PHP: Expanding hopelessness to the new members

PHP 03/14/2007

Blood pressure: Up. Suicide risk assessment: Up.

New group members see me down, so they are even more afraid that the program won't work for them.

Well, I guess I've always been known for heading the wrong way. Just like my Chicago Cubs.

Life imitates art. Scary when your favorite film is "Trainspotting". Choose Life? Why would I want to do a thing like that.

I am really in the mood to find my old cell phone that my dad took out to put one of those sun lights by my bed. If this PHP doesn't work, I might need the numbers to Carrie Clifton's old dope dealers.

To make matters worse, PHP might end tomorrow. Fuckin' Blue Cross Blue Shield. It's not like I haven't heard time and time again, "you should have kept working at Caterpillar."

Today was about relationships. I have some strong ones. I have some weaker ones. More importantly, I have confusing ones.

And of course frustrating ones like my little sister and Mom who'd like to force feed me a solution to my depression. These aren't bad relationships, but they can't help me right now. I may need to step back from these for a bit.

Did I follow through with that lesson?

"Hi Russ. I gotta pick up your sister from work. We're going to dinner after that. Do you wanna come?"

I have to be stronger. Lord knows I should be able to resist a free meal.

So you can imagine the topic of the car ride. I was glad she took time to bitch about how The Moody Blues, Neil Diamond, and other bands that decided to not let their art stand on its own when money in Vegas can be made, are being snubbed from the Hall of Fame.

"Patty Smith was just a one hit wonder?" Obviously, you won't find my mom if you take a walk to Zipperhead.

Leads me back to Trainspotting. Sickboy's theory. "One day you got it. And the next day it's gone...and "In the Name of The Rose" is nothing more than a blip on an otherwise downward trajectory."

Comes back around to the main problem. I lived the past 27 years trying to find my place with what I got. My motivation. I will succeed. Now, it's gone.

After my higher score on the suicidal risk assessment today, my case manager asked for me to bring up this issue in group therapy. I ran down my conversations with him in the group.

This lead me to tell how what they believe that I am missing is faith in myself or in God. How everyone says to change because things don't happen by chance despite I don't see anything I want to change about myself. Now I'm being told, I have to have faith to hope for something to fix my life.

The compromise: Keep the faith and that will teach me to make the changes.

Well, this partial hospitalization is taking place at a Catholic hospital. Lord knows, I wasn't in the mood to hear "Remember. When God closes a door, he opens a window. He will give you the chance to overcome this."

So, you want me to believe in fate? An absolute ending. "The Colbert Report" talked about how scientist believe you can't go back in time. So "The Terminator" is right. No fate but the one we make.

As Maynard James Keenan said, "Learn to swim. Learn to swim."

Again, there is no evidence to support me putting faith in myself. And God isn't going to change everything.

I was asked about what if a miracle occurred and you had it all. A stupid question. What I want is to always thrive. Always become better. When I can't, I hope I'll go blind and a seeing eye dog drags me onto I-290.

I don't care if I wake up each morning. If I die in my sleep, well at least the struggle is over. I give my all everyday, and I can't get the relationships I need, and I can't succeed at anything, and I don't have a purpose.

Perhaps if I had a purpose, it would make sense to want to be alive.

I told my case manager. I am a fighter. How many defeats will I have to take for life to before I find it? Every time I feel beat from living a day, how many more days will it take to succeed?

My case manager said it may take forever. Bad answer.

I've always been a safe fighter. If I am going to get hurt to the point that I'm in serious danger, I know when to quit. There has to be a point to quit.

You are asking me to be like the Chicago Cubs. Maybe next year.

You are asking me to be a lovable loser.

At least the substance abuse program was interesting.

The substance abuse program was impressed at how I am such a nice guy, so how do I have relationship problems. Comparing me to the Missing Piece in Shel Silverstein's the "Missing Piece Meets the Big O": How the piece changed after the O told him he could.

No big completed O has come to give me advice. No one who is whole will take the time to teach me the lesson. Again, I must me missing something.

I hope I interpreted the O right. A balance independent person helping someone become that way. The message isn't "just find a fat chick Russ".