Everyone struggles with guilt from time to time. Guilt is good in that feeling it means you have the desire to right a wrong. But when you mix it with OCD, the results are catastrophic.
I’ve always had a powerful guilty conscience. For the most part it has served me well. In my moments of anger, hatred, depression and despair, it has kept me from going too far in my quest to seek revenge on people for whatever I felt they did to me at the time.
Without it, I probably would have done things that would have made people abandon me. Or, I might have done something that would have landed me in jail. The guilty conscience kept me from going too far. That’s probably why God put it in me.
At the same time, guilt would super-charge all of my OCD ticks: The worry out of control, the binge eating, the self loathing and the repetitive actions.
People like to joke about having Catholic or Jewish guilt thrust on them. Since I grew up Jewish and became a Catholic, I’ve found there’s some truth to that. My mother was and is the perfect stereotype of the so-called Jewish mother, using guilt whenever I made choices that weren’t to her liking. In the Catholic community, some people will push the guilt button if you let your kids talk too loud during Mass or if you vote for a Democrat.
But I can’t blame them. The fact that I’ve always had a guilty conscience stems from having done bad things: Lying, being cruel to someone, neglecting my soul.
In a lot of ways, I’ve caused it all on my own.
I still have a guilty conscience, but it’s not as destructive a force as it used to be.
I used to use guilty feelings as an excuse to beat myself to death. I’d typically do this by giving in freely to my addictions, binging until my gut hurt so much that I wanted to be dead. It would also cause me to avoid people I may have hurt along the way, when making things right with them would have been the better course.
In my biggest moments of guilt, I’d isolate myself in my room, not showering for days.
The smell would hit the few visitors I had like a punch in the face.
Somewhere along the way, though, I’ve been able to turn it around. The guilt is still there. I’ve just learned how to react to it in a healthier way.
If I hurt someone, instead of hiding I try to make amends with the person. In doing so, I’ve found that most people are kind, forgiving souls.
If I make bad decisions, I’m more likely to pray and turn it over to God.
Or I write about it here. That way, it’s at least out in the open, where I can get a better look at it and have a fair fight.
My father always talked about moving from Revere to Lynnfield, Mass., because he didn’t like the school system. At the same time, he fought for and won the Lynnway house in the divorce, partly on the promise that me and my siblings could continue to grow up there and not be uprooted. That’s how my mother used to tell it, anyway.
But by 1984, things changed and my father put the house on the market. My brother had just died and my soon-to-be step-mom, Dianne, and two step-siblings were now living with us. I think Dad and Dianne were looking for a fresh start, and despite my sister’s fierce misgivings, I was eager to leave Revere, too.
There were also a lot of bad memories in that house, and I was hoping for a getaway.
There were the memories of me getting sick from the Crohn’s Disease and the Prednisone side-effects, of my mother beating the shit out of my sister every morning because inevitably one morning chore or another would fail to meet my mother’s standards; the fighting between my parents, and the fear of the ocean after the sea rose up and ravaged my neighborhood during the Blizzard of 1978.
There was always something strange about living there. One morning I woke up to find the kitchen table had been turned into a Ouija board. My mother used crayon to do that. It turned out she and some friends decided to have a seance the night before. That stuff was always happening. As an adult it wouldn’t have seemed all that odd. As a kid it was bonkers.
So I was happy in 1984 when Dad told us we were moving to Lynnfield. That was it: the new beginning I craved. They signed a purchase-and-sale agreement on a house in Lynnfield and we even got a tour of the place.
Then, at the 11th hour they backed out because of fierce resistance from my sister and step-sister.
I was devastated, and I think it fueled some of my rebellious nature from there on out.
By 1992 I was a grown-up still living like a kid under my father’s roof. My attitude about the Lynnway house had softened because I got to take over the basement apartment in 1987. It was my space, rent-free, and I took full advantage of it. I partied hard in that space. But in 1992 we did end up moving to Lynnfield.
