IF SUICIDE WAS EASY, I'D BE DEAD
My last post generated a little “buzz” from my friends, each trying to help by giving me ideas or information on losing weight. One even threatened me not to do anything stupid. All of their comments were about health and being healthy, which sparked something interesting I’d like to comment on.
Being healthy and being skinny are two different things.
I don’t care if I’m healthy. When in was 237, I was healthy. Despite me laziness, I had no high blood pressure and could walk farther or dance longer than a lot of skinnier people. My blood counts were pristine, I’d never had any serious illness, and rarely did I catch a cold.
When I lost the weight, I was tired most of the time, had bronchitis, and went to the ER with a kidney stone that was so painful I was curled up like a baby, begging for morphine in the ambulance.
But, I still prefer one to the other any day of the week.
I’m hitting a serious low point here because I don’t know what to do with myself. I compared depression to taking a shit, and how it can be a relief once it’s all over. But I didn’t mention that, while it’s happening, it feels pretty bad. What I’m going through now can be compared to taking a shit while having the flu. That painful emptiness in your stomach as your body involuntarily contracts, you keep bearing down, but there’s nothing there. You haven’t eaten because you’re nauseous, but you’re body refuses to accept defeat, and all that comes out is water that’s only making you’re fever worse. Your ass hurts and bleeds from multiple wiping, your leg falls asleep, your stomach is so empty you want to puke, and just when you think it’s over your stomach bears down again, forcing a gush of body sewage.
That about sums up what I’m feeling right now.
I was standing in my bathroom mirror this morning, looking at myself, trying to figure out why I can’t just do what I’m supposed to do. I went through the list of questions in my head, looking for answers, and all of them were unattainable. Well, not unattainable, but unreachable in my immediate future. So I looked for other solutions, and there I found myself. I’m the answer to whatever’s troubling me, no one or nothing else. Just me, and then I broke down and started crying because I’d gone in a big circle and landed right where I started. I know my problems, I know how to solve them, but I just can’t seem to get my head together to do it. The most torturous thing is the not knowing why I can't get my head straight. Not knowing why I just can’t do what I’m supposed to do. Why I have all the confidence in the world in the morning, and by the end of the day I’m right back to where I started. Between work and home, everything that’s important to me changes. I start in the morning, weighing myself. 185, thirty-five pounds past my weight range, and I think that officially qualifies me as obese. I begin with the chip on my shoulder, and building up my ego. I begin mapping out a diet plan in my head, similar to the old one. I go over exercises I need to do, things I should and shouldn’t eat. I leave the house and arrive at work full of hope and confidence. If I’m lucky, I successfully avoid the coffee machine, and no one will buy a cake for no reason at all and sit it in the lounge to tempt me. And, if it’s a really good day, they do, but I beat temptation, get my cup of water and go. But then something happens on my way home. I begin thinking about Coffee Bean Ice blended mochas, about chocolate bars, television shows, and sitting on the couch playing video games. I think about exercise and I can feel my body getting weak. I can feel the pain and stress on my muscles. I’ve already projected myself two months into the future, and I can feel the fatigue, having exercised every day with little to no results because I’m too aware of what I’m doing. And I tell myself I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna walk through that door, do my exercises, eat a decent meal, go to bed on time, get up the next day, get to work on time, and repeat the same thing all over. I tell myself I’m gonna do it, and keep doing it, and the weight will drop off. I won’t think about time. I won’t think about pain, sweat, fatigue and hunger, because I can do this. I’ve done it before, I can do it again, but it’ll be easier this time. I lost 100 pounds in 6 months, so I can lose 30 in less time. And when I’m back in my range, it’ll be second nature, so I’ll keep going, harder and faster, until I’m back to 137. I’m back to size 31 waist pants, a six-pack, muscles, barely any body fat, a sagging ass, and low body temperature. I’ll go back to jogging and wearing sweaters in July because I’m freezing in the middle of the summer. And I’ll make it last this time, I’ll have fun, I’ll buy new clothes, get tatted, and maybe get my dick pierced. It’ll last this time. My life will go back to what it was, when I got to work on time every day, did my job, then went home and wrote for hours. Or I can quit my shitty hospital job and get another one, because they’ll see a skinny, assertive, hard working guy versus the fat lazy guy who just sits at his desk. And if you think fat people aren’t discriminated against in the job market, you’re wrong. I’ll enjoy how big my penis looks and my wife will take pictures I can put on the internet for extra cash, while I join an escort service and have old ladies pay top dollar to jerk me off. I’ll write my screenplay and hit the red carpet. My wife and I will be on E!’s Top 100 Sexiest Couples, I’ll have photo shoots in magazines, sign my comic book at conventions, and all will ask me how did I do it, AGAIN.
