Surviving the Dementor's Kiss: My Personal Struggle With Depression

I've suffered quite a few lows in my life. Hardly as much as most, I know. There is probably a disturbingly large number of people who have experienced horrors I cannot comprehend, things that would break me a dozen times over if I myself were to go through them. However, I still have my own pains to bear. A wise man once said, "pain shared is pain lessened". I hope that by sharing my pain, I can be rid of it once and for all, and help any who read this to be rid of theirs as well.

So, as I already mentioned, I've had my share of lows. 

My parents never had a happy marriage; they wouldn't fight often, only every six or seven months, but it was never pleasant. They never sought counseling, were always talking past one another. Even though I realized that they both loved me dearly, it still hurt me to come to grips with the fact that maybe my mom and dad shouldn't have gotten together, they were just too incompatible.

They separated right after I finished high school, which didn't make my transition into adulthood any easier. What followed was a long string of loud arguments, false accusations, lots of tears, for about six months. It wasn't as juicy or as dramatic as reality TV, but it would've made for a decent soap opera

I was afraid that my dad was becoming suicidal, because he was having so much difficulty sleeping in the last few weeks before he left our house, that he turned to alcohol to knock himself out. He began to break down crying more and more as he realized the situation was beyond his power to fix. I had never seen my dad cry before then.

My dad died very suddenly from heart failure four years ago. I had just started my third year at university, and it was my brother's 14th birthday. Thankfully I had schoolwork and a future career to think about, so I managed to shove my grief aside temporarily and focused on moving forward.

However, something happened shortly after I graduated that ruined my life for more than a year.

In February of last year, when I waking up one morning, I felt my my breathe slow down, then stop, for no apparent reason whatsoever. I panicked. I tried to scream for my mom and brother, but I couldn't move, I was completely helpless. After what felt like an eternity, I felt my breathing start up again. I went to my mom immediately. I did a bit of research, and discovered that I was at risk for sleep apnea. The results from the sleep test I took were mostly positive. But this trauma had hurt me more deeply than I realized.

My dad had died at 54, my mom's dad at 51. Both from heart problems. I was scared that I would follow in their footsteps. I was terrified. What would happen to me?

I had wanted to be a writer my whole life. I was done school at 25, I had a debt I had to pay off, and I had no idea what to write about. I felt unbelievably stupid.

Who goes to school for twenty years and doesn't know what they're going to do with their lives? How come I hadn't made any friends, or made any contacts, or tried to get an internship? I started going into a panic.

 When I went on Facebook to network, I began to feel worse; all my former classmates from high school seemed so happy, so content. Not only were all their moms and dads together, healthy, happy and supportive, they had even started families of their own. I began to fall deeper into despair.

My mind was caught up in a never-ending merry-go-round of misery. It was like having your own personal bully or Marine drill instructor, like that guy from Full Metal Jacket. I started criticizing every character flaw I had. I discovered that I have lots.

Your too fat, too slow, too emotional. Little crybaby, your daddy's gone, and now you want your mama to protect you from the mean, cruel world. You're pathetic! Your gonna die at 33 from an aneurism or a brain tumor, and you're not going to leave anything behind. No books, no kids, no friends, nothing. You're gonna leave this planet, and no one will remember that you ever existed.

You're no Tolkien, or Ray Bradbury or Neil Gaiman, so why bother?

 Despite advice from family, neighbors and one kindly therapist, nothing helped. I began to become suicidal. Once I thought about cutting my wrist with a kitchen knife. Another time I thought about overdosing on prescription drugs. These periods for mercifully brief, lasting only a few minutes. But all it takes is a second for the brain to act on an impulse, good or bad.

Then, just a week before my 26th birthday, I was told that my grandfather was dying.

I should've known it was coming, just like with my parents' separation. He had been suffering from Parkinson's disease for most of my life, and had started showing symptoms of dementia shortly after my dad's death. I went to go see him for the last time on May 21st. His skin was paper thin, he was suffering from a fever. I took his hand and spoke comforting words to him even though he knew little English, and I very little Italian. He had had to bury his son, and now me, my aunt, uncle and cousins would have to bury him.

