Take “Positive Thinking” and Shove It

CAUTION: this post deals with sexual abuse and suicide. If you are feeling suicidal just scroll down for information about help. Some readers will find this post disturbing.

All my life, I’ve heard — no — had — Norman Vincent Peale thrown at me. In case you don’t know who he was, he was a religious hack who wrote a book about how to change your life with “The Power of Positive Thinking”. He probably got a lot of people killed.

I’m not going to give a boring recap or critique of the book. I am not in the habit of regurgitating pseudopsychological bullshit.

Nobody throws that positive thinking doctrine at me and gets away with it. I’ll throw curse words at you that you’re never gonna forget. Please don’t make me do that. I really don’t want to.

“Dr. Peale” made a name for himself. He wrote more bullshit in his life than anyone else besides Billy Graham. At least the latter had the honesty to solicit your cash after his crusades. I’d rather someone be a thief and be up front with it; at least they aren’t guilt-tripping you like Pat Robertson or selling plastic buckets as life preservers the way Jim Bakker does. And at least he wasn’t overtly antisemitic like John Hagee (my auto spell doesn’t have your name, Pastor Hagee, jeez. I wonder why? You should sue!)

Pseudochristian writing is as old as the first Easter. And with it comes all the bullshit you know and love: Medieval demonology, the execution of witches, the thievery of the Templars.

Then the bloodshed of the Crusades stained the roads from Europe to fallen Israel, then we just had to let them get into our heads with writings that led to the 20th century and beget idiots like Peale. Not so much an idiot about making money; but definitely a man out of his league with psychology. And why, you ask, all this animosity, and why my claim that he took lives?

Because he, like so many other straight, white conservatives was a preacher who “reformed” his church, thus perverting the doctrine of Christ, who taught that true evil is real and that in our lives, we would suffer. He never promised an easy path, but instead warned against false teachers and fake messiahs. Peale had an answer for that: Think positive.

His first book was absolutely torn apart by critics in the mental health field. In fact some were outraged.

My mother bought me a copy. Fucking ironic, isn’t it? I mean, she and my dad would come into my room on Saturday nights (Saturday was always my night) and take me into the den so she could mount me on the sofa while my father watched TV or read the newspaper, or joined in. Perverts.

My father berated me every single chance he got. He called me a retard, threatened to send me to two different mental hospitals (Crownsville State or Spring Grove, whichever was on the tip of his tongue). He called me stupid. Then, so many names I can’t remember them all, he criticized everything I did, tore it apart, made me feel like I couldn’t do anything at all because I was such a retard. He damaged with his words whatever his whippings, that left me bloody, or the sexual abuse hadn’t fucked up yet. In the end he turned me into a scared shitless little kid who hated himself. The days I could venture out to ride bikes or play football became more rare. I’d lie by my window and listen to my friends, way down the street, playing at dusk, and cry myself to sleep. No child should go through that, okay? Not one.

This verbal abuse combined with trauma from being flogged until I was bleeding or tortured in ways none of my siblings ever knew because of all his kids, he hated me the most. After he could no longer control my older brothers and sister, he took out his rage and need for control on me.

He did a fucking number on my head. Years of this went on. I sit here now, and can barely believe that one man can live who survived all that. And when I began to show signs of having been through too much, my mother thought I might benefit from good old N.V. Peale.

It was such crap that I couldn’t read it. The world, I knew, didn’t work that way. But I started to feel guilty. The people he wrote about, they were so much stronger than me. There was something wrong with me.

Because my world worked the opposite way. I didn’t take him for the crank he was until I learned more about mental illness.

I remember when the trial of the State of Maryland vs. Ralph and Betty Smith (my parents) was over. How people said, “Now you can move on” but never told me how to. I was angrier every time I heard it but knew that if I told them what a mess I really was I’d get a lot of flak. I held my tongue when I just wanted to scream, “What do you know? Fuck you! Walk a mile in my shoes and you’ll scream to be let out.”

And that’s the problem. Some things cannot be magically forgotten, no matter how positive I think.

