TheSilentEmpath,

I registered and became a member, just so I could post a reply. So firstly, in a way I can see some of your perspective. The pain others feel is a personal experience, so I won't sit here at my computer and pretend I know exactly how you feel, but I'll tell you this - I have similar thoughts.

Lately I have become so destitute that I had to sell my only car to be able to pay off some debts. It's the last few inches before rock bottom, let me tell you. I'm currently living with my parents (AGAIN) and I'm writing to you from a 12x12' room, with no windows, and is constantly cold. I feel like I'm in a grave.

But I've felt that way most of my life.

At one point, I was a happy kid. I used to try and befriend other kids at school, I sang along to the Bluegrass music that poured out of the front room of my parents' house. I remember days that were bright, exciting... I felt like every single day was this great adventure. That was about to change.

I traced how my trajectory was altered to a single event in 2nd grade. Yep, I feel like a bit of a baby / dipsh*t when I say that, but it's true. This kid (a boy, let's call him X), who was incredibly jealous of me for whatever reason, got some other friends of his together and formed a circle around me. They started throwing rocks. I was so traumatized, that I ran directly into the classroom from the playground and told the teacher immediately what happened. She was dismissive.

This dumbfounded me. In a way, it sent me the message that "It doesn't matter to anyone if bad things happen to you". I was crushed. And from that point forward, it got harder and harder to be happy.

I started gaining weight - and as we all know, being the fat kid in school was, well, really fun to be (ahem). My parents had screaming matches daily, so I hid in cabinets and closets of my house, staring into the darkness... or letting my eyes focus on the light that came from the gap between the door and the floor. My days soon became a "Goundhog Day" of sorts. By day, I would endure constant teasing at school, and by night, I would be screamed at by one if not both of my parents.

I spent a lot of time singing songs to myself. I thought that if I came up with a catchy tune, that maybe, just maybe, I'd be happy for a while and I could maybe find a friend again. I spent a lot of time sitting alone on the playground, watching the other kids play. No one really wanted to play with me, as I was toxic to the rep of other kids. When new kids moved to town, I would befriend them quickly, in hopes that I could build a resistance. They learned quickly - make friends with me, and you're as big of an outcast as I was.

My only real solace came in music. My father worked at a manufacturing plant that made records, so from time to time, as a perk of his job, my Dad was allowed to take home a copy of an album from a small list of albums that were slated for meltdown otherwise. For me, it was magical. My friends became the Stray Cats, Michael Stanley Band, George Thorogood, The Cars, J. Geils Band - you name it, I was listening to it - and way before any of the kids at school even knew who these artists were. These albums became my friends.

My solitude didn't subside. It grew. I would jump off the bus, go to my room, and stay there the remainder of the day, listening. Sometimes I would go outside, sometimes I rode my bike. But it was party of one, all the time. I had two brothers, but since they quickly distanced themselves from me at school, that gave them an immunity of sorts from my toxic reputation.

My Grandmother on my father's side was the one person in my life that was constantly positive. I never heard her complain, unless it was about one of "Those dumb Democrats". She was a constant calming force in my life, and I loved her more than I had ever loved anyone. She was diagnosed with advanced malignant colon cancer in 1988. I spent my entire Christmas break from school there at her house, talking to her, listening... stories about the Great Depression, and how life was many years before I was born. I was fascinated.

The day my Grandmother died, my father's brother and sister came to town and went to the Hospital. I was strictly forbidden from going to see her. As I sat in my room, playing my copy of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", I received notice from my cousin sobbing at the top of the stairs that she had died. As the needle of my turntable passed through the final minute of "She's Leaving Home", I felt the most intense pain I had ever felt in my entire life. The final work had been done. I was now shackled to an unimaginable demon. A demon I call "My other me".

MOM. No pun was intended, but ironically my demon and my mother had things in common. They both told me I would "dig ditches for th rest of my life". They both ignored any sort of sadness, and told me to "straighten up". I was, after all, not supposed to be acting this way. I had no reason to. It was simply illogical to both my Mother and MOM.

My Demon naturally persisted into High School. I started listening to Metal, and truckloads of it. My favorites were Megadeth and Slayer, because Megadeth knew my pain and knew that life had completely lost it's meaning (In My Darkest Hour) and Slayer knew how genuinely ****ed this World was to me (Raining Blood, Angel of Death, War Ensemble). By this time I spent all of my time alone. I had friends, but they were friends that liked the "loose cannon" they saw before them. The were rebelling as a rite of passage. I was brewing a monster below the surface. MOM became "The Shape" after I saw John Carpenter's Halloween.