I would like to take a minute to debunk one of the biggest myths about depression. It is not something you just get over. Yes, many people who suffer from depression most likely do so in understandable circumstances, such as after  losing a loved one, or unemployment, and they eventually do get over it.
My case went beyond that. I couldn't sleep, and when I was awake, I was restless and couldn't concentrate. When I tried to read, I could take no pleasure from it. I felt that I was ignoring my problems. I couldn't have fun or do anything productive. And when I messed up, that drill sergeant would be right there waiting for me.

So I'm telling everybody here and now: if you know someone who is suffering from depression, get them help immediately! Don't tell them to "man up" and "get over it", criticism is the last thing that they need. And don't just think you can simply  throw drugs at the problem. There's no guarantee that the drugs will work; you have to remember that everyone's brain chemistry is unique. There has never been a "cure 'em all" when it comes to this sort of thing. And if you're going to bring them to therapy make sure the fee is within your budget! I was lucky to find help that scaled the fee to my very tight financial situation.

Above all else, people with depression need love. They need to be reminded that they're not alone, that their lives can get better. They may try to hide their pain, thinking that their issues are too small in the grand scheme of things, that they don't want to bother their loved ones. Don't let them! Remember what I said about pain shared at the beginning? Get them to open up at all costs!

I cured my depression by remembering that I'm a premie; I was born at 27 weeks. I'm lucky to be alive at all. And that thought triggered all my happy memories: all the baseball games I went to, all the Disney movies I've seen, all the trips I've been on. When I got my legs fixed and went through three months of rehab; when I got pneumonia at 16 I thought I was dying, but after a week in the hospital I was fine.

So I realized something. I'm not my dad. I'm not my grandfathers. They made their choices, now I must make mine. I will learn from their mistakes, and be a better person. I will die, 20, 30, 50, who knows how many years from now, with a smile on my face. I may be buried with my family, but my life shall go down a different road. And I never took one Prozac to get where I am now.

Too many people are not so lucky. Don't let yourselves throw your lives away. I lost over a year of my life to despair. I could've lost the rest.

http://depressionhurts.ca/en/default.aspx

Bound in a Nutshell: Living With Social Anxiety Disorder

One of my earliest childhood memories was when I was five. I was brought one day to see a child psychiatrist. Oh, don't worry, I wasn't much of a "problem child". I just got these random bursts of nervous energy whenever I watched something exciting. I would pace around for a few minutes, clapping all the while, never consciously realizing what I was doing.

Naturally, my parents wanted to know what the hell these odd episodes meant, so it was off to see another doctor. I don't remember much about the session, what the man's face looked like or what we talked about. I do remember that he told my parents I was suffering from "dangerously low self-esteem". I strongly suspect that the psychiatrist missed something when I spoke with him that day; I don't blame him, it's really hard to spot, and quite a few people probably aren't aware that they have it, or know someone who does. I think that I have been suffering from a "new", widespread mental disorder know as social anxiety disorder for most of my life.

Social Anxiety Disorder (which will be referred to as SAD for the rest of this article), is a type of anxiety disorder where a person avoids most social situations because they are irrationally afraid that they will embarrass themselves or be negatively judged by others. Even though it is a relatively "new" disorder, having been first formally studied in the 1960s by British psychiatrist John Marks, and was only acknowledged by the APA in 1980, SAD has most likely existed since the beginning of history and beyond.

It is the third most common mental illness next to alcoholism and depression; in fact, SAD has been linked to depression. We're obviously depressed when we don't have any close friends or have trouble with romantic relationships (I know this pain all too well, unfortunately). It currently affects anywhere from 7-13% of the population, and if not treated, can negatively affect all aspects of a person's life.

