my fate

I have more or less come to grips with my fate. It isn't pleasant, but here is my understanding.

Whether or not I will recover I will continue to live my life as planned, although I accept there will be limitations and extreme suffering inherent in the process. I will suspend my disbelief with regards to recovery and enter into this pursuit optimistically, even though there will be times of remarkable despair. Ideally I will emerge from this process more empowered than I have ever been, having literally faced death. Furthermore I have come to grips with my own death and welcome it if it must come, however I am by no means seeking it out of convenience. As it stands, I resolve to act as heroically as possible given my present circumstances.

Amor Fati

ending it

i cannot live like this. I desperately want to die. I want to die so much, I cannot handle my life.

I don't care anymore. I want to die. I do not want to struggle anymore. I WANT TO DIE NOW>

Certain Death

Unfortunately, my problem has not resolved. There is no longer any options really. I feel condemned to death. I cannot cope with this feeling for much longer.

My Mythical Beast and Gatekeeper

The Manticora

Contemplative Tomorrow Song

The support has been wonderful…

Really you've all made this time so much easier…

But I'm tired… I"m tired of suffering…..

I'm afraid that…… This may be my time…

it's ok….

Time ticks another second is gone,

far as I'm concerned it's probably just best to move on,

and best to be strong, and best to be calm,

...Best to do whatever get's me beyond,,,,

I'm in pain but I patiently write,

I'm a patient where the walls are all painted in white,

I live with thoughts of taking my life,

and I'm praying for God to take me tonight……..

but

I still know I'll find tomorrow.

Another day to wash away...

Another day to fill with sorrow,

Another day to fill with pain….

Can't complain, made it to 25,

..I should be happy just to say that I'm alive,

and I should have some pride…. besides.

how many times I was close to my demise,

I watch it all and laugh,

I see the colour in the solid black…

I live with thoughts of taking my life,

and I'm praying to God to take me tonight…

but

I still know I'll find tomorrow.

Another day to wash away...

Another day to fill with sorrow,

Another day to fill with pain….

and

There's a bible by the side of my bed - a king james,

left for suffering souls that feel pain,

to seek a little solace and hold to the moments,

that bind us together in the day….

….So I float in the shape of grace,

and wait for a grave to take my place….

With thoughts of taking my life.

praying to God to take me tonight….

but

I still know I'll find tomorrow. I know….

Another day to wash away... huh...

Another day to fill with sorrow,

Another day to fill with pain….

Venting Again

I feel so fucking horrible. I know it doesn't matter, but it cannot escape my attention because it is so fucking present. I hate my fucking life and I have no idea how things came to be the way they are. I really want to die, I hate living this way, I hate having to be alive in this form. I don't understand how the fuck this could happen. I know it is better than having died, but not that much better. I feel so fucking fucked up. I hated waking up this morning, I hated having to acknowledge my condition under these circumstances. I can't believe this shit has happened to me. I don't know how to cope beyond pushing everyday, but that makes me want to kill myself. I think I am going to end up killing myself. Fuck.

FUCK@!!!

My Visions

So there is definitely something up in the universe, in the greater scheme of things right now. I know that and I literally feel it in the air. I can only imagine that everything that is happening to me is happening for a reason, although I haven't been given any idea as to why yet. There is some fucked up synchronicity happening. I have been doing guided visualizations and I've been seeing incredible things. I've literally been having incredible experiences. This is a path where I stop thinking in words and access the deeper mind to begin the think in images. The power of this shit is insane. Here is a recap of my visions.

1) Revisiting childhood and fear with spirit animal. Taught to let go and appreciate what there is in life.

2) Opening up the emptiness of my body and being exposed to my passions of writing and music. Then finally meeting an ex-gf who I showered with protection, only to have an insane vision of past life sequences featuring myself, her, simone de beauvoir and sartre.

3) Understanding a recurring dream character as a representation of my own shortcomings. Or just experiencing the mind of that person.

4) Entering into my own heart of darkness to encounter the Manticora guarding the light. Only to have him leave and have the light illuminate my entire heart and then spread across the world.

5) Travelling under water to find a clam with a pearl inside. Breaking the clam and following the pearl as it floated to the surface... fighting off sharks and fish. Finally reaching the surface and holding the pearl above the water only to have it snatched out of my hands by a seagull who then went to the cliff side. I proceeded to follow the seagull up the cliff until I arrived at its nest. On looking in I see literally thousands of pearls. Ahhh, the spoils of suffering.

