Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Evolution Is A Process Too Slow To Save My Soul

“Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”
-Philippians 2:12

I haven’t written in a while…I haven’t worked on the phone sex lines in a while either. 

This blog is about my life as a phone sex operator, but, I can’t really talk about being a phone sex operator without discussing why I made the choice to be a PSO in the first place. I have always written from a personal place, and, although being a phone sex operator makes me money, I’m in the game for another reason as well.  

I became a phone sex operator because I am an agoraphobic. Which means that I deeply afraid of crowds and open spaces….basically, the world. Working at home afforded me freedom and independence. 

When I was 12, I was diagnosed with depression….I had no way of knowing then that it would become the absolute scourge of my life. 

Whole years of my life have been blacked out because of depression, like a redacted document. 

Just a few weeks ago, I was so depressed that I became suicidal. I didn’t make any real attempts, although there were some shady nights with sleeping pills. But, my thoughts became blacker than they had in a very long time. The lights had been flickering for a while, and they pretty much went out. It was a despair that felt dangerous. I was at the edge, and all I could see was down. 

It wasn’t any one thing, it was a bunch of things, it was nothing. It was my whole life, it was every moment that couldn’t be reversed, that I wanted to take back but couldn’t. It was all that things I wanted but had slipped away, or that I had squandered, that had been taken without my permission, it was all that I lost and couldn’t get back, it was all I never had and convinced myself I could get. 

All those horrible feelings,and yet a total void. 

I just knew that I had been struggling against this roiling tide for so long, and I didn’t want to do it anymore. I was so sick of being fucked up, but I had no idea how not to be fucked up. I feared that being fucked up was my permanent state of being. Who the hell wants to live like that? Who wants to be THAT person? 

I don’t know what I thought my life would look like by now, at the age of almost 32, but, I thought I would be better…I’d be more stable, more financially well off…happier, more together. I certainly thought that this whole “mental illness” thing that I’ve been grappling with most of my life would be a thing of the past. 

But, it’s still here. And somehow, I am too. 

I chose not to go through with killing myself for a couple of reasons…the first, was that I didn’t like the idea of my mom finding my corpse. I haven’t always been the best person, and, I have always wanted to get better. I knew if I killed myself, that redemption would be totally lost, and what would be even worse, is that I knew I would ruin my moms life forever. She didn’t deserve that. 

With this in mind, another realization formed in my head. I was like bird that had been shot through with an arrow, and I had to flap my wings with all my strength to keep from plummeting to Earth. 

I don’t believe in god, nor do I believe in an after life. I believe that there is nothing after we die. I started to think about what it would feel like to dive headlong into that nothing. On the one hand, it seemed peaceful and free of pain. On the other hand, it seemed terrifying to simply not exist. Being alive was painful as hell, but, the cessation of any feelings at all didn’t feel like a great alternative. In fact, it seemed like its own type of hell, one where I had left everything behind, everything unfinished and unknown , and yet had no way back. Any love that anyone felt for me wouldn’t stretch into that terrible permanent blackness, and my love would never be able to get out again and reach those I had left behind. 

There’s nothing worse than losing a connection with another person, especially if you loved them deeply. But, if I killed myself, I would be severing all those connections that I had, and ending any possibilities of future connections. Who was I to make that choice for myself and the people closest to me? 

So, my life isn’t what I expected it to be at this age. I doubt anyones is. I have had a difficult life. I have made it more difficult sometimes by being ashamed of who I am, which is a person who struggles with severe mental illness. I am ashamed of this because I am afraid that if people know this about me they will think that I am somehow not worthy of a place in their lives, or they will think less of me.

But…they shouldn’t. What kind of shitheel thinks someone is unworthy of friendship or love because they have something wrong with their brain that they have a difficult time controlling? That person sounds like a monster. That person sounds like what I tell myself, and it’s high time I knocked that shit off, because living with these ideas isn’t doing me any favours. 

There are billions of people on this planet, and who are any of us to decide how anyone should live their lives, or what success or failure is or looks like, or what makes a great life? It’s absurd to set any kind of standard when we have so many souls running around the planet having all kinds of different experiences and realities at any given time. 

