It Only Hurts When I Think About it

(From "The Misadventures of No One Famous" my memoir)

I flipped through the TV channels and found nothing of interest, read some, put the book down and stared at the dust on my alarm clock, and then started thinking about living in my van. How it would be. Would I be able to maintain the fiction that it's a romantic idea once I was actually there, and the temperature drops to freezing? Would my cigarette lighter work so that I could plug the power inverter into it for a space heater? Could I live on ready-to-eat foods? Would I be able to find a place to shower and go to the bathroom when I needed to?

And I won't be able to leave the van for very long because Giz and Bingo would be there and it's cold, and I can't leave them without heat. So I won't be able to sit in warm coffee-shops and bookstores and libraries and movie houses. I will be making my pain, their pain, and I would not let them suffer more than me. It wouldn't be fair.

I hate the fact that I have to depend on anyone else to survive. I want to depend only on me. But I'm undependable. I hate that I can't pick up something heavy and walk across the room without excruciating pain afterward, or during. I hate the way one disability leads to another. . . if my back is out, I have to walk on crutches, then I get a catch in my spine just outside my shoulder blade, and carpal tunnel in my wrists, then I can't write or use my hands without pain, then I can't use the crutches, so then I can't walk. Then I have to lie down a lot, and I smoke and drink to have something to do with my hands, and to numb the pain and to feel like I'm indulging in some guilty pleasure. And when I eat, I know all those calories are just going to turn to fat.

I hate, then, that I'm fat and can't lose weight because I can't exercise. I don't look good in any of my clothes and can't buy new clothes because I can't work and earn the money. I hate that I can't play racquetball or softball or volleyball anymore. I hate that I have to watch other people do that. And I can't dance, so going out becomes a form of self-torture and self-loathing. Then I hate how I feel about myself and I get depressed. And I long to be thin and nice- looking, but I know I never will be.

I hate that I can't have sex when my back is out, even though I might need it-- Need it to feel human, to escape from the confines of my disabilities. And when I can have sex, I can't stop thinking about how I'm fat and ugly, and that no one could possibly be attracted to me. And then I can't enjoy the sex, and I don't get what I need. Then I'm angry and bitter and I push everyone away from me with my rage and caustic words. Then I just hate the Army and the V.A. and that drill sergeant who got me hurt, and I hate that they've taken away my life. Why wouldn't I want to kill myself? It's just finishing a job, isn't it?

Sometimes the subject will come up--the "suicide gesture" as the hospital form said-- When I talk to Terra. about it, she can't hear it. She tells me to stop, it's disturbing. She's more traumatized than I am about it. The only thing I find disturbing is that it doesn't disturb me. Like it was someone else. Or a dream. Or someone else's dream.

I wasn't just depressed when I did it. I was angry. I wanted it all to stop. I didn't have the strength to face another day of starting over. And there was this other part to it. When I got that denial of my claim that day on the 16th of December, 1999, it was like they were saying, "You don't exist. Your pain isn't real. You aren't real." Maybe I thought that if I could bleed, I was real, and that would be proof enough.

Life blood.

The blood of life.

Alive.

If I bled, I was alive.

Isn't it ironic that you have to try to die before you know you're really alive? And then what did that prove?

I was alive, but still pathetic?

It Only Hurts When I Think About it