#hate being old I was a senior in highschool in 2014

[lexerah]

I’m really trying to hold on. It’s really hard man.. I guess from the outside looking in it seems like my whole world got turned upside down because of a girl but she really was the major thing keeping me going cause I felt like she was the only person who understood me/wasn’t really judgemental of who I really am. My whole life I felt like I never fitted in so I turned to music, poetry, skateboarding, & basketball and that was my escape. Up until around age 12/13 I was pretty much mute. I didn’t talk much. And when I came home there was either no one home or if my parents were home I’d be verbally abused for being so “quiet/secluded in my room” or my mom and I would argue back and forth and it would end with her saying “I wish you got hit by a bus” or “I wish you would die”.. Hearing that often just killed my spirit most of the times. I would then stay in my room longer or even turn to cutting by using a metal hanger. All during that time I was battling my sexuality and the fear from my parents when they would say things like “gays should burn” or other homophobic slurs/speeches. I didn’t know what to do. I hated myself for being gay. I hated that “it had to happen to me”. There were several years where I wish I wasn’t born like this.. fast forward and more trauma just started piling on :( my dad didn’t make it to most of my basketball games because he worked 2 jobs and that hurt a lot because it was something I was really good at and I felt like my parents would be proud/I would be “good enough”.. my dad was then diagnosed with kidney failure during my senior year of hs.. it was scary for us all.. I didn’t want to lose my dad.. for most of my senior year my dad was in and out of the hospital for long periods and I remember one time breaking down in tears because he was in the icu and I thought he was going to die that week.. he wasn’t able to go to my hs graduation because he was in the hospital still so that was another blow. a few months after highschool my mom attempted suicide when I took my little sister on a walk.. we both came home and found her unresponsive on the floor with a suicide note. I had to calm my little sister down while making sure my mom was still alive and while calling 911.. then my dad walked in a few mins later and he started blaming me for what happened and yelling “what did I do!” fast forward to while my mom was in the hospital recovering and both my sisters and I didn’t feel like ourselves.. we didn’t want to do anything and we just kept crying and my dad starts yelling at us/verbally abusing us saying that we shouldn’t be crying and that we need to stop crying. It really sucked.. that feeling on top of everything was painful.. so again fast forward to about 1.5-2 years after hs and my mom decides to separate from my dad and wanted to live in another city and she asked me if I wanted to live with her or stay with my dad. All during this time we never had a good relationship and I thought it was a really good opportunity to build on the relationship with my mom.. then a month or two before we moved to the new city my mom lashed out all of her fears, anger & resentment towards my dad at me saying it’s all my fault and that’s when the panic attacks started. (I’m sorry for the choppy writing.. it’s really hard writing this but I know I need to get it out) I remember a week or so before we moved and all of our stuff was pretty much packed for the move and my mom wanted to see her old best friend one last time at the theatres and have burgers after and that’s when I had my first major panic attack. I was sitting in the theatre and I thought I was dying. It literally felt like a black hole cause I didn’t know what it was at the time. I thought I was having a heart attack so I just waited in the lobby until the movie was over cause I went back in 1 time for a few minutes and another one came. I ended up having 3 or 4 a week for a few months and then went to IOP for 2 months around 2014 and it helped a lot with talking out stuff/processing my thoughts.

But most importantly it helped me see that there were other people out there going through similar things and it made me not feel alone.. fast forward to a year later my dog passed away when we came to visit my dad since it was his turn to watch the dogs and it was also best for him because he was living alone back in our old city :( it was really hard taking my dog to the vet when he passed🥺 a few months after that I started to lose my hearing in one ear from an ear infection and that really brought me down cause I’m a music producer and I rely on my hearing to fine tune stuff.. all during this time while I was losing my hearing I was dating this girl who had cheated on me with several guys/past boyfriends and thats when I really started feeling like I was being kicked while I was down.. literally during the time I was crying about her but mostly why someone would do something like that and take me on a trip just to tell me they still have feelings for their ex/cry about them, my mom had punched feeling in my face for crying about her and told me to stop crying or pack my bags. That was probably one of the most traumatic things because I really felt like I had no one to talk to and I felt really alone. All while my bestfriend back in my old city promised to visit but never did :/ I had no one but my little sis who was my best friend and I’m super grateful she was born cause without her honestly I wouldn’t be here. I literally raised her for 2-3 years and took her everywhere to just escape everything at home. It was a blessing that I had money from music to do all those mini trips/food runs.. it was a huge blessing man. So fast forward to a year later around 2016/2017 my grandfather started having major strokes and was in and out of a hospice and later passed away towards the end of 2017. It was too much all while my mom and little sister had moved to a different state and my dad had a kidney transplant.. I was his caretaker and my older sister didn’t help :/ I literally was breaking down everyday because I was asking why is this all coming down on me :/

