One Of The Worst Days Of My Life


I was in bed Monday night when it happened.

Months, years, I have been trying to get on with life. There is the idea, the concept of masculinity, the dogged determination I have. I will defeat The Baddies through my constant persistence, I will defy their effeorts through my ingenuity and the fact that I am morally right in my conflicts, and I will perserve and overcome.

After 35 years of fighting assholes and pricks, officious bureaucrats, ill-thought out laws, the evils of Plausible Deniability, the bias of the law when it comes to males (i.e. a woman is always believed, a man always doubted), morons who can't shut up on the train, my own neurosis, corporate abuse and doublebluffing, I have had enough. I have fought the bastards long enough, and for some reason, I find myself like some poorly controlled video game character, forced to endlessly repeat the same wars, fight the same baddies forever, as if my life were Sysphus Miner, and I am doomed to forever battle an endless series of endlessly repeating tasks of immense proportions.

I just want to let my life unfold without conflict. Without people thinking that they can fuck with me. I do not want to be fucked with by anyone. I will fight to the death if I am forced to, but I really don't want to. If I do not stand against abusive behaviour, I condone it. I cannot respect myself if I do not defend myself from certain behaviours.

About 1am on Tuesday morning I broke. I can only fight for so long, only fight so hard, and then I find that, like a man fighting terminal cancer, that the will is not stronger than the world. I simply could not fight anymore. I had no more willpower, no more energy.

I crumbled. I had a panic attack for three long hours. Everything was collapsing in on itself, everything was out to get me, the world was cruelly carrying on regardless of me, nobody cared if I lived or died, nobody knew anything,no matter how little sleep I got, no matter how exhausted I was, no matter how I wanted to jump under a train, no matter if I was hungry, or tired, no matter anyfuckingthing in the world, that time always comes, the alarm always goes off, I always get up, I always go to work, I always spend 90 minutes on a train in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, and I always have to endure this torture, day after day after day after day, a gross and seemingly infinite punishment for some crime I'm not sure I ever committed against some faceless corporation that abused its power and someone who I am understandably unhappy about. And nobody cared. I could have killed myself, and only the person with me would've known. Only the person with me saved my life. All the world sees is me as a machine that runs at a certain speed and is not allowed to get ill. I'm not allowed to have feelings and I'm not allowed to break down. I cried and screamed and hyperventilated and collapsed and I have never been so helpless and scared in my life. I didn't know if I was losing who I was forever and I was never coming back.

I have been signed off work. I am not sure when I am returning. I am having difficulty interacting with anyone on any level about anything. I had a near panic attack in the doctors the day after, trembling hands, racing heart rate. And on Wednesday when I had to buy stamps I was able to do it, but was practically comatose for the rest of the day. I didn't want to return home as I was scared, and so sat at the cinema and watching Valkriye and Frost/Nixon rather than face the empty house and the cat.

I am weak, and I need to heal. It will take time. I may return back to normality. I can see parts of me coming back, and I like who I see.

But no more wars. No more. This soldier can fight no more.
- posted by Mark @ 8:46 pm