Somewhat Confessional

 

        Today I climbed up to essentially the top of town. The walk up was a nice way to get out some pent up energy and helped clear my mind a bit.  I thought about what I would write and now that I'm sitting here, I realize I didn't figure out much. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the gig I had on Saturday.  It was an absolutely beautiful service and a true celebration of life.  I'm overjoyed that even though the event was sad, I helped people feel better.  Music truly is magical and I am honored that people think that I do it justice.  DJs are trusted to provide the soundtrack to people's memories. To me, that feels like a huge responsibility, one I take very seriously. Sure, there's a lot of fucking around and I'm the first one to insert something smart assed in the mix but there is always a time and a place. 

    As a kid, I was always taught that everything had a time and a place and that you succeed in life sometimes just by being at the right place at the right time. There's an art to being able to read the proverbial room and know when to show up and where. I feel though, sometimes, that it happens on a subconscious level.  Call it instinct, gut feeling, vibes, whatever, but it really does feel like it comes from someplace outside of my conscious awareness. 

    It is odd.  I feel like I have such a deep and profound connection to the soul of the universe.  I feel as if I have touched the chaos of the divine being. There is a oneness I share with existence and time and that I hold everything that was, is and ever will be within myself. At the same time, nothing really makes a whole lot of sense.  I am bound by this meat brain and it's incredibly limited software. Sometimes, this manifests as suicidal thoughts.  I can't endure another moment of not being able to grasp what I can feel is so painfully obvious.  I understand suicide, not because I know what drives people to it exactly, but because I know how easily the mind gets to that point. 

    I almost took myself out.  I have no idea what conspired to save me but I did live. For the longest time, I didn't want to talk about it.  It was in the past, it was a manifestation of something stupid, I am "over" it, it wasn't that big of a deal.  Truth is, it is a point of trauma that has stuck with me.  I need to talk about it and process what almost killing myself did to me.  I need to contemplate the what if. I need to remind myself of all the absolutely beautiful things I have experienced because I didn't die by my own hand. 

    I guess a good start is to put the facts of the event out there.  It was the year I turned 19.  I was in a relationship with a girl I had met at college while at the same time dating another girl locally. For this I feel like a total asshole, which was honestly a contributing factor if I'm being totally truthful. I really have no idea why I kept on with the local girl.  She made my life hell and I was constantly wondering if I had any value in her eyes.  I was obsessed with the attention, though. The hot was satisfying enough to endure the cold at least to me.  My perception was definitely skewed by inexperience. 

    I was living at home and working for the state.  Home life was strained, as I had dropped out of military school and my family was sorely disappointed.  I was disappointed in myself but for the wrong reasons. The job was miserable and not at all what I saw myself doing as a career but it was money.  I was living out of various cheap shit motels for four days out of the week and only socializing with my gruff co-worker (this guy made talking to rocks seem interesting) and phone calls to my girlfriend which were limited because at the time, long distance calling actually cost money. 

    It was the last week of August.  It was hot as hell and the hotel I was staying in was absolute shit. I spent the last little bit of cash I had on a calling card from some sketchy convenience store. I dialed one of the few numbers I had memorized.  I remember being surprised the girlfriend actually picked up.  Usually it was her mother who picked up the phone. I don't remember the exact details of the conversation.  The gist though, was that she didn't want to be together any more because she wasn't sure if she was actually a lesbian. That our entire relationship had been an experiment that she wasn't really happy with. 

    My entire identity was called into question.  At the time, I wasn't exactly sure I was a lesbian (I wasn't) but I knew I was more than just some sort of experimental fling.  I had spent an entire year in college being told that everything that made me who I am was evil, wrong and something to be shunned. My entire self-worth was tied up in two women, one who realistically should not have been my emotional support (totally not fair at all to her) and the other who really didn't love me, she just liked the idea of being with me because it pissed off the religious establishment. When it became more of a hassle than what it was worth, she dropped me like a hot rock. 

    I remember her asking me if I was okay with things.  I lied.  I said expected it, and that I knew it wasn't going to last.  I hung up with a half-hearted "see you around." I didn't sleep that night.  I stared at the stained ceiling, formulating a plan of action.  I wished I would die right then and there but I knew that wouldn't happen. The next day, I spent the drive home in silence. My co-worker noted that I was silent even for me.  I collected my paycheck and cashed it at some bullshit casino. I bought a 50 count bottle of Tylenol PM and stashed it in my glove box.  I don't recall if I spoke to my parents.  I do know I did go home at some point to grab my car but if I talked to them before things went down, I'm not sure. 

    I drove up into the hills where I spent a lot of my youth.  It is a magical area and also a place where you could disappear and no one would know.  I ate the entire bottle of pills while blasting Cranberries - Zombie as loud as my sound system would go. I remember laughing and sobbing at the same time. I remember thinking "What the fuck did I just do?" As I felt the pills take hold, I thought that if I was going to die, she should fucking know about it.  I drove off the hill in a haze and ended up at her church. I don't know why I knew she would be there.  It wasn't a normal church day.  

