It happens everyday Two lovers with the best intentions to stay Together, they decide to separate Just how it happens, neither is certain But it happens everyday…. Well, you make him a liar Turn him into a robber Well, it happens everyday.
I have had to go to two pre-trial conferences related to my divorce from Lena. I recognize that divorce is often ugly; it doesn’t need to be, but it is. Like the lyrics above say, “Well, you make him a liar. Turn him into a robber.” It’s very sad how two people who once were so much in love can twist history and try to tear one another apart. I have sincerely tried to not go down that road. It’s not what I want at all, but then again, I didn’t want the divorce either. In these two pretrial conferences Lena’s lawyer has said somethings that are just patently false. I don’t know if the false information comes from Lena or this is just a standard page out of her lawyer’s playbook; but it sucks.
I would much rather be told that I got fat and unattractive, that I was a lousy lover, that I was too grumpy or just a plain old asshole, than have lies said about me.
1st Lie
Lena’s lawyer claims that I was unfaithful throughout the marriage. This is plainly and simply FALSE. I never cheated on Lena. I never wanted to cheat on her. I never had eyes for another while I was with her. I was so in love with her and thought she was an amazing, smart and stunningly beautiful woman. I thought we were very compatible sexually and I never felt any reason to look for something anywhere else. Period. Seriously.
So, where does this lie come from? Is it merely a standard page out of the divorce playbook of lawyers? Maybe. It doesn’t make much sense in New York State as it is a no fault state — so infidelity doesn’t matter, if it were true, which it is not. Is Lena projecting? That’s a possibility, but I never thought she was cheating on me during the marriage despite the fact that she openly admitted to cheating on her first husband several times “after she knew the marriage was over but before getting out of it.” I was so in love with her and thought that she was so in love with me that I never thought either of us would cheat. But… maybe she did and now she is projecting; I just don’t know. I do know her mother often accused me of cheating because I spent time at the upstate home without Lena. During the marriage Lena said she knew her mother’s accusations were crap and just part and parcel of her soul cancer. I would have hoped that by now Lena would have realized that nothing good ever comes from allowing her mother’s psychotic mean spirited drivel into her head; again, I just don’t know.
2nd Lie
The second lie is that I never lived in Rivertown with Lena and her children. In last night’s blog post, I wrote how hurtful this lie is because it completely negates everything that I did there for seven years.
When Lena and I were talking about getting married in 2010 and 2011, I was 100% open about my mental illness history and suicide attempt history. I told Lena that I needed to keep the home in upstate NY and spend some amount of time here because living full-time all of the time in Rivertown would not be good for my mental health. I agreed to spend 50% or more of my time down in Rivertown with Lena and her kids. But we both agreed to the idea that we would not necessarily be together 365 nights a year. The first couple of years I thought this arrangement was working OK and I did spend more than half of my time in Rivertown. I drove the kids to their before school program and picked them up from the same program after school. Later I drove the kids to and from school often. There were several times when I closed up the upstate house and spent 4-6 months 24/7 there in Rivertown. I was on the pickup list from the high school for the kids… Why would I be on that list if I never lived there or only came down on weekends? I can subpoena school officials to prove this.
I drove the kids to soccer/basketball/lacrosse/dance practices. I have photos from mid-week practices and games; not just weekend events. I attended dance and concert and play rehearsals; again, I have photos from all of these things. Again, these are mid-week practices; I wasn’t just around on “some weekends.” Dance teachers/coaches and friends can confirm that I was an involved step-parent. One coach wrote in a text message to me that for some period of time it was obvious to him that I was more involved in the lives of my step-children than either of their biological parents… because I wasn’t working (as both parents were) and I took the time to be involved. I was there. I was involved. I was part of a family. I was part of a community. Again, I have tens of thousands of photos proving I was there and that I was involved. I have a list of a dozen people willing to testify under oath about my being there and my level of involvement. I have doctors that I saw regularly down there with records showing visits etc.
It’s a bald face lie that I never lived down there. Did I sell the upstate home and move down there 24/7/365 when we got married? No. I did not. But I spent a significant amount of time there investing in the family, home and community.
Below is a slideshow of just a smattering of the tens of thousands of photos I have of the time I spent living in Rivertown:
This afternoon there was a pre-trial lawyers conference related to my impending divorce from Lena. After the lawyers met, I talked with my lawyer at the court house. She relayed what Lena’s lawyer had said… and I just could not believe what I was hearing. When I got home I started to write a post in response to the claims being made about me and my life of the past eight years. While writing that post I had a kind of psychological breakthrough in terms of better understanding why I feel so much pain surrounding the loss of something that apparently was never what I thought it was.
