How To Disappear Completely

"Why does everything have to be so hard?"

“What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, and more unashamed conversation.” Glenn Close

Indeed. This seems an obvious, kind, approach. For better or worse, I have been forthright in discussing my mental health health struggles. I’m a nobody, a small cog in the mental health services machine. There is no doubt that mental health is important, needs attention, treatment, and compassion—on this, I think we can all agree. Our discussion of mental health demands more than just pithy platitudes and the hollow acknowledgment that it’s a “medical condition” when, let’s be honest, “snap out of it” is often what passes for treatment. Maybe that’s unfair. I can only speak about my experience navigating the exhaustingly labyrinthian channels secure services. This is my story—and, I feel uncomfortably confident, is that of many just trying to get help. When doing so, all of us who struggle with mental-health issues immediately confront the “one-size-fits-all” dilemma.

Mental health (like autism) occurs on a spectrum. It manifests and is triggered differently, has varied etiologies (genetic, trauma based, drug, stress, poverty induced, and on and on). Many respond to meds, therapy. Some heal with the proper support—this, BTW, is rare. Finding proper support often requires herculean efforts most struggling with sever mental health issues can hardly muster. If you can get disability, you probably don’t need disability—that’s the sad truth and a crime in my opinion. A friend of mine whose brother struggled with addiction and mental health issues galore said, days before he hung himself from a tree, having been in and out of rehab and jail for a decades, “Why does everything have to be so hard?”

The simple answer is that it doesn’t. I could make all sorts of socio-political arguments about why it is and I would be right on every single count. Instead, I’ll boil it down to one simple overriding truth: No one gives a shit about us. And when your turn on the Catherine-Wheel of psychological torment comes (and it will) you’ll meet this hard fact head on. I have been relatively “lucky” that I live in a state that has resources for people like me. Sorta. Accessing those resources is another thing entirely. It takes an august personality like mine, an “I’m Alive Out of Spite” attitude, making the seemingly billion phone calls one has to make—I have carpel tunnel syndrome from dialing the phone. 90% of the agencies won’t take my insurance, or refuse me on other absurd rationale. (I’m grateful I have insurance or imagine the shit holes to which I’d be relegated?) I recently heard about a 73-year-old woman, an addict, forced to detox at local institutional crime known as CBI (whose shitty reputation echoes in the community) sitting a “recliner” in a long row of other addicts doing the same. WTF? is right.

Before and after my most recent blood-bath suicide attempt, I’ve spent weeks plugging myself into some sort of, any sort of, support system so these attempts stop happening. I have detoxed five times this year. Five. Here’s what happens: They send me home with no follow-up and within a few days the dark cloud of depression and isolation become unbearable the the inevitable relapse occurs. The cycle starts all over again. For the last two years Easterseals provided my mental-health services. Something changed. No idea what. I fell through the cracks, they just vanished. CODAC (another agency), same. This is unethical and illegal. I have been off my anti-depressant for two months when all that was required would have been a 30-second phone call from my psychiatrist to the pharmacy. Easy. After 20+ requests. I gave up. What do the “lower functioning” (a term I hate) do? Who fights for them? I’m lucky to have been born a tenacious motherfucker. I live to make you uncomfortable—Do. Your. Fucking. Job.

Fighting for your life is exhausting. Calls unreturned. Waiting lists. I made it 14 days before I hit the bottle this time. The rage and frustration at something as un-simple as getting some fucking help quelled with whiskey. It was a brief return to form—thank Christ—six fingers in and I poured the bottle out. Shit tasted like shit. I went from and eight to a 108 on the depression scale. I wanted to throw up. Well, that drug doesn’t work anymore. Good. Fucking great. I hate it anyway. That may be the shortest relapse in history. To a normie, this will make zero sense: I’m grateful it happened. It needed to. Now, that dying dream of escaping pain with booze has finally taken its last breath. Two days clean.

There are people out there who care about people like us, the “Dealt A Bad Hand Club.” It’s a calling brothers and sisters. Before you judge me, know this: It’s a genetic curse; it’s environment; it’s all sorts of shit you have no control over. And, be warned, addiction and fucked-up mental health doesn’t give a fuck about your address, your bank account, your so-called success, race, nationality, or creed. It’s relentlessly indiscriminate.

So, those people, those tireless souls working in rickety clinics for shit money care about me (us). They call me off the clock. Making it their mission to get me the help I so desperately need. My effort and theirs paid off. I’m lucky. There is just some beast inside of me that just won’t relent. People talk ad nauseam about having to love yourself. It’s hackneyed as fuck and also true. You have to decide that much of what happened to you wasn’t your fault, that drugs were medication, and that you deserve joy, love, and peace like every other asshole out there. “It really shouldn’t be this hard.”

Let’s call her K. She called the paramedics who saved my life. She has worked tirelessly to get me into a treatment program. I have never met her. B, another saint, got me enrolled in a peer-run day-program. B checks in on me on her day off. Her boss, momma-bear extraordinaire, tore Easterseals a new asshole. Another clinic accepted me so now I can get my meds, attend support groups, and see a therapist. I went from having zero help thinking death was the only solution my fucked existence, to so much I worry how I’ll manage it. I’ll take it. A introverted misanthrope person like me needs human contact to. I wish I didn’t. Today, I’ve chosen, with a wing-man of course, chosen to face my fear and attend my favorite NA meeting—a few members I will have to make an amends. I doubt I’ll get beat up. Maybe glared at. Most likely, welcomed. We shall see.

Life turns on a dime. We’re fragile creatures who have an uncanny ability to sabotage what’s good in our life chasing a carrot we can never catch. We’d be on to the next one if we did, perpetually dissatisfied. So, hug your cat, your kids, wife, granny, whomever. And for fuck’s sake, please, I implore you: Tell them you love them. Always be doing that. Yes. The cat too.

Soon, like all good things, they will be gone.

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