Sometimes I wonder if I am truly sick or was it all in my head. I wonder if other people believed me or just thought I was a drama queen at moments. I wonder if I just stopped drinking would my life get better. I mean would the insanity stop. But I wasn’t drinking that Monday when I refused to go to work or call. I wasn’t drinking when I cut my wrists.
It was like this noise in my head, sometimes so silent it made me feel dangerously alone, other times it was like the noise started poking me with a sharp stick for attention. The feeling often was anxious and annoyed. Sometimes the feeling made me feel so good I couldn’t stop touching myself or having sex. It was like I was in hyper drive. I didn’t know how to turn if off. But the feeling would be so crazy that it would climb tall buildings and jump off. I would crash hard, on the floor, irrationally afraid for my life. I would just lay on the floor and I would be there for days. Unable to leave the house. So afraid of something, something I knew was trying to kill me, something outside my door. The feeling, it’s so damn powerful. I’ve had it a long time. I’ve had it since I was a child. I thought learned to ignore it. I thought I learned to act normal. It was like my deep dark secret.
So something was wrong. I knew it. I knew it for a long time. I couldn’t just get control of my head. My behavior was becoming more and more erratic. I just didn’t want to hear the word: Crazy. Some people can be so cruel and ignorant. I was afraid of being labeled. I had this guy trying to be funny, talking about how my mood can change five times in ten minutes. I went quiet. It was a joke to him but it was serious to me. It hurt me to the core. I wanted to put my hands around his neck. I didn’t want to go crazy like my mama did. Like my sister did.
My life, I woke up and I was drowning in the deepest and darkest part of the ocean. I couldn’t understand how I got there. I couldn’t understand what kept pulling me under every time I managed to grab the tips of the insanity and breathe for a second. I kept slipping. And it was thundering rain, lightening striking, the heavens moved quickly, like an angry mother screaming for somebody to save her child. Somebody save me.
It seemed like I had been drowning for years, maybe even decades. I got help. I put my pride aside and checked myself into the hospital.
I was so scared that day. I had done something awful. Something that will hunt me for a long time. I just wanted to escape. I just wanted to run as far as I could. I just wanted to die. Not fake death for attention but real death. I just didn’t want to deal with it anymore. It was too hard. I was drowning!!!!! And nobody could save me.
I went to the hospital, broken, tired, my arms marked, self inflicted, and I just laid there. For almost two weeks I just woke up, took medication, talked to a panel of psychiatrists and slept. It was probably some of the best sleep in my life.
And then one day the sun came out. One day I saw land. I didn’t even know what the sun was. I thought it was something that taunted me. I thought it was warmth I would never know because my world was just full of rainstorms and angry oceans. I felt the sun. I felt such clarity on that day. I never knew my mind could be so damn clear. It was like I could feel god in me, around me, clothing me, kissing me, hugging me, telling me he loved me. And then I looked in the mirror. I was a frightening mess. My hair was all disheveled. My eyes looked wild. I had bandages on my arms. I didn’t recognize that person anymore. I knew I wasn’t that person. I was something better. I was just another soul that had gotten lost somewhere. I needed to find my way back.
I made a promise to myself. I promised myself real change. I mean the change of energy. I spent a lot of energy on the wrong things. I was going to keep a journal documenting my change of energy. I was going to constant push myself to face my worse fears. Writing this blog is part of my worse fears. It’s like screaming to the world, I am not perfect. I remember one day in the crazy house, some woman told me I was too pretty to be crazy. She said I could be a doctor. I laughed. I thought it was the pretty ones that were always crazy.
I made a promise to myself a year ago and I haven’t broken it. Shit, I performed miracles. I had nothing a year ago. I mean nothing. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have a place to stay. I didn’t have any money in my accounts. I didn’t even own a credit card because I’d always been afraid of the commitment.
And then one day, maybe by accident, maybe by desperation, I washed up on shore. I had decided to stop fighting the ocean, and just drown, I gnawed at my wrists with my teeth, and just let go. I let my body sink. I swallowed all the emptiness and got so full I sunk to the bottom. I hope to never wake. But I did wake up, choking on the frustration on dry land. The ocean had gotten tired or pitied me and threw me out. Maybe God said I will give this nigga another chance.
So there I was on dry land, the sun smashing down on me like a foot on my neck, the sand sticking in my back like chards of broken glass and I was naked. I had nothing but my soul. Before I was just ocean and the storm, the rain and thunder, but under that sun, I was just bare. That scared the shit out of me. I had too many secrets to be naked. I had too much shame.
So here I am on dry land, confused, traumatized and very pissed off. Why did it take so long for me to arrive? Why did I have to first give in to death before God decided I should live.
I wasn’t promised anything. Nobody said I could be happy because I wasn’t drowning anymore. Nobody said life was going to be perfect. I had a broken child in me to fix. I started to learn only I could fix him. I believe we die heroes, victims, survivors or villains. I was tired of being the victim.
Now the real work begins. All I want from my life now is to be grateful. I am grateful to all my good days. A good day. I wake up and I’m sober. I'm in my own bed. Not at the bathhouse or bookstore or crack house, my own bed. I first pray. I pray for strength. I pray for faith. I pray for gratitude. I always start my morning with being grateful for the day that has passed. I always do something today so that my tomorrow will be grateful. It’s simple really. I brush my teeth, facial, do my nails, make up my bed, clean the dishes, take out the trash, do my thirty minute exercise and fifteen intense minutes of yoga and I am ready.
My five prayers through the day. I first pray for faith. I start with I believe. It’s simple. I believe I woke up. I believe there is a god. I believe I have purpose in my life. I believe my dreams will come true. And I believe like I breathe. I know if I stopped believing for more than two minutes I will suffocate to death. I finally believe I am a good person. That’s most important. It’s because I believe I am enough.
The prayer of gratitude. It seems as if I’ve been in and out of the hospital my entire life. I almost lost my left leg at age 4. I got bitten by a rat that same year and lost the hearing in my right ear. I’ve been shot. I’ve been hit in the head with a brick twice. I once stepped on a rusty nail and it went through my foot. And all that was before ten years old. I grateful that I have the ability to walk. I’m grateful I have one good ear. I was told I would be deaf by that age of twenty five. That didn’t happen. I am grateful to be health. I had pneumonia and I know what it feels like to no be able to breathe. It is true, if you don’t have your health, you have nothing. You can’t play, have sex, watch television, walk around the block, laugh; all you think about is making it to the next second. It amazes me how quick some of us are willing to give up our health. Some of us are willing to do things with strangers who wouldn’t loan you a dollar but fuck you raw behind some tree in the parks.
The prayer of work. I believe in a good work ethic. I believe in the Booker T. Washington work ethic. You get good at what you’re doing now and that will open the door for you tomorrow. I didn’t use to believe in a good work ethic. I used to feel as if I owed something.
The prayer of fear. I liked to face my fears. My worse fear is rejection. I don’t know why I decided to become a writer because that is a life of steady rejections. I fear not being good enough. I fear that people are going to find out about so many lies I’ve told over the years. I try to correct those lies as much as possible.
The prayer of love and trust. I like this prayer the best. It’s the prayer before I go off to sleep. I ask myself did I love myself today. Did I tell myself I loved me? Did I respect myself? I ask myself did I love my friends and family. Did I give love instead of take love? Funny, babies come into this world ready to give love. As we get older and forget, we think we are here to just receive love. I used to cringe at the fact my mother didn’t love me enough. I had to accept that in order for me to be truly happy; I was going to have to give her love anyway.
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