It’s not over. Never will be, not for me. There’s too much damage and too much pain. Trauma isn’t a skinned knee that you put some Neosporin on, then bandage and go skipping merrily on your way.

Since then I worked years in a union job. I was good, but still very sick. Focus isn’t easy with trauma and the dissociation that goes with it. I had accidents and injuries and sent out product that couldn’t even be used. After that I wound up in a dollar store, three hours a night, four nights a week. I had come full circle. A total loser like my father had predicted, because I had trouble getting through those three hours. I was growing worse and didn’t understand why. Because I knew by then about PTSD. I thought that I knew everything about it. How was it getting worse? How could the Universe be that cruel to one man? I began to drink, cognac, whiskey, rum, vodka, you name it. Just make sure it’s the whole bottle; I wasn’t a bar fixture. I drank while walking home or in private. Because, fuck everyone else.

When I tried for the third time to kill myself I came damn close. I was given the chance to have a bed at Springfield Hospital (which was one my father never mentioned; one last joke on that piece of shit). I was told it used cutting edge trauma therapy. I grabbed that bed up.

Nobody there told me to think “positive”. They didn’t call me lazy or a failure and not once did I hear the word “retard”.

First, the doctors and my therapist allowed me to be sick. They didn’t tell me I had to move on. In the Men’s Trauma Group there were no comparisons; we were all encouraged to tell our stories and we were given treatment. Gently, one step at a time, each of us being on different levels of capacity for effort. One day one of the two women who ran the group saw me outside and said I could be the “poster boy” for PTSD. And so I could be.

I loved my time there. Being treated as who and what I was, I felt somehow liberated.

Since then, in ongoing treatment and assisted living, I’ve made a serious mistake. I tried to be more than what I am, and someone I’m not. The old thinking I was programmed for has never left; I feel like a freak and a failure even though my monstrous parents are long since dead and buried. That’s not fair, but it just doesn’t wear off. I feel that more intensive treatment is called for, but physically I’m running out the clock. So I say “What’s the use?” The tendency to give up is so pervasive that I may never again seek that kind of help.

***

I used to be able to draw and paint. I walked away from it; nothing I ever did was good enough and none of my work was spared the bins. I don’t think I can do either anymore what with my left hand shaking all the time.

In my mind I know it could be caused by lots of things but I go straight to Parkinson’s disease, one of the worst case scenarios. Negative thoughts not from pessimism. From trauma and learned behavior.

Personality disorders are learned behavior and thinking. They are most difficult to treat, and positive thinking isn’t part of that treatment.

In the hospital I was taught cognitive behavioral therapy. It challenges one to not think positive, but to stop and think about what they are doing and saying. Since having covid, my memory has trouble with the list. It consists of various types of actions, responses and spoken words that indicate one is acting on learned behavior that is flawed. If I say “I’m going to fail” for example, cognitive behavioral rules tell me that I’m engaging in fortune telling, which of course I cannot really do. I’ll post a link below for the list.

Another part of cognitive therapy is being “mindful” and I like this part. One day in one on one therapy, my doc unwrapped one of the biggest, deepest red strawberries I’d ever seen. It was organic, he said, and I had never heard of that. He instructed me to take a bite (it was too big to eat otherwise). I was to slowly chew, paying attention to the taste, the texture, and to clear my mind of all but the strawberry. He explained that people often gulp down a burger for lunch, talking to a friend or coworker, never really tasting, fully, the food. And we carry that behavior into every facet of life, and it’s not merely flawed, it’s sad.

I’ve never enjoyed a strawberry more.

Cognitive therapy works. I have to get back to it and do as much on my own as I can. You’re not thinking positively or negatively; just concentrating on the moment. What you’re doing and saying. Particularly what you’re thinking.

One cannot undo a lifetime spent living with mental conditioning that has hobbled oneself and kept them reinforcing every bit of said conditioning (I would do things to sabotage my relationships or jobs because I was convinced deep down that I’d fail anyway).

