Behind these castle walls

The great modern philosopher Tupac Amaru Shakur left a legacy that lives on long after his departure, Ironic that he only lived 25 years but it seems like he was never gone. Some people still think that he will return from the dead like the Italian Machiavelli. The following is a chorus from an Eminem song in which a verse from Tupac is featured, Christina Aguilera sings the chorus, now isn’t that Ironic?

“Everyone thinks I have it all, but it’s so empty living behind these castle walls. These castle walls

If I should tumble; if I should fall, would anyone hear me screaming behind these castle walls? There’s no one here at all, behind these castle walls.”

Out of all the Eminem songs, this is the one that resonates with me the most. That’s saying a lot because I’ve been listening to Eminem since I was 14. But this song describes a place where I was in May of the year of our lord 2013, a place that I never want to go back to. Relax; it’s not a physical geographic location, rather a state of mind.

I am more likely to go crazy than kill myself, I am a self confessed emotional retard. I am a loner by nature, I am that guy who can sit in a room full of people talking about him and still ask “who are we talking about?”. I just drift though life in my own little world, when I can be bothered I live and do some great things with my life. But my problem has always been emotional and psychological strength, dealing with the shit that life throws at you. I am not saying that I am a pussy but just acknowledging the difficulties that I have dealing with the challenges of life and keeping my head from exploding. If something brings me down and really drains the happiness from me, I usually brush it off and find a way to push it to the back of my mind. The problem with this approach is that the back of the mind is a confined space; all those demons can’t fit into that little conclave, eventually they will burst out. When they do, it’s like hearing voices and suffocating at the same time. The closest thing I can compare it to is an anxiety attack, your mind literally does not stop racing. 

Although I’ve gone through a lot of experiences in my life that have damaged me emotionally and psychologically, none of that compares to the damage that I inflict on myself by bottling things and pushing them aside. I have been damaging myself for the last three years, I guess growing up isn’t for all of us. Have you noticed how I’ve rambled for the last three paragraphs without specifically stating exactly what drove me to that place that I never want to go back to? That’s how I get myself into trouble, by going around in circles and never facing my problems. But then the downside of living in my own world is that I never show any tell tale signs of emotional distress, I don’t project unhappiness because most of the time if truth is to be told being emotionally neutral even when I am supposed to be happy is my natural state. Surely someone would notice right? Sometimes they do but they mistake it for thinking mode, naturally I deflect attention away from it as well. So what normal person would turn away and tell people he/she if fine when he/she is not and try to hide all the traces? Doing it so well that he/she convinces everyone including himself? Well I am that type of person, judge me if you will.

When my younger brother died, something inside me broke, and it’s like when cracks start forming in the foundation. The cracks merge and eventually form one large fracture. It triggered the merging of all the emotional cracks that existed in isolation of each other for three years, but somehow started interconnecting at that moment when my brother left this earth. I will admit that I haven’t been and will never be the same; the sudden and unexpected events that happen in life are not my favourite. It took me all of six months to get over the fact that the Harry potter franchise had ended with the second instalment of the deathly hallows. You can imagine the sheer confusion of losing a younger sibling, losing the one sibling that I was closet to. I was devastated, but I had to be strong. Now I realize that maybe that wasn’t the smartest thing to do, being emotionally neutral when I was supposed to be mourning was just plain stupid.

Eventually holding it together took its toll, at the end of April and the beginning of May, it all unravelled. I broke down; I just could not hold it in anymore. Anger, hatred and hopelessness all rolled into one. I literally gave up on myself and on life; my lust for life just died a slow death. I drifted through each day, I didn’t care and neither did I see the point of life. I mean what was the point now? I grew up without a dad and now I’d have to grow old without a younger brother. I felt blank, I felt empty and I felt like I was eventually going to lose my mind. Eventually I knew that it was a matter of time before I did something stupid, only a matter of time. My work did not suffer though, funny thing is that work is work, it’s the only thing I could get done. I was using work as an excuse to hide from my pain and my problems; it was an unpleasant but necessary distraction. 

But I will admit that it was hard. After work, I just didn’t want to do this thing called life anymore, if I was on leave I’d just want to spend my days under my bed. The problem is that I can’t fit under the bed, so I settled for spending the day in bed under the blankets with the curtains pulled. I contemplated cutting my hair, I contemplated deleting my blog and pulling my column from the newspaper, my mind kept asking me “what was the point? What was the fucking point?”. It was in the madness of my descent into depression that I broke up with my girlfriend, talk about being an idiot and a douche bag all at the same time.  It’s a good thing that we didn’t have any rope lying around the house; okay maybe that joke is not funny. I thought about it, but it was just too much effort. As much as I didn’t want to live, I wasn’t ready to die either, just wanted to sleep the whole day and be lost in the darkness. 

Thank god that there are angles that walk this earth, oh! Sorry folks, I meant angels. I had two of them, call me lucky! One who pulled me towards the light, like she literally pulled out the bible and the holy water, I swear. And one who called me to see if I was out of bed yet, the most you can hope for in this world is that when the darkness closes in, there is someone praying for you somewhere out there. The most you can hope for is that your boys will pull you out of the house to go and hit some golf balls and not just go about their routine like nothing’s wrong, all you can hope for is that your friends will do all in their power to help you stand when you are at your weakest (thanks boys and girls). 

The power of prayer is immense, I testify to you guys, prayer can make miracles happen. A miracle did happen. One day I woke up, somewhere around the middle of the day of course, I was in a depression remember? I decided to stop being an idiot and get help, professional help of course. It turns out that I am not crazy, shit like this is perfectly normal. If you are thinking that they hooked me up to a machine that determined my sanity or drugged me with a bucket of pills, I’m going to have to disappoint you. I was depressed, not crazy! People just react to sudden emotional and physical trauma differently, some people recover quickly and others take years to recover. I didn’t have the luxury of years, there was no way I was going to spend years stuck in a low that didn’t want to go away. The only thing more depressing than a high that doesn’t last, is a low that refuses to go away, you can quote me on that.

When something traumatic happens, do not make any life changing decisions. Do not cut your dreadlocks, do not stop writing (or whatever keeps you sane) and most of all do not terminate any relationships. That’s what the Doc told me; at that point I literally wanted to jump off a bridge, knowing that I had taken a unilateral decision. A decision that not only changed my life, but changed hers as well, never stopped to ask her opinion on the matter. I was a selfish bastard, her forgiveness has cleansed my soul but the traces of guilt will never wash away. At which point I realize that I might be damaging myself again.

It’s been a long road back from that place that I never want to go back to, the journey has only begun. The healing process will take some time and the results of the decisions that I took will take time to accept because most of them are irreversible, all I know is that I am balanced now. I have my days where I literally snap at the unlucky person who happens to have the audacity to even breath the same air as me, but even in the desert there are cloudy days. All I can do is continue to engage the pain (that’s how the Doc describes it, it’s like self torture/ripping off a bandage) and live the shit out of life. I know not to be such a fucking emotional retard and lean on my friends if I have to, I know this because they have shown me that there are there for me. They have shown me that this great fear I have that they will let me fall because they are too busy dealing with their own drama, is just a fear. Fear should not hold you back, even if your friends are the types with such large personalities that someone must always take a back seat. You guys shouldn’t get used to me bearing my soul and what not, this won’t happen again till the next drought. I take encouragement from Tupac’s words on the last verse from the song behind these castle walls .

“That’s life, I know it seems hard sometimes but remember one thing; that through every dark night, there is a brighter day after that.

So no matter how hard it gets, stick your chest out, keep your head up and handle it.”