I wrote this on a mental health forum a few years ago, and I think it stands as a really good description of what life in the abyss is like. I'm bringing it up because I got some sad news about an old friend, and for those of you who don't understand how anyone could off themselves, maybe this will help.
I hope you are at peace, Clay, and were able to leave this world with the knowledge that you deserved better.
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Does anybody remember the Star Trek: Next Gen episode where the black goo-creature murders Yar and (temporarily) eats Riker? I have it on VHS, because it has a lot of meaning for me. The black goo is named Armus (who stood down a 4-person away team AND Picard with no weapon -- not very well armed ), and he had abandonment and rage issues. I can't decide whether the special effects or the grade-school psychology were cheesier in that episode, but nevertheless, at the moment, I'm Armus, if only because I'm black goo.
Maybe it's because the cat has been pooping all over everything I own lately, but I feel like a worthless piece of doody lately. The black goo is choking me. It sits in the corner of my stomach, this little black ball, till something sets it off and it explodes and starts traveling up from my stomach to my throat, trying to choke me. I see and feel nothing but black goo. I think I must be the most evil person ever, everything is black and dark and enveloping. There is no good to me, there is no light, there is blackness and despair and hopelessness and evil.
I can't sleep. I didn't get one lick of sleep last night, was up and down every half hour, went to bed at midnight and said to heck with it around 6 this morning. I drank a pile of caffeine and plowed my way through my freelance project, because I need the cash bigtime, but I felt like a fraud the whole time, like I really don't know what I'm doing, I don't know anything, I'm just a worthless piece of good-for-nothing crap. Everything is black. I've spent the last hour in bed, trying to fall asleep, and all I can do is rock back and forth and think about how rotten I am. I'm almost afraid to fall asleep; I don't know what it will bring. I DO know it won't bring rest and relaxation.
I had no idea that at this point I could fall back into the abyss so suddenly and deeply, but here I am. When I was in the hospital for so long, by the time I finally got conscious enough to know what was going on, the Sago mine disaster was going on. Daytime TV is gross, so I kept CNN on all the time, and of course it was all death and destruction, all the time. Right now I feel like those miners: I can't breathe, and I'm trapped. It's dark, and I'm running out of air, and I don't even have the energy to leave a note, like some of them did -- I'm too busy trying not to choke to death on black goo.
Can somebody tell me how I got here? I'm not sure I know. I suspect I will read this over in the morning and realize I briefly lost touch with reality -- I don't feel real right now. I feel like Armus. He was all alone on Vagra 2. They left him there, with his rage and his obvious issues. Troi said she pitied him, and he got ticked off. I understand. I don't want pity. I want relief. I can't cry. I can't breathe. I can't find any light. I can't stand myself; I feel like every cell that makes up "me" has something rotten in its core and I'm just an evil piece of crap.
I can't stand being mentally ill. I hate being this debilitated. I hate being sent into a tailspin by the dumbest d*mn things. I hate not being able to function like a normal human being, even when I'm expected to. I REALLY hate that people don't understand me! At all! Ever! (Well, except for other people in the same boat.) I KNOW I'm a PITA to live with. Being crazy makes everybody around you crazy. I just wish, when I got "crazy," that there was something to get me out of it, instead of having to slog through it.
Screw it. I'm going to go take a couple of Xanax and put on my relaxation CD. Maybe some nice New Age music will convince me I'm not Armus. But right now I think I could climb out of my skin with no problem whatsoever. One of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut, once wrote a short story about people having evolved out of bodies. They kept the really good-looking ones in warehouses, and rented them out for parades and special occasions, but otherwise they went around the rest of the time without bodies. I want to do that.
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