Let's talk about psychological problems

I have an issue.  I love girls who hurt me.  I can somehow smell them from a mile away.  It's almost as if I have a gift for it.



I've been to 4 psychologists and 3 psychiatrists.  Here's what the 4 psychiatrists said:

I took drugs like a crazy person.  Paxil, Welbutrin, Zoloft.  Serious, mind bending drugs.  I couldn't count my own toes when I was taking those drugs. Why was I taking them?  Because I failed in my imagination.  I couldn't imagine a world that was better with me in it.  I could imagine an infinite number of worlds that would be better without me; the ones with me always seemed to be tilting toward disaster.



Eventually, and for each single prescribed drug, I said no thanks.

I realized that, while I don't have much, I have something.  Those "helpful" and "legal" drugs turned me into someone I didn't like.  Someone who was all smiles, all the time.  Someone who couldn't tell a good time from a bad one, someone who no longer had judgment.  And what really surprised me is how much I love judgment.  I like being able to say something is wrong, something is right.



And, even more, I like to be able to say that I am right.

What does this have to do with loving girls who hurt me?  It's quite simple.  Somewhere along the way, I have decided that I don't deserve to be happy.  I don't deserve to be right, though I am, even though right and wrong are not rewards, they just are.  My 3 psychologists said that I need to stop.  That was their message.  Not stop "being," "caring," or "being me."  Just stop.  All three said that I was lovable, that I was considerate, that I was careful.  All three of them said that I hated myself so much that I would destroy the things I loved.





I laughed, I snickered, I grinned in the way I do, which is so demeaning because it is so empty.  I shut down.  I didn't want to hear about all the things I was missing, nor was I interested in hearing about all the great things about me that these people,  to whom I was paying $150/hour, were saying.  I just wanted to hear that I was right.  All three of them said such nice things about me, things which my experience denounces as a lie; however all three said this one thing (paraphrased) :




"Tim, you always think someone else has better words to say how you feel than you do.  But you speak, you think, and you love so well."  All 3 of them said, at one point or another, "I'm sorry."  Those words have fallen on deaf ears, and there is no change I can foresee, so I still love those girls that will hurt me.

here's the secret truth:  i'd rather love anyone who knowingly hurts me than ever love a someone that i could accidentally hurt.  and i'd rather leave you, because that's a passive hurt, than ever actively hurt you.  i can't live with active tears.

Withdrawal...aka, I refused the 12 Step program; Alternate Title: Something I'm ashamed of

This may come as a shock, but I used to have a drug problem.  I also used to have a drinking problem.  I still have a smoking problem.



After Kathy moved out, but before I got divorced and before I left a set of friends in Indiana, I started going to strip clubs.  There were two that I frequented, The Rio and PT's Showclub.  I fell in love with a stripper at The Rio (her "name" was Raven and she promised everything and delivered nothing...kind of like the USPS).
After that little meltdown, and after my good friend Nathan got involved with his newest love, I turned to (gasp) DRUGS.  (Kids, take Nancy Reagan's advice:  Just say "No.")

I didn't start using daily (and never injected, because I've been scared of needles since forever...kind of like I'm scared of horses), but once you are riding there is no coming back.  I found friends, friends whom I knew, who also liked forgetting problems and failures, friends who had been hurt too.  So we met, and eventually I was introduced to something better.  Because cocaine only makes you feel like superman.  But heroin...let's just say that it doesn't fool around with "feelings;"  it makes you superman.  And I got over my fear of needles.  (I'm still scared of horses.)

I shot up frequently, to the point that I lost my job because I couldn't work unless I was drunk/high.  I didn't see a problem, even after I was kicked out of my spacious 3 bedroom apartment and had to move into a 1 bedroom closet.  I was able to keep everything together, somewhat.  Then, as always, things started to fall apart.
There are a few nights I remember which made me realize it was time to leave:
I had just lost my job, my apartment, and was working with a very small list of friends (thanks Todd, Binko, Jamie/New Guy).  I went to my favorite bar, Taylors II, and drank like a complete asshole until 2 am (while extraordinarily high).  Then I asked for a glass of water, no ice.  Jim, the bartender, served me up a large glass of water with ice.  I dumped it on the floor and said:  I didn't want ice.
Another night I kind of remember was this:  I was so drunk and high one night, I drove to see the girl I was in love with, Ellen.  I shouldn't have done that.  I sideswiped 3 parked cars on my way to her apartment building.  I called her from her parking lot and, when she finally answered, I couldn't do anything but mumble.  She told me I was a mess and needed to leave her alone.  I don't remember how I got home, but when I finally came to and looked out the window, I saw that I had left my car running, lights on and driver's side door open, right in the middle of the parking lot.
The final straw was this:  I was again at Taylor's II, tweaking, and Ian (another bartender, and a friend of mine, to whom I gave 2,500 to pay for an engagement ring for Jen) somehow pissed me off.  I got up to confront him, got aggressive and he told me that he would hit me if I didn't leave.  I laughed, then he hit me.  It wasn't so funny.  The next morning, Ian and I went to play raquetball.  I was feeling strong and beat him, 21-7.  He slammed his racket on the wall, breaking it, and said that he couldn't talk to me anymore.
I left that night.