I’m literally crying right now because right around that time I met someone really incredible and it just hit me rn. She was the light at the end of the tunnel in a sense. Now that I look back at things, her coming into my life at that time saved me. And maybe writing this was the answer I was looking for as to why I saw her picture 10-15 years before I even met her during the time when all the pain started in my life. Meeting her/her come into my life might be the message that everything’s going to be okay. Man.. idek what to think rn. She really is an angel in a sense cause she saved me from myself and helped me see that I have the ability to heal.. and of course I wish things ended differently cause I still love her but that’s out of my control. I have to heal and move on but also forgive myself and forgive my past and most importantly allow myself to heal. I have to fall in love with myself and love me unconditionally. I want to be one of the greatest music producers ever and have an amazing wife, kids, and beautiful house but that can’t happen if I don’t heal and forgive.

If anyone read this up to this point you’re beyond special to me and I don’t know how to thank you but it means the world to me that you read my story. I don’t like sharing because it’s really painful and makes me feels extremely vulnerable so thank you so much🥺🤧 thank you🤧🙏 I love you🤟💕

[alexheathen]

Growths

This is the story of my life, from the perspective of my relationship with my mother and her 13 years with cancer. I’ve posted bits and pieces of it before, but I felt like I could finally write it, and anon asked, so here it is. Warning: long as fuck.

The experience of my mother’s illness is central to my biography, without a doubt. Our relationship was incredibly close. I am the firstborn son in my family, so I suppose it was inevitable. She read to me almost every night when I was little: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Once and Future King, and then Winnie the Pooh after the epic fantasy well dried up. I was discouraged from sports and imbued with the generalized fear/caution many of us 90’s kids seemed to get growing up. In fewer words, I was super nerdy, and I 100% had mom to blame. 

For much of her life, my mom’s best friend was her older sister, Patricia, or Pat, for short. Pat received her first breast cancer diagnosis in 1993, fairly late in the tumor’s development. Treatment was aggressive, as it tends to be on the first go round - both breasts removed and intensive chemotherapy. Still, the disease progressed and eventually spread to her ovaries; she died in 1995 due to complications from chemo (treatment is inevitably worse than disease when we talk about cancer). My mother was devastated, and I was five years old and confused. Why was everyone crying? What happened? When my grandma told me my aunt was just sleeping, mom scolded her for lying to me. “She’s gone to heaven,” mom said, “and she’s not coming back.” The Lion King came out that year, and they played “The Circle of Life” over her memorial slideshow at the wake. A wake that was held at the high school I would attend, over ten years later. My sophomore English teacher was the woman who had been hired to replace my aunt after she died, and she passed along one of my aunt’s annotated books, which she had kept all those years. That was a very spooky day.

Breast cancer haunts my family; the genetic specter of the BRCA1 mutation looms large in my family tree, comorbid with clinical depression. My grandmother had two run ins with it, and though she only had a double mastectomy as treatment, she lived well into her eighties. In addition to my aunt, there is a cemetery of second cousins and great aunts I never met. Among the women of my generation, getting tested for the gene mutation is something of a rite of passage. 

My mom’s first diagnosis was in April of 2002. Being a bookish and political child, I had been rocked by 9/11 the year before: the day after the attack I threw up on the bus and mom had taken me home. In less than a year, mortality entered my life, first on a grand scale, and then on a very personal one. My schoolwork suffered and what social life I had withered, since I relied on my mom to arrange it. As is often the case, I withdrew into books and videogames. In hindsight, I realize I was profoundly depressed, but as the oldest I took it upon myself to make sure no one worried about me - this was the only way I had control of my situation. 

Fearing the swift and painful demise of her sister, my mother opted for an even more aggressive course of treatment - severe chemotherapy, the removal of both breasts and her uterus. In those days, our house was a still as a crypt. Every day, I would come home from school afraid she had died while I was gone. Many afternoons were spent sneaking into my parents bedroom to make sure she was still breathing, then falling into my own bed to weep or scream into the pillow before falling into an uneasy sleep. I have distinct memories of recurring nightmares from this time of my life, where my soul would leave my body and float around my house, completely out of my control.