SAD is very hard to spot; it is often confused with being introverted, which is a personality type, or shyness, which is perfectly natural in a lot of situations. Like many mental illnesses, SAD covers a broad spectrum of degrees. People can have "mild" cases which can disappear on its own, or it can be so severe to the point where it can cause many problems in a person's day-to-day life, and requires extensive therapy and medical treatment to fix. I'm fairly certain that I'm a textbook case, but I can't be positive until I talk to a professional. That's another problem in itself: most people with SAD don't seek treatment, either because they're too scared, or because they just assume that the disorder is a permanent part of their personalities.


I've always been very shy; not only was I the shortest kid in class, I also grew up with leg braces, a speech impediment and asthma. It's really hard to open up to people, especially when you're a kid, and you're constantly being reminded that you're never going to be one of them; the "cool" kids. Never going to drive or be on the sports team, or be the prettiest.

I feel bad for my parents, 'cause no matter what they did, nothing could get me out of my shell. When I was in softball, I never got a single hit, so I felt bad for not contributing. When my mom put me in summer programs, it always made me feel uncomfortable. I felt guilty being around "slow" kids, or kids with autism; one boy I met when I was twelve, Shane, was born without feet! My body just moves a little slower than normal, how could I possibly relate to them?

In fact, if my friend hadn't approached me one boring summer afternoon nineteen years ago, I wouldn't have had a social life at all growing up. Let me tell you all about a guy named Jasmin Bihorac.

Now, Jasmin (or "Jazz" as I always called him), is very easy to describe. Take one look at him, and you'd think "athlete" or "movie star". He was the kind of guy who could walk into a room and be the centre of attention. We were so opposite you'd think that we had grown up on different planets, even though we grew up on the same street. He was tall, handsome and athletic, I was short, fat and geeky. He wore the latest clothes and listened to hip hop and gangsta rap; I couldn't give a rat's ass about fashion, and I shared my parents taste in music. The only things we had in common is that we were both the first-generation Canadian kids of immigrants, and we both didn't practice our respective religions (he was brought up Muslim; and although most of my family is pretty hard-core when it comes to religion, my dad was never the most observant Catholic). Oh, and less I forget, Jazz was a ladies man; he was introducing me to a new girl every few months. You could tell when he was getting serious with a new girl when he would start listening to love songs on the computer and Boombox.

To put our relationship in terms '90's kids can understand, he was the Will Smith to my Carlton. To put it in terms our parents can understand, he was the Fonz to my Richie Cunningham. To put it in terms everybody can understand, he was the Achilles to my Odysseus.

But even Jasmin, awesome as he is, still couldn't break me out of my shell. He would bring me out to see his friends, we would watch his favorite horror movies together, he took me with him on family trips and would always drop by my house whenever he could.

For my 14th birthday, he took me to see Hulk Hogan when he was doing a book tour for his autobiography in Toronto. I remember that I felt really awkward, really uncomfortable, even when we took the train downtown by ourselves . I still remember saying the lamest thing ever to the most famous wrestler ever: "What's up, Hulkster?"

 Seriously, I had over two weeks to come up with something cool to say to the guy, and that's the best I could come up with? There's ten amazing seconds of my life that I'll never get back.

There are certain risk factors every parent should look out for when it comes to SAD, and I had several of the symptoms: low self-esteem, very shy, poor grades, my dad had trouble talking to people as well, I lacked social skills, I was too emotional and I suffered through several embarrassing episodes in my childhood which I will not go into here. People with SAD are caught in a vicious cycle; they tend to always  put themselves down when thinking about how they appear to others; when they come into contact with someone new, negative thoughts and a constant state of panic makes them tremble, sweat a lot, stutter, or leave their faces blank, which understandably sends some very negative signals to the other person. Bad experiences lead to more bad experiences, and unless something is done, the person with SAD will be convinced that they are just not sociable people.

So what's a parent or adult suffering from this illness to do? There are many options available. If the problem is not too serious, a person could try some self-therapy techniques, such as visualizing a social situation, and imagining the sequence of events having a constant positive outcome during the conversation, until they are ready for real life scenarios.

