May, 23rd 2017 — Expiration date
This article is part of the series “What is like to attempt suicide and fail”. Start there, if you have not read it yet.
Last Thursday evening, I left the psychologist’s office — my first appointment since leaving the clinic — without much to say about the meeting. Without many filters, I tried to tell her the worst of me in the short time available. And that was it. Just me talking. I can only imagine it should be like this at a first consultation. That’s the best I can report without stretching it.
I know therapy takes time. I hope it takes less with me. I feel like I do not have so much time available. I have a terrifying sense of expiration date. A tic, tac ticking increasingly weaker inside my head. My emotional degradation has been very acute in the last two years, culminating with April 7th, and it continues to accelerate in recent weeks. If I was ill 50 days ago, today I’m a few times worse. Do I already have a psychiatrist? Yes, first consultation on Wednesday. Do I already have a therapist? Yes, first consultation last Thursday, as I just reported. Next this week.
I’m suffering some sort of reset of the worst things. Griefs that I had already forgiven, regrets that I had overcome, pains that were no longer around, and an incredible childishness of reasoning — much of my afflictions would be resolved with a minimal dose of maturity. All this I have added to the most recent griefs of my life, which are many. And the pain of the moment is a collection of all these things. Maybe that’s why the sense of expiration date.
My own reading tells me that I do not last long. Which is why I am not reading shit.
A surprise awaited for me at home Thursday night. My parents, who were in Holland during my entire hospitalization, came from Belo Horizonte to see me. I had not seen them for many months. They stayed for two days. Overdose of mother’s care. I will not deny it. Not now.
“People like it when the bad team turns the tables and wins,” was the first sentence I heard from my father in months. And it made sense, of course. At least the “bad team” part. Thank you, father, for the quick and timely wisdom. Using soccer analogies for easy understanding. I’ve seen this before.
Monday was a better day. I was able to work a little. I even talked to someone about work. That was already a victory. But anyone who has ever seen me in action, full of passion, life, eyes shinning and a heart beating faster than ideal, would have trouble recognizing the bag of flesh and bones, a tangle of dead cells. My voice, my vibrations, everything so degraded.
In the middle of the conversation, for some reason, I remembered the movie Jerry Maguire, in which Tom Cruise falls into the great professional misfortune of his life and gains the solitary support of the poor Renee Zellweger, who embarks on an uncertain journey of new beginnings with an end that makes me cry just to remember.
“Shut up. You had me at hello “ is what brings me to bed today, waking up my dear friend Hope, helping to imagine a better future in which I just wrap a towel around myself and shout “show me the money!” to everyone.
Wednesday and Thursday I have psychiatrist and psychologist respectively. I can’t wait.
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