Reality Break

I never really appreciated what a panic attack might be like until the last time I was in the hospital (2006). When the psychotic shit went down I KNEW I was about to die. I thought that a nuclear bomb had just been dropped and that the world was only moments from annihilation. At the time I was still pretty religious and I started screaming, "I REPENT! I REPENT!". On and on until they shot me with some tranquilizer and I conked out. I don't really know what I was repenting of...

I lay there honestly believing I was going to die and then I lost consciousness. I woke up the next day and began the slow process of getting my shit back together.

But here's the deal...If I hadn't woken up...If I had died right then and there...You know, I might as well have, see? I didn't celebrate waking. I didn't think much about it one way or the other. I just woke up. I remembered what happened but it didn't mean much to me. I didn't understand it, why it happened, how... But I accepted something after they shot me with whatever it was they used to shut me up. I didn't consciously know I was accepting it. I was too afraid to even grasp the concept of "acceptance". I just lay there and let it wash over me. At some point I "fell asleep". It wasn't a release of any kind. I wasn't thankful for it because I had no idea it was coming...it snuck up on me unawares. I would not have cared, in those hours of "sleep", if I ever woke up. "I" was gone. Completely. There was nothing but a breathing body in that bed.

For some reason "I" came back. Did I "choose" this? No, there wasn't any "I" to make the choice. There was no "I" to will myself back. Who knows why "I" came back? Who put me back here? Did I ever leave?

I guess this happens to every single person in the world when they surrender themselves to sleep. In that moment between wakefulness and dreams. I think I read somewhere that some Buddhists believe that this moment, between those to poles, is where we came from and where we will go. That kind of frightens me still, even though I have come to believe it after my last experience in the looney bin.

There have been a couple of times since then, when I was really high on some very potent weed, when I felt like I was going to die. Truly believed it was going to happen then and there. I felt the same feeling I did in the quiet room...which, upon further reflection, was probably because the pot had overcome the mood stabilizers in my blood stream and I was likely very seriously close to another episode on these occassions...and I can't say I wasn't afraid, but the one thing that really shook me was the thought of my family and friends mourning me after I was gone. The grief they would experience and the individual efforts to put what they knew of my life in some perspective, how trying it all might be. To leave them behind. What it would do to them. This wasn't something I was trying to comfort myself with, like "I can't leave them behind, I've got to hang on." It had nothing to do with what I was or was not able to do. Or any kind of bullheaded hope that it would give me a reason to hang on. It just terrified me to leave them.

You'd think that getting this high would put a person off smoking pot ever again. But it didn't, and in the back of my mind there's this nagging thought that maybe, just maybe I knew what I might get into and that I wanted it. Some kind of really excessive thrill it gave me. Or maybe another chance to emerge "victorious". Or to "ride it out". Whatever it is, I'm not scared of death anymore, what it's like to be dead (as if it could be LIKE anything). I'm terrified about the HOW of it all... But I'm hoping that the fear that consumed me before I fell asleep that one night was strictly a symptom of the psychotic episode.

I'm sorry I'm pouring all this out on you. I hope you can bear it. I don't talk about it much but I am obsessed with dying. I can't help it. It's not some teenage emo-goth Cure worshipping obsession, either. I don't choose it. I watch a video that was made several years ago of Jerry and I...we're playing some kid's game...and I can't help but think that one day he'll see this same video when I'm gone and I imagine the feelings it will bring to him. Is that fuckin' sick? I dread the possibility of someone I love dying before I do. I fear I will lose my grip on reality if this were to happen. I constantly contemplate and question why people believe the things they do about the afterlife. I try to convince myself that what I really believe in my heart is the truth and not just a belief, even though I think I know what the reality actually is. I mean, here I am writing a letter about it.

I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't. I shouldn't be telling you this...I need to talk to a psychologist about it. I haven't found one yet, but as soon as I do... and a part of me is saying, "Don't send this." But I wouldn't have started writing if I didn't think I had something to say and a hope that whatever it may have been would be of some help to you.

Yeah, I am obsessed with the shit. But it doesn't consume me. At least I'm not so far gone as to not be able to realize when my mind drifts into it's territory. I can keep it at bay most of the time. It's just that when it comes back I feel like kicking myself for LETTING it, for surely they are "my" thoughts? Where do they come from? Do I not have the power to control them, or to ignore them?

I try. That's all I can do. It's enough for now. It may be good from now on. Maybe it's just the manifestation of my depression. I'm sure it is. Just as the expreriences when I was sure I was dying passed, so will these thoughts.

Don't get me wrong. I am NOT saying that I contemplate suicide. Even though I can't feel it a lot of the time, I value and cherish life. I don't want to leave the things I love behind until I have to, not when I might think I want to. I'm 46 years old and not only do I learn new things regularly, I enjoy the memories of what once was even more. Why would I want to put a halt to that? I'll never let thoughts of death keep me from standing in awe of what humanity is capable of...the wonder of the five senses...the imagination...the yearning in our hearts for even greater things...the passion we feel for something as relatively insignificant as a record album by a favorite artist...the sound of laughter...man, have you ever really listened to a room full of people laughing? Maybe listen to a good stand-up comedian on a roll and try to pick out individual people with their distinctive laughs? How it all combines to form a symphony! An incredible combination of joyful sound that is genuine and unique and perfect! Hear how it swells! Listen long enough and laughter will work alchemical magic on you, if you're able to drop your guard long enough to let it. It will convert you. It will absorb you and you will understand why life is worth living, even if only in that moment.

Could I choose to make that moment the one I exist in? All too often I don't. I keep it in. I'm sure I have my reasons, just as I'm also sure that none of them are good ones.