"Dysphoric Mood?!?"

[There is so much more than can be written. It's hard to know what to include and what to just disregard. That's part of the reason that it's taken me so long to start writing things down. I could devise a million and a half reasons not to write, so many excuses, wanting it to be perfect. I'm beginning to let go of them though. I'm beginning to let my guard down and just let the words flow. It really doesn't matter. It's no big deal. One of my most favorite quotes is from Hemingway when he said something to the effect of it is more important to live than to write. My friend Bay would counter that with another quote from Hemingway, that it is better for your instrument to be worn out and blunt from use than sitting in the closet in pristine condition. I don't have the exact quotes on either count. I should look them up. Hemingway was a smart dude. I admire him. He was troubled. He ended up going into the woods alone and shooting himself with his shotgun. I don't want that to happen to me. I don't want to take things that seriously ever again. What I really want in regards to my writing is for it to ring true, for it to be interesting to read and unapologetically truthful and honest. I want it to be raw. I want to share things about myself that most would be ashamed to admit about themselves. I want the veils lifted. I'm not ashamed of who I am, who I was, what I've done. It's all a myth anyway. This life is a dream within a dream. Even that dream is a dream within a dream. It never ends. This life has seemed like some sort of test or experiment. Often I've felt like I was out of my own body, watching my life take place from the outside looking in. It's crazy how often I've felt just that way. Like Waylon Jennings sang, "I've always been crazy but it's kept me from going insane." I do remember being a very young boy in West Virginia. I remember so much of it. It's part of the work too but I just can't seem to access that right now. It's almost too much for me. It's too special, too rare, those memories. It cuts to the bone and cuts close. There is great deal of my life that I can expose though and I have no rhyme or reason in the way that it is coming out. I've given up on having any sort of structure for the thing. Memories come and I write them down. It hops and skips and jumps all over the place, just like my mind does most of the time. I've got the general theme down and maybe that's all that matters. Maybe the skipping back and forth from one period to the next will make sense once it's all done. Maybe it will be cool. If not, the pieces can always be fitted together like a puzzle. It'll probably be cool just the way it is though. I think perhaps there's something insouciant going on, something mystical. I like to think that. I like that thought a lot. One thing's for sure. Nothing is being forced or fabricated. If it doesn't come, it doesn't come. Who cares?

I've suffered from depression for a very, very long time. When I was 33 years old I went to treatment for it. I attended an intensive outpatient program at a local mental health facility for four weeks. The classes lasted from 8am-4pm. It was an incredibly valuable experience for me. What led up to that was that I was thinking of killing myself. Now, I've had suicidal thoughts all my life. Honestly I have. It's something I'd been use to. But this time it was much, much different. It was involuntary. I couldn't stop the spiral. I kept falling deeper and deeper into the well. I began blacking out. Coming to and not knowing what had happened. This was one year after I started staying sober. I was a sick, sick fellow. I became very frightened. One evening I came to in my little studio cottage house. I was lying in the floor. Everything was trashed. Bookcases were turned over. Everything was on the floor. Pictures were smashed. And there was a big knife in my hand. I heard the telephone ringing and crawled across the floor to answer it. It was my Mom on the line. She had called just to check on me. I could barely talk. She drove across town to get me. I was in bad shape. The next day my Father took me to our family doctor. She asked me what was going on and I began telling her. Told her about the blackouts. Told her about how I'd bee driving down the road and it seemed like trees and bridges were calling my name, beckoning me to drive my truck into them. The suicidal ideation had never been like that before. It'd never been so...I don't know....easy? Unforced? I don't know exactly how to explain it but it scared the shit out of me. She left the room and then came back a short while later. "I've made an appointment for you at Richland Springs. They are expecting you. Your dad will drive you over there. Okay? You're going to be alright."

My Dad drove me to the mental health center and we waited. Shortly a very pretty young woman came out to greet us. Her name was Autumn. I'll never forget her. I sat in a room with her. My father stayed in the lobby. In the room she gave me a mental health evaluation. It was so humiliating. Here I was sitting across from this truly lovely and beautiful woman I was an utter and complete wreck, crying my eyes out, telling her all these crazy things. She couldn't have been more kind, caring and reassuring. I'd like to marry a woman like that someday. I really would. So that is how I received treatment for my depression. The psychiatrist diagnosed me with a "dysphoric mood." I was a little disappointed. I wanted it to sound worse. I'm a crazy bastard like that. "Dysphoric mood!" I thought, "Well this is some sort of bad mood!" I felt like I had been in the dysphoric mood my entire life. The program was great though. Those people taught me things about myself and the way in which I had been reacting to the world that really helped me. It changed my life immeasurably for the better. This was in the summer of 2005. I started getting better after that.

I used to use the goal and dream of writing a book as an excuse not to kill myself. I'd tell myself, "You can't off yourself. You have this book to write." I'd have to find a new reason to live. I didn't know what it would be but I'd find it. I knew I would.]