The End of the Silence

Hey Friends.

Haven't been here in a minute. To be honest, I haven't really been anywhere in a minute. While this blog is a mecca for self-deprecating humor and less than savory topics, I try to not write on here when I am in the danger zone of depression. What is the danger zone of depression, you ask? Well, without being too revealing or dramatic, contrary to the new leaves I was trying to turn over the last time I wrote in this thing, I more or less spiraled into even a darker place for a few weeks. I don't really want to get into it. Those of you who are close know, and a lot of you who I thought were close talk a lot of shit and spread rumors, so let's just call that a wash. It really isn't all that interesting anyway, otherwise I'd be writing about it.

I'm still sick as ever. In fact, I was just reading over the latest colonoscopy prep paperwork I got from UCSF to get ready for tomorrow night's pee butt festival. While they found a hiatal hernia and fat on my liver via an ultrasound, so far neither finding really lead to any sort of recovery plan that will get me back to being full of piss and vinegar. Every time I go to the doctor, I get information that is useless to me and each visit ends up wasting my time. I don't know how going to the doctor makes you feel, but for me its an incredibly anxiety-ridden and agonizing experience, and I always leave the office feeling worn out. After Thursday's disappointment, I fell asleep all day. I am not a teenager. I don't like sleeping for hours throughout the sunny parts of the day. In fact, my sleeping schedule is all fucked up because I'm depressed. I have incredibly unpleasant thoughts all the time, and have spent several nights on the phone with friends talking myself out of very bad head spaces. Some of you readers may not have known this was going on with me (sorry Mom, Grandma, friends, whoever), because I act better than Leonardo DiCaprio on his worst day, but I feel like staying silent isn't doing me any favors.

I have had a few glimmering moments over the last few weeks, and been lucky enough to be reminded that I have incredible friends who love and care about me dearly. I have tried to cling fast to those moments and ride them like a wave as far as I could, but inevitably I always come crashing back to the reality of acid reflux, bile, and feces that reek of rotting and sulfur. The utter hopelessness of not getting any better and not hearing any sort of confident answer from medical professionals ultimately silences any fun gained from meeting new friends at a party, going to see Acid King, or whatever the fuck else I've done since the last time I wrote here. I think the fact that no other events of the last three weeks stand out in my mind should be testimony as to how lost at sea I really feel right now. I feel guilty for saying this much, knowing that it probably won't sit well with people who care about me, but hey everyone, this is what's up. I'd rather address it with words than with silence which, while obviously says that things aren't so well with me, allows for minds to wander and assumptions to be made.

To be honest, I'm at a loss of what to do with myself. I am heavily questioning my current situation in life in terms of where I am, and whether it would do me some good to get away from here for a while. Last night, I broke into tears thinking about how back in June, I was pretty fucking happy with the direction my life was heading. Things were going so great. Since then, it's all gone down the toilet, literally. I've lost independence, love, friends, creative outlets, and now I'm starting to lose hope. I have a very complicated relationship with the professional mental health industry, and that coupled with my latest horrible experience with medical professionals regarding my stomach, leaves me doubtful about using that as a means to make sense of myself. I don't necessarily have a better idea in mind; I don't have any alternative in mind, but needless to say, life keeps coming at me daily and I feel myself slipping into darkness blacker than I have lived through in my 30 years.

However, I have to say that I had a moment today that put me at ease more than anything has over the last four weeks. After having a particularly soul-crushing Saturday night that provided me with next to no sleep, I didn't feel particularly confident in my ability to be both left alone and unharmed today. I decided to join my grandparents on their Sunday errands, which included a stop by my grandfather's dry cleaning plant, where most of my worldly possessions are being stowed until I find a new place to live. While at the plant, I decided to grab my leather jacket from my hanging clothes which are kept on a pole in the back of the plant. For whatever reason, it felt really good to put that jacket on. It felt like I was wearing more than a jacket, it felt like armor or a shield from the ever-plummeting temperatures of the the Bay Area fall. It's only a jacket and from what I can tell, it doesn't have curative powers of any kind, but it felt really, really nice to wear.

After getting home from errands, I promptly fell into a depression-induced slumber and except for the 45 minutes that it took to eat dinner, slept until ten PM. I sat around staring at the computer for an hour trying to figure out what to do with myself, when my friend Tina texted me and invited me over to her apartment for some light socialization and leafy libations. She lives about ten blocks away, I really like her apartment, and she's the bee's fucking knees as far as friends go, so I decided to head over to her house and hang out. I thought about driving over there, but for whatever reason, walking felt incredibly appealing. I put my trusty leather jacket on over my black Saviours hoodie, grabbed my ipod, and headed down the back elevator of my grandparents' apartment building and out to the street.