Looking back, I’m glad we stayed as long as we did. I would go on to experience happier coming-of-age moments in that house, like the parties I mentioned in the last paragraph.
And, had I left Revere as a teen, I never would have made the friendships that would help define me as an adult.
It’s a good lesson for those who spend a lot of time dreaming of what could have been.
I think God puts us in certain places for a reason, and I was meant to spend my entire upbringing in Revere.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the circle of friends I used to hang out with in Saugus, Mass., the town next to my home turf of Revere.
Mood music:
I’ve recently been back in touch with some of the friends from those days, and it reminds me of a few regrets I’ve carried over the years.
Saugus was as much a home to me as Revere for the simple reason that my father’s business was there and I spent as much time there as I did at home. Even today, when I take Sean and Duncan to visit their grandparents, it’s usually at the Saugus building.
I met Aaron in 1985, my freshman year of high school. He was the kid with really bad acne. But nothing ever seemed to bother him. I’m sure a lot of things bothered him, but he was very good at hiding his feelings.
That made him the perfect target for a creep like me.
We hung out constantly. He practically lived in my Revere basement at times. I let him borrow my car regularly. And if I drank, that was OK, because he almost never drank. He could be the driver. Except for the time I encouraged him to drink a bottle of vodka. He had just eaten a bag of McDonald’s and I told him I was sick of him trying to get buzzed off of wine coolers. This night, I told him, he was going to do it right. He got smashed, and proceeded to puke all over my basement — on the bed, the carpets, the couch, the dresser. That was some strange vomit. It looked like brown confetti.
I sat on the floor, drunk myself, writing in my journal. I wrote about how drunk Aaron was and prayed to God that he wouldn’t die.
He was the perfect counterweight to Sean Marley. Marley was essentially my older brother and I spent a lot of time trying to earn his approval. I didn’t have to do that with Aaron. He didn’t criticize. He didn’t judge. He just took all my mood swings on the chin.
I would sling verbal bombs at him and he’d take it. I would slap him on the back of the neck and he’d take it. I was such a jerk. And he took it. That’s a true friend. Times have changed.
Aaron got married, moved to California and has a growing family. He’s doing some wonderful things with his life, as is his former girlfriend, Sharon. Those two were always together. The night before Sharon’s high school graduation I let them borrow my car. The next morning Sharon’s father called looking for her. “She’s not here,” I said. Silence, then his response: “They said they were staying with you for the night.” Busted. I don’t think he stayed angry for long, though. I remember her dad being a big guy with a big heart.
There was the Jones family, with whom we’d hang out for days on end. Jeff Jones (he goes by Geoff Wolfe today) was my fellow Doors freak, and I remember many pleasant afternoon’s and evenings in their back yard. I was there for July 4 1991, which I remember because someone slammed into my car and took off that night. The car, a 1981 Mercury Marquis, never ran right again. I got pretty smashed that night.
There was Bob Biondo, a kid who must have weighed in excess of 400 pounds. He had long, curly hair and always wore a cap and trench coat to hide his girth. He supplied me with a lot of weed and cigarettes and he was another mainstay in the Revere basement.
At some point in the early 90s I decided I was getting too grown up to hang around with these people. So I stopped coming around.
I moved to Lynnfield and made sure Biondo didn’t know where I lived. I simply stopped calling the Jones house.
What I didn’t know at the time was that I was beginning a deep slide into depression and addiction. I cut myself off from a lot of people and started to isolate myself.
My weight swelled to 280 and I didn’t want to be seen by old friends. I was too ashamed. So I binged some more to numb my feelings.
I’ve recently been back in touch with the Jones family, thanks to Facebook. I plan to keep the line of communication going.
Biondo died of a heart attack on Valentine’s Day 2009. I had just gotten married and was working with special-needs people. I always assumed he drifted into an adulthood of waste. I always figured he’d die young because of the weight, and I was right. But I was wrong about the man he had become.
