoughts.

Comfortable delusions

Sitting in the Murrayville pub, wishin the words I want to come would just appear to me but they are being more stubborn than I. CJ is just settling down to sleep knowing that I’m illogically mad at her for something out of her control. Delusional thinking is a serious pain in the ass sometimes, especially when you know for a fact that it is doing damage to the psyche of others, those you care about perhaps more than you ever have before. 

I don’t often suffer from delusional thinking or at least often recognize it when it’s happening so today is a rarity for me. For some reason I am having antagonistic feelings towards CJ for her not being here today when it’s physically impossible for that to happen. So I’m at the pub, drinking and writing, trying to relax myself and forget the irrational thoughts running through my head. It’s not working, as of yet. My fingers are shaking like scared puppies and simply typing these words is quite difficult. 

I don’t like it when I lose control of myself like this. It’s frightening to me to lose control of my brain and it becomes a nearly terrifying reminder of just how broken, how sick I actually am. I’d rather exist under the delusion that I can function in society without thoughts like this running through my mind, trying to control me. I understand that I’m sitting here getting a buzz deciding which delusions are helpful and which are damaging and I understand just how crazy that may seem, that may be. But, In these situations, I can’t see another way out.

I recently threw my hat in the ring for a front end management position at the new gastropub going in next to the movie theatres in Walnut Grove and although I knew I wouldn’t get it, and likely couldn’t do it even if by some miracle I did get it, it felt good to pretend for a day or so that I was approaching a normal mental state; one that could actually hold down a job and contribute to society. Instead, I sit here trying to survive another day without causing irreparable damage to the people I care about. The delusion of me being normal is fun when it hits but I can never hold on to it for long, the reality of my life eventually tears me away from what I want to face what I am.