One of the claims being made by Lena’s lawyer (which is a total lie being perpetrated upon the court) is that I never lived in Rivertown with Lena and her children. When I came home I brought up 10,000+ pictures, literally, that I had taken of Lena and her kids in Westchester. Pictures of Lena, pictures of the kids playing sports, pictures of the kids in school plays and concerts and pictures of me with Lena and the kids. As I looked at these pictures I started screaming inside my head, “I did exist! I was there! I mattered! It was real!.”
The lie being told in court today was that I never lived in Rivertown… which would then negate everything that I did do there… all of the times I drove the kids to school and picked them up from school… all of the sports practices and games that I attended and photographed… all of the concerts, plays and recitals that I went to and photographed… This lie negates all of the time I spent there as an integral part of a family. This lie has a gaslighting affect… Was I not there? Did I not do all of these things that I clearly remember? No! I was there, sometimes for extended periods of time (despite Lena and I agreeing when we got married that I would only be down there up to 50% of the time… I was often down there much more than 50% of the time and I have witnesses willing to testify under oath to that in court) and I did do all of these things… and I have PROOF! I have the photographs that I took that prove I was there. How do I have 10-20,000 photos taken of the kids and their friends and classmates if I was never there? How do I literally have thousands of photographs of Lena if I was never there? I was there!!!
In my Rivertown photo studio doing Samantha’s hair after she put mine into ponytails.
As this was roiling through my mind it struck me that this theme of being negated and feeling unimportant or even as if I did not exist, was one that has run through most of my life dating back to when I was four years old.
First let me say, unequivocally, that I loved my father and I love my mother and brother… I loved Ava, Aubrey and Lena. However, each of these relationships left me questioning if I mattered and feeling totally negated and worthless and at times as if I might not have even existed in the ways I remembered or thought I had.
Me with my mother and father as an infant.
When I was four years old my mother was pregnant with my brother when she was hit by a drunk driver. This accident caused my brother to be born twelve weeks early and very sick. Both of my parents had some serious emotional problems and both of them responded to the accident and early birth of my brother differently and perhaps, in retrospect, wrongly. My father withdrew further from the family unit and more into his work. My mother spend most of her time caring for my infant brother who was very ill. I don’t have specific memories of feeling negated or abandoned at the age of four, but I must have. Prior to my brothers birth I am not convinced that my mother and I had a “normal and healthy” mother-son relationship; but afterwards we definitely did not. Many first born children find it difficult to adapt to life after the next sibling is born and they have to share the love, affection and time of their parents with the newborn. Add on to this the fact that my brother was so ill and the affects must have been much more… and how would my four year old brain deal with those feelings of negation and abandonment?
Me with my father, mother and brother.
From the ages of four to fourteen my emotional problems only got worse. I got into trouble at school. I was often in trouble at home. I acted up to get any attention that I could from whomever I could. Then around the age of fifteen my parents separated and got divorced. By this time my mother and I were not close at all so I stayed on Long Island with my father and his new wife, who was horrible to me for many many years. My mother and brother moved into New York City and I did not see them often (both my fault and my mother’s).
Whatever sense of belonging or feelings of mattering were blown apart by my parents divorce. My father’s new wife never accepted his children as part of the “package” when she married him. When I was sixteen years old my step-mother told me point blank, “I married your father, not his children.” And, my father allowed this to stand! Can you imagine how negating that felt? My own father, whom I loved so dearly and looked up to for so many years, allowed his wife to push me off to the side.
Me with my father and step-mother in 2013.
From the age of fourteen to twenty-four I moved something like 11 or 12 times! I had no roots. I did not have a sense of belonging anywhere. My therapist at the Austen Riggs Center said that I had “homelessness syndrome.”
Ave and me, Dec 23 1994
At the age of 23 I married Ava… and started to develop roots. At the end of our second year of marriage we moved to Georgia and bought a house. It wasn’t a great house, but it was ours. I really started to nest and foster the growth of roots both in our “family unit” and in the community. We made friends and were active in the community. I was building a successful business. I loved that home and even though I had no idea back then about anything construction related, I did do my best working on the house and making it ours.
Me and Ava dressed to the 9s for one of Ava’s work events.