Part of me wishes I’d kept in touch with him over the years. It wouldn’t have changed the course of his life, but as it turns out he didn’t need my help.
You can’t change the things you’ve done in the past. But you can make amends.
I’m glad there are enough people left in Saugus for me to make amends to.
Those of you who are familiar with this band will think of songs like “Don’t Close Your Eyes” and “Blow My Fuse.” Those came off the one platinum album they were able to muster in the late 1980s. Once they went platinum, I started to lose interest.
Here’s the thing: When you’re a metal-head outcast like I was (or aspired to be, anyway), you cling to the bands few people know about. It makes you feel like you’re part of a secret society where the rest of the more popular kids don’t belong. I makes you feel COOL.
I have Sean Marley and Dan Waters to blame for this mindset. They always pushed the more obscure bands on me, and when I’d express my excitement over the latest album from Motley Crue or Def Leppard, both would look at me like parents who just caught their kid setting fire to the dining room furniture. Sean turned me on to Motley Crue, too, but once the “Theater of Pain” album came out he was all done with them.
I remember when Motley’s “Dr. Feelgood” album came out. I wanted Sean to like it so badly. I kept telling him it was a return to the band’s roots. I brought the cassette to his house and we sat there listening carefully to each track. He seemed to like what he was hearing.
Then, somewhere in the middle of the song “Sticky Sweet” he got a pained look in his eyes, like he was about to pass gas. He looked at me and lamented: “Man, I hate Vince’s singing now. It’s awful.”
I was crushed. I had failed to lure him back from the dark side.
Since I was always trying to be more like him, I dove head first into the pile of cassettes he was collecting: Ministry’s “Land of Rape and Honey,” Nine Inch Nails, which was still an underground act at that point, and Skinny Puppy. Sean and Dan were pathetically in love with Skinny Puppy. It was all they’d talk about. I didn’t quite understand that one. I still get bored if Skinny Puppy is playing.
But Kix. There was a band I could sink my teeth into. Before the “Blow My Fuse” album made them somewhat famous, they were releasing killer albums like “Midnight Dynamite,” “Cool Kids” and their 1981 self-titled album.
Sure, some of their music veered dangerously close to bubble-gum pop, but they were obscure. They were therefore mine. Sean was nuts about Kix, and it rubbed off on me in a big way.
After the “Blow My Fuse” album, I pretty much forgot about them. This week was the first time I listened to them in more than 20 years.
And I haven’t been able to stop.
Am I being pathetically nostalgic? Perhaps. But I had forgotten how good their double-barreled, layered guitar sound was.
Sean turned me on to other bands that people knew of, but not nearly as well as bands like Kiss or Led Zeppelin.
One band was Riot. Not Quiet Riot. They are (or were) two separate bands.
The other was Thin Lizzy. I never lost my love affair with that band, and I still listen to them all the time.
My kids have even gotten hooked on Thin Lizzy. When we’re in the car, Sean (we named him for Sean Marley) always asks me to put “Jailbreak” on. Not bad for an almost 10-year-old. Duncan always sways his head back and forth in approval.
The man my oldest son got his name from would be proud of me for pulling that one off.
My friends from the local band Pop Gun have finally put some performance video online. Listening to it takes me to a happy place, when life was tough but Boston-based rock kept me sane and strong.
Boston has always been fertile ground for rock n roll. The obvious comes in the form of Aerosmith, The Cars and Godsmack (the latter actually has roots in my home turf — the Merrimack Valley). But the lesser-known bands really gave me the shot of coping power I needed whenever the chips were down, which was quite a bit in my 20s.
Back when Pop Gun was still a relatively new band and it was looking like The Neighborhoods just might make it big, I was working at a wonderful little hole in the wall called Rockit Records in Saugus, Mass.
I’ve mentioned before how Metal music as one of my most important coping tools for OCD and related disorders. Though I was still many years away from a diagnosis, the year I worked in that cramped little dive was one of the best therapy sessions ever. It was a particularly perfect place to get exposed to some of the best Boston bands at the time.