Today I ran into the ONE. It was insane. I couldn't believe it, and now these possibilities are opening up. There was a giant storm right after I saw the ONE. Something is happening in the universe that is far greater than myself. God I wish i could be delivered from this suffering. I don't understand it at all, and I know I will be forsaken. I just have this time on earth to continue pursuing truth and knowledge in the human experience. I am thankful for it despite all the pain that i must endure.

There is something happening

there is something happening in the universe. There is something very powerful happening in the universe.

Amor Fati

I am not afraid. I am ready to suffer more than any man has ever suffered in this lifetime. I am not afraid. I have no fear. I will push until I die. Until I literally fall into oblivion. Until I literally fucking crumple and can no longer function. Til I cry that there is nothing left for me to give this world. I will push until I literally fall apart and die. There is no choice. I will go until there is nothing left of me. I am not afraid. I am not afraid. I will die fighting like a fucking soldier. If I must die then I must, but until then I will fight this shit. I will fight. I will claw my fucking way up this mountain even if it means my complete and utter destruction. There is nothing left to do but push harder than I have ever pushed in my life. There is no longer any option. The only options that are left to me are death and pushing. I cannot die yet, so I must go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go. I cannot die yet I refuse to let myself fall into the mire. I will fight this fucking beast. I will fucking fight this abhorrent experience until it kills me. But it has to fucking kill me. Fuck this disease. Fuck it. Fuck this suffering. Fuck this fucking disease I will not let it take me. I will not let this fucking disease take my life from me. I refuse to break down. I refuse to let this kill me. I will not give up. I will never give up. I will not take my life. I will fight like I have never fought in my life. I will take all the pain of the world on my shoulders. I have no other option. That is my only option. I will not complain anymore. This is my burden to bear, and I must bear it. No one can save me but myself.

flipwilson quote #2

History has known a zillion tragedies and many have made the most of pure hell. you have one of many ailments that a human can experience. Kids die of leukemia everyday, some poor sap just lost his mind to schizophrenia, another was born blind and deaf, another with MS. Innocent people get shot and raped and swindled. We're on planet pain man and we have to survive and not play the coward.

flipwilson quote

Don't go down without fighting. This is a moment, an experience. it is happening to you right now. Now how do you deal with it? We do not corner the market on suffering and you are one of way too many dealing with their own hells right now. Again, what are you gonna do with this moment? Everyone on here maybe at one time or another never thought we would be in this situation. Bad things only happened to other people right? Well now we're those other people and either you become a statistic or get in the ring and go a couple rounds with this. It's ok to lose, but you can't give up.

can't take it

I can't take how I feel right now. I want to die. i'm sorry, it is unbearable.

Whatever Life We Get is Bonus

Looking through my living room window, I suspect being outside would feel wonderful, but I really wouldn't know. As I write this from my bed, my entire body feels saturated in a sticky, toxic nausea, with chemotherapy pumping through my 18-year-old veins. Like Michael Jackson's moonwalk, chemotherapy has this strange way of moving a person another step towards life and death at the same time.

Twenty three months ago, I was diagnosed with stage IV rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare pediatric muscle cancer affecting only 350 children a year. With odds like that, and with a 20 percent chance of survival, I can only deduce two possibilities about the universe: God's plan is evident in every little shifting of the breeze, or it's totally random. I don't see how there could be much middle ground.

I remember my first chemo round, staring at the ceiling and trying not to cry. The agony was stunning. I've long since learned to go ahead and cry. How could this have happened? Yet as with anything that happens, it happens, and then suddenly you find it has happened, and more things keep continuing to happen. Chemotherapy has instilled in me a visceral understanding that all bad things will pass in time ... but that all good things will too.

I set out on a 19-month course of treatment, chronicling the journey on an online blog. Little did I know that my little Web site intended to keep extended family and friends informed would find readers all across the country and even the world, including such countries as Japan, Australia, Germany, Brazil.

My journey became our journey, with treatment finishing last December. For a brief, hopeful month in January, it appeared to have been successful. My scans were clear. But, as is so common with cancer, there were still sub-detectable rogue cells lurking in distant corners of my body. Within weeks, they swarmed forth again and my body was infested once more.

A recurrence of my kind of cancer has been hitherto incurable, although I still cling to a slim ray of hope. But in all likelihood, I am in the last few months of my short life.

Unlike many cancer patients, I don't have much anger. The way I see it, we're not entitled to one breath of air. We did nothing to earn it, so whatever we get is bonus. I might be more than a little disappointed with the hand I've been dealt, but this is what it is. Thinking about what it could be is pointless. It ought to be different, that's for sure, but it ain't. A moment spent moping is a moment wasted.

