The Forgotten Silence

There aren’t many days when I forget something that I should write about, but it does happen.  Yesterday was like that; I’d gotten my post written and set up all over the place, when I realized–oh, damn, I should have mentioned that.

So I’m a day behind.  Sorry.

One of my favorite writers is Hunter S. Thomson.  I loved the tales, loved the wildness, loved the apparent recklessness that Hunter appeared to live.  He was one of those people whose work, no matter how insane it appeared, I read.

On 20 February, 2005, he wrote his last piece.  It was short, and to the point:

 

No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun – for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax – This won’t hurt.

 

He’d had a hip replacement that never seemed to work correctly.  He’d suffered a broken leg.  His addiction to alcohol was acute.  Since Hunter saw no other way out, he shot himself, and brought an end to his life.

Yesterday, 10 September, was World Suicide Prevention Day, an international event that’s held every year the same day.  Suicide’s one of those things that’s around us all the time, but most people never give it a thought.  Fewer of us know anyone who’s tried or committed suicide, even though it’s the 13^th cause of death world wide, and the leading cause of death for people 15 to 24.

I had a distant relative who killed herself and her two children.  It happened in the mid-60′s, and actually made the local Chicago TV news.  I was told later that she was “manic-depressive”, and had been in and out of treatment for years.  At the time it didn’t make much of an impact on me, because I hadn’t begun suffering from my own “manic-depressive” issues–but I would understand it later.  Oh, yes, I would.

Ten years ago I worked with a person who took his life.  There wasn’t any warning; there were no tells.  One night he went home and, just has Hunter had done, shot himself.  Another person who took himself out, because the demons were too big to fight.

But I know these things first hand, because I’ve suffered through my own darkness.  I’ve been bi-polar most of my life.  I’ve suffered incredible moments of depression I thought I’d never leave.  I’ve checked into a “facility” for forty-eight hours because I thought I would be a threat to myself, and almost did it again over the summer, when I seriously thought I was losing my sanity.

Worst of all, I’ve attempted that final trip twice:  once as a teenager, and once in my early twenties, when my life felt like it going nowhere.  Needless to say, I didn’t succeed either time, but I took those steps–

I’ve also taken steps to help myself.  I’ve seen therapists:  in fact, I’m seeing one now.  I’ve called help lines so I could connect with a voice that would listen, and offer help.  I watch my own tells, and understand when I’m getting ready to lose it–like over the summer.

You treat mental illness like any other illness:  with treatment and observation.  We aren’t lepers to be kept isolated, with people fearful we’re going to pass our illness to others through casual contact.  We need to be seen and heard.

Sometimes we also need help.

World wide there are a million people a year who die by their own hand.  How to stem this tide?  Through help and understanding.  Through dialog. Through reaching out and offering a hand where it’s needed.

Sometimes just a little human touch is all that’s required to break the silence.

Dreamers and Demons

So many strange things today.  Let me tell you, I didn’t want to get out of bed, because of the things my mind was showing me last night–

See, the last few weeks I’ve complained that I haven’t seen many of my dreams, that I can’t remember them.  So, as I was dozing off last night–or, I should say, trying to doze off–I was repeating a mantra that I was going to remember, going to remember . . .

Remember I did.  Oh, boy, did I.  Can’t tell you a lot of the detail, but it seemed to consist of (a) being with some woman I’d never seen before showing porn in a classroom full of middle school kids, (b) doing very detailed measurement of certain areas of her body, (c) finding out she was a cop, and lastly, (d) hooking up with her partner and riding shotgun with him as we took some suspect down to a river, left him belted in the car, then went full-on murderball on his ass as we drove the car into the river and let him drown.

Yes, good times had by all!

That was disturbing.  I mean, yeah, I helped smoke some guy in a rather horrible way, and even though it was in my dream, it seemed that, and the sex stuff, was a rather strange way for me subconscious to remind me of–what?  Just want the hell was it telling me?

So into work . . . and I discover, to my embarrassment, it’s the birthday of H. P. Lovecraft.  One of my favorite writers, and here I was completely forgetful that just over a hundred and twenty years ago he was born.  He and his demons, his racism, and his talent.  He was the first horror writer I read, and it was through him I eventually got into Stephen King.  Lovecraft also, in his own way, pushed me into role playing, as Call of Cthulhu, Second Edition, was the first role playing game I bought.

Lovecraft was a guy with a lot of demons.  It seems like anyone creative has some ifrit on their back, and that sucker is constantly flappin’ it wings so it can keep you wrapped up in bad mojo.  This guy laid it all out for everyone to see.  He was a crazy, misogynous, racist dude who wrote crazy fiction–and spent a hell of a lot of time encouraging other writers to keep at their craft.

I posted a happy birthday for him–like he’s going to see it, right?  Well, maybe a Deep One will see it when they check their wall; these days you can never tell.

No sooner do I get that posted that I learn Tony Scott, director and producer, brother of Ridley Scott, jumped to his death yesterday.  He drove out to the Vincent Thomas Bridge, climbed the ten foot fence that’s suppose to keep people from leaping, and went over the side.  They found a note in his office, so it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing: it was something he thought about, and planned.

And executed.

I’ve seen these demons as well; they are the darkness of your life that tries so hard to consume you.  Even today, after decades of fighting them, learning to keep them at bay, they are there, waiting, sort of watching with their yellow eyes, knowing that every so often I’ll slip up, and let them in.

This last time, I did the right thing; I spoke with people, I got help.  Too many don’t.  Too many are consumed.

Gotta fight the darkness.  Never let the demons win.  Gotta stay with your dreams, even when they are strange.

Strange beats dead any day of the week.