    Next thing I knew I was puking on her shoes.  Everything became sort of a blacked out blur at that point.  I woke up in the hospital as my stomach was getting pumped and I have this vague recollection of a doctor telling me that I was probably going to die anyway.  I'm fairly sure I said "Well...fuck me." and then I was gone again.  There was a brief moment of clarity where my brother called me a "fucking idiot." 

    I fully regained consciousness in the behavioral health unit.  The head psychiatrist was a fat, balding guy that diagnosed me with being "female and emotional" and we did yoga every day.  I managed to be helpful by talking to other patients and developing a rapport just by listening. I tend to do that.  I had a session scheduled with an outpatient therapist but that fell through.  I briefly was on an anti-depressant medication but that didn't do anything good. The topic was avoided by just about everyone.  No one was interested in hearing about it and I wasn't interested in talking about it.  The wound never went away.  The trauma of being in the hospital never went away.  The sensation of death never went away. 

    I have nightmares about feeling myself fading out of existence.  Nightmares about how much stomach pumping actually hurts. Nightmares of people just not giving a fuck that I almost died. Avoiding it isn't helping. 

    Telling this story is the first step towards healing. 

Meditation to a Groove

Music has literally saved my life. Music is the first thing I remember. I'm convinced that I started my love affair with music while I was still in the womb. It helps that mom is just as in love with music as I am and that I was exposed to music even before I was born. There's something to be said about music being in a person's DNA too. Both my parents are musical people as well as my grandparents as far as I know. When I was younger, music was an escape from the chaos that makes up my existence. I had the usual pressures of childhood to contend with. Bullying, trying to navigate through school while being "different" and all that crap. I also had to deal with being pathologised and being whispered about behind closed doors. Even though I didn't fully understand the scope of this, it still hurt. Music made the hurt a lot more tolerable and for a few minutes at a time, I could just lose myself in a song and not really think about anything else.

Through high school, I shared my love of music with others and connected to people deeply through mutual musical interests. I developed a love of the art of the mixtape (mix CD if you want to be technical) and that's where I think I got the DJing bug although I didn't know it at the time. Eventually, music became digital and I had access to a medium that I had never thought was possible. Digital music is amazing. You can have enough songs as not to repeat one for a year in a small physical space. I don't think anything is really lost with digital music for the most part and the advantage of easy access usually outweighs quality issues.


Throughout the years, many people have suggested meditation as a way to stay grounded. Traditional meditation techniques don't really work well for me. My brain just isn't wired that way. What I have figured out is a way to meditate through music. At first, it involved just listening to a mix of music and allowing my mind to go blank. That still works surprisingly well. Throughout the years, as mixing music has gotten easier through practice, I've managed to get into that meditative head space while mixing music. It is quite therapeutic. I've noticed even if I am at my lowest point, a good mix session can bring me out of it. It is interesting recording these sessions too, as I can play them back and work through any emotion I might have been feeling at the time.


Sometimes I forget that I've trained my brain in this way. I have to keep telling myself that I have this awesome relationship with music for a reason. Yes, it's absolutely wonderful and amazing that people enjoy the music I mix but that isn't why I do it primarily. I have to routinely let my brain escape and mix for the pleasure of mixing, not just do it for scripted shows. Don't get me wrong, my podcast is really fun to do but if I just confine myself to that format, some of the therapy in it is lost.


Here's to meditation to a groove. Hopefully it helps others as much as it helps me.

The S Word

I read something the other day that said that suicide is killing more young people than the virus. Suicide has always been a problem, especially amongst people who suffer from PTSD. In recent times, people are starting to at least acknowledge that it's something that anyone can suffer from, not just those exposed to combat. I suppose that trauma is a type of combat, just as much as combat is a type of trauma.

I've always had vague thoughts about killing myself. These thoughts are especially strong when I'm feeling like nothing is worth it and that no one cares about me. I know intellectually these things are not true but with everyone so caught up in the right now, it is incredibly hard to feel acknowledged. It's also difficult to see purpose in my life. Everything is chaotic and everyone is scrambling to find a place. It is both comforting and painful knowing that I'm not alone.

The paradox of the situation is that as long as I'm thinking about killing myself, I won't do it. The second it becomes impulse is when I should worry. It's pushing the limit, I'll admit. I'd ask myself why now but the answer is pretty fucking obvious. I feel like I was close to healing. That I was finally closing up some old wounds. In some ways, this is still true. On the other hand, the deepest cuts are the ones making me bleed out. 

I don't know if anyone can save me. There are people that will certainly try. I'm going to ask for some reassurance and try not to feel guilty about it. Hopefully it will help.