Snapped (Part Two)

In the iconic 80's movie Moonstruck, no sooner does Cher's character, Loretta Castorini, accept a marriage proposal from Johnny Cammarari, than she finds herself falling for Johnny's younger brother, Ronny Cammarari.  When the Italian-Catholic guilt sets in, she knows that she must marry Johnny as she promised and get over Ronny.  It's the next morning at Ronny's apartment after a whirlwind night on the town and ending up in his bed that she comes to this realization and, after he professes his undying love for her, that she hauls off and slaps him (twice), telling him to 'snap out of it'.  When it comes to love, if it were only that simple. 

"Thank you for saying 'cheer up', because it made me cheer up immediately" said no one ever.  For me, it only seems to make it worse when you are the depressed one because it's like the 'thoughts and prayers' of depression.  People only say it when they either don't know what to say or do or don't want to actually hear your problems or get involved.  It's the hands-off approach to caring and, maybe, it helps them move on with their day.  No one just 'snaps out of it".  Conversely, mulling over it with the afflicted rarely works either, which is why depression is something that is ignored or hidden in this country.  There's a stigma attached and you're made to feel like you're broken or not normal, whatever that is.

Like the bough of a tree laden with snow, we can only take so much weight upon us before we snap, like the branch.  From my previous post, I was fortunate to have 'snapped out of it', which saved me from suicide.  Now, I know you're thinking... 'wait a minute, but you just said' ... I know what I said.  To understand this, you have to have an understanding of the difference between what I call situational and chemical depression.  In a situational depression, maybe your boyfriend left you and you eventually come to grips with the fact that he was an ass anyway.  Or you didn't get a job you wanted, but got a better one a month later.  In chemical depression, you have little control because it's an imbalance in your system and you have to wait until your body replenishes whatever it is that it's lacking.  Or, you can medicate and hope that works.  In my case, my body took care of it just in time.  That's why I was fortunate.  It doesn't always happen that way.

Expecting the other shoe to drop, so to speak, I was waiting to revert back to my depressed self after I felt better, but it never happened and I remained at an elevated mood.  This wasn't the first time in my life where I was suicidal in the same exact situation and, like this time, I rode it out to my non-demise and was able to rebuild.  Last time, I was reduced to almost childlike behavior so as not to, in my mind, spark a quick relapse by adding stress or anxiety.  The rebuilding is a process that takes months, if not years and, sometimes, you can't fix the destructive wake you left behind or the bridges you burned in the process.  Still, I was hesitant that I wasn't going to relapse.  After about six months, I decided to get my dog, Cooper, as part of my therapy, giving me something to love while giving me a purpose and reason to get out of bed.  I also decided to enter therapy, something I had done in the past with little success.  I was fortunate to have made contact with an amazing therapist and, through a lot of hard, raw work, we were able to get me stabilized.  After several months of analyzation, it became apparent that I had been misdiagnosed previously as highly-functioning depressed and we came to a new diagnosis of Bipolar II.  Given the ups and downs of my life, the patterns revealed that, although mostly depressive, I had also displayed many of the manic stages throughout my life.  I had never really gone through textbook manic behavior of promiscuous sex or excessive spending or overly-erratic behaviors, but having moved 40+ times in my life and having gone through many career changes and jobs and several relationships, some of it made sense.  All my decisions were rational at the time, I thought, but, looking back, I can see how my Bipolar may have played a part, good and bad.  Everything became clear to me and made more sense.  It was both a relief (for everything that happened in the past) and a concern (for everything I do going forward). 

Last week, I got a tattoo that I've been putting off for some time.  It represents not only my Gemini horoscope of the conflicted twins, but for the struggling  sides of my Bipolar as well.  I've coined the phrases "own your crazy' and 'a man with no baggage hasn't been anywhere'.  We are who we are, whatever went into or continues to go into the concoction of your personal mix of crazy.  I think it's what makes us interesting and, for me, is probably at the root of all my creativity.  I acknowledge and celebrate it, although it's not made my life easy, by no means.  Having to reinvent yourself through different careers or going from relationship to relationship or home to home... you will always be there, wherever you go, so you might as well embrace it and yourself.  There's nowhere to run.  It will most likely have a hold on you forever.  Do all the work you can to always be the best version of yourself and hopefully that makes it better for you.  I'd like to think I've come out on the other side, but we're on an endless journey throughout our life and none of us knows what's to come.  As quickly as you snapped out of it, you can snap again.

Night and Day (Part One)

The conversation with my 89 year old Aunt Delores always goes the same;

AUNT:  "Hi Dave, how are you feeling?"

ME:  'I'm ok... my arthritis is tough'
AUNT:  "Yea, mine is acting up too"
ME:  'My back is aching'
AUNT:  "Yea, mine aches too"
ME:  'My wiener hurts'
AUNT:  "Yea, my wiener hurts too"

Disclaimer:  My Aunt doesn't have a wiener, but won't be outdone when it comes to health issues.  It never fails that no matter what's going on with me, she has it worse or takes much more medication than I.  Old people seem to embody their whole medical situation as their identity and it becomes a contest of who has it worse.  It's the first thing they bring up and everything revolves around it.  Thing is, it's hard not to let this become your identity, and I learned became this over the last couple of years through my ordeal.

International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day is November 18th.  I suppose the purpose is to lend support to those left behind by a loved one who took their own life, but it can also be for the person who was conflicted and either attempted to commit suicide and failed or decided not to go through with it.  "Loss" is in the eye of the beholder, because no one involved is not without losing something.  As harsh as it sounds, the only winner in the scenario is the person who is successful at taking their life because it ends all the turmoil and pain they are enduring.  That's hard for most people to understand or handle.  In fact, mental health, being such a prevalent thing in the world isn't such a prevalent thing in our society.  It's a taboo subject that most people deal with but don't want to talk about nor want to hear.