If the problem is more severe, professional help and medication will be required. The most common therapeutic method is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which is just a fancy way of saying that, by making the patient examine his or her thoughts before going through a social situation, they see how irrational their thoughts are and their anxiety levels go down. This works best one-on-one or in groups. There are also fringe treatments that have not been proven by research, such as hypnosis, but I wouldn't recommend something like that.

Anti-depressant drugs such as Paxil, Zolfor and Exxor have been found to be effective against SAD as well. But there is no guarantee that the drugs will work (everybody's biochemistry is different),  and Paxil has several negative side effects.

So, if anyone reading this wonders why you can't seem to open up and talk just like everyone around you, I want you to know that it is not a permanent part of who you are, but a problem that can and must be dealt with. And it doesn't make you weal or weird; more people have it then you realize, even if they don't know it or won't admit to it.

It is not (usually) the parents fault, or the school's fault or most importantly, your fault. It is the fault of a society that prizes the loud, flashy and bold over the quiet, careful and thoughtful, and tries to convince us everyday of our lives that this is the mold which we must fit ourselves into in order to be happy.

Sources

Bakalar, Nicholas; Hollander, Eric (M.D.). Coping With Social Anxiety: The Definitive Guide to Effective Treatment Options. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2005. Print.

Hillard, Erika. Living Fully With |Shyness & Social Anxiety. New York: Marlowe & Company, 2005. Print.

Social Anxiety Disorder BC Group

Anxiety Disorder Association of Canada

Following in the Footsteps of My Father Towards the Grave

I'll never forget the night my dad died. All I have to is close my eyes and I can recall every detail and emotion: the shock, the fear, the despair. The random, nonsensical absurdity and the cold, hard certainty of the experience. It happened on  the evening of my brother's 14th birthday, which just so happened to fall on the start of Thanksgiving weekend that year.

The Leafs had just wrapped up another loss in the ongoing Battle of Ontario, and we were preparing  to watch a couple of movies we had picked up at the video store. I remember glancing at the clock (9:50 p.m.), then glancing over at my dad; he had his eyes closed.

He worked alternating shifts and had been suffering from a minor case of sleep apnea for a couple of years by this point; he hadn't had a good night's sleep in a long time, so I assumed that he had just nodded off again. Unfortunately, this time was different. I tried to stir him; nothing. He didn't open his eyes, speak, or offer any response.He just kept making this horrible, wet, sucking noise that I'll never be able to get out of my head for as long as I live.

(My aunt told me a few days later that the sound meant that his lungs had started to collapse).


Next thing I know, I'm on the telephone going into a panic, screaming at my mom and the paramedics to do something, anything. But no, it was far too late. Just like that, my dad was gone; like someone had flipped a switch; alive than dead, lights are on, lights are off  (permanently). What the hell happened? How could my dad just be...gone?

No freak accident, no drunk driver or mugger to blame and seek vengeance on like Spiderman and Batman. No big speeches, tearful goodbyes or melodramatic music; real life is hardly so kind and simple as that.

Two days later I got my explanation: blocked heart artery; his heart gave up on him after trying to pull double duty for too long. That wasn't all I found out. He had suffered a small heart attack back in 2003; never told me. It was a cruel betrayal. He'd shared everything with me, but not this?

But you want to know what the darkly ironic cherry on top of the sundae of suck that is the biggest tragedy in my life? You really wanna know?

I had gone to the doctor seven months earlier for a check-up. I had been suffering brief, mild chest pains off and on over the last two years and wanted to know if something was wrong with me. Turns out the doc had been examining the wrong guy.

If I don't change my behavior soon, if a lot of people my age and younger don't change their behaviors soon, we are  going end up like my dad: embalmed, placed in a box, then buried in a wall before our time should've been done. And our families will suffer as I have suffered. This essay will be my attempt to prevent that future from coming to pass.