But all that changes by the time I get home. All of it slips away into fantasy, and it becomes the impossible, the imagined, or the things that shouldn’t care about or need. I slip into father mode, and all that matters is my wife’s love. She doesn’t care how I look, so have that cake, eat that jar of peanut butter, sit your ass on the couch all day, play video games, and when everyone’s asleep you can pull out the Janine dvd and rape yourself till your dry and it hurts to piss. All that becomes okay.
But then I wake up the next day. I look at myself in the mirror, again. And I cry, again. I shed tears for all the dreams that begin with a “Day 1”.
That’s where I found myself this morning, staring in the mirror, wondering what’s wrong with myself. Why can’t I go back? Why can’t I do it all over again, just like before? Why do I fail before I even try? How did I have all that confidence to do something amazing, and now that I need it again, there’s nothing?
I went from my bathroom to the bedroom, getting ready for another torturous day at the hospital, and my wife met me in the doorway. I looked into her eyes…
I wanted to unload, to breakdown, to curl up like a baby and scream, “Why? Why can’t I do it again? What’s wrong with me? What do I have to do to go back and flip that fucking switch in my head?”
But all I could do was look at her, my tears began to fall, and her face melted from a smile, to confusion, until landing hard with concern. She begged me to tell her what was wrong, but what would I say? Worse yet, what would she say? The same things I already know? The things that have already gone in one ear and out the other?
So I stood there, shook my head for her to ignore me, which is like asking a New Yorker to ignore what happened on September 11, 2001. But my son started crying, her mother reflexes kicked in, and she was gone.
Harder still was listening to a friend who called after reading my blog to give me words of advice. My friends are loyal, they love me, but they don’t understand me. Not even the ones I’ve known over a decade. They don’t really know how I tick, none of them do, so they offer advice on what I should do, what they think I can do, and I listen because I respect them, but they’re not helping. I know what to do already. I know how to get it done. The problem isn’t information or words of encouragement, because they were never there before. It’s me. I’m the problem. I’m the solution. Always have been, and always will be.
I’m the one who has to get myself off the shitter. But my leg is asleep, my stomach keeps cramping, and I’m bearing down again.
JPG.
Being healthy and being skinny are two different things.
I don’t care if I’m healthy. When in was 237, I was healthy. Despite me laziness, I had no high blood pressure and could walk farther or dance longer than a lot of skinnier people. My blood counts were pristine, I’d never had any serious illness, and rarely did I catch a cold.
When I lost the weight, I was tired most of the time, had bronchitis, and went to the ER with a kidney stone that was so painful I was curled up like a baby, begging for morphine in the ambulance.
But, I still prefer one to the other any day of the week.
I’m hitting a serious low point here because I don’t know what to do with myself. I compared depression to taking a shit, and how it can be a relief once it’s all over. But I didn’t mention that, while it’s happening, it feels pretty bad. What I’m going through now can be compared to taking a shit while having the flu. That painful emptiness in your stomach as your body involuntarily contracts, you keep bearing down, but there’s nothing there. You haven’t eaten because you’re nauseous, but you’re body refuses to accept defeat, and all that comes out is water that’s only making you’re fever worse. Your ass hurts and bleeds from multiple wiping, your leg falls asleep, your stomach is so empty you want to puke, and just when you think it’s over your stomach bears down again, forcing a gush of body sewage.
That about sums up what I’m feeling right now.
