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fracturedsoul86 · 5 years

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My Journey - As Abbreviated As I Can Make It...

Fig. 1: Easter Dinner 2019 at the delicious Golden Pheasant in Torrance, CA, consisting of sizzling rice soup, sweet and sour soup, mushoo pork, kung pao shrimp and chicken, sizzling beef, Mongolian beef, and pineapple fried rice. Yum!

This was my Easter dinner (Fig. 1)... Spectacular by most standards. Copious, delicious, extravagant, and truly a blessing for me at a time when I felt extreme loneliness. And I’ll be honest... not only loneliness, but entrapment.

**Pause For Positivity** Before I breakdown some of the negative emotions above, I need to acknowledge that my roommates and house manager at South Bay Sober Living saw my dark, depressed mood on Easter, and made immediate moves to try and lift my spirits, resulting in the beautiful meal you see above. For only knowing me 4.5 days, that was a nice surprise to see care and concern arise from people who had no reason to show me any. So a huge win for positivity and kindness that night, and a reminder to find the positive in everything ALWAYS!

Now, to dissect how I got to that dark, lonely place and that feeling of entrapment. I was feeling alone and forgotten on a holiday that had for many years held a special place in the hearts of my family members, and meant getting a little more dressed up than usual and enjoying a beautiful meal and family time. Now, mind you, being younger and in a different mindset entirely, and having endured some of the very dark, negative, and frankly hellish lows I have in the past 13 months, I never appreciated these gatherings and the time with family then like I do now. As well, starting at 18 with the death of my father, followed by my grandmother, aunt, uncle, family friends, and friends’ relatives, the recurring depressive thought that one day I would be entirely alone in this world, no family, no friends, no one thinking about me or concerned as to my well-being or my whereabouts, sunk in and slowly started to sabotage my desire to work towards anything of value in my life.

It also revealed the beast of co-dependence the three main people who raised me - my mother, my father, and my grandmother (mother’s mother) - had instilled in me. For years, the image I portrayed to those around me was prioritized. How I presented myself, how I represented the family, the expectations for my life... they were piled on over and over, and what I wanted, and who I was, was secondary to the mold that was envisioned for me. Those qualities and desires that I had that fit in that mold were supported, encouraged, and shown and talked about with pride to anyone who would listen. Those which did not were repeatedly rebuffed, criticized, and swiftly “corrected.” This resulted in low self-esteem, a confused self image, and an inability to speak up for myself. I was bullied by my cousins, as well as by my peers when I switched schools in third grade, and became used to running to my teacher and day care workers for protection. I became a people pleaser, a “yes” man, and highly dependent on the approval of others. Plus, I spent years, even when I moved out on my own and wasn’t always the most financially prudent or responsibility-minded, in which my family never let me get too uncomfortable. And why should they? Overall, I was a good kid, intelligent and highly accomplished scholastically, and eventually a good guy and promising employee.

Mind you, they allowed uncomfortability a place in my life to a degree to show me life isn’t all smiley faces and lollipops. I wasn’t handed everything, nor did I have no consequences when I strayed off course. I kept a job though, had a car, had an apartment. Held it all seemingly together. I was drinking myself away on weekends when I went out with friends, though, and followed those friends into a deeper path of self “exploration,” but realistically speaking, it was more self medication, getting into weed, cocaine, ecstasy, molly, mushrooms, and acid. Regardless, help always came as long as my life appeared to be handled somewhat. It always seemed like there would be some net at some point that would catch me when I fell too deep, or some switch would trigger when life was getting too tough for me to handle, and help would rush in. Deluded sounding, I know, but when you haven’t fallen to your rock bottom, it’s just an ever present constant that just is... until it isn’t.

With those contextual markers in mind, my brain would be clicking along, distracted by life, by work, by bills, by TV, by friends, and eventually by alcohol and drugs, anything to keep me from thinking about the dark depressing realization of being alone that continued to become so very real with each person that slipped from life, from my life, and from this world. Without anyone caring about me, why is it even worth living? What is there to live for when we all are just going to die anyway? My hope, my happiness, my reasons for being, it all started to fade away.

**Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech** Depression, fueled by so much that had befallen me in life in subtle and not so subtle ways, brought my life to a grinding halt. Right at a weak point though, the most anti-depressive drug I know hooked in and took over - Crystal Meth. Dopamine and Serotonin flooding my system over and over, relieving me of the darkness, and fueling one of the most pleasure-inducing activities in life for me - masturbation and sex - took over. In a mind like mine, traumatized by life, unaware as to its true source of joy, of happiness, Crystal Meth found a home that needed it very badly! Boy, did I give in to it HARD. In the course of a year in which Crystal Meth, Sex, and Masturbation took priority over everything else, I lost my job, I lost some friendships, a relationship, my apartment, and finally my freedom.

Mind you, the Meth use also resulted in experiences and an opening of my mind that caused me to become both more able to see the realities of what is, taught me to ultimately place my happiness in myself, rather than anyone else, and unlocked in me memories, gave me visions of potentialities, showed me patterns I never saw before, and showed me how to accept things that others found to be absurd, crazy, or, as they saw it, “impossible.” It is interesting though, that Truth is so incredibly relative. I didn’t realize that presented with compelling arguments of what I know to be the Truth, others would actually take all of it as ridiculous. Literally EVERYONE I know around me in fact. I have been repeatedly, daily in fact, faced with incredulity, doubt, and downright anger for things I’ve said because people refuse to listen to me and actually take what I say and think, “He may be right.” They choose to always respond with, “You’re crazy. You’re erratic. What you’re saying is unbelievable and patently false.” Is it? IS IT? How do YOU know? Have you checked the validity of your sources? Have you checked the validity of mine? NO, THEN SIT THE FUCK DOWN AND CALM THE FUCK DOWN! If you haven’t fact checked what I say and have chosen instead to simply say “I disbelieve it because I don’t have to believe it,” then that’s what I call a wall. Not a friend, not even a courteous person. A wall. A friend says, “Interesting ideas. I don’t know that I agree, but as your friend, as someone who cares, let me look into this. You may be right!”I have yet to hear a single person in my life say that, and actually make an effort to help me prove that my Truth is The Truth, or help me to see that what I believed to be The Truth is actually just imagined truth.

THAT IS WHERE ALL MY CURRENT ANGER AND RESENTMENT STEM FROM, AND WHY FEW RELATIONSHIPS FROM MY PAST STAND A CHANCE OF REVISITATION UNLESS I CHOOSE TO OVERLOOK THIS FACT. That is why I’m finding it hard to reach out, and why I’m finding it hard to let anyone in unless they make a concerted effort to understand me, or at least listen to me and not make me feel like I’m worthless because they disagree with me or simply can’t take the time to try and understand, or help prove or disprove my truth. It’s because that is the lengths I go to for my friends, and it is what I expect of my friends now too. Close friends that is.

Now, about that feeling of entrapment... In a country that runs on money, when you’re out of it, help comes at the cost of your own autonomy. Help comes with strings. And that’s where I’m at.

Feeling out of control of my own destiny has to be the scariest feeling there is, and entering sober living as well as court-ordered treatment because I’d allowed the control of my life to escape me has been a hard pill to swallow. My ability to choose and to live has been thrown into question, and dealing with that has been hard, especially after making it work more-or-less successfully for me for 12 of 13 years solo. Giving consideration to a different path, and to others, because I’d run down every last bit of personal and monetary equity I had trying to live life my way in every way I thought I could has felt like a real disappointment to me, and has caused me to react in anger, sadness, disappointment, and frustration towards others when they don’t deserve it, as far as help is concerned. Mind you, some people have deserved it, and my contentious relationship I have with “help” comes from the anger over the above reluctancy for ANYONE to consider MY POINT OF VIEW at all. There are people I let into my life, and frankly pursued to have in my life, whose reactions and feelings towards me disappointed me greatly when I asked for basic emotional support and understanding that is not unreasonable nor overarching for a friend to ask for from another friend. Some of those people especially hurt me because I’d invested a lot of time, energy, money, and emotion into creating friendships of what I felt to be of great value to both of us, and who I felt would stick by me when the going got tough. Watching desire to understand, desire to help, and desire to “agree to disagree” and continue working toward the common goal of “us” wither away, but especially a desire to communicate at all and to begin the process of amending what has been broken or hurt, befuddled, confused, and downright astounded me.