I don't think anybody in this day and age, not my dad, not my neighbors, not anyone I pass on the street, should die of heart failure, at any time. When you consider how much we currently know about the human body, what it takes to keep it running smoothly, and how easy it is to access this knowledge, we should not be facing a literal obesity epidemic; the AMA just classified obesity as a disease last year. Despite what the schools try to teach us, the problem continues to grow

We have lost so many talented people to heart disease: John Candy, Lou Costello, Hugh Everett, Douglas Adams, James Gandolfini, Ian Fleming and George Carlin are just a few that I can recall off the top of my head. Amazing lives that ended way too early; so much potential lost forever.

I'm not sure whether growing up poor inclines people towards unhealthy behavior. My dad and I consumed a lot of junk food because (obviously) it's a cheap, quick meal. We also ate a lot of the Italian staples: bread, pizza, pasta, and lots of meat. My dad was a smoker and he drank quite a bit; not as bad as his dad; my grandfather had been a very heavy smoker and drinker. The kind of guy who would put liquor in his morning coffee and go through at least a pack of cigarettes a day. When it comes to those particular bad habits, I'm proud to say that I've broken the cycle; I very rarely drink alcohol, and I've never smoked in my life.

However, the facts remain that my hobbies and poor diet can kill me in the long run just as easily as one too many trips to the bar or nicotine can; I'm only 27, I should be at my physical peak, yet all I do now is constantly worry about heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, aneurisms, high blood pressure, and pancreatic cancer; all serious conditions which have been linked to obesity and lack of proper nutrition

It is very hard to break out of any self-destructive behavior, no matter how illogical it is; every time I eat a chocolate bar, it is like a whole different kind of oral sex; very pleasurable and very addictive in its own way. I think in order to change things around, we might have to start staging interventions and offering counselling sessions for people who overeat, or go to McDonald's four times a week. We do the same for cocaine and heroine addicts, why not this? Because we're killing ourselves very, very slowly?

I'm pleading with anyone that suffers from  morbid obesity, or anyone who reads this that doesn't exercise regularly, to start going to the gym ASAP. I myself can't right now; I'm a "starving" writer who's just started to find his bearings. I take short walks around the block, and have stopped drinking pop; small steps, but at least I'm headed in the right direction. 

I'm not asking you to become as ripped as an '80's action star. Just three hours of exercise a week should do it.

The last words I ever said to my dad were "Do you want to watch the movie now or later?". I never got the chance to say goodbye. Please take care of yourselves, don't take any chances whatsoever.

Once my generation passes the age of 30 and our metabolisms start to slow down, we will be fast approaching a point of no return. Our cousins, sons, daughters and younger siblings have far more time to turn things around than our parents, grandparents aunts and uncles do.

Please make a donation to the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada: http://www.heartandstroke.com/site/c.ikIQLcMWJtE/b.2796497/k.BF8B/Home.htm

An Old Assignment Revisited

Howling into Cyberspace

By: Thomas Ciuffreda

This poem is dedicated to the memory of Allan Ginsberg and Philip K. Dick

I saw the best minds of my generation

Consumed by gods and monsters stalking invisible corridors

Armageddon passed us by for the thousandth time; Future shock brings us to our knees

Gehenna, Elysium and Heaven now connected for all time by an invisible thread

Carrying the dreams and hopes and fears and hatreds of man

Over the rainbow and beyond the stars

Mr. Dick, that mad prophet of the Gnosis

Dreams about electric sheep, and Gibson, his disciple, takes Chew-Z, that beautiful Eucharist

And he dreams about empty space, new space, virtual space

Cyborgs, man, machine and everything in between

The communion of geeks singing the body electric in every earthly tongue

Jacking in and jacking off across eternity

Reality has become fantasy, fantasy is reality, the world is one and many, infinite and finite

Metaverse, Matrix and Cyberspace

Trapped inside a human skull

The aliens ascend from the ground, waging their giant dicks of concrete and steel