In 1998, after shooting myself but before the overdose and ensuing stay at Austen Riggs, I wrote an essay entitled “Borderline Diaries.” This is an excerpt from that essay…
When I packed up my little car and left Georgia I was leaving more that just Ava. But let’s start with that. I left my wife. Despite the fact that I did not always treat Ava as well as I could have, I loved her more than I had ever loved any one in my entire life. Although she didn’t realize it at the time, and still doesn’t, she was the center of my universe. She was the lone bright star in an otherwise dark and dismal life. I was not able to be the man… the husband… that she needed me to be. But I would have done anything within my power to make her happy. Unfortunately, I was so mentally ill at the time that I was not able to be the husband that she desired. So, she asked me to leave. And not knowing what else to do and not wanting to cause her more pain than I already had… I left.
Like I said before, when I left Georgia I lost a lot more than Ava (as if that weren’t enough). I also left behind the house I loved and the lawn and gardens I had worked so hard to make beautiful. I don’t think that most people realized how much that house meant to me. You see, between the ages of fourteen and twenty-four (10 years) I had moved eleven times. I almost felt homeless all of those years. I did not have roots anywhere. Then when I was twenty-four Ava and I bought the house in Georgia. I came to realize after we bought the house that is was a piece of junk. But that did not matter to me. It was finally a place I could call mine; a place I could call home. Additionally when I left Georgia and moved to Vermont I left behind my friends, my business, and a way of life. In one seventeen-hour car trip I lost every single indicator of who and what I was in the world. I was stripped of everything. I was nothing. I had nothing. I felt so lost that mere words cannot make one understand what I was going through.
As soon as I moved out of our house in Georgia, Ava’s boyfriend moved in; she was literally cooking dinner for him in “our” home the next night. They got married shortly after our divorce was finalized. Due to the way that the marriage ended, for years I wondered if Ava ever thought about me. Had she really loved me? When did she stop loving me? Was any of it real? The same theme of negation was a constant undercurrent in my consciousness.
A year or so after I was out of Austen Riggs, I started to date Aubrey. She and her three daughters moved into my mother’s second home with me where I was living at the time.
Aubrey and me at a wedding in NYC.
Aubrey and I were probably doomed from the start… I was only a year out of Austen Riggs and 18 months out from shooting myself. She left a severely abusive husband and moved right in with me. These are not the best circumstances to start a relationship. But we tried. I went from living alone to living with a woman and her three children. Instant family! Instant responsibility! Aubrey and I had some amazing times… and some very bad times… but I loved her and her children fiercely. After living together for four years, Aubrey and her children moved out. Here one day, gone the next… negated yet again. Unfortunately, the circumstances surrounding our breakup really fucked with my head. Again I found myself wondering what was real. Was any of it real? Had I made the intense love I thought we felt for one another up in my head? When did she stop loving me? Would I ever be loved? Was I just not lovable? Was I just defective on some very core level?
Aubrey and I stayed in touch until shortly after I married Lena. I loved Aubrey’s girls and probably loved her for several years even after we broke up.
Me with Aubrey and two of her girls on a Halloween a couple of years after we broke up.
Five years after Aubrey and I broke up, I started to date Lena in March of 2010. We dated for 9 months and got engaged on New Year’s Eve 2011 and married 7 months later in July of 2011
Me, Lena, Samantha and Daniel on our wedding day. July 11, 2011
Lena and I had a good life and a good marriage for a while. I loved her and her children dearly. I would have done anything for them. I tried everything for them. I risked everything, including my very life and sanity, for them… and then it was over. Here today, gone tomorrow. Negated once again. I lost another family, home, business and all of the groundings that held me in life. Once again I was asking if I was just so damaged that I could never be loved. Once again I was made (and manipulated) into questioning my sanity and my very memories.
Me with Lena, Samantha and Daniel on the day of Daniel’s bar mitzvah.
So… I am almost 50 years old. In some ways I am a huge “success.” I have lived 20 years longer than anyone thought I would. Statistically speaking, I am a Deadman Living. I am constantly working on myself… looking at myself, my motivations and my actions and the consequences of those actions… to the point of neurosis probably. I have made huge progress on issues such as my temper, my serpent’s tongue, my patience with other people and on forgiveness, both for other people and for myself.
Unfortunately, those negating questions remain: Will I ever be truly loved? Am I lovable? If I am not in love/being loved, do I exist? Is there something so broken inside of me that I should just accept and embrace being alone the rest of my life? Was I born this way with some fractured psyche or did the events of my toddler years set the stage for this?
I don’t know the answers to those questions, but what I fully realized today while working on another post is that I do exist… in this world…And, I do matter… in this world… regardless of whether my parents and then lovers could see it or express it.