When I was an angst-filled teenager bent on self-absorbed periods of depression — and before I became an angst-filled grownup bent on self-absorbed periods of depression — it was a place where I could escape.
Located off of Route 1 northbound, Rockit Records was literally a hole in the wall, not much bigger than a walk-in closet. It later expanded in size, but even then it seemed small. But the sounds booming from speakers above were always big.
It was the perfect safe house.
The store was crammed with cassettes, vinyl and eventually CDs. You could sell and buy used music. You could buy all the hard-to-get metal fanzines.
True story: On Aug. 3, 1987, I was the first kid in the store to buy Def Leppard’s just-released and long-awaited “Hysteria” album. The band was already spinning in a downward spiral toward candy-coated pop. I just didn’t realize it at the time. And in those days, I was a BIG Def Leppard fan.
A year later, I believe I was the second or third kid to buy Metallica’s “And Justice for All” album.
In 1992, just as I was transfering from North Shore Community College to Salem State College, a job opening became available and I applied on the spot. I thought the place was so cool at the time that such a job was beyond my reach. No way they’d hire me. I wasn’t covered in tattoos or wearing nose and ear piercings. All I had going for me was the long hair, I thought.
But they called me in, and Al confirmed to the owner that I was a longtime shopper. They hired me, and I worked there for the next year, until new owners took over and I had decided to get too serious about my journalistic studies to work a retail job.
It was a tough year in a lot of ways. A family member was beginning to sink into some serious clinical depression and a suicide watch was on. I had turned North Shore Community College into a refuge of sorts, hiding for hours in the smoking room of the Lynn campus instead of facing my demons at home. I was uneasy about transferring to Salem State, though it turned out to be the best decision I could have made.
So for a year I manned the register as all my old school friends came in to shop. We smoked cigarettes at the front door and sometimes smoked other things out the back door. If we wanted a pack of smokes or something to eat and were short on cash, we borrowed from the register, putting index cards in place of the missing cash with such notes as “Bill borrowed $5, will return Thursday.”
I’m still not sure how we got away with that. It was a different time, I guess.
There was an Italian buffet restaurant across the parking lot called Augustine’s. The food wasn’t very good, but for a binge eater like me it was perfect.
If we liked the music that came in we would play it constantly. House of Pain was in the CD drive a lot. So was the Henry Rollins Band. Sometimes we’d get in promos for not-yet-released albums. If the staff didn’t like what they heard, the CD would quickly be converted into a Frisbee we’d whip across the store. One of the Poison albums suffered this fate.
I’m not sure if Al or the owner knew this was happening, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew and tolerated it.
The owner eventually sold the place and that essentially meant I was out of the job. I wasn’t exactly in the new owner’s good graces. But by then, it was time for me to move on.
There’s now a Subway sandwich shop where Rockit Records once stood. A pity, really. But a lot of music stores suffered the same fate as the iTunes age dawned.
For me, it served its purpose. A jewel of an escape closet from a world of hurt.
It was also a great place to hook into the Boston music scene. I remember going through the used CDs and cassettes making sure everything was in alphabetical order as Letters to Cleo, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Tracy Bonham, Slapshot and Sam Black Church poured from the speakers.
Many of these bands don’t fit the mold of many of the heavy metal songs I’ve shared on here. But they spoke to me all the same, though my wife was always a much bigger Bosstones fan than I ever was.
I survived on music. I never grew proficient at playing guitar, bass or drums and as singer of Skeptic Slang I was only so-so. But the music shaped me as a writer and carried me through the bad stuff.
Whoever said God has no use for rock ‘n roll in His Kingdom was wrong.
My editing background noise this afternoon is the first album from Body Count, the metal band with Ice-T on vocals. Some of it is uncomfortable to listen to. But, truth be told, I absolutely adored this album back in 1992.