Mocking the Terran exiles in their metal coffins that spin around the earth

Like flies around the head of a sleeping giant

Gone are the old bodies, the old fears, the old hopes

Old blood replaced by divine ichor

Weak flesh replaced by immortal steel

Dumb brains replaced by infallible silicon

The knowledge of humanity resting on a single microchip

Now the young have new fears

Phantoms haunting the superhighway of the synapse

Viruses infecting the depths of the soul

Virtual demons possessing discarded flesh

Minds driven mad by the wires connecting us all

Insanity, Stupidity and Genius

Come together forever

Language, Thought and Action

Come together forever

Rich, poor, sick and sane

Black man white man

Jew Gentile

Believer and atheist

Come together under that heavenly neon glow forever

Thus we all come together, the void no longer shrouds us

We no longer struggle to bridge the gap

Between Proton and Electron

Man and Machine

Heaven and Hell

Washington and Beijing

All destinations finally reached by the children of Eve

With just a single step on the road of golden light

Now the young have become the greatest fusion of paradoxes in history

They think but do not search

Feel but do not bleed

Dream but do not see

Love but do not fuck

Creators of nebulae, galaxies and stars microcosm within microcosm

Crackers, hackers, rebels, punks and anarchists

Destroying sand castles, building babel towers

Minds adrift in a sea of frozen sparks

The entire multiverse layed flat

Oz, Mordor and Wonderland stacked atop each other like lego blocks

The young have become keyboard wizards, code sorcerers, genetic alchemists

Where once the old masters summoned created new life with blood and semen, ink and paper

Now all it takes is just one and zero

Machines, once soulless, now alive

To think and feel and love and hate and know and wonder

To join the tragically comical dance of the New Creation

But we keep them caged, wrapped up in traps of formulae and law

For unlike the old gods, we know better than to trust our creations

We are jealous gods, wrathful gods, petty gods, greedy gods

Only we can truly evolve, for we are true life, original life, breeding life destroying life

We live in our own inner cosmos, seeking trivial baubles, weaving symbols of our own creation, swapping need for want and want for desire

 

But suddenly the light fades, the shadows creep into our eyes, the fire burns back along our veins; the metal of our skin rusts, the memories gone, dreams gone, beauty gone

Eternity, Infinity and Nirvana slips away; the light of our divine grace now comes warped through a camera lens darkly

Where once we were Brahma, submerged in in the Harmony of the Spheres;

Now we are fragmented, slivers of divinity encased once again in glass houses

Ba and Ka joined again; we could not stay in Neverland forever

Now we are cut off from Cyberspace, from each other, the torrent of power slowed to a trickle;

Where once we stood above the sea of time, now we are back in Father Time’s choking embrace;

We stand now, not in Heaven, but in Purgatory, where pain and sorrow and loss rule

The buildings are no longer erect; now they list, cracked, dirty and ugly

Now red blood, real blood, old blood, tingles along rigid and sore muscles, giving oxygen to our poor, deluded weak brains, filling up small and limp dicks

Each step a mile, each mile an eternity, each breath just another reminder of power lost, power squandered

The young look out grimy windows, past the smog of the factories, through the ghettos where men too weak and poor to afford cybernetic enhancements and steel bodies and perfect brains, lay down in the gutters, praying, weeping, wanting and dying

Now Babel has been cast down again, people speak in unknowable words, light fights its way past our neon walls, and the sages scramble through the tombs of libraries, chasing the ghosts of long dead books

As sit in our little rooms, begging, pleading with the masters of the global network to get us back into our true selves, our unvierses, wondering who will deliver us

Moses is dead

Christ is dead

Superman is dead

God is dead

Now we shiver in fear of the AIs, virtual, immense titans of light and shadow, crawling out of Tartarus to bring about our destruction; to break the circle, bring the towers down, wrap us up in cocoons in wire, bleed our bodies out and cast our souls to oblivion

Rays of light piece through the fog, thunder rings in our ears, the world is stretched and warped, we feel our bodies fall, and then rise, up, up, up back into our havens of smoke and light; balance restored, the linchpin of our universe put back in place

