On my bad days, my mind walks to that line. My edge of existence. It is there that my view looks at a nothing. And there I reside. And with all edge teetering, I feel a bit of relief that it's not my worst day ever. My closest to stepping off I ever came. My harsh reality of, you simply, end up here.
And, that day wasn't when my parents couldn't get me out of the closet in my early twenties because I was so over-wrought with sobbing & sorrow & fear.
And it wasn't that time I just kept drinking & smoking & snorting & ingesting whatever it was that was put in front of me.
And it wasn't the time I was shaking so bad I thought it almost a seizure. And my eyes were nearly swollen shut from the crying I had been doing for hours & hours, finally sitting in the ER, wanting to be committed. Wanting desperately to be relieved of it, but they wouldn't because I wasn't suicidal. I didn't want to die, I just wanted to fade away. Like a slow melting crayon in the hot sun. They wouldn't admit me because I wasn't suicidal; I didn't use the words that describe the act of suicide.
And it wasn't the diagnosis of PTSD randomly taking away my breaths, never knowing when it was going to rear its ugly head & wrap its power around my neck shoving its heavy horror story into my chest. MY horror story. Leaving me wishing for an anxiety attack at that moment instead.
And it wasn't any of the hundreds of times I've envisioned life as if I'd stepped into the nothing.
My edge was when I physically couldn't get up to even walk around in the small world of my apartment. I couldn't get up for weeks. I couldn't do anything but just sleep. Void of dreams & the vivid color that came with them. Void completely through. With each time I awoke, I was physically exhausted just taking a piss & wondering that somehow I was still here. That was my edge. My stepping off point. My point of self-hate and true blue worthlessness. My mind, body & soul were simply unreactive to anything. Void. It was a nothing that consumed me.
Becoming, "a nothing". That is my edge....my stepping off point.
And, yes, I go to great lengths to mask such an existence from the world. I am vocal and extremely empathetic about mental illness, yet leave out how I am speaking from experience. How in that moment, I am what I speak to rise above. To give away the belief & courage that someone CAN do it, even though I am consumed with a nothing. And most close to me know I live with this utter blackness, depression, aggravated by anxiety. But people forget those things when you aren't drowning in the obvious outward anxiety & brutality of it all, like debilitating migraines. And when they do recognize your sliding down that slope, you invest even more energy in the art of distraction. You transfer all that you wish for yourself to those around you because it protects a pain that can never be explained clearly & can only truly be understood by those who have their own nothing to face. It can be the worst kind of isolation in a crowd. Forget the exhaustion of its aloneness.
Though, I've found as I've aged, that I've come to really understand it's energy & its need to serve. I've come to know what not to give it to feed its hunger in controlling me. I've wrapped myself in my creativity as a way to distract from it. To know that I have been to the edge of a nothing & walked away. To speak past it as if it were a narcissist climbing on my back. To not give it the energy if needs. To deny it the one thing it needs, my thoughts. And I've learned this through NAMASTE & a little poem that shed a tremendous amount of light onto things for me.
So, for today, I'm going to be more like that wise old bird....despite what's going on on the inside. For today, I will make intentions to give my energy to listening than thinking. My ego & neurotransmitters can take a respite permanently! (Of course, with my medication!) Maybe today is a bad day. Maybe its good. No matter what kind of day it is, know I am working hard at being a light in this world & I have tales & stories to tell.....this one of them!
