Five years ago today, my life changed. I've been reflecting on this time given the anniversary, and I hope you enjoy the results. It's kind of fitting that there are rallies across the nation today in response to the recent spate of suicides, because I also came very close to taking my life on this day in 2005. One side note: this is a little patched together from separate attempts to write down my feelings, and I haven't had time to blend each piece. Without further ado...
In the fall of 2005, my thyroid gave out suddenly and I plunged into an acute, suicidal depression. Without question, it was the worst experience of my life: In a matter of hours, the world transformed from a system I knew to a place of darkness and terror. I stayed in bed all day, transfixed by visions of suicide, yet that horrible cinema was my only sanctuary from turning my grotesque screenplay into a grisly one-man show. I couldn’t stay, but I couldn’t go.
I had to leave
After the first months of shock, I began to build a new life: getting an apartment, finding a job, attending a class the next fall and another in the spring. Even with this progress, I still tried not to focus on why I had suffered and was still suffering so much; I only cried out in pain. For a time I felt numb, going through the motions of my previous life, but looking back, my actions resemble those of a man who stubbornly tends his garden after all his plants have burned. Even now, I am grateful for those plants; even now, they nourish my new life as they disintegrate into the soil below. I had always heard of suffering; now I knew what it was. My faith in God has never recovered; I’ve had to find a worldview that makes sense to me.
I thought I knew my world, but it was only an illusion. The picture in front of my eyes was torn away, leaving me to blink and bleed in a new light. What I took for darkness was reality piercing my retinas, searing them with more information than I could handle. I groped about for my old mask, the old painting, but now it seems darkly cartoonish; a strange distortion of reality. For nearly two years I fiddled with the old picture, but it never matched up with what I saw on That Day.
...and now I have to go to bed. Not one of my best posts, but I promised myself I'd put up something today. There's a second part to this story; hopefully I can post it in the next few days (though I'm not making any promises...).