For those of you not in California, it has been pissing down rain all over the Golden State all weekend. The atmosphere decided to relent, which provided a break in the storm for most of the day, but 19th St. was still wet as I set off towards Tina's apartment. There was a chill in the air, and most of the orange and yellow leaves from the trees were strewn about the streets and piled over storm drains, but being outside felt nice because my leather jacket was keeping my body warm and the sheer brutality of the Black Dahlia Murder's "Unhallowed" record was keeping my brain and heart at least upbeat, if not entirely happy. Walking through the damp streets of Oakland at midnight soothed my soul. Some may call it unsafe, yet it was still oddly comforting. I spent a few hours with Tina getting caught up on life, listening to records, giggling, staring at the walls, and talking shit to her cats. At about 2AM I decided to walk home. The atmosphere had decided that break from the rain had gone on long enough while I sat in Tina's living room listening to the Scene Creamers and hitting her vaporizer, and as I stepped out of the entryway to her building onto Telegraph Ave, it was pouring. Even though water came streaming down from the sky, it felt good to be in my leather jacket, sauntering towards downtown Oakland in the chilly dark. The way my jeans hugged my thighs felt right and the noise my Vans low tops made on the wet concrete gave me that same satisfactory feeling a seven year old gets from stomping in a puddle. I changed the ipod from the Black Dahlia Murder to Saviours and attempted to find the most sheltered route for the journey back to my grandparents' apartment. The overall commute between my grandparents' and Tina's couldn't have been more than twenty minutes altogether, but they were the best twenty minutes I've had to myself in a long time. Even though I am constantly uncomfortable, I don't know when or if I will ever feel like I did back in June, or exactly what I am going to do with myself or my life as this seemingly never-ending chapter of my life continues to twist and turn over days on a calendar, comfort and contentment aren't always so fleeting, and really are pretty easy to obtain if you step back and focus on the little things like leather jackets and good records.

I have been low as fuck for quite some time now. I have been trying my best to keep it, and really me, off of everyone's radar because at times it is a scary, losing control of my life kind of low. I don't know what I intend to do about it. I still feel just as sick as ever, and potentially sicker because my emotional health is in the shitter (along with most of the food I attempt to eat). I don't have an answer, and I'm not asking any of you for an answer, an opinion, or anything at all really. However, tonight, even in the the face of daunting despair and frustration at levels I didn't know were possible, I felt comfortable for a short period of time. I am not looking for sympathy by saying this, and I understand that really, these are first world problems and there are tons of people with far more horrific shit going on in their lives. That being said, I still have been feeling pretty fucking bad, to the point where it has me shook, and tonight, even for a short period, I caught a break from the emotional and physical onslaught that made me feel hopeful and inspired enough to pick myself up and start writing in this thing again. For the most part, I am a relatively private person, but I'm realizing that sometimes that is to my own detriment and that sitting here in silence with nothing but my own thoughts is more than likely going to result in something tragic versus something productive. My mind is a cesspool of complications, emotions, worries, regrets, and situations, and the discomfort in my abdomen provides a rather sadistic and extra-dimentional (I think i just invented that phrase, fuck yeah, go me) soundtrack to the rapidly deteriorating mental health septic tank behind my brown, bespectacled eyes, and it's a mass of murky, foul sludge that I can't keep to myself anymore. I don't really want this to be viewed as a cry for help, but I suppose it's a better cry for help than bloodletting or getting my stomach pumped would be.

I keep getting knocked off the horse, and each fall feels farther and harder than the one before it, but I am going to climb back up on it and begin again. I hope that while its probably impossible and unreasonable to even ask this of anyone who reads this and is remotely invested in me in any level emotionally to not panic or freak out, but please try to remember that getting the confidence and comfort to barf these words onto a page took a lot out of me, and that by doing so, I am trying my best to find a productive and responsible path to being in a better space in my life, physically and mentally. I don't expect every day from here on out to be a good day, or even a mediocre day for that matter, but November 22nd, 2010 marks the end of my self-imposed solitary confinement, and here is me getting you caught up how not good I've been doing and where I am trying to go from here.

I'm sorry if this upset you. It upsets me too.