But one can learn to live each second more aware of what that conditioning has wrought, and once there, changes start to happen. But that is far from easy. It is a tall fucking order.

One problem is that extensive damage can never be cured. Recovery is not complete. That’s not possible. I know this, know my limits and obstacles. But I can at least accept some of them.

***

The problem with positive thinking is that whoever attempts it will invariably fail.

It’s superficial and does nothing to address what lies beneath. The core behavior and thought patterns taught them from an early age when they were helpless and defenseless.

When the failure comes, and it always does, the first thing a person does is to get angry with themselves. They see weakness where a simple task, being positive, is too much for them. Some act out, angrily lashing out. Others, determined to get it right, keep trying…and falling short.

It is enough for me to know that suicides lay in the wake of Peale’s egregious con. You tell someone that simply thinking positively will get them a coveted job. They don’t get the job but they won’t blame you, they’ll think you’re full of shit, but they still blame themselves. With a string of failures already behind them because they need professional help, what do you think will happen?

You hear that his wife has left him.

Next thing you know you’re attending his funeral.

No one knew him well enough to give the eulogy. You surely didn’t. His wife, filled with guilt, stands to one side, sobbing.

The pastor does the eulogy. It’s generic and wooden. None of it needed to happen. But that’s lost on you because you believe you gave him everything he needed to succeed. “Think positive, Hank.”

You’re lying to yourself. You gave him a phantom tool, one that got him to commit suicide.

The human race is not made up of failures and successes. It’s not made up of dark, negative people and those who live charmed lives. Everyone has the same potential at birth. Sure, some have different talents and gifts, but it’s still potential for great things. When natural development is interrupted by evil acts and resultant trauma, the future has been changed. Not just for that person. The world suffers. A man or woman deprived of love and proper care as a child now has less to offer. They’re damaged. They need help. They rarely get it in a system that still neglects and minimizes them. Society still stigmatizes them. They suffer from attendant physical illnesses and it all falls apart. Born with incredible potential, they linger in a health system that isn’t staffed or funded to help.

We see a mass shooting. Suddenly we want mental illness treated, like yesterday. But it doesn’t happen. There’s no budget. Conservatives think mentally ill people are faking to get benefits. That’s when they use “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” and “they’re draining our budget” when both are lies and the worst of insults.

America eats its own. Men like Norman Vincent Peale only ever made money for lying and getting people killed. Self help books are a huge industry. Almost all of it is total bullshit. Don’t give charlatans your money. Seek help. Ask for references. Don’t give up.

If you’re stuck to your sofa and need a shower, but can’t make yourself do it, you’re not lazy. You need help. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you fail because you are too negative. They don’t know you. Tell them I said to fuck off. This is your life we’re talking about. You can be in real danger and not know it yet.

If someone tells you to “move on,” you tell them I said to go to hell. There are too many armchair and shithouse psychologists out there. Piss on them. Most of all be wary of church and “spiritual leaders” who all have agendas, and you’re not on it; your cash is.

Finally, don’t forget what I said. Seek out help from professionals with good creds. I don’t want you to suffer, and it breaks my heart that you do. There may not be a cure, but there is help. You just have to want it.

If you are feeling like a failure, not measuring up to the expectations of anyone else, and you are thinking of calling it quits, believe me, I know how you feel. But the best panacea I’ve ever found is in the act of helping someone else. The ways to do that are infinite; you don’t even need money. Just observe and the door will open. Knowing that you have made a difference, however small you may think it is, is one of the most magnificent feelings anyone can ever have. It cheers you, warms you in your heart and tells you that no, you are not worthless. You’re a decent person. But first, before all else, you need help. And there is nothing wrong with that.

IF YOU ARE FEELING SUICIDAL

For help if you are feeling suicidal, call 911. You need to be seen in a safe place by people who want you to live.

If you don’t want to go that route, call the (US) National Suicide Hotline at

1-800-273-8255 or click Here.

Thinking about suicide is a deadly sign. I can’t bear to think of the world without you in it.