I was standing in my bathroom mirror this morning, looking at myself, trying to figure out why I can’t just do what I’m supposed to do. I went through the list of questions in my head, looking for answers, and all of them were unattainable. Well, not unattainable, but unreachable in my immediate future. So I looked for other solutions, and there I found myself. I’m the answer to whatever’s troubling me, no one or nothing else. Just me, and then I broke down and started crying because I’d gone in a big circle and landed right where I started. I know my problems, I know how to solve them, but I just can’t seem to get my head together to do it. The most torturous thing is the not knowing why I can't get my head straight. Not knowing why I just can’t do what I’m supposed to do. Why I have all the confidence in the world in the morning, and by the end of the day I’m right back to where I started. Between work and home, everything that’s important to me changes. I start in the morning, weighing myself. 185, thirty-five pounds past my weight range, and I think that officially qualifies me as obese. I begin with the chip on my shoulder, and building up my ego. I begin mapping out a diet plan in my head, similar to the old one. I go over exercises I need to do, things I should and shouldn’t eat. I leave the house and arrive at work full of hope and confidence. If I’m lucky, I successfully avoid the coffee machine, and no one will buy a cake for no reason at all and sit it in the lounge to tempt me. And, if it’s a really good day, they do, but I beat temptation, get my cup of water and go. But then something happens on my way home. I begin thinking about Coffee Bean Ice blended mochas, about chocolate bars, television shows, and sitting on the couch playing video games. I think about exercise and I can feel my body getting weak. I can feel the pain and stress on my muscles. I’ve already projected myself two months into the future, and I can feel the fatigue, having exercised every day with little to no results because I’m too aware of what I’m doing. And I tell myself I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna walk through that door, do my exercises, eat a decent meal, go to bed on time, get up the next day, get to work on time, and repeat the same thing all over. I tell myself I’m gonna do it, and keep doing it, and the weight will drop off. I won’t think about time. I won’t think about pain, sweat, fatigue and hunger, because I can do this. I’ve done it before, I can do it again, but it’ll be easier this time. I lost 100 pounds in 6 months, so I can lose 30 in less time. And when I’m back in my range, it’ll be second nature, so I’ll keep going, harder and faster, until I’m back to 137. I’m back to size 31 waist pants, a six-pack, muscles, barely any body fat, a sagging ass, and low body temperature. I’ll go back to jogging and wearing sweaters in July because I’m freezing in the middle of the summer. And I’ll make it last this time, I’ll have fun, I’ll buy new clothes, get tatted, and maybe get my dick pierced. It’ll last this time. My life will go back to what it was, when I got to work on time every day, did my job, then went home and wrote for hours. Or I can quit my shitty hospital job and get another one, because they’ll see a skinny, assertive, hard working guy versus the fat lazy guy who just sits at his desk. And if you think fat people aren’t discriminated against in the job market, you’re wrong. I’ll enjoy how big my penis looks and my wife will take pictures I can put on the internet for extra cash, while I join an escort service and have old ladies pay top dollar to jerk me off. I’ll write my screenplay and hit the red carpet. My wife and I will be on E!’s Top 100 Sexiest Couples, I’ll have photo shoots in magazines, sign my comic book at conventions, and all will ask me how did I do it, AGAIN.
But all that changes by the time I get home. All of it slips away into fantasy, and it becomes the impossible, the imagined, or the things that shouldn’t care about or need. I slip into father mode, and all that matters is my wife’s love. She doesn’t care how I look, so have that cake, eat that jar of peanut butter, sit your ass on the couch all day, play video games, and when everyone’s asleep you can pull out the Janine dvd and rape yourself till your dry and it hurts to piss. All that becomes okay.
But then I wake up the next day. I look at myself in the mirror, again. And I cry, again. I shed tears for all the dreams that begin with a “Day 1”.
That’s where I found myself this morning, staring in the mirror, wondering what’s wrong with myself. Why can’t I go back? Why can’t I do it all over again, just like before? Why do I fail before I even try? How did I have all that confidence to do something amazing, and now that I need it again, there’s nothing?
I went from my bathroom to the bedroom, getting ready for another torturous day at the hospital, and my wife met me in the doorway. I looked into her eyes…
I wanted to unload, to breakdown, to curl up like a baby and scream, “Why? Why can’t I do it again? What’s wrong with me? What do I have to do to go back and flip that fucking switch in my head?”
But all I could do was look at her, my tears began to fall, and her face melted from a smile, to confusion, until landing hard with concern. She begged me to tell her what was wrong, but what would I say? Worse yet, what would she say? The same things I already know? The things that have already gone in one ear and out the other?
So I stood there, shook my head for her to ignore me, which is like asking a New Yorker to ignore what happened on September 11, 2001. But my son started crying, her mother reflexes kicked in, and she was gone.
Harder still was listening to a friend who called after reading my blog to give me words of advice. My friends are loyal, they love me, but they don’t understand me. Not even the ones I’ve known over a decade. They don’t really know how I tick, none of them do, so they offer advice on what I should do, what they think I can do, and I listen because I respect them, but they’re not helping. I know what to do already. I know how to get it done. The problem isn’t information or words of encouragement, because they were never there before. It’s me. I’m the problem. I’m the solution. Always have been, and always will be.
I’m the one who has to get myself off the shitter. But my leg is asleep, my stomach keeps cramping, and I’m bearing down again.
JPG.
posted by QABBAL at 4:58 PM
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