David S.

People have been telling me for decades that my unique ability of grasping human emotion and displaying it in literacy format should be utilized for good things, so here it goes. My name is Dave and this is my story of multiple downward spirals, rock bottoms, a nearly almost final decision, and the path that helped me begin to progress and heal.

I went through various stages within my youth that contributed to social and physical declines. I did the introverted, low self-esteem, bully-ripe, grade school years, I did the replace human emotion with various substance abuse years, and I did the constantly attempting to convince everyone around to include myself that everything was always copacetic. My choices in life kept my social circles limited and many experiences were generally on an isolated level. Upon completing my service in the United States Active Army that took me to incredible yet sometimes volatile places like Afghanistan, Africa and South Korea, I began the process of returning to a civilian level status because my mental decline when I was serving had begun to degrade continuously. I assumed at the time it was just the fatigue of military related stress and travel.

I got out in 2015 in which I moved around my home state of Florida pretty much every year from apartment complex to next apartment complex. I’d meet various people within different eras and then forget about them again as they were slowly processed out of my life, and I just continued to mentally decline. A decline that began to unravel any employment progress, relationships, and any emotional progressions. By 2020 I had become incredibly erratic. I’d speed through lights on my bike, I’d often fantasize about the “Call of the Void” every single day on the road, I’d tighten up my already complex introverted nature, nearly never leaving my bedroom. After I was physically assaulted at a gas station the year previously and my ability to even show up to my employment began to reduce, I finally reached out to the Veteran’s Administration [VA]. In time I ultimately got hospitalized for a week in their psychological ward and was prescribed a cocktail of various pharmaceuticals. I had also learned from their studies that I suffered from acute/combat related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD], Bi-polar Type I, and various maniac episodes.

Upon checking out of the VA’s medical care and attempting to put the pieces of my fractured existence back together I attempted to use physical fitness regiments, my personal hobbies, and the allotted drugs to try to pull myself out of the void that had just constantly engulfed me in. By 2021 I had decided that the various drugs issued via the VA were just a “bandage for a gun-wound” they weren’t fixing anything just as the narcotics of my younger year weren’t either. They were just simply covering the problem. By late 2021 I had decided that maybe I needed to return to where it all made sense, return to the chaos, return to where it was all created, and so I reenlisted and returned to active duty. However, it only took a month into that for the Army to determine that I was far too mentally compromised to continue staying on the return path of active service and was medically processed back out. I had then lost all hope in everything. In my head I was so lost that I was no longer acquainted with friends in my life, no employment, and even the very place that catered to my type of mindset didn’t even want me back. Mind you, while all this is happening, I’m utilizing my very specific art of communication to display that everything is fine. I refused to showcase my downward spiral. Unless you specifically knew the signs you would have assumed I was the same witty, calculated guy I always displayed myself as.

If you ever take the time to look up the various key warning signs that someone is preparing to take their own life you would have spotted that I was performing every single one of them. I gave away all my possessions, apologized and ended lifetime long feuds, and began my planning. I experienced various forms of suicidal ideations from time to time, but this was the first time I reached the pinnacle of a full-on plan. The surreal thing about it all is for the first time I was not lost, no longer in a void. I felt content and comfortable. It was comparable to being absolutely exhausted from a long day of work and just thinking about hitting the pillow to get that much needed slumber, only instead of one day of work this was the collection of an entire lifetime of woe, and this particular sleep was permanent. I truly do not think many want to die, they just want to turn the pain, emptiness, and life exhaustion off.

I had written up the explanation letter to explain why I made my decision, gathered all the specific attributes needed to complete the task, looked around at my now blank walls, and for the first time smiled because I was ready to be done. In a strange twist of fate, my cat I had adopted a year previously must have felt the vibe was off, maybe calculated the displaced energy, but he jumped up on my bed and pushed both his front paws into my upper back and meowed. I remember trying to push him off because I was in a different state of focus, but ultimately, I did begin to pay attention to him. I then looked at him and thought about how it was less about rather I needed to live for me, but that if I die who is going to be there for him?

I ended up deciding to rebuild and reconstruct my ideologies with a new fresh start. So, I moved back home near my mother, it’s a nice, isolated area in the woods where I can just feel secure and find peace for both me and my animals that I’ve chosen to assist as they did for me. In time I began to understand my psychological profile and how to work around it and listen to it. I removed vexatious people and situations from my life, I focused heavier on my physical fitness and creative writing and just pushed every day to progress a little bit more and more. I took my inability to participate in live shows/concerts due to the constant PTSD-inspired fear that threats were all around me, and instead utilized that hyper-vigilance and excessive anxiety to attend events while allowing myself to always find escape paths, exit strategies, and singling out problem people, which in return allowed me to enjoy going out while still utilizing my disorders to my benefits. I began to map and understand my maniacal cycles and therefore allowed me to know when I needed to self-isolate or take time to process versus allowing myself to overwhelm. These days I work on my writing and conduct little projects with people. You can find me at this year’s “Welcome to Rockville” event as one of the “League of Festival Mascots”.

So know that even in the deepest declines, even if you have tried what you assumed was every possible path to success, sometimes time is the answer, time and slow progression can make all the difference. I think of all I have experienced and repaired from that moment in 2021 to current day and it is still surreal how much I would have thrown away by not just giving myself a little bit more time. You just must find that “Reason”, and whatever that reason is for you. Hold it and grow from it. It does get better.