For more information on cognitive behavioral therapy, click here.

Sources: Wikipedia, Google Search

Author’s Note to you, the reader:

I didn’t care until recently whether I had followers or not. Or whether I got “likes” or not. You’ve changed that. With over 60 followers, the other day I received 8 likes in one day. To most bloggers, a thousand is a disappointment. But for me, 8 broke my previous record. I found myself grateful and humbled and I want to say, thank you. To my new followers, I hope you have the chance to read all of my posts. Part of my goal here is for everyone who visits to get to know me. To hopefully find something you can use, learn or at least enjoy. Let me know in the comments section if you can’t access something and I’ll fix it. Feel free to leave comments and tell me what you’re thinking. I’d love to know.

I want to help others like me, to let them see that they are not alone. The only way I can do that is by telling my life’s story and being honest, not holding anything back. To show my damage in all of its ugliness as well as the decent part of me who empathizes, loves and cares about people I’ll never meet. I hope also that still others will gain something to simply think about. I’m not an authority on anything; I offer only a raw look at my feelings and my thoughts. A long life gives one many stories to tell, and I hope you’ll browse and read and continue to keep me company. I’ve realized that I need you, I appreciate you, and I love you. Until tomorrow, be well. Many thanks.

Never Scare A Coward

It was a Ford Mustang Mach One, a ’70, white with black GT stripes, ramscoop, Cragar SS mags and a spoiler on the rear deck. She was fast, and could make those headers sing an opera.

My girlfriend was attending Carlow College in Pittsburgh and I was going to visit her one weekend in October, 1980. The route was easy enough; from the Baltimore Beltway I’d take Interstate 70 West to Interstate 76, then I-376. I was to take the Boulevard of the Allies to Fifth Avenue and that’s where the college was.

I had a CB radio, because back then, you needed one. The trip wasn’t as crowded as it is now; a bunch of development has been done in 40 years. For avoiding speed traps and in case of breakdowns, the radio was essential. I fell in behind a trucker with the handle “Hockey Puckin’ Cowboy” hauling a loaded flatbed who was making good time and had a radar detector. At one point in the trip up 76, there was a tunnel; I went through it at a suicidal 120 mph. I made Pittsburgh from Baltimore in 3 hours flat, that Cleveland motor singing all the way.

I don’t remember the exact route from 376 to the Boulevard exit. I found Fifth Avenue well enough, but I didn’t see the college entrance and drove past it. I had to take a long detour, as Google Drive didn’t exist and I had no map of the city. Somehow I made it back to the Boulevard of the Allies and found a gas station on the corner of three streets. It was closed, as it was getting late, but it had a pay phone I could use to call my girlfriend for directions.

As I was talking, from an uphill street lined with rowhouses there came a terrifying sound.

Someone was up there screaming, a man, probably young, definitely amped to the gills on something. He was screaming words that echoed down the concrete and asphalt canyon, but I couldn’t make out the words. On an early October night, this scared me silly, and I was trying to estimate how far away he was and if he was getting closer while listening to directions at the same time. It wasn’t working. The screaming man was definitely getting closer, and fast.

When he came into view, he wasn’t alone. They both looked like animals: one tall, with long blonde hair and the other darker, with black hair long and wild. They saw me and broke into a sprint. I made it into my car and locked the door just as blondie touched the door handle, and I tore out of there.

I found the hidden left entrance to the college, its sign partially obscured by leaves turning autumn colors. I picked up my girlfriend and we headed for the Howard Johnson’s motor lodge just outside of town, where we’d spend the weekend together. But again, I made a wrong turn. I had no idea where we were.

Going uphill on a residential street, I was in third gear, when suddenly, from the right side and running out from between two parked cars, the same two druggies came at us.

