Maybe that’s why I find myself stewing over the complete lack of accountability on their part. Maybe that’s why it stings so bad to be made out to be the “bad guy” by people who at first place you on the loftiest of pedestals only to tear you down with contempt when all you did was do your best to handle a struggle they knew you were going through and struggling with.
I don’t see any reason to bang the carceral drum for the latter folks when all I’ve ever wanted to do was love and support them in their quest to be better individuals. Besides, criminalising them in particular only continues the cycle of pain; prompting more hurt people to hurt people.
The rest who harmed me have committed no crimes. They just broke my heart; either exacerbated old trauma or created new wounds; and failed to live up to the commitments they made to me whilst also feverishly trying to justify their callous behaviour as some warped form of self-defence.
There’s got to be a better way to describe how fear leads people to do some rather egregious things and then do everything possible to run away from the mess they’ve made without calling them a coward or criminalising them.
In my experience, only three people – one I was engaged to, one I was married to, and one I have never met but made it her mission to defame me for not dating her – have actually done something criminal to me in terms of harm or abuse.
What’s strange is that I’ve spent a lifetime of living with morose feelings about my own mortality; pretty much just doing my best I can to survive and do right by others until my time on this mortal coil has finally come to a close.
When I was a teenager, I didn’t think I’d make it to my late twenties. When I got to that age, I regularly doubted I’d make it past my early thirties. I was convinced death was just around the river bend because I’ve never taken a single step forward without its icy presence right behind me in lockstep.
The difference now is that my propensity to resist and persevere isn’t as passive as before. I’m not as reluctant to keep going.
But I am still scared. Will I make it through this one and who will be there?
The whole thing scares me. It terrifies me that I can’t answer those questions because like in other depressive episodes I’ve had in the past because I don’t know what’ll happen until it does. I’m physically, emotionally, and spiritually getting the shit kicked out of me; fighting something else I cannot physically see.
My most raucous and brutal life/death battles have always been against myself and the ideation of unaliving myself; doing anything at all to not be figuratively on fire anymore and making the torment stop. Any self-mutilating thing seemed like a bridge to peace.
Now my demon has a more recognisable name: cancer. It doesn’t want me to do the honours of taking myself out as it’s equipped to do that for me.
This is what I mean. The anxiety of it all catches me cold.
“Okay but… Joseph, *can* you make it through this?” “What if you never play football or baseball again?” “How much of you will be left after chemotherapy?” “Who else is going to leave you high and dry and imply that you didn’t try hard enough?”
These are intrusive thoughts but they aren’t unreasonable ones. This is how it hooks me into this unhelpful cycle of speculation about my own goddamn chances to press on and persevere regardless of what happens to me or who I’ll become as this ordeal continues.
One of the most vicious things about living with LCH (Langerhan’s cell histiocytosis) is the onslaught it produces and unleashes in one’s mental health in a completely unprecedented way and how it shows up in ways that seem familiar yet markedly different.
I’ve lost 21 lbs/1.5 st. since the end of December. Suffered a bout of dehydration, which exacerbated the fainting spells I was having as my heart was working double time to get blood to my brain. Radiation treatment went smoothly but chemo is on deck. We just don’t know if we’re going a more generalised treatment route or something more targeted yet.
I’ve clawed and scratched my way back to fitness before during depressive episodes but never with all these complications.
It starts with me. The rest falls into place fairly easily because it seems when I make a change or show vulnerability regarding my struggle, that’s when people I thought better of show me who they really are.
And the wild part? It’s not about them. It actually is about me and the shit I didn’t ask for that I have to deal with.
I play with a different toolset now but one thing remains the same: I don’t care how the truth makes you feel. If anything, the truth is not a weapon. It is a mirror and it’s no one else’s fault that you’ve been lying to yourself when you look at your own reflection.
For the record, I apologise for absolutely nothing I said last night.
I meant every word and some of them have been a long time coming.
If that offends you, I don’t care. If me hitting some home truths upsets you, I don’t care. If me simply touching on how your behaviour is akin to cowardice, I don’t care. If me highlighting the fact that you’re using my traumatic past to further a fucking audience online at my expense angers you, I don’t fucking care.
I’m a human being, goddammit. You don’t get to grandstand as some paragon of virtue when you move like a vengeful renegade.
I’m going to finish this memoir chronicling the last five years. The cancer journey and everything I’ve sustained since it began has compelled me to do just that.
The truth is stranger than fiction and mine beggars belief. I have decent enough penmanship.
I’ll tell the story. Hopefully, it reaches the people who feel like their own story is unremarkable because I’m here to demonstrate precisely why it isn’t.
Apart from anything else, if I’m to continue loving and cherishing the people I love and cherish, I have to be brave and deal with this cancer in my bloodstream so that I can do just that.
Frankly, that’s way more pressing and defining than some misguided person chatting pure nonsense on the internet; especially when the receipts are just a couple taps/clicks away from being made public knowledge.
What I need from everyone is to look inward and find the bravery to deal with your trauma honestly rather than use it as a potential boon for social currency.
What I need you to understand is that the people you actually love and care about are worthy of that courageous effort to be a more loving person.
It will never cease to terrify me how some people quickly switch.
I liken it all to a cosmic test: I made a commitment to myself that I will not ever let anything stop me from loving unapologetically. Love, compassion, and kindness require an inherent amount of bravery; especially when you live in a world that compels you to be as antisocial as possible from damn near the day you’re born.
And for what? Imagined competition between people you don’t even know exist? Then we wonder why children and adolescents are so goddamn paranoid?
No. I’m not going to contribute to that bullshit any more and any complicity I previously had will be nothing more than the vestiges of a long-dead version of me.
Maybe it’s my defiant nature but I’m simply not ever going to accept that people can’t change. Maybe it’s subjective determination on who is worth changing for, I don’t know.
Sure, I’ve failed people and people have failed me. Sure, there are times where I have realised my traumatic responses have gotten the best of me causing me to push people I love tremendously away. I’ve owned those moments and apologised while doing my best to improve… and I still got slandered for it.
Despite all of that, I will not ever give up on being more loving, more vulnerable, and – crucially – more brave.
To love is to be vulnerable and you don’t truly love anyone if you’re not willing to tackle the issues that prompt you close your heart off.
And this is what sucks: I had to accept that me choosing to do the more integrous thing doesn’t mean the people I previously believed to be on the same level will follow through in kind. I learned a harsh but ultimately important lesson that day. The people from my past are desperate to define me because it’s easier to do than face their own demons head on. These people are not brave and when you’re no longer around, they lash out; underscoring every reason why you shouldn’t stick around.
The raw fact of the matter is that most people fail to follow through on their vaunted promises to the people they claim to love because they cannot handle even the slightest bit of difficulty when it arises. Thus, things fall apart.