The War.

The War.

Slice in.

Cut a little bit deeper.

You know you want to.

Just do it.

Ever hear that voice? The one that says “do it.” The one that you can’t keep under control.

 Well, I’m the other voice the one that says “don’t do it.”

I’m the one you won’t listen to. And you really need to stop for a moment and listen.

Put down the knife.  No one wants that. You are in control of this. Not everything else. Just this.

You can not turn off this pain. You must endure it.

Cutting it out won’t release you from the pain.

I’m not asking you to win the war today. Just win this battle.

Put down the blade.

The only difficulty with my job is that at some point the day comes to a stop. It’s hard when you have to let the day end and walk away unfinished. And today I’m working three hours into overtime knowing my job isn’t done. Some days are good and some are bad. Some people you save and some you don’t. And its not always depressions, suicides and runaways. You don’t get to pick and choose who you are helping. You have to save them all. Drug-addicts. Pedophiles. Wife beaters. The system of helping isn’t limited to who we want to save. And you are in a system where all of them think they are victims. It’s them that hurt, not the ones they inflict the damage onto. But it’s not our place to judge. In this system they all need help.

The media doesn’t help the situation. It drives it into their heads that “because this happened to me” and they have no other choice. When really it isn’t and they do. “I’m a product of what happened to me,” says the man on the television reality talk show before throwing a chair at his wife because it’s her fault he’s molested their three children. And it’s his mother’s fault for picking the wrong men who molested him. But like the others, it’s never his fault for making the wrong choices.

Here’s where I am. Where the job reaches in and pulls deeper. I’m exactly at the point where you’re supposed to step in and stop them from becoming this victim. Stop them from driving the knife in and help them make a better decision. Watching her cutting away in this tiny bathroom at the back of the clinic because her paperwork isn’t giving her what she wants. Here I am talking her back from the ledge because she can’t do it herself yet. Although I’m uncomfortable she has to hand me the knife. It’s a delicate hostage negotiation where the madman strapped to the bomb is the hostage.

And it’s a matter of choosing.

Choose life. Choose anything over this.

This is your life and you deserve it. Be happy. This is what you want. Accept your choices. Destructive or not and get past it.

Society teaches us that help is on the way when it is not. The truth about self sufficiency is that no one is coming to your rescue. You have to reach out and grab on or you will drown. Follow the voices back to shore. But don’t let go. You’re only alone if you want to be.

Stop hurting yourself. This is what I keep telling her. She keeps telling me she is trying but the mind keeps spinning faster out of control about nothing instead of stopping.

Trying not to, is still doing it. How do you rationalize trying if you’re still doing it? This is what I tell them before making them useful. That’s not all they need to be cured but it helps them. Use. Helping someone else means not thinking about their own suffering. Do not suffer. If you place your happiness in things that are out of your control and you will continue to suffer.

Watching her suffer unnecessarily is painful and makes me more aware of the problems of society that go unanswered. Being pushed into the corners and out of view where no one has to see it. Shaming them instead of helping them.

The answer is not shoving the problem out of view. It is full heartedly embracing it and putting it where people can see it. Asylums were not built as a means to cure the ill; they were there to lock the sickness away from those who didn’t want to see it. It pains to see the truth that reminded that they too could slip and fall down the slope.

“What if everyone thought the same way about this thing called life? Lived the same, walked the same, did the same thing over and over again. How would you end it?”

This is what she tells me after I take away the razor. I look at her for a moment and think that she isn’t seeing things same as I or them or anyone else. This isn’t about release from the pain. This isn’t about being real or feeling alive. This is pretending and it isn’t enough.

“I don’t want to live.” Is what she says.

“There’s power in doing what we don’t want to do.” I tell her.

“Like there is money in power and power in guns.”

“Why not start doing what you don’t want to do? Hold tightly those things you hate and learn to love them. Find their beauty.”

“What’s the point of doing the things we have no interest in whatsoever?”

“For what purpose you say? To be free from them.”

“Freedom? Hmm.”

“You don’t want to live? Then live hard, and passionately.”

“What about drugs? Are you saying I should do drugs, because I don’t want to then I should?”

“That’s only trading one form of destruction for another. You know that. Knife for pills and pills for the bottle. Only delaying the inevitable truth that you’re afraid to live.”

“This is my nightmare.”

“You are in control of this. When you realize that you will be free.”

As I’m sterilizing her cuts I know that she won’t stay here for the help she needs. I know that sending her to the psych ward at the hospital won’t fix the problem because in twenty-four hours her wounds will have scabbed over and the hospital will no longer need her for observation. I also know that there’s a chance she won’t come in tomorrow when it gets too hard. That’s the part that never ends. The war is still going on. Winning the battle today may or may not turn the tide, but this war from over.

The War. There are many battles in life. Learning to pick and choose them is important. I’m going to let this particular piece stand on its own. Once in a while it’s necessary to do something you don’t want to. have a great evening. enjoy life and wherever it takes you. kisses. m.