The Sad Clown

So this is a first for me....opening up about my life and my mental state of affairs. I'm not even sure where to begin really....I can identify with the man in the picture above, probably more then a lot of people. I didn't realize there were other people like me....sad clowns

Laughter and humor are tools in my day to day life....sometimes even weapons. They(laughter and humor) have more uses then most people can even begin to conceive when used and timed properly...I have stopped brawls, dead in their tracks, with an improvised joke.....I've also made people swing at me first with a crude or offensive funny that was directed at them...... I've even gotten out of a handful of minor traffic violations and one major one.... just by cracking the right kind of joke to the police officer involved. People like to laugh...

Laughter and humor have a darker side in some people though, like Mr. Williams. They can cover up a lot. No one knows that I tried to blow my head off with a hunting rifle 6 years back, only to have the shell misfire....and that I didn't have the strength or willpower to load another round in the chamber and try again..........just because I'm a "funny guy" or because "I was always making people laugh."

Whoa...heavy stuff right...I've only ever told 2 people about it(both head doctors), and literally no one else in my life would imagine that I'd have reason to, or be capable of such a thing....but I am.....

I still haven't fully recovered from that morning...I saw some head doctors(2 psychiatrists and 3 psychologists), tried some medications over the last 6 years....but nothing works. I'm either too doped up to live properly on medication that's way too heavy, or I get the "rare" side effects from the lighter meds that make my day to day life a living hell....so I've been medication free for around 6 months now. I'm left feeling like a hollowed out husk of a human....empty, cold, alone in the world......it's always been this way though.

I never felt like I fit in, from a pretty young age. I used to "fill the void" with non-pharmaceuticals like so many people do nowadays...I grew up in a small town, but most street drugs were pretty accessible there. By 12 or 13 I was regularly skipping classes to go smoke weed in the woods and get drunk. I tried LSD for the first time at 15 and was mildly addicted to cocaine by 17 and also got kicked out of home that year. At 21 I was a full blown junkie,living in the city, using a full range of chemicals to alter my mood and emotions as I saw fit....I thought life was manageable....but I had a real eureka moment one morning, laying on a friends couch, trying to recover from the night before....I'M STILL F$CKING EMPTY!!!

I checked myself into rehab when that realization hit me smack in the face. Still high on meth from the night before, I walked....walked about 5 miles to the hospital and told them I needed help or I was going to end up dead...in retrospect...I don't know if I was referring to the drugs killing me or ending my own life...either way they got started on the paperwork and got me into a rehab center the next day...that was about 17 years ago

I'm clean now other then weed. I can't even drink anymore...makes me feel like crap....it took around 8 years after rehab, lots of relapses, a few ruined relationships, a half dozen friends ODing, a failed suicide attempt and countless other "life events"....but here I am...drug free(pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical), living totally normal and I still feeling like I don't fit...like trying to ram a square peg in a round hole....but I still make them laugh...

I'm sure 10 different people might read this and feel 10 different ways about it....but I wrote this for me...I don't want pity, or recognition....I want relief!