Rock Bottom Keeps Getting Deeper

Just when I think it can't get worse, it does.

Friday night into Saturday morning, I could not sleep. Like, could not, I mean, physically it wasn't happening...The light switch was stuck on "on" and nothing I could do would make it get to "off,"

It's 6 o'clock in the morning, and the sun is up amid thunderstorms and rain. Metaphorically the sun never really rose for me. It was still really dark eventhough it was daylight, and I was still awake....Crying...Hard. To me it was still Friday despite it being Saturday for the people in cars driving by the apartment.

The suicidal thoughts came raging back, as vivid and as real as ever. I journalled and cried, and could not get out of my head what a mess I am. I went to take some of my Klonopin and had a handful in my hand ready to just go at it, finally see what an attempt is like. I put most of them away and took 2. Maybe the suicidal attempt is this profound depth that I need to reach before it can all turn around? I've thought a bunch of times that I was at rock bottom, but nope. Weeks later, rock bottom is deeper and harder than it was last time. This was as close as I came to a realistic attempt and I wonder now if I just didn't do it because I'm smart enough to know that the amount I had wasn't enough to do the trick? I don't want my stomach pumped, I want to die to kill my pain.

This can't lead me back to BryLin...Nothing there is going to help me with this. I want to throw all of the pills out and do this, heal, holisticlly. The meds, other than seeming fairly ineffective, make me feel like such a waste when it's time to pick up the script bottle and take some more. Even looking at them I have to shake my head. Taking these meds make me FEEL depressed just from the shear standpoint of I HAVE to take them.

Taking them is like a sledgehammer to my psyche. Having a good day right, "don't forget to take your meds that were prescribed to you for your suicidal depression." Lovely right?

I should wear a wristband, like a Livestrong bracelet, that reminds me I have major depression...but the bottles really do the trick. Maybe a hat? A t-shirt? I guess wearing my Tiger's Pudge Rodriguez t-shirt can serve that purpose...because seeing him in Yankee pinstripes is suicidally depressing.

What got me feeling a little better today was, again, music. I don't know that anyone out there rightfully could dislike Amos Lee's music...He's got to be one of the best songwriters I have ever heard, and his voice is so damn good it frustrates me! His song "Supply and Demand" while meditating was spot on...here are the lyrics:

Somethin’ gotta give with the way I’m livin’
Seems I’m gettin’ down everyday
The more I strive, the less I’m alive
And seems i’m gettin’ further away

Oh well all my superstitions and my crazy suspicions
Of the people that I care about
I been doin’ more screamin’ than i been doin’ dreamin’
And I think it’s time I figured it out

Yeah baby I need a plan to understand
That life ain’t only supply and demand

I been goin’ joggin’ in the park after dark
Draggin’ ’round with me my ball and chain
Took southern skies to make me realize
That I’m causin’ myself this pain

The woman that I’m lovin’ yeah I’m pushin’ and shovin’
Getting further on by the day
And I can’t understand how the heart of this man
Ever let it end up this way

Yeah baby I need a plan to understand
That life ain’t only supply and demand

When the road gest dark and lonesome dear
You can find me here
But honey you don’t know where I am
You need a friend yeeaahh

Life ain’t easy in fact I know it’s kinda sleazy
When you’re the big man in town
Shakin’ religions and makin’ decisions
You never get to slow on down

Well your wife and your baby you tell them yeah well maybe
I’ll meet y’all at a weekend resort
Put your eyes on the prize and you can realize
Your little girl’s life’s so short

Brother you need a plan to understand
That life ain’t only supply and demand
Yeah sister you need a plan to understand
That life ain’t only supply and demand

Hey, you better figure it out now
You know you ain’t comin’ back down, yeah
You better figure it out now
You know you ain’t comin’ back down

Amazing stuff right? That's where I was when I was working 50-60 hour weeks and money obsessed. I lost me. My eyes were "on the prize" I thought. The prize though was so mis-guided and un-genuine. My prize was to live how everyone else thought I should. Fitting into the construct of life that it seems is way too set up for depression and loss of self. "Life ain't always supply and demand."

The real prize, like my boy says, is when you realize how short your little girl's life is. I see it so clearly now. I used to go a month or close to two even without seeing my niece and nephew and it stuns me how fast they grow up. I was busy working, chasing dollars, and all of a sudden my nephew is the smartest 12 year old I think I have ever met, and my niece seriously could make the finals of "Last Comic Standing." She is the funniest freaking little girl I have ever met. She is seriously funnier than a lot, probably the majority of, adults that I know.

I walked into the room on Tuesday to see her and she says "what's up big pimpin'?" to me. Ridiculous. (I did teach her it, months ago, but she still remembers it and greeted me with it...silly). Yeah, and at my nephew's soccer games, she sings "Glory Glory Man United" or West Ham United's "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles."

I was working every day, sometimes without a day off for more than 5 or 6 weeks. Money was fantastic, but I wasn't living...that's the best part...When you ask my niece "what's up big pimpin'?" her reply is "nothing baby, just livin'." She has the answer...She's Amos Lee...Just live. She's my little "biku" (Buddhist word for seeker of enlightenment).

That's why my trips are so great. I am just living...on my terms and NOBODY else's. If I want to go to the hotel bar after check-in, I will. If I just stay in my room, take Seroquel and sleep for 11 hours, fine. It's on my terms. That's what I've lost. Living life, day-to-day life, on my terms. I love the road trips more than anything. There were summers where we probably hit close to 20 major league baseball games. Last two seasons (before this season) I think we MAYBE went to 3 or 4. I stopped writing, I stopped doing what I enjoyed...I lost myself and that's nobody else's fault. I have to take a step back and fight the fuck out of this. I wish it was as simple as something physical, I'd just go Brett Favre and take pain-killers. I have to fight myself mentally though.

Maybe my crescendo is Edward Norton in "Fight Club." I have to just go into my parking lot hammered and beat the shit out of the insane part of me. Beat it to death, physically. That would have been me early this morning, at 7am, in the parking lot punching myself in the head, breaking my own nose...Expelling the demons physically, because the drugs aren't working.