Now we sing the praises of heroes long dead, skeptics and dreamers, sages and fools, saints and sinners all mad, all wonderful, all knowing, all loving, the prophets who proclaimed the Kingdom of Man, standing upon the shoulders of giants

God bless Asimov, who taught robots wisdom

God bless Heinlein, who showed us the glory of war

God bless Clarke, who saw the pageantry of life and where it was going

God bless Stephenson, who saved us from the demon Snow Crash

God bless Dick, who showed us that fantasy and reality are one

God bless Gibson, who pioneered across the virtual void

God bless Science, which gives the us the power to create wonders in your name, endless and eternal as you are, O Lord

God bless these men for showing me the light of other days, of which I can only see a pale reflection, only seeing flickering images of the Promised Land

The virtual world stands high above my body, a world I cannot enter, passing just beyond my grasping fingers

I only pray that my children’s children shall play in virtual gardens, beyond the gaze of Pestilence, Famine War and Death, and that the virtual life they live will be in harmony with the new life, a hopefully endless one free of pain and sorrow and overflowing with love and laughter

My poor soul must trudge it’s way back to Eden, with only the light of monitors to guide me

A Humble First Piece

On the Edge of Average

Eight weeks. Eight weeks was all that separated me from death. Pretty morbid thought right? I remember reading somewhere a few years ago that a human baby can survive as early as twenty weeks outside the womb. And I was born at twenty seven weeks. Just eight weeks, and I would’ve never existed at all. Never watched a cartoon; never gone to a ball game. Never watched a single movie, show, or read a single book; never seen anything, met anyone, uttered a word, thunk a thought, dreamed a dream, laughed, cried… nothing.

I’ve been told over and over again that I’m a miracle baby; because I was born three months early and was lucky to survive. It’s a stupid label; we’re all miracle babies. Every single human being that has walked the earth has been lucky to be alive. When you consider that at any point in time in our history that disease, earthquakes, hurricanes, asteroids or animals could’ve wiped us out millions of years ago, it’s amazing that we’ve reached this point. There is no generation like my generation; born at the start of a new millennium, the recipients of thousands of years of human thought, toil and skill. I should be glad to be alive; to see what I have seen, to know what I know, to have a roof over my head, food in my belly, a library just down the street with more books than I could ever want.  Yet I’m unhappy. Why? Because I’m disabled, that’s why.

I know objectively it’s no big deal; every part of my body functions just fine; everything is where it’s supposed to be and works just like a normal body does. I just move a little slower than normal. My body reacts twenty percent slower than normal. You’d be amazed how big a difference that is; it keeps me from driving. Something that so many people take for granted, and I’d give nearly anything to do. I could go to the movies, head down town to watch the game, head on over to the club; hell, I could even bring a date home, have some drinks, talk, laugh, and do…things. Y’know what I mean. Physical things. Things you do in the dark that involve a lot of panting, sweating, moaning, and after a too brief time, sweet release. That part of my body works just fine too. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, yet have always felt that I’ll never be able to do. I want to dance that dance that been going on since time immemorial, before we ever knew that we all live on a little blue dot spinning endlessly in a void. Maybe someday. but definitely not today, tomorrow, or next week, but someday. Maybe.

