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Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Re-post: Requiem Of Failure: My Old ME


I didn't use to re-Post old work but I have realized that some of those old post really represent what I was and who I am today...they define ME. So I am re-posting another one of those posts that I feel truly define's me and I think this one fits the bill. So here we go with a bit of:




 Requiem of Failure: My Old Me


Requiem for the old me...
thought provoking hope acceptance hopelessness Why Hope Isnt As Good As You Think It Is

To be so full of resentment, just churning, so full of anger it was transforming itself to hate. I was a remnant of a human being. More animal then man, simply existing, operating solely by survival instinct to do just that and only that:survive from one miserable day to the next. That wasn't living, it was existing and there is a huge difference. I was so hurt, so afraid, so fearful of...everything that nothing made sense. I could see nothing but pain, heartbreak and a bitter, horrific ending to my life. I begged God to kill me yet nothing happened and he was to blame. It was God's fault...

I was like the earth if it was inverted on it's axis...no balance, chaos and ruin of all known fact. I knew nothing any more. The only human emotional behavior left to me was to RAGE...and I did so exceedingly well in solitude and silence. I was silent suicide...

I can hardly accept that I was like that. I can no longer relate and I have very little left except a sliver of intellectual connection to that difficult period in my life.

Bitter, resentful, mistrusting, angry, suspicious, a liar, undependable, selfish, self-centered, a user of people, a cheat, a poser, the faker I hated myself for all of that. I just did...funny too but I kept so much of that inside of myself that even people I was close to had no idea. Sure, they might have sensed this or that, hey even I hadn't a clue how much trouble I was in, deep inside of myself.

All the emotional, spiritual and psychological troubles lead to a major breakdown in my physical condition. Poor nutrition, lousy health habits and getting little to no sleep. Combine those facts with my substance abuse, several decades of drinking and drug taking, I was a time bomb just itching to explode.

I did not realize the extent of what was happening to me but I do recall sensing trouble. And that was what it was like, I had a nudge, a whisper from now where informing me of of a catastrophe. My reaction to that nudge was to literally cultivate chaos. And so I did....I cultivated chaos right up to the moment I tried to end my life...and failed.

Most of us have experienced failure in our lives. And most folks have felt down, perhaps a bit depressed. I can't even begin to describe how it felt to make the decision to die. Plan it, accept it and carry out the plan. Only to come to in a strange place and suddenly realize that I had failed....I had never felt so low. I had failed at failure!

How does one fail at failure?! I recall that I just laid there, restrained to my hospital bed and cried, more like a wail yet no tears really came...I was completely spent, depleted of all my humanness. It was then, that I just quit. I stopped fighting and I admitted defeat. I will say that I did NOT feel better at the time. I actually recall that I felt nothing at all. I simply had no other choice that day to give up and give in. I was finished fighting, making excuses and arguing about it. I had failed at failure...I fucked up a suicide and lived to tell about it.

One odd detail I remember shortly after I awakened from that coma and was able to use my hands. Reaching to my face, my cheeks and all the way around to my ears I noticed this sticky, itchy substance, it was a mess. I had no mirror, I could not then see what was. When I was helped to the bathroom the first time, accompanied as I was for those first few days I saw it was a blackish, grey sticky substance.

I mentioned it to my nurse, still oblivious. She mentioned that when the ambulance drivers brought me in, they told the doctors and nurses at the hospital that when they first got to me, I had duct tape over my mouth. My heart sank and I remembered putting duct tape over my mouth before I laid down so I wouldn't vomit back up all the drugs I had just ingested...

I went crazy, screaming trying to scratch that shit off of me...needless to say I got a magic shot and woke up later back in my bed, restrained.

When I was a teenager I wanted to be an individual, free to do what I wanted to do. And I did, I did what pleased me all of my life. I rarely thought about consequences so I certainly reaped what I had sown.

I was King all right, I was the King Of Pain, the Emperor Of Failure, all powerful Ruler of Chaos and Heartache. That was me and this was all I had left.Needless to say at the end of my old life I had no hint of a clue that things were about to change...But they were!

4 comments:

  1. I think I remember this post from when you first wrote it. Very raw and honest. Again, coming from a completely different place, I can still relate to many aspects of your post. From the fact that there are periods in my life that I can hardly identify with now (and sometimes wonder who that other person was), to the fact that I can practically make a diagram of how extreme certain lessons needed to become and how many times they needed to be repeated for me to finally LEARN and get my ass moving.

    I've also been meaning to tell you, but life keeps getting in the way: I've read your WWI posts of visions/dreams you had as a child. Absolutely fascinating, and such good writing. If that happened to me, I'd be a) freaked out, and b) I would want to know as much as I possibly could about that. Admittedly, a) and b) might contradict each other :) And on top of that to have it conflict with your newly found faith... Well, at least it is awesome writing :)

    Have a good one, my friend.

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  2. Chris you are too kind. I love your reaction to the dreams...it's quite accurate, really. But I always pushed it, wanting to know more. I found myself in some very freaky situations particularly in Flanders at The Somme, Ypres and Arras. I just instinctively knew stuff I couldn't possibly have known. I even believed I found my own grave, marked unknown at Beaumont-Hamel British Cemetery along with 178 other burials including 82 total unknowns. I never felt so weird in my entire life as I did those several days staying around there. Sorry I never should get started on this stuff...I just go nuts...

    Anyway Thank you again for your comments...Peace always my friend!

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  3. Beautiful writing Dad as always. This seems to me like it was written by someone else because of how far you've come and frankly, it's difficult to remember thoses awful awful times not so long ago. When was this originally posted, Dad? Love you and I can't tell you enough that the boys and I are so grateful that God saved you from your self. <3

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Chelsea, I too have a hard time imagining those days too but I am so grateful. It was written May 14, 2011

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