I accept what is to come, but I cannot rid myself of a deep mourning for all those experiences -- college, marriage, children, grandchildren -- that will probably never be mine to celebrate. What solace I do find is in the knowledge that I have done everything I can to transmute this terribleness into something positive by showing as many people as I can how to endure it with a smile.

I don't believe you can ask for any more, but if I could ask for something, it would be to be able to go outside into the glorious spring air, feeling healthy and blissfully clueless as to how lucky I was for it, if only just for an hour.

Waking

In the spirit of the terminally ill patient, I have really pushed myself this morning to be as positive as humanly possible. I honestly woke up feeling like I imagine the day after chemotherapy is like. Lying in bed was absolutely excruciating, I felt like the definition of fucked up. Again, the type of feeling that makes me want to throw in the towel. However, I managed to pull myself through it and have a shower and grab a bite to eat. Now I am at least functional, but I'm tempted to return to the solace of the bed or couch and try to escape this reality i've been thrust into. This has been such a weird experience, total devastation out of left field. Regardless, I have promised myself I will do everything within my power to deliver me from this condition. This involves staying engaged in life regardless of how much of a burden it becomes. I feel less tied to the past, and ready to embrace this new chapter of my life. I just wish I didn't have to suffer so much, it doesn't seem fair. However, perhaps ordinary reason cannot account for my fate of suffering.

Nice Quotation

from a patient terminally ill with stomach cancer:

Somebody asked me recently how I cope with despair, and the only answer that I could come up with is that what keeps me going is the hope that everything will somehow be OK. I've been told I have a terminal illness, and I get that, but if I didn't wake up every morning hopeful, then I wouldn't get out of bed, get dressed, eat or breathe. What's anyone without hope?

Suffering

No matter how much I want it, I will not have my old life back. It is a thing of the past. Thinking about the last 7 months turns my stomach and makes me sick. Looking at where I'm at makes me sick. I am so tired and afraid, and I feel so entirely alone in this pain. I want to cry right now but I can't. I want to be a man about this, and I have been for so long now. I just don't know what the point is. I feel so terrible. I feel so awful. It's all my fault, I want to die. I just want to die, to be allowed to rest. I don't want a second chance anymore. I want this struggle to be over more than anything in the world. I am only fighting for my family members at this point, and I don't even think they should expect me to continuing pulling myself through this hideous acidic muck. I'm know quite sure how a person gets to be so sick and fed up with life, but it has happened to me. Perhaps this is just a test of my integrity and spirit, but if it is, for me it is becoming too much of a trial. I don't want this life anymore. I want it to end. I'm happy with what I've experienced. I'm happy with my past. I have no reason to continue to be alive. Although death scares me, it doesn't scare me as much as what I have to endure everyday. Please, I want to die. I want to be taken. I can't take it anymore. I can't take it. I really can't. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm not strong enough to deserve a position on this world, but its too much to ask. Really its too much. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry but I can't take it. Please....

Venting and a Reflection on Prometheus

Fuck. Why the fuck did this have to happen to me. Why must the first 6 hours of my day be pure torture and torment. Even now this feeling is barely tolerable and it is not even a fraction of what I was feeling in the morning. I literally feel fucked. I am fucked. I have lost everything in my life. I had a great job, I was in a top school, my music career was taking off.... and now my brain has just decided to go to shit. I don't know who I am, my body is numb, I have headaches that make me want to scream... but I'm not crazy. I'm acutely aware that there is something very wrong with me and I've spent countless hours trying to resolve my problem. But there is no resolution. So I just have to spend every fucking day being tortured. And having to do normal things and try to act normal while being tortured. I can't fathom that it has been 7 months of dealing with this every single day - it nauseates me. It honestly makes me sick to my stomach. I have no idea how I've made it this far without killing myself. No one around me understands what the fuck is happening to me, except they see me writhing on the floor with my head in my hands.

I relate deeply to the struggle of Prometheus. His ongoing pain is very similar to what I feel I have to endure. He is strewn up on a rock where a great eagle resides. Every single day the eagle swoops down and devours his liver leaving his wretched and screaming for the rest of the day. As Prometheus passes into sleep for the night his insides regrow only for the eagle to return the following day to submit his to the same torture. This continues on for eternity. Prometheus is punished for having taken fire from the gods and bestowing it to mortals. As in many myths of punishment, it involves a man striving for powers that are not his to wield. I feel my own downfall was a result of trying to control the world too much. I was too bent on power and self-actualization and my endless pursuits led me into the ruin that is now my life.

Veil

It feels like there is veil between myself and the world. I know I am underneath all this pain somewhere, but I'm buried deep. I feel so unworldy and awful, I want to die. I wish this condition would take my life as opposed to torment me. All my suffering is in vain.

