I have issues. I know: don’t we all? Mine run a bit deeper,
though. Like deep enough to get me discharged from the Navy on the
recommendation of a psychiatrist. Deep enough to get me eight days in the
mental ward at Audie Murphy VA hospital in San Antonio less than a year after
that discharge. (Edit: My disorder apparently formed in early childhood, and
just became noticeable as an adult in the Navy. I didn’t have a traumatic
experience in the service, and I’m not a combat veteran. I don’t have PTSD. I
just want to be clear about that. I don’t want to imply that I can relate to
those of you have to deal with that particular demon.)
I seem to have been born without a strong internal sense of motivation or drive. I feel like I’ve gone through life with a severe motivational deficiency. I see other people who are hard chargers. They seem to always succeed, while others work hard and can usually make it work. Then, some of us just can’t seem to make things work no matter how hard we try. Almost like there’s a “success gene”, and it’s a dominant gene for some, a recessive gene for others and dormant for people like me.
My personality disorder has given me problems throughout my
life, even before I was diagnosed. Matter of fact, the diagnosis explained some
problems I’d had in school, before I even joined the Navy. It’s given me
problems with relationships throughout my life. It’s caused problems with
getting and keeping jobs. I finally had found a job I really liked. Sure, I
griped about it, but who doesn’t need to vent? No job is all sunshine and
rainbows.
That job left me, in a manner of speaking. And I’ve been
drifting ever since. I spent most of my twenties drifting like this, and while
I survived, and got by, it was just barely. I find myself in the same
situation now, but with bigger bills, and bigger responsibilities. And with
two other mouths to help feed, who can’t contribute to their own sustenance.
So, the pressure is on. And it’s pressure that I find myself constantly
struggling to cope with. In the last two years, it’s been a rare thing for me
to feel relaxed without requiring at least an hour on the bike, or booze. I
know; that should be a warning sign, but what can I do? A personality disorder
by definition forms in childhood, so it’s not service connected, so the VA
can’t help me as an outpatient. I can’t afford the deductibles and copays to
see somebody through private insurance. So, I write my own prescriptions. I
ride as often as possible, whether it’s alone or with a group. And I drink. I
don’t drink to the point of drooling stupidity – just enough to take the edge
off the teeth of this wolf that’s haunting me.
My little problem lay dormant for the most part for many
years. Sure, it’d rear its head from time to time, but it just growled; it
didn’t bite. Lately, though, it’s not just rearing its head. It’s arching its
back and its baring its teeth.
Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe because the world is
pressing in too hard on me. Sometimes, it feels like I’m being pulled so
strongly in so many different directions that I’m stretched thin and tight to
the point of breaking. Sometimes I want to break stuff. Honestly, sometimes I
wish I just wouldn’t fucking wake up in the morning, or some asshole would run
a red light and take me out. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not going to take action
myself. I won’t do that to my family.
But when every job I’ve tried for the last two years just
doesn’t work; when I try and just can’t seem to grasp it, or maybe I sort of
do, but the bills still aren’t getting paid, or especially when I have high
hopes for a job, and it just doesn’t live up to the expectation… Well. That’s
when my old struggle starts up again.
The mix of anger, frustration and depression swells up until
it becomes a roaring white noise that only I can hear. Literally. I hear a
roaring whoosh inside my head at times. Then my chest gets tight and it’s hard
to breathe.
It gets hard to imagine any future that contains any sort of
“success”. I’ve never truly lived on my own. I’ve always had roommates or lived
with a wife or significant other. I did live alone in an RV for a while, but it
was sold to me so cheap that it was virtually a gift. And even then, my family
helped me pay for it. Now, the new job doesn’t look so bright. It was so
promising, and I was so optimistic about it in the beginning, but it’s fallen
apart. I should’ve known. That’s a pattern in my life. Every time I’ve been
optimistic about something, I’ve been disappointed. If I’m just okay with it,
then maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. But when I expect “good”, it rarely
happens. I guess I need to learn to keep the bar a lot lower. Pessimists are
rarely disappointed.
Anyway, lately I feel like I’m bound for the nutjob wing
again. I worry about how my bills will get paid if I’m not getting paid, but
what the fuck? They’re not getting paid now, anyway.
I don’t know why I’m writing this. As I go back and
proofread, I wonder if I’ll post it, or even share it with an individual, or
even a select few people. All I know is that it’s been welling up inside me,
and begging to be said, but I don’t know that I’m capable of “saying” it. I can
type a lot of things I can’t say. Part of me feels like I should just shut up –
it’s not like I went through a traumatic experience. Then again, sometimes we’re
not broken; sometimes we’re just defective. More like a car that left the
factory missing pieces than one that was in a wreck. I have a feeling that if I
do post this, some people will read it and think I’m full of excuses, or
laziness, or whatever. Kiss my ass. Psychological problems are real – as real
as physical impairments. Trust me – I’d much rather be able to hold it together
than deal with this shit all the time.