The single BIGGEST lesson taken from all of it: Invest time and resources wisely in life. With what time we have, as limited or unlimited as it may be, think through each investment with as much care as we can, and it is worth. Also, ultimately, YOUR Life is YOURS... MY Life is MINE; YOUR Design for YOUR Life is YOURS... MY Design for MY Life is MINE. Ultimate happiness and contentment are decided by each individual as to what that looks like for them. Provided no harm comes to others in achieving that happiness, or that happiness is not dependent on the harm or downfall of another/others, then intervention and/or negative criticisms have no place or voice when conversing of one’s goals, hopes, or ideas of their happiness. Rather than criticize and focus on differences, focus on commonalities, focus on positivity, focus on helping each other reach for the best version of themselves, and in doing so, reach for their happiness!

Fig. 2: RMS Titanic sinks in mid-Atlantic on a frigid April night in 1912. Cold, dark, desolate, lonely, very much a watery, icey hell for the passengers aboard.

Now, for some analogizing...

Forgive the predictable analogy, but being that it is April, I am who I am (one fascinated with disaster, especially that of the RMS Titanic, and ocean liners, especially the Olympic-Class ships and those vessels Harland & Wolff built off the same basic platform), and it fits so well for the message I have, I’ll go with it. As you may (or may not) know, the White Star liner RMS Titanic of 1912 was the most advanced large luxury liner its builders could envision at the time, building evolutionarily on multiple designs which had preceded it, each improving on the one before and pushing the envelope just a little bit further and further to create something even larger, more luxurious, and more profitable for its operating company, while taking measured risk in each iteration and abiding by maritime law in place at the time. Ultimately though, the design WAS limited... by cost, by profitability considerations, by outdated laws unable to keep pace with technology, by desire for power over the shipping industry, and by pure Edwardian Age ego manifested to great achievement, as well as great disaster, during the Industrial Revolution. What conspired to do in the Titanic in dramatic fashion during the late night/early morning hours of April 14-15, 1912 in the frigid, sub-zero mid-Atlantic was a combination of factors (seriously... we’re talking Final Destination - destiny/fate levels of undersight, oversight, stupidity, ego, and plain old blindness) that created the least likely scenario the ship’s designers never even imagined/considered possible to befall the latest, greatest, most evolved version of the “Olympic-Class” design. The first version of this newest design went to sea in original form in May 1911 with RMS Olympic. The Titanic was the 1st evolution of the design, going to sea in April 1912, followed by a 2nd evolution immediately instituted in an early refit on Olympic following Titanic’s loss, with a 3rd iteration launched in 1914 as the RMS (HMHS) Britannic, only seeing life as a hospital ship due to the outbreak of WWI.

Before I geek out hard on the topic of Titanic-related knowledge, the point of mentioning all of this... White Star did not throw away what was a strong basic design. It took what it learned and created something improved, each iteration becoming better and better.

