Not so very long ago, I was trying to destroy my life for many of the same issues you mention in your question. People would tell me I had all these talents, and that I was worth much more than I thought I was. I took a kind of perverse enjoyment out of arguing with them—trying to convince people that their opinion of me was way too positive. Trying to get them to see how I was pond scum and worthless, and should be allowed to crawl into some gutter and die.
I revisited that place just last week, too. Scared the shit out of my wife. She’s still upset about it. But I started emotionally attacking her because I wanted her to tell me to get out. Leave. No longer be a part of her life. I hungered for that release—to have a reason to explain the pain I was feeling.
She asks me why I do this, and I tell her that it’s because there is no reason for this pain, but the pain desperately needs a reason, so I must create one. There was a whole morning when I sat, staring at the wall, trying to figure out which method of suicide I could actually pull off. A gun? I don’t have one, but even if I did, I don’t think I could pull the trigger. Jumping is similar—what if I decided it was a mistake after I left the roof? Pills? Hmmm. How much lithium and Welbutrin does it take.
I was… how shall I say this… messing with myself. Just fantasizing out my pain. All the time I felt it, I had this idea that if I truly wanted to, I could stop it.
When I was in my first depression, I pushed people away with a will. As if I were a seaman raising a hawser. I kept this silent space around me, and when anyone came near, I would retreat. It was weird. No one would talk to me. Even my friends who didn’t know what I was going through—they didn’t even call me or email me for two whole fucking years! My silence was that powerful
And for what? Why did I need this pain—and I did need it. They say that there’s a chemical imbalance in my brain. Perhaps.
I think that I needed to hate myself. I don’t know if I can explain why. Part of it was that I wasn’t getting the attention I wanted. That was very, very painful. It came with it’s own set of paradoxes. I wanted attention, but I wanted it to be honest attention, so I couldn’t ask for it. But if I didn’t ask, people wouldn’t know I was dying, so I asked in a reverse way, by denigrating myself, knowing that people would tray to gainsay me. I would warn them in advance not to try to make me feel good about myself (just as you have), because it wouldn’t work. They would try, and I could show them how wrong they were. But secretly, I thought they were right. But I hated myself for having talent and doing bupkus with it. I hated myself for not achieving what I should have. And why didn’t I achieve? Because I didn’t try. There you go—another reason to hate myself—I’m a god damn fucking slacker!
I didn’t know at this time that these were the things that my parents had told me throughout my childhood. How I would never amount to anything. How I didn’t have enough talent. They never told me they were proud of me. I never pleased them. Not once that I can remember. And so, when I got depressed, that’s what I needed from everyone else. I needed that script to be enacted in all parts of my life. And when people didn’t follow that script, I made them. Because I’m that powerful. Most of us are—who are depressed.
Of course, that’s all pretty sick. Anyone could see that. Who wants to bring shit down upon himself? But I did. And when I write about it, it still calls me. There is some kind of safety in going down as far as you can, because you can go no further. It’s a weird satisfaction. You know what is what when you’re down there. You can truly justify ending your existence because you really are nothing.
Ok. Maybe I’ve got you good and depressed. All this just to show you you’re not the only one? What’s the punch line? How did I get out of it?
Well, I didn’t. It’s still there. It’s just that I’m learning to love it, and in loving it, it stops being such an attractive thing. The world of the depressed sure is upside down! I love something and it grows less attractive??? People tell me I’m good and it makes me attack them to show them how bad I am?
Of course, I pretended to want to get well. Maybe it wasn’t a pretense. I din’t really enjoy the pain. I just saw no other way to make things equal. Explainable. I didn’t want pain. I wanted love. Love and love and love. I thought that would make me feel better. Fuck and fuck! That’s an illusion, too. Love doesn’t help—or, at least, it doesn’t get you all the way there. In the end, it’s something inside you. Some magical thing. And I don’t know what it is.
But there’s a way around that, too. Yes, I’m empty and worthless, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s irrelevant. It has nothing to do with my life. It really doesn’t. It really doesn’t. You see, I am still trying to get that one.
So you can continue to fuck with yourself. Tell yourself how meaningless and worthless you are. I’ll happily agree with you, because I know the joke. We make up these things because we need to feel like things matter, but making it up doesn’t help. Nothing helps. All you can do is do. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. But it’s better if you like it in some way. Just do. Not Nike. Just do.
That thinking in your head? Save it for a movie script or a book. Save it for an advice column. Save it for compassion and empathy. Save it because at the bottom, the truth is that you really love yourself and you really do think you are extraordinarily valuable, and what you really want is to fit in this web of humanity, and feel how it matters. The only way you can do that is by doing.
Composing members:
0