I’ll be 100% honest… the whole thought of dating makes me want to kill myself. I am well aware that I am not randomly going to run into “Ms. Right” in my day to day life. Because of where and how I live, online dating is really the only option. I have profiles on several sites, although I don’t pay for the premium services. I waste countless time actually reading profiles and flipping through hundreds of pictures. I am discouraged at the number of fugly women out there… sorry. Seriously, I am sorry. I 100% wish I were not so vain and superficial. I have married, and then been divorced from, 2 stunningly beautiful (on the outside) women. I know, without any doubt in my mind what-so-ever, that if I could fall in love with an ugly woman, my life would infinitely be better. I know this with zero doubt… but I just can’t. So, I swipe left… swipe left… swipe left….. Then….
Then, I come to a beautiful woman… and I just want to hang myself. Why? Am I not worthy of being with a beautiful woman? Would I not be appealing to a beautiful woman? Honestly… after everything that I have been through… I don’t know. I guess despite my outward bravado I must still have some insecurity. Why would a woman “like that” want to date me? What would I have to offer a woman “like that?”
Even if it’s not insecurity eating away at my sanity… there is a laziness factor that has come into play in my late 40’s. Do I really want to expend the time, energy and money to pursue a woman “like that.” Finding someone takes time. Wooing someone takes time. I am not looking for one night stands, so more time than one night is required. I often feel like I live on thin ice as it is… how much can I risk pursuing something that is probably doomed to start?
When I start to talk to a woman I have so many variables I need to keep track of. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time… so when do I reveal my psych history? Many women are immediately scared away from me because I have tried to kill myself in the past. I understand this. Other women have been attracted to me because I have tried to kill myself in the past — I have learned to be very weary of these women!!! They want to save me and no one can save anyone else!
On top of my psych history I have several physical ailments that can be an impediment to a relationship. I have Fibromyalgia. I have a degenerative joint and nerve disease. I have Afib. I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Spastic Colon which also gives me chronic gastritis! I have chronic migraine syndrome. I take Opioids and muscle relaxers every single day. Who the fuck wants to deal with all of that? I certainly hate having to deal with it!!!
I am lucky in one regard… most of the time I don’t mind being alone. In fact, I rather like my alone time. But there are some times when I feel lonely and wish I had someone to share my life with. About a year ago, I came up with a test for myself in terms of how much time I am willing to put towards dating… When I think I am lonely and wouldn’t life better with a girl friend… I watch some porn and jerk off — and after I cum I ask myself if I still really want a girl friend. Think about it… not a bad test! Unfortunately, recently the answer has been — definitely maybe. LOL.
The fact of the matter is that I have been damaged most of my life. So damaged, and recognized as so damaged ,that those who should have helped me or protected me didn’t. By the age of 15 I had been written off by family and school teachers and administrators.
May 28, 1987 While I was taking a shower tonight I thought of a solution to all of my problems. After I make love with Cat, and I am all happy and cheerful, I should kill myself. That way, at least, I will die happy. You know what they say, “Get out while the getting is good.”
Richard D. Cole, journal entry
In May and June of 1987 I had an affair with one of my high school teachers, Catherine Bishop, and more than a few people knew about it… and no one cared. Cat, as I called her, was twenty years older than me (making her the same age as my mother), was married and had two children, the oldest of which was only a couple of years younger than me.
My father knew. In his infinite wisdom he said, “You can’t rape a willing victim.” My mother knew… In fact, my mother claims to have had a phone conversation with Mrs. Bishop. I only heard of this phone conversation years later and have no idea about it, but she knew. I mentioned to my mother that I was writing this post about this relationship… and her response was, “Please don’t out her.” Think about that! Several male teachers at school knew. I remember them laughing and punching me in the arm and making comments to me about it.
I was on the school administration’s radar as a troubled kid. Apparently my Spanish teacher reported that I had a volatile temper and she didn’t want to be around me when I finally blew. She filed some kind of concern with my guidance counselor which resulted in my mother being called in to speak with the Assistant Principal for my grade, Mr. Claude Frank. I remember this meeting… Monday, June 1, 1987. Mr. Frank started to tell my mother about the schools concerns about me. My mother asked a few questions and Mr. Frank then made his fatal mistake… He told my mother that he and the other people at the school were “professionals” and she should let them deal with me without question from her and she should be a good little woman and make sure things were OK at home. Seriously, maybe not in those exact words, but my mother got the message… so she proceeded to rip Mr. Frank a new asshole… which totally got the meeting off the topic of me and my problems… and kept me out of trouble. I had zero respect for Mr. Frank for many reasons, but I do not believe he knew of the affair. I will give Mr. Frank credit as several years ago we reconnected briefly on Facebook and he apologized to me. He admitted that he did not have the knowledge or skills to deal with me or help me and admitted that he let me down. Not a lot of people, especially school administrators, admit their mistakes, so he gets credit for that!