This time was different. I yelled at Donna to make sure her door was locked. I hadn’t told her yet about the gas station, and there wasn’t time for it now. They were on her side and a picture of them stopping me and pulling her out flooded my brain, kicking in terror and a flood of adrenaline. I couldn’t think. It was fight or flight time and I automatically did both. As the two druggies got in my way and tried to stop me, I jammed the shifter and the smooth Hurst linkage into second, downshifting for power, and put the accelerator to the floor. The engine went into kick down, the 3rd and 4th barrels of the carburetor sucked air, and it was funny as fuck. They had to dive, one left and one right, to keep from being killed, because I was intent on running them over and never looking back. When I’m protecting someone else, and it’s not just me anymore, being a coward is an advantage. Once scared, if I had no other way out, I was capable of things that later had me more shaken at the killer I could be than I was at any threat.

Donna yelled at me, but I think she later pictured what I had, realized she had been in serious danger, and never mentioned it again, although I’m sure she remembers and has told all sorts of stories about me.

That’s okay; I really was an asshole back then, wounded, traumatized, incapable of fighting what I could not see. We didn’t last long after that. She genuinely loved me, but my insecurities and weirdness wasn’t something she’d have been able to live with.

I wrecked that car. The picture above is similar except that the GT stripes continued along the roof, the back deck and down to the rear bumper.

The following autumn I met my future wife and never saw Donna again. As with all my ex lovers, I miss her. They all had charm except for one; they were intelligent and very affectionate and they got me through times that, I’m sure, I could not have survived alone. I’ll go to meet my maker with my heart thankful that they were in my life. True, I’ve lived a hard life, a fucked up life, but I’ve been so blessed and enriched, and learned so much from everyone who has crossed my path, including the street animals that night in Pittsburgh.

They taught me that cowards, when scared and cornered, are the most dangerous people you can ever encounter. And while I’m no longer a coward, I have the one thing I need to be a safe person: respect for what I can still do and a greater respect for life, because all life is sacred.

But I still wonder, betimes, what will happen the next time I am cornered. I pray I don’t find that out.

May your way be as peaceful.

In The Assembly Of Fools, I Must Really Stand Out

History is full of terrible shit. War, murder, disease, children starving to death, being sold, sent to work in mills and other shitty places where crude conditions and then primitive machinery killed them.

All of that is more than history, though. It’s how things fucking still are. Just because it’s not right in front of you doesn’t mean it ain’t there. Those lost immigrant children? Nobody talks about them. Can I really be the only one? Is it possible that, in all the world, no one else cares about thousands of kids who were kidnapped by the United States and then vanished? Look at what we have allowed. Look at what we have turned into. I can’t really be the only one who sees it that way, can I? In this pitiful world of idiots, am I the biggest of them all?

Why, after all this time, do I bother thinking about them? Why does wall-to-wall coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic keep all other news, all other investigative reporting, off your TV screen and out of your online news? Why the fuck has the story, whether true or false, that Trump is taking hydroxychloroquine been the main subject on cable news all week?

We are an assembly of fools. We are ruled by greedy, power-drunk fools who shouldn’t be allowed to slice lunch meat. We are fed garbage that manipulates our emotions by the people who claim exclusive rights to the truth. We buy what they want us to because the same four commercials run every break the networks make. They know you’re in shock, hypnotized by constant horror stories. To get through that, the commercials have to get offensive.

In one ad, Progressive Insurance has to have a conference call on video and that should piss off everyone who’s had to resort to video conferencing, but even more so people who they sell their shit to who can’t see a friend in person and have to Zoom just to catch up (not to mention the families who had to say goodbye to dying COVID-19 patients that way). Because let’s face it: phone calls are insulting these days. If someone won’t face time with you, then they must not really give a fuck, right?

And in fact, the commercials are designed to jolt you from your numbness induced by the constant idiotic shit that’s zombified you. The Geico commercial where a family complains about the plumbing is revolting and insulting. First because they think tap dancing sounds like bad plumbing. No, it doesn’t, and no one would think that; for pity’s sake, they’d be far more likely to think they’re in a haunted apartment. But the sad truth is that they would know exactly what the fuck was going on. And the revolting part, that’s easy. If you like this fucking commercial, you’re too far gone and cannot be fixed. Look at this fucking shit! The whole family dressed the same, tap dancing while cooking, eating, brushing teeth. What a load of insulting ignorant bullshit. It’ll wreck your fucking nerves. You should never be the same after seeing it. But one thing is always going to be true: it’ll surely rouse you from any stupor.

