On the Twelth Day Since Posting

It's been -- What? -- 12 days since my last post. Since the day I was pretty damned crippled by the problems in my head chemistry.

I have been to see the brain doctor in that time. I saw him on the Monday following. I like the brain doctor I see, but he's semi-retired so he's on vacation for about a week each month and sometimes that makes it really hard to contact him. He started me on a new medication. That means I get to feel awful while taking small doses of a new drug to work it into my system while lowering the old drug and experiencing the withdrawal symptoms that come along while also keeping all the side effect I had before. Joy.

Still, I am here, despite the imaginations in my head. That counts for something, right? It's been tough, though and that one, stupid, unanswerable question (Why?) just keeps flowing through my head. Like a little kid who doesn't really care about the answer, but just wants to push you to your breaking point where you turn away and the little kid "wins."

I've been reading one website a lot recently. It's basically people writing about their experiences or desires or thoughts with the end. Many people express their appreciation for group of people who "understand." I'm just humbled with the realization of how not special I am. I am neither the oldest nor the youngest visiting the site, either. That surprised me. I expected to be the oldest. I do not post but the vast majority of the people who post are younger.

For the most part, the posters are all of that age when everything is so serious. Where nothing can be taken at face value, but is scrutinized so much that even a physical object sitting on the palm of a hand becomes nothingness. So scared. So ugly. So fat. So lonely. No understanding. No one. No love. No reciprocity. These are brought up over and over again. Things that are so subjective that even the person who writes them can't properly explain them. (Even the fat one because she posted that she's a disgusting size 12. What does that even mean to me without height and weight and a million other little details?) I read the post and wonder if there is a change that could be made that would make them better?

In some ways, the comments are even worse. Too many of the comments starts with the commenter saying that he or she has no right saying this but... How seriously can one be taken if a few days ago he or she was eagerly waiting to swallow a bottle of pills with a vodka chaser and then tells someone else to wait one more day or focus on the good? I don't know. Those aren't the only comments. Sometimes people say they understand. Sometimes the commenter had a friend or family member end it all. Sometimes it's about missing the poster. Sometimes there's nothing at all.

The weirdest (worst?) part is that I'm jealous of a lot of the kids that are posting. I know that being in the moment is hard and crushing, but most of them will grow out of the darkness as hormones settle and growth stops and they become more comfortable and happy with the person they are rather than believing that there's something that they should be. And then they'll move on. I'm not saying all of them will change and grow out of the depression, but most will. I'm pretty sure about that because everyone I knew growing up had dark times between the ages of 10 and 21. Most of them grew out of the extended periods of horribleness and settled into mostly fine with periods of dank and periods of great.

I didn't grow out of it.

I don't know if I'm mentioned this anywhere except to my brain doctor, but I was 11 when I first seriously considered... First came up with a plan. I was involved with a whole never ending/no escape thing that I had no control over and I just kept burying myself deeper within myself. I can't say if I really might have tried anything, but I kept thinking about my best friend when I was little and how the first time my parents met his mother she told them about how his sister had cut herself; not in that I-want-to-feel-physical-pain-I-controll-rather-than-mental-pain-I-can't-across-the-street sort of cutting, but the seriously-I-don't-want-to-be-around-anymore-down-the-block sort of cutting. Afterward, my parents' took me aside and talked to me about it. I'm sure I didn't understand everything, but I knew that it scared my parents and that it wasn't something that I should ever do.

For a long time, especially in the really deep dark times, that was the thought I hung on to, how much it would upset my parents. It was the reason I would occasionally lose my belt and sit in the closet rather than, say, go to the kitchen which is where my brain wanted me to go. A long time. Really up until about 14 months ago. Losing that barrier was one of the reasons I went to see this current brain doctor because without that barrier I don't know. I don't know.

I should know, shouldn't I?

Shit or get off the pot, right? But what if you didn't want to be on or near the pot in the first place? What if you had no choice in the matter?

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I've been staring at that last question mark for a couple of minutes. It isn't the last thing I wanted to write, but it's the logical place to end.

If I weren't so tired I would have tried to wrap around to something more positive. Something that wouldn't leave a family member with an ache in his or her stomach and a lump in his or her throat.

This is the best that I can do and hopefully it's a much less heart exploding finish because this post wasn't meant to horrify, but to explain and to get a thought or two out of my head so I can obsess over other thoughts.