No, I didn't become a murderer. Many times I thought about lashing out at the World that had abandoned me, something that Social Worker after Social Worker tried like hell to change, but to no avail. I had built the perfect system in my head. All that time spent alone, listening, turned me into a brilliant social engineer. I started turning kids against each other at school. I started filling the school computer system full of games and other obviously bad things (viruses, porn). I had taught myself how to use a computer after my Grandmother died as a way to escape, and I quickly became so good at it that I was programming circles around my Computer Class teacher.

The Shape followed me everywhere I went. It told me that my girlfriend was cheating, until my paranoia drove her to that end. It told me that I didn't matter, so I would sometimes binge so much that I would throw up and then go back for more. When I turned 21, it told me that alcohol was the answer, so I drank until I blacked out. Everywhere I went, The Shape was right there... ready. Willing. Able.

I guess what caused me to confront it once and for all was two years ago. I had a fiancee who had a child. I raised that boy from age two to age six, and all the while I felt his love, and it made The Shape recoil, each and every time. His brown eyes would stare into mine and ask me "Are you my Daddy?" I would answer "What do you think?".

"Yes!" he would say with that excitement that I remembered having all those years ago.

And one day, after a night of heavy partying with her "friend", my fiancee came in and told me I had 12 hours to leave and take my things with me. I was not allowed to see or say goodbye to her son, who she left with her Mother that day.

The shape came roaring back to life with a furiosity. I was soon drinking a half of a bottle of Jim Beam daily. I was in the abyss. I was lost. Gone. Anything that was in me had died.

And then something really weird happened. Something that I didn't even think was possible. As I sat alone, watching the ball drop on another New Years' Eve, I heard someone on television joke about 2012 being the "Last Year on Earth for everyone". And I don't know what about that set it in motion, but I cycled from depression, to rage, to melancholy, and then...

Quiet.

The silence in my head was deafening. I walked outside, and I stood there. The Midwest night air was a slight, gentle but cold breeze. And it was... silent. It was so quiet, inside and out, that my ears actually started ringing slightly.

Empath, I don't know what happened. I really don't know. But somehow, dome grand being - God, aliens, Jimmy Hoffa, who knows - plopped an unspeakable gift in my lap. Silence.

And I thought about it. This pain, this demon... The Shape that had followed, taunted me, tormented me all these years, was in my control.

I had it wrong the whole time! For years, I thought I was a feather being tossed about a raging river, at the mercy of what came around the bend. But that had now changed. So I vowed to do something. I vowed that night that I would spend every last drop of blood, every last gasp of air, fighting this son of a ***** tooth and nail. I would give him the fear, the paranoia, the unspeakable horror that he gave me all those years.

And today, I fight.

I can't pretend that my life is perfect. And despite therapy, calls to suicide hotlines from payphones at 3AM, medications, alcohol, drugs, self-mutilation and a slew of outbursts and drama, I knew that it had gotten to that point in the movie where the winning assault was to be launched.

To this day, I have lost 70 pounds since that New Year's eve. I'm sober. I'm making music again. And I'm actually excited again. Why? Because I remembered. I remembered what made me feel like I felt all those years ago. I remembered that it was me who was the funny one, the happy one, to one who cared about others. Suddenly The Shape was manageable.

To this day, that sick piece of crap sits in solitary confinement. I have him well contained. I watch MSNBC on Friday nights (for the Lockup shows) because I want to remind myself that The Shape now lives in despair, NOT ME.

Like just about anyone that has suffered the trauma of a life of crippling depression (which trust me, I left a lot of stuff out of this story, as I could have filled a freakin' book), I have scars. I have the memories of those rocks striking my skull, my body. I have the scars on my knuckles as I pounded my fists into bloody swollen mounds in fits of anger and despair. I have the eyes that used to look into the mirror with unbridled rage - but now look and muster something that feels incredibly foreign each and every time it happens - a smile.

I have wanted, begged, prayed for death many times, Empath. And I told this story for two reasons:

1. I want you to know that pain is manageable. You can manage it. You are it's warden. It is your prisoner, not the other way around.

and

2. I want you to know that even though everything in your World may fall away, one thing will remain unwavering. My love for people like you. People who know what demons like The Shape are all about.

I don't know you, I know. But I know that death isn't the answer. The answer is the fight. You have to fight, fight, fight like general fu--ing Patton until the demon cowers in the corner in a puddle of p-ss with a snot bubble in it's nose.

In in the silence that comes in the wake of your fight, you fill it with sweet, sweet music. And you remember...

You remember the magic.

Love,
Justanotherday