Sunday, May 31, 1987
On Friday afternoon I came home right after Spanish. I quickly took a shower. I didn’t even dry myself off. I just put on my shorts. Then I waited. At about 3PM Cat showed up. At first we talked and made out in the living room. She kept stroking my penis through my shorts… then we went up to my bedroom… After she left I just fell asleep. I was really exhausted! That night I was not sure how I felt. I was not angry. I was just so confused. Cat called because she was afraid that I might be angry… Saturday night around 9 o’clock I took an orange juice glass and filled it with scotch and got bombed. Today I went to the University to do some work. Cat came by at 12:30PM… I was sitting on a chair and she spread her legs and sat down on me… When we were done, as we were getting dressed, something happened inside of me. I got very angry. It was not just at Catherine but it concentrated on her, and she felt it. I feel badly because today when she left I think she was hurt. I don’t want to hurt her…. She told me that she thought she was falling in love with me.
Richard D. Cole, journal entry
So, why did no one care that a 15 year old student was having sex with his married 36 year old teacher? Maybe it was a sign of the times? After all, female teacher sex scandals didn’t really hit the public eye until 1998. The fact of the matter is that I did not see myself as a victim at the time and for many years afterwards. I thought I was having the time of my life and even when I was angry and depressed about the “relationship” I blamed myself, not the adult teacher. It wasn’t until I had a 15 year old step-son and one day looked at him and realized I was having sex with a teacher at the same age. It was only then that I really started seeing what happened as totally fucked up. I just think that I was such a screwed up kid that no one really cared what I was doing or with whom. I was damaged beyond the point of concern.
Mrs. Bishop’s inscription in my 1987 Ward Melville yearbook. (I blanked out someone else’s quote. )
I ran into Mrs. Bishop while in college. We spoke and she apologized for what happened in high school. She claimed that she was an alcoholic and that she had been drinking when our “affair” happened. I do remember her bringing wine to one or two of our rendezvous, but she never smelled of alcohol or acted drunk, so I don’t know.
Recently I was chatting with a young mother whose baby died in her arms shortly after being born too prematurely to survive. I check in on her every few days and I told her that grief comes in waves… That she shouldn’t be surprised if she feels better one day, or for a few days, and then the agonizing pain returns. I warned her that this will happen again and again, and may never end; the hope is that the period of time between waves will grow longer and longer as time goes on.
I should listen to my own words. I woke up this morning around 5AM and had a really nice conversation with a young man who has reached out to me because of this blog from South Asia. After showering and having my 2nd cup of coffee I went down to my office with the idea of editing some photos. I turned on my music app and a song that I love but had not listened to in a while came on… by the 2nd or 3rd bar I was in tears. The tears just welled up in my eyes and I could feel my heart expanding in my chest to the point it felt like it would burst. Then the tears just flowed.
The gut wrenching wave of grief struck me out of the blue and I felt like I couldn’t breath. It felt as if it took all of my bodies will to make my heart beat each beat. My brain was awash in sadness and of course, me being me, my initial response was to wish that I were dead. I wasn’t acutely suicidal or in any imminent danger to myself… I just wanted the pain to stop and my old “stand by” reaction to this type of stress is wishing I would just die.
The song was “Forever Young” by Alphaville…
I love this song… I have since it first came out… but it reminds me of Lena. This morning, out of the blue, when hearing this song all of the hurt Lena’s leaving me… pushing me out of her life… and the lives of her children who I helped raise for 8 years… all of that soul crushing, heart breaking pain came rushing in as if it had just happened all over again.
I recognized the stress for what it was and immediately turned off the music and forced myself to run some errands. But the “wave” didn’t stop when I turned the music off. Driving felt almost surreal as I wasn’t aware of consciously deciding to turn the wheel a certain way or press the gas or break… I was kind of on auto-pilot. I still felt like just breathing was taking all of the energy that my body and mind could muster. This lasted for more than an hour! Some quacks would call it a panic attack… but I would not. It was a grief wave.