I have tried to live my life as one based solely on truth since my first near suicide attempt and the occasional realization that no matter how truthful I am with others I am constantly lying to myself kicks me in the crotch. I don’t like how it makes me feel and, even more, I don’t like how it makes me behave. Denial is a terrible and dangerous way in which to live one’s life. 

~~~~~~~~

3:56 am

I was asleep by 9:30 last night, perhaps a record for me in these last few stress filled years. I had dreams I remember. One filled with super heroes hooking up in the hotel I was staying in. Another was of me trying to book a flight to London which I could not use due to me not having a passport. I ended up trading the flight with someone who was on stand by and had them pay for me to take a trip to Winnipeg instead. Now, I don’t put a lot of stock in the idea that our dreams are sending us messages but I do believe that occasionally they are filled with random pieces of our day we just had, especially the thoughts or ideas which were taking up most of our time. 

On july 1st, our province moved into a new phase of our COVID response allowing domestic travel but still restricting international travel. This meant that CJ would not be able to visit in September without having to go into weeks of quarantine, still keeping us apart even if she came. I am frustrated to no end by this and ended up projecting that emotion onto CJ. I love her and do not actually blame her for this, obviously, but unable to be mad at COVID itself or the government I was in danger of taking it out on her. To her amazing credit, CJ gave me a little space, the time I needed to figure out why I felt that way and what it all meant.

I really don’t deserve to have someone like her in my life.

Hockey Talks

Every year on this day I pen something about how I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for the sacrifice of Rick Rypien and the work of Kevin Bieksa. It would be easy to do that again because it’s absolutely true but this year has been one like no other in my life or in the lives of anyone reading this. Those of us who battle our mental illnesses on a daily basis were not ready to go it completely alone for the last twelve months. In fact, we’ve been told we should never have to and are encouraged to reach out as much as possible.

But things are different now. Psychiatrist, therapist, and counsellor appointments are over the telephone, meaning that the privacy and trust within those office walls are all too often swapped out for sitting in the bathroom crying while your mental health professional is helpless on the other end of a telephone line. Group therapy, cancelled for most of the year is finally getting back up and running using group chat aps like Zoom, but again ,they depend on having privacy in the home. I only deal with depression, anxiety and borderline personality disorder. I can’t imagine what it must be like for  those with chronic post traumatic stress disorder and illnesses like it, where that trust between patient and health professional is fragile and nearly impossible over the phone or video chat.

COVID has changed everything and for many of us, going it alone for the first time in years, the prospect of at least another six months of this seems like an impossible moat which must be crossed. We feel alone, all over again. 

So, I’m writing this with a simple request to those who have friends and family with mental illness in their lives. Check in with them, often. Don’t take “Fine,” as an answer if you are in a trust position with that person for fine usually means that they don’t want to bother you or don’t think you’ll understand or truly care. We’ve been telling those with mental illness to reach out for years now but in this year, at this time, it’s your turn to reach out to us. 

“I’ll understand if you don’t feel like talking to me about what’s going on with you but I really mean it when I say that I’m here for you, even if that just means complaining about the rain to each other. I’m not going away because I care about you, no matter what.”

Trust me. We all need to know we are loved, now more than ever.

Unanswered Questions on the Worthiness of Personal Goals

 According to society and every health care professional I deal with, I’m supposed to be setting goals. I guess that it’s what healthy people do with their lives, just like shaving my face every day and showering and eating meals and getting out of bed. Thankfully, growing beards and dressing like a slob are the norm for men these days so I can pass off to most people. At the very least it keeps them from worrying about me too much. Today, for example, I made it out to my old work to have a coffee and write this. My mother sees this as a good thing but in reality I’m pushing away from her and just needed to get the hell out of our shared space before I freaked out. This is not a healthy coping mechanism. On the way home I will be stopping by the store to pick up food binge ammunition because, as I found out last night, no matter how much I love turkey stuffing it doesn’t temporarily fill the void in my soul the way Little Debbie snack cakes do. 

I am simply coping, in any way I can to make it from one moment to the next. I have things I’d love to do, things I’d love to accomplish but setting them as goals seems like a monumental task these days. But why should I be forced to do what society wants of me at a time when simply going out for coffee is rolling the dice as to whether I will live to see my birthday or if I’ll catch the virus and die with a tube shoved down my throat. Survival is my agreement to life’s terms and conditions, until it revokes its side of the contract and cuts me down. 

Perhaps fate agrees with me. As if I was getting a sign from above, a firetruck just sped past the window with its lights and siren begging for me to notice it. Life and survival are far more tenuous than what most people will admit. Whether it be by my own hand or the universe deciding it’s my time to leave, that loaded dump truck will eventually hit us all, at any time. 

Sitting here writing this seems like a futile effort to convince myself that something of me can survive beyond the rotting of my body and soul. I’m not Robin Williams, Descartes, or anyone else who will be remembered long after they have gone. I’m just a man trying to get from one moment to the next and perhaps that is the only way to honestly live a person’s life in this world. For years, mankind tried to find a way to leave something of themselves behind, to change the world in some way, leaving themselves a legacy and where has that gotten us. The world is literally developing a fever, which we are responsible for, as it tries to rid itself of the vermin which threaten the existence of every other life form upon it. I can’t be the only person wondering if humans, in any way, deserve to remain. 

So, if the here and now is all we have and is likely all we deserve why am I bothering to plan for anything else. What are the purposes of goals in an existence such as ours? Why do we need something to forward to, something beyond what and who we are in the here and now? Shouldn’t we be focusing on the here and now and the effect we can have on the lives of others instead of our own personal goals?