It was April of 2015 when I started my downward spiral towards suicide.  A combination, I think, of not having love for so long and career dissatisfaction, my situational depression gave way to the chemical depression that I have dealt with my whole life.  I went through a cycle of general unhappiness to losing all hope for a future in a matter of months.  I didn't care about anything, became sullen and withdrawn and introverted and basically barricaded myself in my house.  I made excuses to my friends and tried avoiding everyone which put severe strains on those friendships.  The question 'how are you?' became the most painful thing, not because it was a segue to talking about my pain, but because of the energy that I'd expend trying to hide it, or lie about it and try to smile through it to make everyone else happy.  The pain was overwhelming and managing it becomes your whole existence and job.  Everything falls by the wayside and your whole life collapses around you.  You see it all happen, but don't care.  It's a hole that is extremely difficult to dig yourself out of and it's a motion that can't be stopped, no matter how many hugs you get or how much your friends and family are supportive and helpful.  In fact, that only makes it worse for you, making it more aware that you are a failure, that you can't fix the problem and probably no one can.

A simplistic but hard concept to grasp, all hope was removed from my brain.  Without serotonin, your body's natural mood elevator, it affects the part of your brain that controls your sense of hope.  Without hope, there's no purpose or reason to endure the day-to-day pain and the only logical progression is to end your life and it all makes sense to you.  Another hard concept to grasp is that it's as if you're not in control of your own mind... and the 'voices' in your head are driving you.  It's a constant struggle with yourself.  Once you relent, a suicidal person experiences a period of relief right before they carry it out which, to outsiders, seems like they 'snapped out of it'.  Unfortunately, it's just a release of all the struggle and pain and, without it, it all becomes clear what needs to be done.  You don't think about what you are doing to those around you and, in fact, you think you are doing them a favor.  Honestly, you really don't care because you just want the pain to stop at all or any cost.

And so, after three months of analyzing it every which way and dealing with it, I got all my affairs in order.  After researching different ways to end my life, I decided on carbon monoxide poisoning and purchased a long hose to hook up to the back of my truck exhaust.  I had made notes around my house and had everything laid out on the kitchen island.  Because I was managing my Dad's finances, I had to separate some things out and I was waiting for the paperwork to come in the mail.  It was only a matter of a day or two and it would all end... and then just like that... I woke up the next morning and, assuming my chemical make-up changed overnight, I had completely 'snapped out of it'.  I went from a three month, 24/7 no-hope struggle to not even being able to even force myself to think about suicide for even a few seconds.  I'm guessing that either my synapses found new pathways or my serotonin levels replenished, but it was the difference between night (lights out) and day (new hope).  I am still here.

This blog has always provided a chronology for me, having written about almost everything throughout my life on these pages.  I regret not keeping it up, especially throughout this dark period in my life, which is why I'm trying to go back through and include it.  It would have been amazing to have captured my every thought through this whole process, as it's become (or always has been) who I am.  I'm not ashamed of it and sometimes I even miss the cocoon-like feeling I had in the middle of it all.  Some of my most creative poems stemmed from my darkness and I believe many people have related to my opening up.  There's no way I couldn't include it in my blog and, being only part one of things that happened in the last couple of years (subsequent post entries in the story's progression to follow), it is definitely a part of me and has affected how I move forward in life... in daylight.

24601

Stealing bread to feed his family, Jean Valjean, from the Victor Hugo novel 'Les Miserables', is imprisoned.  After his stint in jail, he makes an effort to right his wrongs, but still struggles with his identity... is he and will he always now be that thief (prisoner 24601) that he became in his moment of need, or is he the better person that he now strives to be?  For the rest of his life, he asks himself 'who am I?', but never really comes to any conclusion. 

Many times, things that happen in our lives that we have to endure change us, maybe forever.  It might be because of a relationship, friendship, an experience or an event like a medical situation, change of career or losing someone close.  Everything that we come in contact with throughout our life changes us in some way, some positively and some adversely.  We are constantly evolving, hopefully into a better version of ourselves, but probably as more of a coping mechanism to adapt.  We are constantly evaluating our beliefs and morals as we come across things that challenge us.  Who we are is a moving target that we'll never be able to define. 

It's been a while since I've written other than a few attempts here and there.  My blog has been a recording of my ruminations over the situations that I came across in my lifetime.  I did the work...  I analyzed...  I processed and made changes in my behaviors and, at the time, thought I understood myself.  And while I'd like to think that I reached a point in the process where I came to grips with who I am, I find myself at the beginning again, having to scrap all that I worked through because so much has changed.  I thumb through my entries and, most times, have no idea who that person is or was.  And the same for who I currently am. 

Hitting middle agedness was difficult for me.  Once I hit my upper forties, I had still seen myself and felt like I was still in my thirties.  It wasn't until an almost life-ending suicidal depression followed by a year of life-threatening medical problems that I went from being at my peak at 49 feeling 32 to being 50, feeling 65.  Invincible, ageing never even crossed my mind before, whereas now, it's all I think of in the shadow of some stark realizations, residual health problems and career changes.  It was a direct blow to my self-worth, ego, physical stamina and a wake-up call as to my own mortality... and how it relates to the likelihood of having another life-ending health situation at any given moment, being prone to a repeat occurrence.  Suddenly, I feel the clock ticking and the pressure of figuring it all out. 

Having said all that, I am back to the drawing board to be able to move forward with my life.  Currently, I am in limbo, not having direction or a center from which to stand.  My foundation has been ripped out from beneath me.  And now, stripping away the bullshit, understanding my contribution to this world and seeking happiness in the time that I have left is in the forefront.  And so, I am going to try to commit to writing again, as a way to sort through it.  Who am I?... indeed.