Then there’s the goddamn drug commercials. I looked it up because I was sure I was wrong. Humira was advertised for skin disorders. But hadn’t I seen another ad that said it was for Crohn’s disease?

Sure enough, I had. It’s used to treat other shit too, no pun intended. I wonder how many millions of people take the goddamn stuff, but I’m not looking it up. I really don’t give a shit. I may stand out in an assembly of fools, but I take no joy from it; my masochistic tendencies only go so deep.

Now I sit in a wilderness. It was already this way when COVID-19 broke out. It’s worse now, of course. I shrink from others, even friends. I don’t know why. I need them. I depend on their friendship, support and love more than I am able to express. But there’s the depression, so black and suffocating that it renders inert every good thing you can think, do or say. There’s PTSD and the nightmares. Those fucking vile nightmares…and the will to live or even move gets sucked away like wet sand on a beach being taken by a storm. Until there’s nothing left but a body. A zombie that can’t even express what’s led me here, because I’ve forgotten how.

I’m in an adult mental health rehab program. It has saved me. Kept me alive, off the street. Helped me heal at times. The healing stopped long ago.

At first they were my SSDI rep-payee. They got my check, I got a hundred bucks a month. Years went by, my doctors changed. They left because they were pressured to condense visits into 15 minutes. One doctor apologized to me for leaving. He knew he was helping me. He said, “I can’t help you without your input. Fifteen minutes is not enough. It takes away from everything I do because I spend more time updating records and inputting data, and in the end, you suffer and I can’t take part in that. It violates every ethical value I believe in. I can’t treat for mental health with cookie cutter medicine.” Therapists also bailed and now I can’t remember how many years it’s been since I’ve had a session.

It was money, of course. When I became my own rep-payee, I lost Medicaid. Suddenly my copays were adding up. They pulled me into the office one day. Two Indian women. Backed me into a corner and said that if I couldn’t pay my outstanding bill I’d be kicked out on the street. Because if I wasn’t paying, services would be denied. And if that happened, the housing program would “discharge” me, which is a Cloroxed way of saying I’d be put on the street. Where, of course, they knew I would die.

Once I actually had to write an essay on why I should be “allowed” to remain in the program. Wait. You want me to tell you what? Bullshit. You want me to beg for my fucking life, because you’ve got my file, and you know I’ll die out there. You know goddamn well I can’t afford an apartment. You know I don’t have the living and coping skills to survive even if I could afford a place of my own. You’re telling me to beg for my life to be spared.

I wrote the essay. I was allowed to stay. So I was allowed to live.

I’m now in the top tier of the program. I live in what’s called “assisted living” which is a major step up from “supported living”. It’s where I belong. I live in a two-bedroom condo in a wonderful neighborhood surrounded by nature, with my best friend as a housemate. Things are good most of the time.

Until the cycle of depression hits me like I just ran into a fucking wall. And hitting the wall is beyond the understanding of anyone who doesn’t do it. It’s horrible.

But being denied the chance to regularly see a therapist has taken a toll. Where usually I love to listen to people, and occasionally help them feel better in so doing, I can’t at times like this. They become a burden because depression and PTSD, intrusive, racing thoughts, combine to make them toxic and suddenly, everything is about me. There’s no room for anyone else. I have nothing to offer, no comfort to give, no patience even for myself. Indeed, I hate myself. Somehow despite being fucked, beaten, raped and almost murdered, I managed to work for thirty years. So my SSDI check is too large to allow for Medicaid; you should see my bills. Stacks of them in three different places. Without a paper shredder sometimes I have to burn them in the fireplace because they have personal information. Not to worry, though; they’ll keep coming.

