seeking a feeling

Here I am, a week after I came so close to ending it, and my thoughts drift to that moment when I thought I really would. It wasn’t that I dismissed my knowledge that it would hurt others, it was the temptation of the exit door drove out all other concerns.

In therapy today I compared it to seeing a beautiful woman and being aroused, and at the same time knowing the risk that comes from chasing her. Dead inside as I am, I can remember being young, when arousal was easy. I can remember some horrible decisions I made, chasing beautiful unattainable women, trying to scratch that itch. I grew out of it, which appears to be atypical for men. The pain I caused, and lived, stopped being worth the pleasure. But oh for those glorious horrible days when it was worth it. When I sacrificed all pride, all self worth, all morality for a scrap of feeling alive.

The parallels to addiction and the way the “honest” world works are unavoidable. The first taste wets the appetite, makes you want more. You can never relive it, your brain will never respond like that first high gave you. Yet you make yourself, and everyone around you miserable trying to get it back, because for a moment life felt less empty, it hurt less.

Sobriety sucks, and so does maturity. I fully understand why many of my gender avoid them entirely. I haven’t had that luxury, and it continues to irk me that some do. For some people all this is enough, but not for me, and not ever.

I’ve lied to myself so much, pretending that escape or satisfaction was around the corner and they aren’t. Another lukewarm day, emotionally speaking. When surviving the week feels like an achievement, one must be assured that the stakes have never been lower.

What now though? I still fall victim to the siren song of meaning woven by my fellow humans. Dash myself against the rocks of meaninglessness and futility, find myself once again on my doomed journey towards those jagged points that will rip my soul.

Today, my escapist novel ended up taking me to a place where I was praying and begging God for relief. That high, believing God will answer, believing that relief is within his arsenal…. back to sobriety, back to doubt, and the pain of hope unfulfilled, of being trapped literally in a place I’ve never belonged, not even wanting to belong anymore just to be free of it.

I moved to this godforsaken place at seven years old. When others indicate that it’s my fault, I think about that moment, when I definitely didn’t want to go, but my family was going and so was I. I think even at that age I knew my life was ending, that this hopeless abyss would defeat me, not just once but every day for 27 years. What should I have done? Run away? children don’t really have that freedom, they’re barely more than slaves. Not that adults are any better, our restraints are just more complex.

If I ever attain a time machine, I’m going to go back to the moment my dad was laid off, when he started considering what he was going to do with his life. I’m going to tell him that WHATEVER HE DOES, he must not move to this awful place. That his only son who he claims to love will undergo massive pointless suffering because of his fondness for this awful backwater. That the pain he was in would become his son’s pain, and a pain his son won’t escape. That he’ll spend the next 27 years watching his son fall apart, time after agonizing time, and know that he is the author of that suffering.

No time machine, and the only hope I have is that someday my captors will be distracted sufficiently that I can make a break for it. Even then, perhaps this is just the world; hopeless, pointless, full of misery.