As I am writing this, now 8 hours later, I am listening to “Forever Young” on repeat and I can feel those feelings without letting them push me to that “wish I were dead” spot and helping me write this post. It never ceases to amaze me how certain songs can provoke certain responses… and as time passes the invoked feelings can change. In the months prior to marrying Lena, I listened to this song alot and thought of it as a happy song. Now different verses of the song provoke very different feelings.
Prior to the marriage the first verse spoke the most to me and it rang as youthfully hopeful to me…
Let’s dance in style, let’s dance for a while Heaven can wait we’re only watching the skies Hoping for the best, but expecting the worst
Now, almost 9 years later and fully knowing the whole marriage was a lie… that I was used and abused and then thrown out like a dead work horse… this verse rings truer to me…
It’s so hard to get old without a cause I don’t want to perish like a fading horse Youth’s like diamonds in the sun And diamonds are forever
I have promised myself that I will NOT kill myself over Lena. I just won’t give her that satisfaction. I probably will kill myself some day, but not over her!
I was speaking with someone today and mentioned that I had a loose plan to kill myself around my 60th birthday in the year 2031. They asked why and I told them that I had given it a lot of thought and that with the confluence of my declining physical health and the fact that I have enough money to just get by for about 10 years… It seemed logical to me. This person knows me a little and said that I had so many talents and why didn’t I find some way to earn some more money and that my physical health wasn’t bad enough to kill myself over. This person didn’t say it in a judgmental way and I thought about it the whole way home and some more tonight.
I am not one of those people who think that all life has inherent value; I never have been. I think quality of life is more important than how long someone lives. I was standing on my deck smoking and I was asking myself why I have never been afraid to die. I also found myself pondering what I am here on this earth for. I thought about my “talents” and it occurred to me that although I may be an OK writer and an OK photographer and an OK public speaker… these have never seemed like life-worth-living pursuits. Now being on love on the other hand… that’s a different story. I’ve always been willing to give my all to love and have foregone suicide a few times for love.
I found myself thinking about my relationships and how I give myself over to them 110%. In a relationship I can be a chameleon… in that I tend to end up liking things my partner does and doing things they do — even if I wasn’t interested or if it isn’t particularly healthy for me. For example, the last woman I dated, April, smoked and I had been smoke free for two years. April wasn’t interested in quitting and within a month or two I was smoking again. I’m the same way in bed… I am very willing to accommodate a wide range of bedroom activities to please my partner. That’s when I came up with the idea that I am chameleon like; reflecting back to my partners what they want or are interested in, at times to my detriment… such as when Lena asked me to move to Rivertown full time. I moved without hesitation and created the life that she said she wanted, even though living there was very detrimental to my mental health and even though living there in her “normal life” was very demeaning to me as a person.
So, now that I am single, where does that leave a chameleon? I feel like a chameleon that has been placed on a blank piece of paper… with nothing to reflect back and no goals. The psychobabblers out there will immediately say that I am co-dependent. OK. Maybe I am. So what? I am 48 years old and admit that I am a bit fucked in the head. I have been through thousands of hours of therapy and the statistical likelihood of me changing this core part of my personality at this point in life is basically zero. The greatest joys in my life have come from loving a woman 110%… Is that so bad?
Yesterday was a very hard day for me. I have been trying to work on my book a little each day. Yesterday morning I was writing about a relationship I had where I was repeatedly lied to, used and manipulated… much to my significant detriment.
As I was writing I found myself getting angry… muttering things like, “Fucking Bitch!” or worse. However, in typical fashion for me, my outward anger quickly turned into inward anger… anger at myself and feelings of wanting to hurt myself. I had errands to run after writing which had me driving more than 80 miles from here to there.
As I was driving and interacting with various people I looked fine on the outside. I drove the speed limit. I wasn’t driving erratically. I smiled at people when I met them in stores and asked them how they were. On the outside I looked perfectly “normal.” But on the inside… I was dying, or wanting to die or hurt myself. I had thoughts of burning my arm with cigarettes, or cutting my arms with razor blades, or crashing the car, or asking a friend to literally beat the shit out of me. Externally induced physical pain is much easier to “process” and heal from than the emotional devastation I was feeling. A physical bruise heals… my heart, not so much and certainly not nearly as quickly!
So why write about this? Because much of the stigma of mental illness comes from the fact that it is “hidden.” Most of the time it’s an internal condition unlike a broken arm or even cancer that can have visible symptoms. Someone can look perfectly “normal” on the outside but truly be struggling to hold on to life on the inside. You never know what someone is feeling inside by their outward appearance… so maybe cut someone a break once in a while.
