No happy endings

I was able to get out of bed this morning which will probably be my accomplishment of the day.

I didn't want to. For the first time in my life, I knew I could, and wanted to, lay there all day.

Even now, on the couch, I struggle to write and feel anything.

Yesterday I had my meetings at work. They went pretty much as I thought they would except I didn't lose my temper. Because that's not allowed. Emotions are not allowed at work - unless you're management.

Management is OK with gross negligence. They're OK with it resulting in the death of Veterans as long as their careers or retirement aren't threatened. Management is OK with contract fraud, lying to Congress, destroying evidence, destroying work that could save lives. Management is OK with Veterans killing themselves waiting for treatment. As long as their careers aren't threatened, management is OK with all kinds of vices.

But management is NOT OK with a lower level employee quoting a movie in fun after being set up. Management is OK with that employees rights being violated. Management is OK with that employee almost being killed because of their own actions.

Because words are more important than dead Veterans, than broken laws, then the worst sort of mendacity. 

Where do we get these people from?

VA management apparently, is anointed by God and given powers far beyond those of fallible lower level employees. Management has been granted a pass to exempt them from the petty niceties of following the law, acting ethically and having empathy.

I know I'm naive. I've always expected better. I should have known better.

After the sedation wore off and I started thinking about it, because I can't NOT think about it, I didn't get as angry as I thought I would. At least not yet. I just got numb.

And I wanted to stay in bed all day.

And I don't care about anything anymore.

I just exist. That's about it.

I'm reminded of a song by Jackson Browne

 I'm going to be a happy idiot
And struggle for the legal tender
Where the ads take aim and lay their claim
To the heart and the soul of the spender

But I could never be that person because I can't pretend. Life, work, everything was supposed to mean so much more. Meaning - life had to have some kind of meaning. I find for me it does not. I can't work, produce and consume. I never thought I was born for that. I naively thought that I would (don't laugh) change the world and leave a remembrance that it was a better place after I was gone.

While their priests buggered little boys and their management covered it up, that's what the Catholic church and its' schools taught me was our role in life.

I hate it all. I hate that for so long I tried to be that person and believed those lies.

The world is as it is, like it or not. And I wandered through it like the fool in the Tarot deck.

There are no magic pills, no wonder shrinks, no New Age woo that can salve a dead soul.

I can't be a part of this. But I'm forced to.

I thought of going to the basement today on this odd day off and tossing everything I've kept from childhood out on the front lawn. The past is dead, the present is dead and there is no future than I can see. Having all this shit lying around just reminds me of the person I used to be that I am not anymore. It's all over. It's finally gotten to be too much.

All of the mental illness sites wants stories of overcoming and triumph. They also want young pretty faces to tell the story so they can be marketed. Why I ever thought that the depressed musings of a seemingly privileged white guy who will be 54 this month would interest anyone is another delusion I can chalk up to my colossal naivete.

Some people just don't recover for whatever reason. I can give you an example of such a person who has been through an experience infinitely worse than mine.

This is a woman who befriended a young man who later broke into her house with a bag of knives and landed up stabbing her daughter to death in the early morning hours of the day after Christmas about five years ago.

This woman witnessed the murder of her in all it's shock, gore and heartache. She recalls the sound of her daughter's last strangled gasps and having to clean the foamy blood off the walls later on. The court in California did not sentence the perp to death but life in prison or how many years 'life' is in California before the young killer gets a chance at parole. If Manson comes up for parole, why not this guy?

Anyway, for this mother, all she knows is her beautiful daughter is dead and this beast will be housed as a guest of the taxpayers. I have followed her FB for several years. She will never recover from this. She craves death but will not kill herself - yet. She doesn't live anymore, she just exists and the horror of that night plays across her consciousness every day.

To add gross insult to injury, her deceased daughter's FB page was hacked a few days ago with most of her daughter's history and postings erased and her friends list loaded up with, well, whores for lack of a better description - webcam types and others like that. Even her memory was desecrated. 

Her husband couldn't take it so he left along with other family members. She has very very few people left in her life.

Nothing will ever help her heal. Only death will bring her relief.

Compared to this woman, what I've been through is a comparative walk in the park. 

And yet we share a few things, albeit at different intensities: numbness, lack of interest in anything, memories of a past that haunt us, distrust of people in general, a wish to be left alone and an anger that has no real room for expulsion.

She doesn't know me, but I get her. I wish I could help but I can't. She is forever sequestered in grief.

Some people will never recover; they will never 'pull themselves up by their bootstraps.'

And they owe no one an explanation.