They say you’ve got to live each moment or appreciate each moment, I forget which, maybe both, but I’ve had a lot of moments in my life I wouldn’t wish on anyone. So many in fact that I find myself standing on a bridge ready to jump to my death. You see, I’m in one of those awful moments right not and the worst thing is that it feels like more horror is in store for me. I’ve got no escape, it’s just too painful.
Things started to get really bad the day I saw grandma sitting in a chair in my bedroom. She’d been dead for five years yet there she was plain as day. Didn’t say a word, just leaned forward on her cane and stared at me. I’d been asleep so naturally people think I was just dreaming but I was sure as shit wide awake when I saw grandma. I even pinched myself.
I stared back at grandma for a few seconds but then had to look away because the whole situation was really freaking me out. I was 16 at the time and going through a lot. I was living in a dysfunctional family in which I seemed to be the only normal person. I neither needed nor wanted to be seeing dead people, relative or not. Fact is I never much cared for grandma. She was mean as sin to everyone, including me. She picked on dad all the time and as much as said that she was disappointed that her daughter (my mom) had married the poor bastard. She was no nicer to mom or my sisters (one older, one younger). Every Christmas and birthday she gave me underwear or socks. “I hope they fit,” she would snarl. I’ve no idea why she was so bitter.
Grandma couldn’t bother trying to have a conversation with me or my sisters. The most I remember her ever saying to me was “how’s school?” Then she’d look away like she couldn’t give a damn what I said. So anyway there was grandma — or her ghost, I mean —sitting in my bedroom giving me the evil eye, which come to think of it is the only kind of eye she ever gave. After awhile I couldn’t stand it any longer and got up to take a piss then get a cookie. When I came back to bed she was gone.
I saw grandma a few more times over the years, always at night and always when I was alone. After her first visit I stopped mentioning it to anyone because whoever I told just acted like I was crazy. Little did they know….
Making it to high school graduation was the highlight of my life, well that and getting accepted to a university several hundred miles away from home. Getting out of the house was going to be — I was sure — the greatest goddamned event of my life. Mom was drunk half the time and argued with dad three quarters of the time. Dad was a spineless worm who never stood up for himself and, though he hated mom’s drinking, never lifted a finger to stop it. My older sister was a drug addict and my parents were too stupid to be able to tell. She was still living at home when I left, going to community college and working as a waitress. She had a series of loser boyfriends who variously cheated on her, hit her or stole from her. Most of them were doing drugs with her too. My little sister was no picnic either. She had attention deficit disorder, was dyslexic and struggled with weight problems. She was always in trouble at school and barely passed her classes. When I got out she was just about to start high school and it was evident that she’d bring more woe to the family.
Happy as I was as I wrapped up high school I was also dealing with anxiety issues. I was pretty much anxious about everything — girls in particular. I was at least as horny as any other heterosexual male but was scared to death of so much as talking to a girl. When one talked to me I stammered — that is if I could think of anything to say. Most of my friends had a girlfriend and had gotten laid by graduation but I hadn’t been so much as kissed. Some of my friends suggested trying liquid courage so that I could talk to girls but having seen my own mother half in the bag so many times I was repulsed by the very thought of alcohol.
My anxiety was present even when girls weren’t around. I’d get anxious before tests, even ones I’d studied for and knew would be easy. I played tennis on the school team and would get anxious before matches. What really made me anxious though was going home. The last few minutes before I reached the house, whether walking, on my bike, on a bus or in car, I’d turn into a nervous wreck. I just never knew what I was going to face when I walked through the door. There was usually a fight, either my parents were at it or my sisters, or mom was too drunk to function or one of my older sister’s deadbeat boyfriends was in the house. I spent as much time in my room as possible even though people were always trying to draw me into their drama. I loved my sisters and parents but only in the perfunctory way you’re supposed to, I guess what I’m saying is that deep down I hated them.
The happiest day of my life was when I left for college. I had a friend, Craig, with a car who was going to the same university so we drove up together. It was my liberation day. The only thing I dreaded was coming home for Thanksgiving, but that was a few months off and meanwhile I could live a stress free life. Or so I thought.
In college I may not have been living in a dysfunctional family but I was still living in a crazy, fucked up world over populated by morons and jerks. Take for instance my roommates in the dorm. They were foul-mouthed, messy, inconsiderate jerks who didn’t seem to care a wit about classes. I did. I understood that there would be parties and such on Friday and Saturday nights but these guys were at it all the time. It wasn’t just that their noise sometimes woke me up or kept me up, it was just being in the presence of such louts that hit too close to home for me. My anxiety returned.
Stupid roommates wasn’t all. The temptations of young, often intelligent, and sometimes very cute women were everywhere and I was still too scared to approach any one of them. I walked around with a boner half the time and it was driving me crazy. Literally. My nerves were shot, whether from unnecessarily worrying about classes or stressing out about phone calls from home or having to deal with all the morons in the dorm. I soon discovered that more than half the freshman males in the school were — in my opinion — idiots. All they cared about was girls, sports and getting high. They were obnoxious and ill-informed. If they had any views on issues of the day they were either terribly misguided or rife with prejudice. The best any could do was regurgitate their parents’ opinions. I was sick of the whole scene by the second month of school. Was there any place in the world that I could be comfortable and happy and free of stress? It didn’t seem so.