One bill went from my cardiologist to a collection service. They called me one day. Among lesser charges was a $200.00 fee. It was for the radioactive isotopes from a nuclear stress test that I missed. Hey, I get it: medical imaging isotopes are in short supply. The biggest facility that produced them shut down long ago. They’re expensive and hard to get.

But I had to tell the woman on the phone, who wasn’t the least bit nasty and was being quite professional, “Look, that test was scheduled for February 14, 2018. It’s exactly the time I would have been leaving for the test that my son overdosed on fentanyl and died. I got the call. I couldn’t be there. I couldn’t save him. My daughter was already dead. Now my boy was gone, too. I was supposed to keep an appointment? I got billed for it? Ma’am, I never understood that level of coldness, not from a doctor. I told them what happened. They either didn’t believe me, or they didn’t care. They should have been sympathetic. They weren’t. They were so cruel on the phone. So now I see another cardiologist, I like him better, and Dr. Alex Chudnovsky who works on hearts, has no heart. So you tell him this: he will never see that money. I’m not paying for something I had to miss because my son died.” The collection woman was crying. She said she would pass it on, but it might affect my credit. I said, swallowing a sob, “You think I care about credit? Lady, my children are dead.”

The rehab program never reacted. They have a whole team that meets every week. They go over the current conditions and recent events of their clients. No one ever said a fucking word. I never got a card of sympathy. No text. No call. When I went into the back offices to pay rent a number of staff who knew me saw me. Not one person spoke to me. Not even in greeting. I found it a singularly horrifying, offensive and heart-rending experience. How fucking heartless are these people?

I’ll tell you. When my facilitator told them I really needed therapy after my son died, you know what they said?

They told her I could have one therapy session at a reduced rate. No shit.

Two years later, I can’t forget such a fucking cruel thing. They left me damaged and bitter. If I ran a program like that, I would be passionate. No one would fall through the cracks. I’d tirelessly beg for donations. I’d show prospective donors what mental illness is really like.

It’s a mental health rehab program. And here am I, expendable. If I’m lost or kicked out now, they get to say they did a good job and I brought the end on myself. After all, past suicide attempts often end in a final, successful act. They’ll cite statistics and write me off not as a failure on their part, but mine. And nobody will ever be the wiser. I told my facilitator today, “I’m expendable. How you think I feel? I began tracing my roots. I found out Daniel Boone is my 6th great uncle. How do you think I feel, knowing there’s such strong blood in my veins, yet I’m running out of fight, no matter what I’ve survived? I feel expendable.”

With COVID-19 killing people in every state, I don’t say any of this in an effort to get your sympathy. I don’t need sympathy from you. I want you to learn from me. To notice that this world treats people like me as if there’s no use for us. That such attitudes and treatment are counter to the concept of rehabilitation. That nobody should feel expendable, worthless and soon their number will come up. And no one will ever miss them. That everyone will forget. Because they never mattered in the first place. And that final realization is enough to break their hearts beyond anything they’ve ever experienced.

There’s no excuse for allowing your clients to be untreated. No excuse to allow money to stand in the way of saving lives. No excuse for never expressing any sympathy or acknowledging in any way that a client lost both of his children while under you care. God forbid you actually let that person feel valued, cared for, supported.

God forbid anyone should take helping mental people seriously.

If I ever say again that I’m not bitter, contact me and call me a goddamn liar. Because I am bitter. I’m offended. I’m outraged that people take up a mission only to reveal they never cared at all. Why treat us like this? Just line us up and shoot us. It’d be more merciful. I was in contact with a second cousin on Ancestry. Suddenly she stopped communicating. Probably because she sees I’m a mental case and a fool. Toxic.

That’s a good idea. I’m gonna go on Facebook. Everyone on my friends list who never interacts or communicates with me will be blocked, never again to have the chance to be exposed to my mental illness or to realize I’m a fool. I didn’t get on social media to collect pictures of people who aren’t really friends. Good idea, cousin.

Mental health workers: I’ve just thrown a gauntlet at your feet.

You got the guts to pick it up? You want to prove me wrong, or just a fool in an assembly of fools, like you are?