What if simply choosing kindness could be the goal we set for ourselves. Kindness towards ourselves and others could be a great place to begin and end our lives yet it seems so difficult for so many. Working around one’s inherent selfishness, self importance, and self preservation is an impossibility for many, based on what I see on a daily basis. People refusing to wear a mask during a pandemic which aids the health of those around you because it infringes on their own rights. When did treating people in the service industry like equals become something which deserves praise rather than simply being the way it should be? I don’t claim to be the King of Kindness by any means, especially when I am battling my inner demons but perhaps it is the acknowledgment of those demons which makes me see others as deserving of respect. I know that seeing myself in a negative light makes me feel like I need to treat others like they are better than I am. Is that too much? Do we really need to see others as superior or simply as equals for kindness to take over? Is that why we’ve been fighting for equality for so long, because some people just don’t want to feel they are equal to those around them or is it a need for superiority. Surely there are many who fall into the latter category but how many people could extend true kindness to their fellow man simply by seeing their fellow man as a peer?

The prevalence and success of much reality TV content tells me that the number of people willing to accept that they are equal to those around them is in the minority. We are too quick to seek the flaws in those around us and far too ready to celebrate them. Shows which focus on the negatives that people are going through or celebrate the seedier sides of people’s personalities are far too prevalent to expect that humanity can, at least in the near future, come to a place of understanding amongst ourselves. 

So why do I have to try to treat myself with the kindness that we can’t even extend to each other?

"Merry" Christmas

 I don’t like Christmas. I don’t use the word hate only because I’m working hard to make hate a thing of my past so I will avoid that...inclination. It’s 4:30 in the morning and I cannot sleep like a child who’s too excited to sleep on Christmas morning. The difference is that I’m not stressing about what’s in my stocking. Instead, I’m stressing about what’s in my mind, having to deal with family and phone calls all day. My family, who keeps me on the periphery of their lives will expect me to drop my life because they decided to honour me with a dash of caring and communication. 

This time of year reminds me just how little I mean to almost everyone in my life. I am the pity uncle, the one who you invite to special occasions due to familial obligations rather than actual caring. In 8 days when it’s my 47th birthday I will once again be reminded just how little I matter. This year, everyone will even have an excuse for treating me that way due to the forced isolation from the COVID pandemic. My birthday will once again be spent alone but this year no one will have to reach out at all if they don’t want to and won’t feel any guilt whatsoever, assuming that they ever do. My birthday will float by like a piece of flotsam, ignored and then forgotten.

This isn’t me overreacting for a change. Instead, this is an expectation I have had to learn to accept over the last 35 years. I will get facebook messages from Anthony, Tricia, Debbie and my sister. My brother may bother to mention it. My nieces and nephew will ignore it, as will the remainder of my friends. My birthday will fly by once again and if I’m lucky, I will spend a portion of it at Starbucks where I will get my free coffee and a chance to be alone and away from my mother who won’t even bother to ask if there’s anything special I want for dinner. 

When I was growing up, the twelve days of Christmas started, for me, on December 24th and lasted until school would return. My birthday will have occurred during the Christmas break ignored by my friends and teachers. Birthday parties were rare, so rare that I remember my 5th birthday as the one that stands out. Other than that, no one has ever made my birthday a special thing. Throughout elementary and secondary school my birthday would pass by without a passing thought for most people in my life.

I hoped that things would change when I was older, especially after I turned 19 so that I could go out and enjoy my birthday. My 19th birthday told me how wrong I was going to be as I was turning legal before all of my friends so no one could go out with me. Now, looking back, I fail to see why my friends didn’t at least want me to buy some alcohol so we could all celebrate at my home but they all forgot it was even a special day for me. So instead I spent my 19th alone with a 6 pack of Coors Light, alone in my room. 

As my 20th neared there was one exception to so many years of being ignored. A couple of girls who used to come into my work invited me out to a New Years Eve party and I went. I was alone, knowing only them but one of them and I spent 15 minutes laying on the cold winter grass outside the house drinking beer and watching the northern lights. That year, my birthday came and went once again but at least my New Years had a happy memory. Little did I know that now, as an adult, December 31st would steal even more of people’s attention away from my birthday. By the time January 3rd came around, people were broke and emotionally spent. There was no time, money or energy left to help me celebrate my day. 

I worked my birthday most years from when I had been 15 to this point and no one at work made an effort either. No birthday cakes, no one suggesting we meet up for an after work drink, nothing. But at least at work I wasn’t alone at home wondering why I was so unimportant to everyone.

I spent my 23rd birthday on a bus, spending 16 hours moving to Calgary to be with Heather. It was exhausting but when I got there at least I knew I wouldn’t be alone for my birthday ever again, but I was wrong. The next year, having moved to northern Alberta for her first teaching job, Heather left Calgary the day before my birthday to avoid traffic. Once again, now in a city away from all of my lifelong friends, I spent my birthday alone, drinking to my self pity and playing a slot machine. That fall I moved back to Langley, now single and even more alone than ever.

It wasn’t until my 30th birthday that things changed a little. My new friend Anthony and a couple others went to the bar to celebrate. We danced, had some fun and I got to let loose for a change. It was like all of the past 25 years had built up to that night and then released. What I didn’t know was that it would be my last big night for my birthday until today. 

41 years now and I have exactly two happy and memorable birthdays and this year will make 42. Again, due to COVID I will be alone or at least I can tell myself it’s because of COVID. All my past experience tells me that I’d be alone whether or not the virus was holding our necks to the ground. 

So you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t find much to be grateful for again this year or reasons to expect a merry Christmas because all this time of year does is remind me that I am destined to be alone.