My reaction to the world I was living in was to add something to my anxiety: depression. When I wasn’t focused on school work or wasn’t playing tennis I was either depressed or anxious or both. I even developed a twitch in my face which was obvious enough that some of the rubes in the dorm made fun of me for it. As you can imagine that just made me feel worse. The only source of happiness I could find, the only hope I had, was to get an apartment for my sophomore year. Then, I reasoned, I’d at least be away from the morons in the dorm. Really though it was cold comfort. There was a whole semester and a half to get through yet not to mention summer at home. At times it seemed an eternity.
In early November of my freshman year everything changed. One Friday night I decided to got to a party because Craig and my one friend in the dorm, Tom, were so insistent and I decided that I could do with a night out. Hell, I had to try something. Of course I was my usual anxious self about it all day and was a jangle of nerves as I got dressed to go. As we walked to the house where the party was you’d have thought I was on my way to be executed. It was all I could do to walk. The whole world flipped when we walked in and Craig handed me a cold beer. I’d never had a sip of alcohol and had no intention of starting, I’d seen what it did to mom. “It’s just a beer,” Tom said. “One lousy beer has very little booze in it, if you don’t like it, don’t have another.”
That reasoning was hard to argue with. I took a sip. It tasted okay. I took a few more sips and enjoyed them as well. By the time I finished the bottle I noticed that my anxiety was virtually gone. One more, I reckoned, would wipe out the anxiety and maybe I could have a good time. It sure did. By the time I was half way through my third beer I struck up a conversation with a cute girl. It was like the most natural thing in the world to talk with her. Soon we were dancing, something I’d never done before.
Later I talked and danced with several other girls the last of whom I took a walk with. We even exchanged phone numbers. After the party broke up I walked her home. She kissed me good night. Right on the lips.
I’d had five beers all night and somehow knew that was my limit. I’d discovered a magic formula an elixir that loosened my tongue and eased my anxiety. In reality my feet touched the ground as I walked back to the dorm that night, but I never felt them.
It turned out that a few beers was not really the answer to all my problems. I couldn’t nor did I want to, drink all the time and so still had to deal with anxiety. However I developed — even without so much as a drop — the confidence to talk to girls and was soon going out on dates. Some of which included a few beers and some of which were sober affairs. Meanwhile I survived Thanksgiving and Christmas at home knowing that my stays were temporary and also because I hung out with old high school friends and even called a couple of the girls I graduated who were in town from college too. One girl I called even confessed she’d had a crush on me for years.
When school resumed in January I felt pretty darn good. A few weeks later when I lost my virginity and got my first steady girlfriend, Norah, I was on top of the world. I didn’t stay long.
First there were visits from grandma. Right in my damn dorm room. She’d pull up a chair, often just as I was going to sleep, and stare at me. It was like life was taking a great big shit on my birthday cake. I’d try to close my eyes and ignore her but something would compel to look and she’d still be there with that awful glare. Eventually I’d doze off, of course, so as unnerving as grandma’s visits were they were hardly debilitating. More serious was the full on return of my anxiety and what was worse, anxiety attacks and later panic attacks. Anytime I was outside I was vulnerable to an attack that would leave me out of breath, exhausted and scared for my sanity.
In the Spring I made the tennis team and I was rocking a 4.0 and Norah was still my girlfriend. You’d think I was pretty damn happy. But the anxiety and the attacks persisted and depression came back and in full force. The tennis season went well, I maintained my perfect GPA and was falling in love. But I was miserable. Plus I was facing a summer in the hell hole that was my family home. At Norah’s urging, (I confided in her completely) I saw a counselor on campus who referred me to psychiatrist who would treated me on a sliding scale. He said I was likely suffering from a form of PTSD because of my screwed up childhood. After a few visits he prescribed some medications, one for depression and another for anxiety. They helped. Initially. Perhaps even better was when I managed to get a Summer job at the campus library that included housing. I wouldn’t have to go home for more than one weekend visit.
I was lonely during the Summer with my girlfriend and pals away but the meds were doing their job and I loved working in the library and having a place to myself. In my off hours I’d play tennis, or read or go for long walks, it all started out great but few weeks into the summer my depression returned and grandma started to visit again.
My shrink tried some other meds and although the panic and anxiety were under control the depression kept getting worse. Nothing helped. As Fall approached I found an apartment for a friend and I to share and Norah got a place a few blocks away. On the surface everything seemed fine.
But here I am today in January at the start of the second semester of sophomore year. I was home for the holidays. My older sister was in jail, busted for selling cocaine. My younger sister was a total mess, failing classes and constantly getting into trouble at school. Mom was still drinking and dad was telling me he was going to divorce her. My visit was a return to hell.
My depression is constant no matter what meds we try and I even get panic attacks still. Norah and I broke up. Well, she broke up with me, her reasons were vague but it seems certain she met another guy who she likes more. And yes, grandma still visits from time to time as mean and ugly as ever.
So I’ve had it. Sure I’m only 20 but I can’t take the pain. There has been so much heartache and disappointment and unhappiness in my life and it seems that it will just continue for as long as I’m alive. Why go through it? Everything is hopeless. What good is being a college tennis player and getting a degree and having friends if there’s so much suffering and misery that goes along with it? What if things go wrong? What if something bad happens? If I feel this bad when on the surface all is well, imagine my life if I hit some bad luck. If I told anyone or called a suicide hotline they’d tell me to stick it out, things will get better, I have a lot going for me, the usual bullshit. But I can’t see it. I can’t feel it. This pain has a sense of permanence to it. It is unyielding and malignant. When there’s no escape, what choice does a person have?
So I think I’ll probably jump. Well, okay, maybe not this time, maybe not today. But I can’t say for sure I won’t soon. Wouldn’t you?
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