Mood music:
Listening to it now, I shake my head at the liberal use of the N-word. I hate that word. But because an African American was singing it, the 22-year-old me thought it was ok; that the hateful nature of the word was somehow neutralized because it came from Ice-T’s mouth.
Back then I thought it was a big joke. In my drunken moments I would play the most violent songs on the album (“Cop Killer” and “There Goes the Neighborhood”) and cackle myself blue. My friends joined in. They weren’t bigots, either. They were just caught up in the nonsense, too.
But looking back, it was more than a childish joke. On a couple different levels.
First, there were real racial tensions in 1991 and 1992. It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years since a bystander recorded the police beating of Rodney King. In the spring of 1992, a jury let the officers off the hook and L.A. erupted into vicious rioting. That was scary stuff. Some people suggested a race war was at hand. The 1960s were probably much more dangerous in that regard, but for my generation that was the worst we had seen in our adult lives.
Second, my attraction to that album illustrates what an angry person I was back then. I was just getting started with the band Skeptic Slang and all the lyrics I was writing were tirades against my lot in life.
I had yet to understand that life was never meant to be fair, and that there’s no such thing as happily ever after. I learned these things, eventually, thankfully,
My thinking back then was immature and depressed. If this album helped me through it and kept me sane so I could make it out the other end, so be it.
Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” album. Which reminds me: It’s nearly the 25th anniversary of my last major attack of Crohn’s Disease.
It might seem bat-shit crazy of me to intertwine these two things, but the fact is that the “Master of Puppets” album is probably what helped me get through that attack. That, and the book “Helter Skelter.” I read that book twice as I lingered on the couch, rising only for the frequent bloody bathroom runs that are the hallmark of Crohn’s flare-ups.
But man, I listened to Master of Puppets nonstop. It tapped right into the anger I was feeling as a 16-year-old still reeling from his brother’s death and under the influence of Prednisone.
I had plans back then. I was going to lose 30 pounds, grow my hair long and find myself a girlfriend. I was going to live a life closer to normal. Not that I knew what normal was back then. As an adult, I’ve learned that normal is a bullshit concept, really. One man’s normal is another man’s insanity.
When the blood reappeared and the abdominal pain got worse, I wasn’t worried about whether I’d live or die or be hospitalized. I was just pissed because it was going to foul up my carefully designed plans.
When I listened to the title track to Master of Puppets, the master was the disease — and the wretched drug used to cool it down.
“The Thing That Should Not Be” was pretty much my entire life at that moment.
I related to “Welcome Home: Sanitarium” because I felt like I was living in one at the time. I was actually lucky about one thing: Unlike the other bad attacks, I wasn’t hospitalized this time.
Though Master of Puppets came out in March 1986, it was that summer when I really started to become obsessed with it. At the end of that summer, the Crohn’s attack struck. The album became the soundtrack for all the vitriol I was feeling.
That fall, as the flare-up was in full rage, Metallica bassist Cliff Burton was killed in a bus accident in Europe. It felt like just another body blow. I found this band in a time of need, and a major part of the music was ripped away.
I recently found a track of “Orion” where Cliff’s bass lines are isolated. It puts my neck hair on end every time I play it.
Though Crohn’s Disease is something that sticks with you for life, that was the last brutal attack I suffered. I’ve had much smaller flare ups since then, but only days-long affairs and nothing that kept me confined to bed.
It still manifests itself in other ways. If my eating goes off the rails, I’m much more susceptible to irritable bowel syndrome. Too much information? Perhaps. But for those who need to watch for the signs in themselves and loved ones, it’s important.
If I feel joint pain, which I do once in awhile, that’s partly the Crohn’s Disease manifesting itself. People think it’s exclusively a disease of the colon, but it’s more than that.
In later years, some of the mental illness and addictive behavior was easily traced back to the childhood illness. The experience left me with some deep insecurities about what I could and couldn’t do, and instilled in me a biting fear of the unknown.
Given the severe food restrictions that were part of the treatment, I was destined to become a binge-eating addict.
