Puzzle Pieces

When you're falling down into the spiral that is depression you yearn for control. Control over something. Something small or something big, it doesn't matter. You just want control. You want this because you feel like your own mind is running away from you. You let the stress build and the world feels like it's falling down all around you and you want something to make sense. You want to be in control again.

For me I wanted control of my life, but not just my life, my death. Since I felt like I had no control over where I was going or how my life was unfolding I saw to it that I was going to take control of how my life ended. I was going to gain control by making the ultimate choice. I wanted to take my life. To show myself that I still had some control. I spat in life's face telling it to fuck off saying, "This is how I gain control." I felt it was my only option since the life I was leading was like ramming my head repeatedly against a brick wall.

It's funny how that analogy is so true for this. It really felt like I was smashing my head against a wall when I was looking for ways to escape. I felt as if I had two choices, keep hitting my head against the wall or jump off the cliff to the sharp rocks below. That was it. The wall, or the rocks. Every time I smashed my face and the blood started to pour, the sharp rocks seemed more and more appealing.

All along as I smashed my face against that wall I felt completely alone. Like the closest person was a world away and no one realized what I was doing at that wall. No one understood what I was going through. It made the rocks seem more appealing.

What I didn't realize, while I was bashing my brains out on that fucking wall, is that my family was standing right behind me. Beckoning me to turn around, giving me a third choice. Not the wall, not the rocks, but a place I could start over. A place I could start a new. With no walls, and no cliffs and no wish to take control. I realized I could have regained control all along. I realized with the help of my family that if I just stopped smashing my face against that goddamn wall for two seconds to think and breathe that I'd find a new way.

So that's what I've done. I leaned back from the wall, wiped the blood and sweat and tears from my face and just breathed for a second. Took some time to open my eyes to the other choices I had in life. Choices to live and actually succeed like I had been wishing for, against that wall. Choices that weren't death or isolation.

I'm choosing me. I'm choosing freedom. I'm choosing life. And damnit, I wish I had made this choice a long time ago.