[NSFW – Graphic and Detailed Violence]
It’s been six months since I’ve been out. So far so good. Until today.
They helped me get a job in a community that’s “in-need” so I can re-integrate into society. I’m really not sure what that means since I’m not sure I was ever integrated in the first place. I’m also not sure if a town in these kinds of dire straits counts as society either. I’m pretty sure I work with some alright people. My boss cares about me a lot less than a doctor or therapist, but at this point I prefer it that way. I can’t say they didn’t help me; I would not be capable of what I’m doing now without a lot of their help, but there’s only so much anyone can do no matter how much they care. Maybe someday there will be a breakthrough for a case like mine, but the best I can do for now is deal with it.
I guess I’m lucky in a way. There’s nothing wrong with my spatial orientation, coordination, memory, or decision making ability. At least I’m pretty sure that last one is ok. Time will tell. I have some sensory issues but I’ve learned to work with them. I’m sure they could be worse. If they were worse I probably would have wrecked my car by now. The most I have to deal with is having to pull over sometimes when it gets to be too much, and I have plenty of time to find an ok place to do that when I need to.
I know that I’m in a car and I know that everything else on the road with me going seventy miles per hour is a car too. It’s taken a lot of practice and a lot of meditation for me to understand and accept that what I see is not actually what’s there. For example right now there’s some idiot who’s been hanging out in my blind spot for the last few minutes. When I look back, I see a giant pig with human arms and legs crawling like a baby at high speed, staring at me with coal black eyes and a kind of toothy grin I don’t think a normal pig can do. I see that and I know it’s an SUV or something. It’s fine.
That used to unnerve me, and I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t still unnerve me a little bit, but I’m way better at dealing with it that I used to be. It’s just a matter of establishing systems and frameworks. Utilize mindfulness to actively identify and challenge my mistaken beliefs. I’m self-sufficient, and I even have some accommodations at my job when I need them. I always thought those were kind of a formality that workplaces pretended they had but it seems like they’re pretty legit, or at least at my store.
On my first day of training my manager was showing me how our store organizes the merchandise on the shelves. She positioned a can of green beans in the front and center of the shelf directly above the price tag and then turned to me and just started screaming. It was a long, sustained shriek. I’m embarrassed to admit that it took me a few seconds to realize that this isn’t a normal thing for a person to do. I politely asked if I could take 5 minutes and she nodded through the wail. I stepped outside, did a 5-minute re-orientation meditation, and came back in. She picked up right where she left off explaining why shelf placement was important and how often I needed to do it. She seemed pretty understanding about my situation and didn’t seem to mind. That was a confidence booster.
Paul held onto my wrist like it does whenever I’m starting to feel a little better. I’ve come to find its presence calming. It had come out of the floor this time, grasping and purring. Well, I started calling the sound it makes purring even though it’s more of a hiss through the bared teeth of its lipless mouth. I didn’t always like Paul. When I was a kid I was actually afraid of it showing up the moment I felt any kind of comfort, but I learned in therapy that Paul can’t really hurt me so it’s not worth getting upset when it appears. I have every right to feel ok and even though I don’t know whether Paul agrees it’s useful for me to think it does. There are worse things than just having something grip my wrist.
I had a pretty good first day.
The long tongue from the pig thing in my blind spot is licking my driver side window and it’s laughing now, or I think that’s the sound it’s making. It’s just trying to get my attention but I don’t care. I haven’t seen it before so I know it can’t touch me – I mean none of them can really touch me but some of them can make me feel like I’m being touched. The ones that can do that are always the same. I’ve named all of them, and Paul is my favorite. Sarah is my least favorite. If I saw Sarah in my blind spot I would have to pull over.
There’s not much to my new position and I’m thankful for that. I’m not sure I would be able to deal with a role with much complexity considering the mitigating factors. I’m not sure what I was expecting but honestly I didn’t expect my new environment to be so familiar. I helped out in the ward doing stuff that wasn’t that different. That’s probably why they got this job for me but that’s not the part that surprised me. What did surprise me was the people around me are familiar. I understand that my perception is not totally reliable but I think I can still get a sense of what’s really happening sometimes.
I was walking through the store the other day to look busy since I ran out of things to do. As always everyone I passed stopped what they were doing, put their hands at their sides, and glared at me with malice. I know everyone doesn’t actually do that because it makes no sense for everyone to do that. I know that there’s nothing about me that would be so offensive to every total stranger I’ve ever walked past. Maybe sometimes someone really does that but whatever. That’s their problem. Anyway I can see how they are before they do that for a few moments. I can see their expressions. Before they come to life in all their apparent hatred of me, their faces look tired and empty with few exceptions. I just have a feeling their faces really look like that before they change.