Primary example: HMHS Britannic only completed 14 voyages during WWi, though she did them all comfortably, reliably, without a problem, before she hit a mine off the Greek island of Kia and sank with a loss of 30 lives. 30! With a compliment of passengers and crew roughly the same size as that present on Titanic when she sank, most of which were far less capable of evacuating the ship due to sickness and injuries sustained while fighting out on the battlefields of Europe and North Africa. Further, the Britannic sank in approximately 55 minutes, less than a third of the time it took for Titanic to sink, because of breaches in wartime protocol that allowed water to spill into the open portholes above and behind watertight compartments that would have assured that the liner didn’t sink at all had they remained closed. Being that the ship was built for North Atlantic service and not hot Mediterranean climates, this oversight makes sense. But what an astonishing difference! 2/3 less time to evacuate the sinking liner, majority of passengers unfit to even move from it, and yet only 30 lives lost! Far less than the loss of ~1200 on her older sister.

The coupe d’grace of the whole story though... the final evolution, instituted on the OG following the loss of Britannic, would see Olympic through to the end of her successful, 24-years-long career, during which she remained profitable and garnered the well-earned nickname “Old Reliable.” She sailed in perfect working order her entire career, in fact only improving in reliability and efficiency with age, and was only taken out service because she was surplus tonnage during the Depression.

Because of hard financial times, White Star and Cunard merged, and the large liners RMS Mauretania, RMS Aquitania, RMS Berengaria, RMS Olympic, RMS Homeric, and RMS Majestic were all taken out of service and scrapped for a single two-ship service that would consist of RMS Queen Mary and RMS Queen Elizabeth, with the holes in service during refits to the Queens filled by RMS Mauretania (II) and RMS Caronia.

Fig. 3: RMS Olympic in 1911 configuration in Southampton, prior to Titanic’s sinking in April 1912.

Fig. 4: HMHS Britannic, seen in hospital ship dress. Her design changes, especially in the area of lifeboat capacity and accessibility are quite noticeable; while other structural adjustments were made to accommodate additional passenger capacity and/or passenger amenities, as well as functional improvements for better service.

Fig. 5: RMS Olympic later in her career, with the functional addition of a full compliment of lifeboats along each side of her boat deck visible, a clear reaction to the inadequate number of lifeboats fitted to her and her ill-fated sister Titanic in original configuration.

I view myself, my journey, and my life much like that of the Olympic-class liners. The first part of my life was like those first beautiful, hopeful years from 1907-1911 when the shipyard was readied and the Olympic and Titanic constructed side-by-side. My first 13 months (January 2017 - February 2018) at the law firm I worked at just before Crystal Meth hooked into my life dramatically was like that successful year of service for RMS Olympic from May 1911- April 1912, and the period in which my present reality declined and ended over my depression, co-dependent behavior and thought patterns, and self-medication with Crystal Meth, as well as my over-confidence in my ability to recover without help much like the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Now that I’ve learned the lessons, and am receiving help, taking consideration of others’ suggestions, and taking advantage of a returned sense of mental clarity free from deep emotion (some created by people and experiences, and some manufactured by Crystal Meth), I’m not throwing away my design - MY DESIGN FOR MY LIFE AND MY HAPPINESS, NOT YOURS, NO JUDGEMENT ALLOWED HERE - I’m improving it, looking through my notes, instituting the lessons, and keeping a sharp eye out for those snakes in the grass again. I’m not letting snakes back in.

The focus has changed as well. My happiness, safety, security, stability, and priorities come first. If I find others of the same mind and mindset, excellent! Let’s unite and build a beautiful relationship and life together, whether that’s as business partners, friends, lovers, or any combination therein. But no more full disclosure. No more full transparency. No more oversharing. My defenses are up, and my boundaries will be lowered with measured consideration. I see the switches that flip people. I see the people whose switches are easily flipped. One very clear one is Crystal Meth. Made everyone around me lose their minds. Everyone around me said I lost mine. But I didn’t, they in fact did. Facts people. Fact check my statements. See who’s actually telling the truth... If you can prove my statements are false, verifiably, unequivocally, then I will thank you for caring enough to prove me wrong, and will accept that what I thought the truth was is not. If you prove me right, I will thank you for being a good friend, and you will find that you should have been listening to me and be astounded and who I am the whole time!

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