It’s strange that in a world so vast, we get myopic. I can recall feeling jealous of people for what they posted on their social media.  I thought other people were better looking, more successful, happier…and then I realized that being jealous of the image people choose to show you is its own kind of personal hell. How can I feel envious of people I don’t know who show me the edited version of their life? Of course that is supposed to make people jealous, that's the point of social media, to brag and bolster yourself using a narrative you design. 

One of the basic principles of martial arts is that if you want to avoid being struck, don’t put yourself in a position to be struck. 

When I was really little, my grandmother and I watched classic movies. She had a big collection of photo books featuring pictures of old movie stars. I would sit looking at them for hours, and my grandmother would tell me all about the lives of the various beautiful people staring back at us. With very few exceptions, all of their lives were garbage. Sure, they were famous, beautiful, rich, beloved, immortalized on celluloid…and most of them drank or drugged themselves either to death, or close to it. Almost all had multiple failed marriages, many had serious mental illnesses, and all were subject to numerous tragedies. I used to marvel at how horrible their lives were. How beautiful the projections on the screen, how ugly their realities were. How could the bloom be so resplendent when the roots were so twisted and rotted?

I’ve been living with my parents these last few months, in the basement, depressed, and feeling like a total failure. I’ve never felt as alone as I have these past few weeks though. 

One night, as I was trying to stay afloat mentally, my mom revealed something to me I had never known about myself. Three days after I was born, I started having seizures and was put in intensive care. I had been having seizures in the womb.The doctors were very concerned and said that I would likely have brain damage. My mother dismissed these claims, saying, “she’ll be fine.” I was. 

My mom has a picture of me when I was about 6 years old in her bedroom that I recently discovered. It’s in a heart shaped pewter frame. I was so struck when I saw it. I couldn’t believe it was me. I remembered being that age, fragments of it, anyways. I feel so old sometimes, so worn, that I forget I was a child once, with everything ahead of me. 

I’ve been trying to remember myself, the many incarnations I have had. The free spirit who moved to Toronto a decade ago to be a circus performer, who just wanted as much experience as possible….is the same person who lived through a rape and near death experience…who survived the death of a parent at 11…who was diagnosed with depression at 12……who went to ballet class at 6….who had several seizures at 3 days old….who is here now, at 32, starting over, coming back to Toronto, very different, but somehow the same. 

On a clear day, I can see myself for miles…the many, many directions my life has taken me. I see myself strong, I see myself weak, I see myself surviving, I see myself crushed under the weight of all life has given me. All that I am or have ever been is contained inside of me, still. Recovery is about accessing it. I can live through anything. I can be free spirited and carefree and happy again. I was once before, so, I know I can get it back. 

This version that I am currently concocting is different, of course. I have tried to make the most of this seriously hellish period by letting it learn me a thing or two. I want more than ever to be a good person, and to show love and gratitude to those around me. 

And, I’m back working.  I am a proud pro dirty talker once more. My name is Andi. I named myself after the main character in “The Shawshank Redemption”. Something about watching Tim Robbins crawl through several football fields worth of shit and coming out clean on the other side struck a cord with me. Aspirations, man, we all need them. 

And, I’m getting over this whole “shame” thing. So, my life is different from other peoples. I’ve had different experiences than them, so, yeah, we’re different. But, I probably have more in common with others than I realize. When I’m crying alone at 3am, I think about all the other people who are doing the same thing. I don’t know who they are. They could be anyone. But, I know they exist. 

I feel pretty scared still. I don’t want to die anymore, but, I know that I still have a way to go on the recovery front. There are lonely nights…there are nights I am terrified of what will happen to me. There are nights I cry and cry and don’t know what to do with myself. And then there are nights where I am granted a merciful moment, and all of that clears away…and the unknown doesn’t feel as scary, and I feel like…maybe everything is gonna be okay. 

As someone who knows me all too well once said about me..”she’ll be fine”.



Evolution is a process
Too slow to save my soul
I've got this creature on my back
It just won't let go
Ha ha ha
If I am only an animal
Then I can do no wrong
But they say something better
So I've got to hang on

-“Manimal” The Germs










No comments:

Post a Comment