(Find the album version:  Morphine, Cure for Pain)

I left at 6 in the morning, with a case of Natural Light beer underneath my seat.  Before I reached Pennsylvania, I drank all 12 (don't do this at home).  I checked into a motel near Harrisburg, smelling of booze and feeling like yesterdays socks.  But I couldn't fall asleep.  So I walked outside and picked up some blackberry schnapps and drank myself into a coma.

I woke up the next day and drove into Suffern, NY.  And I moved into my parent's basement.  I spent 2 months there, without contacting many friends, because I was in withdrawal.  I wasn't seeing invisible spiders, but I was falling apart at night.  There were times I wouldn't leave the basement for a couple of days.  There were times that I would leave in the middle of the day and not come back until the following afternoon.  I was fighting both my depression and my desire.  But I was holding on.




There are still times that I can't move from my room for days on end because  I want to puncture my skin (the only thing that protects me from this world) and feel like a hero again. There are still times I hate myself for ever needing to escape from this world that much.  But most often I am ashamed.  I am just an ex-junkie.  And I am scared of needles again.

Second Sunday in May...

I forgot Mother's Day once as an adult.  My mother confronted me about it with a rap:

Second Sunday in May
Is Mother's Day
What's that you say
Second Sunday in May?
It's Mother's Day.
MOTHER"S DAY IS THE SECOND SUNDAY IN MAY.

I have never forgotten Mother's Day since.
Today is the first Mother's Day I don't have a mother to call, to send flowers to.
I'm reminded of the first secular song I was allowed to buy:  House of Pain, by Faster Pussycat.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8z4SEbsqbw


My mother and father fought about this song and my right to buy it.  My mother won, somehow...and so I got the single.  I think I was in 10th grade at the time.

After she fought the battle, though, my mother would often ask me is I was in a "House of Pain" and I would always respond:  No, I just like the song.

I no longer like the song.  It's too saccharine; it's too...poorly sung.

Now, I like this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1moiym6-Nk

Tonight, I'm thinking of my sister and my father.  Their loss is so much more immediate than mine.  My sister has lost a friend and a mother, my father has lost a wife and a best friend.  I hurt for them.

Don't get me wrong, I am sad too.  But I know the truth of things, and the truth is that I was not able to be as close to my mother as my sister and father.  It doesn't mean I didn't love her, nor does it mean that I don't miss her.  It just means that I have other holes to fill, because I've never had an emptiness in the mother department.

Thanks Mom.  Happy Mother's Day.  I will never forget when it is.

What I don't understand about chicks. (I mean "Ladies," my apologies to Title IX)

I'm marginally respectable, have been able to hold down a good job every now and again, and have no frozen cat heads in my freezer (anymore). 

I think butterflies are one of the most wonderful creatures ever,

I watch sunsets,

I am quiet,

and I am different from everyone else.

Apparently, those qualities are quite entrancing at first.  For the ladies, I mean.  But then, the truth seeps in.  Those qualities also have a negative side, which I fully realize:

I like butterflies, therefore I am quite unlikely to think a bug needs to be squished (unless that bug is a cricket, in which case my motto is "No Mercy").
I love sunsets, but I don't like sunrises.  Every working stiff sees a sunrise; very few people in this world can actually enjoy a sunset.
I am quiet, which means I don't talk much about anything, important or not. 
I am different from everyone else means that...I am different from everyone else.  I don't care about fashion, I don't care about cars or sports or making a bunch of money or religion or politics or what anyone else thinks. 
I'm terrible at making plans; I can spell resterant better than I can pick one; I just don't think like that.

But if I were told what would make you happy, what would make you smile...I would move a mountain, grain by grain; I would empty an ocean with a fork; I would do the impossible...or at least what you thought was impossible for me to do.  Because...
I don't have a reason,
Other than a smile;
A light brush of your fingerprints on mine;
10 minutes of looking into your eyes;
 Making you a cup of coffee in the morning and a cup of tea at night.

I'm really simple.  You smile and I am happy.  I am that simple.