Changing Direction

This blog is dedicated to The Tiny Turtle and Mezma, two people who read my old blog "The Entity in the Chapel" and suffered through many posts by me that sounded like I was planning on committing suicide one day. I am deeply loved and it bothers me that my feelings and thoughts have caused pain to those who love me so much. I know that I am not to blame for my depression or the ideas it has caused, but I am making an attempt to change my life and my way of thinking and I want these two very important people to see how I am trying to do that so they can be less afraid for me.

Many of those old posts are essentially me justifying the fact that I intended to kill myself some day. I wrote that I could not promise I wouldn't do it but that I would fight. I meant it but deep down in my heart, I felt it was inevitable. It isn't inevitable. It never was.

I don't believe in my Void or my universe built on a principle of almost divine despair anymore. I believe a lot of things, a lot of things that make me happy and at peace. I fought hard for these beliefs. I fought against a heart and mind that told me my depression was the guiding light of philosophy and theology and that it could not possibly steer me wrong. That thinking, that building a worldview based on such a horrible disorder, is almost as sick as the disorder itself but it goes to show just how far reaching and devastating depression can be.

I have changed. I have changed for many reasons. I have changed because love and friendship have changed me. I have changed because I demanded change from myself. I have changed because I refuse to let depression go from being a mood disorder to being a lifestyle.

Pain affects us in strange ways. When we are in its grip, we can frequently lose sight of the fact that there is something in the world other than pain. I am not free of pain, by any means. I am not cured. But I am fighting for real, finally. I am not resigned to depression winning some day. In the old days, to me, fighting meant putting off the inevitable for as long as I could. Now, it means something much different. It means loving myself the way my family and friends love me and giving myself a chance to live through anything, to make the best of any situation, no matter how difficult.

I want to promise that I will never kill myself. I don't honestly know if I will lose this positive outlook at some point. I am scared, because I have fought so hard for it. I'd like all my friends and loved ones who read this to know: If you are really worried about me, if I am giving signs that I am giving up or losing hope or fading out, do WHATEVER you think is necessary to get me help and keep me alive. I don't care if I end up being taken away to a hospital for weeks. I don't care if the police show up at my door. I must live. I must. Too many people who I now see would not be able to make it if I took that way out. I am going to promise that I won't end it that way. I am going to promise my wife and my dear friend Mezma who has helped me change so much and my father and anyone else who truly cares about me. It is scary, because now I know I've told people that no matter how bad it gets, I will survive. That means, even if I lose everyone and everything, I will fight to carry on. That's terrifying. But, no easy way out for me. None. I am not that person anymore. The pain I experience is part of my journey. Maybe in some past life, I ended it that way and caused horrible suffering. Not this life. The pain and surviving that pain will be my key to enlightenment and ascension. Whatever wonders and horrors come, life will not destroy me. Life is beautiful. You all are beautiful to me. I love you all and I am learning to love myself and the only suicide I will ever commit is killing the part of me that thought I must someday leave life that way.

Please, find peace in my words. You, reading this, my promise is to you. I will live. I will live, not just for you, but for myself, for my soul, for everything I want to be true. No more justifications. I will not kill myself. I promise. Please, find some comfort in that.