High School was a nightmare. The bullying was intense, and my friend who had rejected me had gathered reinforcements. I was spat on, had tires slashed, and mocked for my looks at school. There was no respite at home because my former friend and his buddy drove by yelling homophobic slurs. I was not yet 'out,' yet everyone 'knew.' This carried into my sense of feeling less than, that somehow God had made some mistake which others could see.
I began to experiment with drugs. The motivation to cover up my inadequacies and numb the pain and angst took precedence over everything else. I could no longer tolerate the sensitivity I had nurtured in my childhood. I would get high on drugs even when I did not want to. I became addicted. I was the other. I did not fit. Slouching toward Bethlehem.*
*Editor's note: These words allude to the slow coming of a revelation, or in the case of Didion, revolution (Joan Didion's book, Slouching Towards Bethlehem). The final lines from W.B. Yeats' poem, The Second Coming, are, "And what rough beast, its hour come at last Slouching toward Bethlehem to be born." It is a slow coming of internal revelation that the author cannot yet see. It may be apocalyptic, or it may be transformative. In the poem, it is the reader who decides.
My friends were drug users. They expected me to "fit" into the lifestyle of a drug addict, the "stoner's life," as they called it, in exchange for their camaraderie. I complied as it was a façade I could wear without much effort. I began to lose all sense of self through my drug abuse and blot myself out. To sober up only meant more anxiety, depression, and existential crises. Drugs and alcohol became my God, and especially alcohol did the trick.
I started a pattern of geographics – moving from one location to another to start anew, hoping for things to be different. No matter where I went, there I was, a man still full of self-loathing. I could not see any way out of my predicament. My addiction to alcohol and drugs trapped me, and I only felt my perceived, tortured reality. I moved to Chicago. I was not content to be part of the gay community. I drew to its seedy underbelly, where there was no requirement to measure up to anyone's expectations. Others were just as damaged as I was. I knew I was going crazy but didn't care.
This descent into hell was where my first serious suicide attempt took place. I had already spent several years trying to 'blot' myself out through chemicals (drugs), but the mental anguish became excruciating. I checked into a run-down hotel in the Gold Coast district and attempted to end the pain. Despite the blood loss, I became more aggressive with my attempt with no relief. I remember falling out of the door into the hallway where people found me. Police and an ambulance arrived. The cops, knowing this was a 'gay' hotel, grabbed me by the hair, called me a stupid faggot, and threw me on the ambulance floor, and I went to a nearby hospital.
I don't remember how many days I was in the hospital, but I recall I was in a room with four other patients, not a mental ward. There were no attempts by the medical staff to stabilize me. I was visited once, and only once, by a psychiatrist. I remember clearly him saying, "Something tells me you're unhappy." And that was it. I never saw him again. The hospital released me without any plans for follow-up other than to have stitches removed. No one asked how much I had been drinking or what drugs I had been taking. No one asked where the pain resided within me.
Surprisingly, word reached the man who owned the hotel, a wealthy, gay owner of several bars and gay-affiliated businesses in Chicago. He had connections to the Chicago political machine. The hotel staff alerted him to my suicide attempt and the treatment by the police. Overnight, I became a poster boy for gay oppression through an article he had published in gay newspapers and an opinion editorial in one Chicago newspaper. Though he withheld my name, I still felt singled out, and a new, very frightening light was being shined on me. This exposure was not what I wanted, not that anyone asked. And still, even after all this, no one asked questions about my mental health or addiction. I felt compelled to put on a brave face. Despite my sense of failure, isolation, and unworthiness, I could not verbalize "I am not OK."
I now understand that our legions are many. People that are overwhelmed by inner demons and lack the courage or the knowledge to reach out for help. And so many people have died prematurely in life, needlessly, in vain.
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