To be honest I shouldn’t be driving right now. I had to take a sick day because today I am legitimately sick. Still am. I just had to leave and get as far away as I could as fast as I could. Well, while driving the speed limit since I have to be a good citizen. It’s actually pretty lucky there’s nothing in my stomach anymore because I can still drive while I’m dry-heaving. I’m trying not to think about what happened today but I can’t not think about it. I’m not about to pull over to meditate because I have to keep creating distance. The pig thing cut me off to take the exit. What was the point of being in my blind spot if you were going to speed up and cut me off anyway? Whatever, there’s too much to process right now to get pissed off at someone being an idiot.
Too much to process– that was the line. I have to pull over and I do. I put my face in my palms and I feel wetness. I don’t remember crying. It was kind of blurry while I was driving but I thought something else was happening. I’m sobbing, not dry heaving. It’s so strange I didn’t even know. I can’t remember the last time I let it out like this. It’s ok. This is healthy. I guess I’m sad. Feel the sadness. Process the sadness.
My manager was murdered last night. Yeah, the one who trained me on that first day who made me feel at ease after so long. I thought my brain was just fucking around again, but it wasn’t. She was murdered and I know how. They were talking about it in the break room. She was gutted. That’s the word they used. She had one last fight with her boyfriend and he gutted her. When I realized that I was really hearing this I got sick. I vomited and almost passed out but I got myself together enough to make use of my accommodation again and ask for a sick day. I offered to clean up after myself but a co-worker offered to take care of it. Good guy.
I’ve been gutted many times. Not really of course. It happens to me a few times a year and I thought it didn’t bother me anymore. It doesn’t bother me. I’m having a hard time processing why I’m sad. Maybe because someone else had to go through what I went through. I mean someone really went through what I just thought I went through.
I don’t see Sarah very often but when I do I have to find a private place until it’s finished with me. Most of the time I’m already in a private place because it usually visits me in bed. At first I only see pieces of it flitting through my peripheral vision. It’s never in a rush. Nothing could possibly stop it. Eventually it fixes itself in the middle of my sight and crawls to me from the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and sometimes on nothing – it doesn’t have a preference. Wherever I look or even with my eyes closed it comes to me from the dead center of my vision. When it gets close I can’t move anymore. Even though I can’t choose not to see it I still can’t be sure what it looks like behind all the razors, knives, and jagged blades which cover its body. Maybe it’s just made of sharp things. Maybe it’s made of nothing because it doesn’t exist.
Sarah doesn’t care that it doesn’t exist. Sarah cares about eating me. It always starts with my gut. It makes a few cuts along my belly with its hand or claw or instrument or whatever it is. It cuts deep incisions one at a time, very slowly. Its blades aren’t as sharp as they look. It hurts a lot. After enough of my skin has been sliced away it puts its head into the hole it made and sinks its teeth into my guts and starts eating. It takes its time, and sometimes emerges with a mouth full of stomach and intestines to pull them loose. It stretches and chews them and they hurt. It started doing this before I learned that guts don’t have nerve endings and wouldn’t hurt if actually mutilated, but Sarah doesn’t care about that either. It hurts a lot. Even though I know it’s not really happening, the pain is real. Pain is a kind of perception after all.
That’s all it is though, just pain. I can just walk away fully intact after it’s done and gone. A kind-of gutting. Sarah has been doing that ever since I can remember. I was terrified of it when I was a kid. I lived my days in dread of it happening and it happened again and again. Eventually I accepted that there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s just going to keep happening, and it’s just pain. Only pain. I got tired of being horrified by it. For the last few years, it’s just something that happens sometimes that I can work around. I have an accommodation for it.
My manager’s name was Joanna. Last night she was really gutted. It must of hurt a lot. How could it feel to see your real guts spilled out where you can see them? She must have been terrified. She was probably afraid to die. She really went through what I used to think that I went through. I can’t actually imagine what it must have been like, and I’m embarrassed that I feel like I do because I experienced the fantasy version many times. Joanna experienced the real thing once.
Those tired eyes I see in that store, the same ones I saw so many with in the ward, she had them too. I know those eyes come from constant, unrelenting, oppressive torment. Not everyone can work through what I can, and sometimes I’m not sure if I can work through what I experience, but how was she supposed to work through what she was going through? What did she experience from living breathing people that caused her to end up with eyes like that? That ended up like this?
I guess the reason I’m sad is that between Joanna and me with our different situations, I’m the more fortunate. Whatever my imagination can conjure the reality someone else experiences can be much worse. I’m sad that it can be that way. It shouldn’t be that way.
If you’re reading this please stop letting it be that way. If you don’t stop it I’m going to have to try and stop it, and I’m less confident that what I do about it will be the best thing for anyone considering the way I am. I still have to try. Someone has to.