I’ve been thinking about death a lot lately. Mostly because of the fact that I am presented with stories of death every single day and I have been since the pandemic was announced last March.
It’s not just deaths from the pandemic, it’s cops killing innocent people, it’s children killing children, there is death all over this planet, if Death got a dollar for every person who has died in the last two years, he/she/they/them would have more money than God.
Earlier tonight I had a migraine, and I curled up in bed and started to cry and I whispered “please just let me die,” it wasn’t just the migraine, it’s the constant never ending stream of reminders that death is just around the corner for all of us.
There are so many reasons to keep living, to keep existing, but I am keenly aware that the reason that I do not want to die, is because I am afraid of what awaits me on the other side.
“Worrying about the next life is no way to live this one,”
~ Siddalee Walker, Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood
I’ve been stressed out a lot due to what’s happening around the world, but also with what has been happening in my own life.
Earlier this week someone I love told someone else that I love, that they didn’t have any friends. It was a cruel thing to say, done specifically to cause harm to someone they should care about, it was done just to be mean, and I’ve had to deal with a lot of that throughout my life, so I understand how the second person in this little story feels.
Like many people around the world, I am suffering from the isolation of this pandemic. That being said however, for me this isolation has been going on for four years, and mentally and emotionally, I am not doing well. I don’t drink often, but I am drinking as I write this.
My former job in addictions reminds me daily to think about the “addict mind”, and to make choices that I know are healthy for me, but my mental health issues don’t allow me to make the healthy choices. There is something to be said for getting up off my ass and going outside, but the excuse is that I am too tired to do that…and it’s a valid excuse, but it’s still an excuse.
When I was a child, the idea of waiting for my dreams to come true seemed reasonable, as an adult however it’s incredibly debilitating to believe that I am going to be the one whose dreams come true, when so many around me are suffering and dying.
Intrinsically I know that I cannot control the world, I also know that I can’t save it from my living room, but I also know that I am not ready to go back to work, and even if I were ready to go back to work, I couldn’t go back to working on the front lines of addiction again.
It’s just not for me, there is too much death, too much pain, too many people who can’t find an anchor strong enough to pull them up, and I don’t have it in me to be that anchor.
So what am I supposed to do with myself? I can hear millions of people around the world asking the same damned question and I don’t have an answer. I’m trying to write a book about healing, and I am trying to write it so that I can present it to Doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists, and say to them “this is what mental health really looks like.”
But who the fuck am I to write a book about healing, let’s get honest? I am suffering, I feel like I am in a prison of my own making. I am the one that keeps cutting people out of my life, I am the one that keeps pushing people away, but the truth is that it’s only because there isn’t anyone I know that I am interested in fighting for, including myself.
I know this is a moment, a special moment that I am going to look back on one day and maybe even smile about, but today, in this moment, I am not doing well.
A friend of mine keeps tweeting out an image that represents murdered and missing indigenous women, and everytime I see it I dutifully retweet it, but never once can I stop myself from asking “what about me?” I haven’t been murdered, and I am not missing, but I am absolutely broken from the trauma that I have experienced, why does it feel like no one gives a shit?
Black girls around the world are largely ignored, and then when we die or when we’re raped we are either ignored, or if we’re very lucky, our stories are traipsed out to remind the world that we existed, but never for long, and only for so long as it sells newspapers or advertisements on news programing.
I feel like I am screaming into a well, “I NEED HELP,” and no one is listening. I know that I need counselling, I know that I need to talk about the things that they did to me, I know that I need to stop being the only one who talks about what happened to us, but I also know that I could never go to those men and have an honest conversation about what they did to me, and the reasons they chose to do those things.
Largely because men are going to men, and they’re never going to open up about the abuse that they suffered, there is no healing for us circle of abuse victims who survived together, by destroying each other and ignoring the men who raped us.
It hurts, all the fucking time. It never doesn’t hurt, and it hurts because grown men made children into rapists and abusers, it hurts because our childhood was stolen from us and no one cared then, so why would they care now?
Sometimes it’s enough to say that “I” care, but it’s not enough today. Today is one of those days when it’s just not enough. And that’s why it’s so hard to turn around and say “I forgive the children who became men who raped me,” because how can you forgive someone when the pain they caused is burned into your DNA?
Sometimes I feel like their intrusion into my life has been so complete that even praying to God these days is difficult, because it feels like someone or something is always listening. The voices in my head do not bring me peace, they tell me that I deserve what happened to me, they tell me that it was my fault, that if I hadn’t been born, then none of this would have happened.
I know that’s the years of brainwashing from abusers, but it’s incredibly difficult to quiet those voices down so that I can do what I need to do, to be happy. Some days are wonderful, and other days are absolute shit, but there is no continuity, there is no steady path to happiness for me right now, it’s just one day at a time, and more often than not the days are filled with spiritual and emotional exhaustion, than inspiration.
I chalk all of these negative emotions up to the fact that they make good content for the blog, to the fact that by sharing them with the world not only am I not alone, but perhaps people reading this may feel less alone. If nothing else I have more than enough content to fill a book so that other people can recognize the signs of depression when they see it..that matters to me. It tells me that this pain isn’t for no reason, it tells me that there is a purpose to all of this.
I do not want to die, but I do want the pain to stop, so I fully understand why it is that people take their own lives. I am not going to take any steps to end my life, because I solemnly swore that I would not, but the pain is a lot for me to carry, and yes part of me wishes that I had someone to cuddle me and make the pain stop for just a little while.
But until then…I have my mental health skills, writing, breathing, showering, dancing, listening to music, and going for a walk. I need to do more of these things, I need to get into a routine again, I need to take myself out on a date again, I need to set myself free, because I promised that I would save myself, and I owe it to me, to keep that damned promise.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 