And Bad Mistakes, I've Made A Few

When I was in the third grade, my mom took my middle brother and me to the county fair. While we were there, we went into one of the mazes made of clear plexiglass that you had to feel your way through. One of my friends from school was there, and we raced into the maze.

My four-year-old little brother followed. He always followed me everywhere. He tried to keep up with us, but his legs were too small. The fun ended when he smashed into one of the walls. His nose bled a little, and he cried but other than that, he was fine. My mom tore me a new asshole about how I was the big brother, and I had to look out for my little brother.

I still feel extreme guilt about that.

I’ve told the story before about how my brother almost drowned in a kiddie pool, and I stood watching in shock before. So, I won’t tell it again. But rest assured, I carry that guilt with me as well.

When I was in my twenties, I used to wish I was some kind of sociopath. A person, if you were, who felt little or no emotions. It was a wish that went hand in hand with my dabbling in Libertarianism and an Ayn Rand view of the world. Yeah, I was a pretentious and selfish asshole.

But aren't most white boys when they're younger?

What I am trying to say, in my own disjointed and clumsy way, is I'm a man racked with guilt and regret.

Over the years, I've done my pitiful best to push the feelings of shame that comes with that reality down. But I've pretty much failed on all fronts. The journey, as the serenity prayer says, 'to accept the things I cannot change' has been a long one with a lot of setbacks and redo's.

My doctors tell me the feelings of extreme guilt go hand in hand with being bipolar. I believe them, they're both good doctors (I got lucky with my doctors), but they're reassurances haven't done much to make me feel better.

There are dozens, literally, of stories I could relate to the subject of my fucked up conscious. But I’m going to boil it down to the three worst, they one’s that made me want to kill myself over the years.

A fair warning before I start telling my tales. These stories leave me looking like a horrible husband, a horrible father, and a horrible person.

Ready?

Here we go.

I destroyed the first home we owned. Yes, the house was too expensive, and yes, it was a lemon we were misled on. But in the end, I ruined it.

How?

Cats people, motherfucking cats.

How did it happen? We had one cat when we moved into the house. Then we rescued two dogs. Then we took in a cat, and that was when the mating started. We had no money to fix them, and I refused to get rid of them. As the house filled with fourteen cats at its worse, shit and piss were everywhere. It wasn’t their fault. They were just acting like cats.

It was my fault and mine alone.

I ruined the house via something I loved.

Another consequence of animal hoarding, because I can now admit I was an animal hoarder, was the smell. Everything in the house smelled, and we received several calls from the schools that the kids smelled.

Even now, I want to punish myself for turning my kids into “The Smelly Kids” and probably ruining their school life.

When we moved and left the house abandoned, after the financial collapse, we tried to find homes and shelters for them. We couldn’t because we couldn’t afford no-kill shelters. In the end, We let them all go into the wild. My cats and my poor loyal dogs left to themselves.

I hate myself to my very core for that decision.

I’m a shitbag.

But let's move on to the next source of suicidal guilt.

Next is my kids and wife.

In the years following the onset of serious depression, I turned away from the people who loved me the most. I ignored my wife, I ignored my children, and I hid from the world. I lost so many years with my children and did so much damage to our relationships that I’m convinced they will never forgive me.

I don’t deserve any forgiveness.

I deserve nothing but scorn.

I don’t understand why they still love me.

I’m a no better parent than the men and women in my family I can’t stand.

Finally, there’s my greatest regret. If I believed in hell, I’d deserve to go there for this one.

In 2017 I told my middle son Stephen that I never wanted to speak with him again. He’d made our lives miserable for as long as I’d known him, and in the previous two years, he’d nearly destroyed our household with his drug use and corresponding violence.

I’d like to say I didn’t mean it when I said I didn’t want to talk to him again but tell the truth and shame the devil, I did.

Part of me hated him.

Over the next three years, as he drifted in and out of sobriety, he attempted to speak to me. I told him unless he stayed one hundred percent sober for a year, I wanted nothing to do with him.

Then he killed himself.

There is nothing that can hold a candle to how much I hate myself. I never spoke with my son in more than a few sharp sentences in three years. Now I will never talk to him again. I will never see him again. I will never be able to tell him I’m sorry.

I’ll never be able to tell him I love him again.

I failed my boy, and I will always hate myself.

I’m a man racked with guilt and regret.

I don’t know how much longer I can bear the weight.

- Josh (09/21/2020)