From Night into Morning

So I am going to go to sleep now, and I rationally know that when I wake up at 8 am or whatever it will be, I am going to want to die. My head will be splitting, I will feel like my body is numb, I will not know where I am. This experience is horrible. I am going to want to bury myself in the pillow and repeat incessantly, "I want to die" "I want to die" etc. However, I am challenging myself tomorrow, to power through all of this bullshit. I will awake and immediately shower, throw on clean clothes, eat, medication, go for a walk, and then return home to make a positive blog entry. Furthermore, I will get some domestic tasks accomplished tomorrow. I will attempt to live a perfectly normal day despite being tormented by the hounds of hell. My blog entry will deal with the concept of mythos and narrative in moving through our personal struggles. I was recently exposed to a dramatization of the story of Perseus and Medusa. It reminded me of my own struggles, and recognizing that overcoming any true challenge involves heroic will. And let's be honest, most people perish on that path. The soldiers that accompany Perseus both make the mistake of looking Medusa straight in the eyes - they are turned to stone. Lately, I'm questioning whether I have the will to be the hero of the story, or if I will flounder like the other soldiers. I have certainly made it a long way, I could have offed myself by now.

The fucked up thing about the type of pain I feel, is that it feels deeply connected to who I am - so that it is hard to block it out. I am absolutely terrified about tomorrow morning. Terrified. I find I have a 2 minute moment of solace between sleep and waking, and then when I'm actually awake the consciousness of my situation kicks in and I'm totally fucked beyond belief. Nevertheless, as I mentioned I will make the most of my morning. I'm not sure how the human mind can be this fucked up without some serious trauma. Oh god, I don't want to feel another day of this. Amor Fati - it's so easy to say when life is going your way.

Support

Lately I feel overly demanding of my support system. It's unfortunate that I have been messed up so long that I continually have to seek out my friends, parents, and lover to keep me going. However, it's amazing the type of energy I am provided by these people that are closest in my life. I think that has to be the best lesson I've learned from this entire experience, is that friendship and family is the most important thing in life. I would place this bond to others as the most important element of life.. I would probably place creativity as second. If you are connected with others and in some way creating in the world - you will find a reason to live.

I desperately want to help others fight the type of struggle that I am having to engage in. I want to help people be brave and cope with the pain that they have to endure on a daily basis. In my early life I was never aware of the reality of the type of pain that I now have to move through. However, now that my eyes have been opened I see it all around me. The struggle of the human condition is fucking crazy. I have become so versed in medicine and psychology within the last 6 months. Humanity has had to bear such crazy shit.

In any case, I have been really struggling with the fact that I continually have to be the one needing support instead of providing support to others. It is so frustrating to be so weak, so entirely subject to the whim of one's feelings. More and more I realize I have to power my way through this whole experience. I have to not pay any mind to these horrible horrible feelings, and continue to pave my path in this world. It's just the times when I feel so fucked up beyond words that I can't possibly imagine trying. I desperately want to actualize my life in this world, but there is a certain level of pain I find impossible to bear. A type of pain that reduces me to a child in the face of it. And that pain is the shortcoming of myself. It is the type of pain that literally makes me curl up in a ball and pray for death. I am told to ignore it, not to empower it. I'm trying.

Bad Suicidal Mornings

My mornings have become almost unbearable. I wake up and upon facing the day I have the conviction and deepest desire to end my life. Having to face the day again seems like an insurmountable challenge, this feeling combined with a horrible headache and out of body experience is enough to defeat me entirely. I spend the first half hour of the day praying to die. I then slowly pull myself out of bed and begin my day. I force myself to eat so that I can take my morning medication. Today I found some solace in spending time with my cat, who I believe recognizes the type of suffering I am experiencing. He gave me love and I was able to be receptive to his life force and his empathy. During that time I had two cups of tea, which gave me enough of a jolt to allow me to entertain the thought of living today.. or at least to write down some of my experience in this blog. The days seem to blur together. My main task everyday is just to get through it without doing anything stupid. If I can accomplish that and also pursue some creative endeavour like writing, then the day should be considered a success. It's a terrible way to live you're life, and one that the people around me do not understand. Unfortunately, it's my reality for the time being. Here is an interesting thought of suicide that I found on a forum recently, I felt it was useful to be shared.

Taking life must be seperated from feeling bad and viewed as a pathetic enemy, not as a solution. People may read about mental illness and high stats concerning suicide,but all you have to do is remind yourself that your free will does exist and another person's terrible judgement and choice does not set a precedent for you.