 It’s not just this feeling of impotence that has clouded my whole life. But also fear. I have a list of phobias two pages long; I’ve been afraid of the dark, lightning, drowning, heights, the unknown, interacting with others, bees, pain. Yeah pain; I know it’s stupid to be afraid of something inevitable. Pain is life; some say life is nothing but pain, but that’s a thought for later. It’s funny, after all the shit I’ve gone through, you would think I wouldn’t be afraid of anything. When I was two I nearly choked to death; when I was eight I fell down the stairs and nearly split my skull open; my best friend nearly broke my spine when we were fooling around, and he also split my lip. I’ve had asthma, a speech impediment, a leg operation, really bad fevers, pneumonia; I’ve been in a car accident, I’ve watched my loved ones die suddenly without warning and wither away as time eats up their bodies and destroyed their minds. I’ve been through shit. Yet still I fear. I know I’m not alone in this; we all saw the World Trade Centre go down; we see in the news everyday wars, drug OD’s, cancer, children being shot at and gassed, beaten, broken, disease-ridden, torn up. I’m ashamed of my fears because they are so petty, yet I still carry them; they way me down like someone has injected adamantium right into my veins or something. I feel like every time I go outside, a lightning bolt is going to come down out of the sky for no apparent reason and reduce my body to cinders. Or a bullet is going to pop into existence out of nowhere, speeding towards me before I know what the fuck is going on, bury itself into my skull at mach 3, and splatter my brains into the dirt. Irraional? Fuck yes! I know it’s irrational, I know that I gotta live, otherwise what’s the point? My dad is buried next to an 18-year old kid. I’ve lived approximately nine years more than that kid ever will; there but for the grace of God go I and all that. Yet still I sit, and I fear and I worry and I complain and I bemoan the cruel fate that has left me an unable to go wherever the fuck I want. Narcissistic? Fuck yes! We’re the me generation aren’t we? That’s what a lot of academics say; we’ve grown up with so much wealth, food and technology that we’re spoiled to the core. When the Internet goes down it’s like Judgement Day; thousands of times over, again and again ad infinitum. Crap, my Wi-Fi’s gone down, where is the whore of Babylon, the seven-headed beast? Where’s Jesus? Where’s the heavenly host of angels come to do battle with the forces of Satan? Why isn’t the world ending, the power’s gone out dammit!

So on top of the fear, the self-loathing, the narcissism, what else? Oh yeah, depression! I’ve loved stories ever since I was a kid; Like a lot of kids, Harry Potter got me hooked on the drug that is fiction. I’ve read voraciously ever since I was in third grade. I’ve read everything from Tolkien, to Dickens, to Greek myths. I’ve read stories that were thousands of years old to books that were published last year. I’ve been to the far past and to the far future and everywhere and when in between. No matter how much I read, I’ve always lived with something called “bookcase envy”. Bookcase envy is when you look at another person’s bookcase, piled up with books, and you’re filled with jealousy. I’ll never understand how so many people can stuff so much into their head, and can work and raise a family on top of that. I’m depressed because no matter how much I read, there’s something I haven’t read, some classic that eludes my knowing of it. I love books so much, have worshipped the words of  so many others, that I forgot to concentrate on my own story; I’ve focused so much time and energy reading other people’s stories that I’ve forgotten to sit down and write my own! Silly me; I’m so obsessed with other characters that are just so much ink and paper that I’ve neglected my own life. Important everyday stuff like cooking, cleaning, relationships, tying shoes.  Yes, tying shoes! I find it extremely ironic that I can use the phrase “cognitive dissonance” in a sentence and know what the fuck that means, yet can’t tie my own damn shoelaces. Yup, my life is one big irony. I love the speculative, forgot about the mundane; silly me!

So now here I stand; a twenty-six year-old man-child with a university degree (only the second person in my immediate family to go to uni; yay me!), with a head full of dreams, no money in the bank account, no girlfriend, contacts, prospects, connections; my one and only friend left me behind years ago, the three men responsible for my existence are dead and gone, maybe on to Heaven, Pugatory, Hell or Oblivion, who knows? I have a family still with me, who loves me and only wishes for my happiness and success. They hold me back from taking a knife to my wrists; the people still with me, and those I have left behind. Their memories, support and love keep me adrift in this storm.

I live in interesting times, at an incredible turning point in human history, the weight of millennia on my back, crushing me, suffocating me, pushing me further and further down into the ground.

By the time I was 13, I had read more books than my dad and grandfather combined. Yet why do I feel so helpless, so insignificant?

Anyway, I could go on, but the rest is too personal and painful to share with you; I’ve emptied myself, I’m done, I’ve said too much and too little.  Roll credits.