With that in mind, it makes perfect sense that a lot of the same treatment I’ve had for OCD and binge eating has all but eliminated the Crohn’s symptoms.
Getting rid of flour and sugar and weighing out my portions has led to a lot less pain.
I know it’s not gone and never will be. Another bad flare up is not out of the question. I’m also a prime target for colon cancer later on. For that reason, I have to have colonoscopies every one to three years. My colon is a tube of scar tissue.
I have a theory that the Crohn’s has been mostly dormant all these years for the simple reason that it ran out of colon to attack. It attacked so thoroughly that the scar tissue formed a protective layer.
That’s probably not true, but it’s not an entirely unreasonable theory either.
I’ll just thank God some more that I’ve been spared the agony in recent years.
Editor’s note: An acquaintance on Facebook mentioned how August is always a shitty month for her because of something that happened in that month a few years ago. I get that way about August, too, though time has healed wounds. For me, though, I’ve had to get over judging my life by certain years rather than certain months. This post, written in early 2011, is about that.
I’m thinking of all the shitty things that have happened already in 2011. The 9-year-old girl getting killed along with several others at Congresswoman Gifford’s event. Death, unrest and oppression in Egypt. Nothing ever changes, does it?
Mood music:
[spotify:track:39kHMfF3dBMZMbOtoit1XF]
You always hear people talking about what a bad year they’ve had. Marriages falling apart. Loved ones dying. Jobs lost. Surely the new year will bring better things, we think. Then we find that the new year is pretty much the same as the old one.
It’s that losing game of high expectations. The more we get our hopes up, the more devastated we are when things don’t go according to plan.
My head has been in that place too many times to count.
The most glaring example was 1984. I was 13 and thought 1983 was a rough year. I remember being scared to death over world events like the bombing of Marine barracks in Lebanon and that movie “The Day After.” Three years into my parents’ divorce, there was still a lot of venom in the air. I was in my first year of junior high and hating every second of it. And in October, my brother had a horrific asthma attack that was nearly the end of him.
But 1984 dawned full of promise in my young eyes. A bad year was behind me, and better things were surely ahead.
The first few days were good ones. Then came Jan. 7, when my brother finally succumbed to his disease. The year didn’t get better from there. I remember getting sick a lot and missing a ton of school. I hated school so I should have been happy. But I knew I’d have to make up all that school work or end up repeating 7th grade. I had already been kept back in 1st grade, so I didn’t welcome that prospect.
I was sent to stay with my maternal grandparents in Florida for two weeks because my parents thought it would do me good. I was a miserable prick the entire time, and looking back on it I feel bad for my grandparents.
I was also deep in the grip of puberty and I was getting fatter by the day. Prednisone had swollen my face to the point where my head looked like the bottom half of Jabba the Hutt. Since I was just starting to care about girls, that didn’t bode well for me.
I would have other bad years: 1996, when my best friend killed himself and my fear and anxiety had the better of me; 1997, where the pain of what happened the year before was almost too much to take and I started eating and smoking heavily, and much of the time between 2001 and 2007, when I finally started coming unglued and realized I could do something about it or let everything go down in flames.
But a lot of wonderful things happened in those years.
So when I look back on it, maybe all those years weren’t so terrible. Bad things happened, but I’ve learned that a good life is in how you deal with the bad as well as the good.
I’ve also learned to lower my expectations.
When your expectations are low, you can’t help but be pleasantly surprised by the direction life takes you in.
Sure, sometimes I still get my hopes up about things. But I’d like to think I’m more rooted in reality now.
My dear friend Joy, who readers know by now as the widow of my late friend Sean Marley, sent me a note today — a message from the distant past.
Mood music:
[spotify:track:2GMC1BnQle6WRstUGUs3mc]
She was looking through some of Sean’s diaries and wanted to share something he wrote about me 20 years ago:
“Bill is turning 20. He is such a fantastic human being. He feels so much and cares about the world and its goings on.”
It’s weird to see. One reason is that I tend to remember the more fucked-up part of me as a 20-year-old. The other is that seeing his words, so many years after he died, is kind of haunting. Sadly, I sometimes have trouble remembering what his voice sounded like.
Thanks for showing me that, Joy. It meant a lot.
I knew Sean kept diaries. I remember watching him write in them as The Cure, T-Rex or Riot (not Quiet Riot) played in the background. I never asked him what he was writing about, though sometimes he told me anyway.
A part of me badly wants to see those diaries. I want to see what was really going through his mind. Not to write about it. I’m sure there’s stuff in there he wouldn’t want to share with the outside world if he were here. Most people keep diaries for themselves. I’m an anomaly.
But another part of me is scared to death of what I might find. I’m not worried about what’s in there about me. To be honest, I don’t know what about it scares me. Maybe it’s just the idea of diving back into the past with someone you can’t interact with anymore.
It’s all a moot point, in any event.
Those notebooks don’t belong to me, and some stories probably aren’t meant to be told.
Consider this a case of me talking to myself, left to my obsessive thoughts.
If you have a best friend — I’m sure you all do — just be there for them. Listen to what’s on their mind, no matter how tired you are. Let your friend know he-she is loved.
If that friend has deep troubles, you may not be able to change the outcome.
But you’ll know you did your best and you’ll know what was on their mind.
And, perhaps, you won’t sit around years later wondering what that friend was writing in his-her diaries as the clock started running to run out.
I was going to continue my tirade about people in AA and OA who take the program too far, but I find myself thinking about friends who are hurting. It’s the kind of hurt that’s justified. But after awhile, it stops being helpful.
Hurt can be a helpful thing at the beginning of a traumatic experience. In a whacked sort of way, it’s a survival tool. If you’ve lost someone or your marriage is crumbling, for example, the hurt is actually like a bizarre shot of morphine and adrenaline.
It keeps you numb enough to be around people, and just self-righteousness enough to walk and talk.
In a sick sort of way, hurt helped me survive during some of the worst moments of my life, including the death of Michael, Sean and Peter. Hurt also fueled my survival instincts when my parents split up, my mother was being abusive and my emotional health was coming apart early last decade.
Henry Rollins actually brought up this phenomena in one of his spoken-word performances, where he talks about the kid hiding in his black-walled room, writing on black paper and yelling, “Here in my room… I reign supreme!”
Teenagers love to feel hurt. It gives them a reason to not listen to their parents or teachers. It gives them something to talk about. I’m not trying to belittle the real, crippling pain kids have to endure all too often. I’m talking about the typical emotions of a rebellious teen. Somewhere in there, there are usually hurt feelings to rage over. Rage isn’t an energy we should hang onto. But sometimes, rageful energy is better than no energy at all.
The hurt that springs from losing someone you love is a lot more complicated and hits you like a knife to the gut, and it takes much longer to fade.
Hell, I’m still not totally over the deaths of my brother and two friends.
I bring all this up because an old friend from the neighborhood I grew up in expressed the hurt she still feels over the death of a dear friend who lost a blistering battle with drug addiction.
She thinks she could have done more to help her friend, and that feeling of failure hurts deep. The word she used was “sting.”
I felt the same way after one friend’s suicide, but at some point I had to drop the hurt. It’s easier said than done. I guess you could say I was able to pull it off my neck and lock it in a metal box under the stairs in the garage.
When the hurt weighs you down so you can’t move, it’s gotta come off.
For me, therapy and a recovery program for mental illness and addiction helped a lot, though my answers aren’t necessarily going to work for the next person.
This old friend lives on the other side of the country and appears to be doing very well for herself. I’m glad to see that.
Hopefully, she’ll wake up someday and realize she probably couldn’t have done much more to save her friend; that addiction has a way of closing a person off from the help friends and family try to offer.
And when that person gives up in the crushing onrush of depression, there’s nothing anyone can do.