This relatively brief period, less than a year, would define my adolescence. Even after her disease had gone into remission, I did my best to make sure mom had no cause to worry, even as my grades slipped in and out of dire straits. I was determined to make sure my parents had no cause to worry about me being “one of the bad kids" and I had also been marked by the unresolved experience of my mother’s illness, so I was indelibly separated from most of my peers. As a result, I missed out on a lot of teenage degeneracy, and most of the developmental milestones of that period as well. I struggled to separate myself from my parents. Teenage mawkishness was made worse by trauma. I had hoped college would be a clean break; in ways it was and in ways it wasn’t. 

The summer of my senior year of highschool my mom received her second breast cancer diagnosis. This time, however, I at least had some agency. I made myself useful as I could around the house, cleaning and mowing the lawn, and I drove my mom to and from her chemotherapy appointments. When I left in the fall, she still had three more months of treatment to go, but the fear of death was not present as it was the first time. Separated from the events of my mother’s illness, I was able to use it as a motivation instead of a burden for the first time in my life. I excelled my first year of college - three semesters on the honor, and I won an iPad from the freshman writing competition. I wrote the winning essay the night before it was due, after smoking heavily. It was supposed to have been a work memoir, but I hadn’t worked much at that point, so I made up a job at Barnes and Noble and wrote most of the essay about taking care of my mother that summer. In a small way, I hated myself for it - in high school I always resented the kids who wrote sob stories to win contests while I proudly suffered in silence.

By junior year, however, I was severely depressed again, as I moved off of campus and lost my social support network. There was a semester I missed half of the classes in two courses, having become deeply confused about what I wanted from life and entered into existential catatonia. Still, I didn’t seek help, beyond smoking cigarettes, weed and taking the occasional acid trip. This turned around a bit, fall of my senior year, when I had my strongest experiences of friendship and creativity, and began to study mysticism and spirituality, but it was short-lived.

Come January of 2013, suspicious dark spots appeared on one of mom’s regularly scheduled MRI’s. The doctors waffled back and forth over whether or not it was cancer; but I think we all knew. The day my mother called to tell me it was officially back, I had spent the morning chanting Om Mani Padme Hum and had found a unique tranquility, like a warm green sun was holding my heart. I met that devastating phone call with grace and tranquility - and then had it decimated over the coming months. 

I could barely keep it together to deal with school - I was okay in class but I didn’t have the presence of mind to work on assignments. As much as I could afford to, I smoked weed - which wasn’t very much - I was unemployed and my dad was tightening the purse strings to encourage me to look for work. One day, stoned, desperate, and staring down finals feeling completely helpless, I shaved my head and eyebrows, hoping to elicit some sympathy/be forced into talking about my dire situation. And it worked - three of my four professors passed me, to some degree or another, even though I either turned in the final essays late or not at all. The only one that didn’t, amusingly enough, was a 100-level course I had put off until the end of my degree - “Honors 105: Religious Worldviews and Ethical Perspectives.” I failed that course twice and didn’t graduate because of it. 

My family didn’t know I had shaved my head; when my mother came to graduation she was deeply disturbed by it, because it was an explicit reminder of the impact her illness had on me. The night before graduation, I smoked the last bit of resin in my bowl and went into uneasy sleep. I woke up an hour late the next morning, threw on some jeans and a t-shirt, grabbed my cap and gown and ran for the bus. I didn’t have time to go to the bathroom, so I ended up shitting in the bushes in front of Soldier’s Field, Chicago, which was near where the ceremony was held. I eventually made it; mom was pissed, dad was confused, and my middle sister, I would later find out, was going through her own mental health troubles.

I should’ve moved home immediately, but I spent June through August in another existential catatonia. I was supposed to be looking for jobs; I read manga, watched Super Sentai, drank beer and smoked cigarettes. In September my dad came in a moving van to take me home; the night before we left he parked in a grocery store parking lot, and to add insult to injury, it got impounded and he had to pay $500 to get it out. 

I spent the rest of 2013 and most of 2014 in near catatonia again, playing shit loads of video games - I remember playing Dishonored, Deus Ex HR, and Dark Souls in particular. I also remember playing Borderlands every damn day for a month when they were doing a “win a million dollars!” promo. My sister was about to graduate high school, had blue hair and was trying on being a lesbian. We became really close during this time, sneaking around to smoke cigarettes and supporting each other through our misery. I also got really close to my mom; sometimes we would spend whole mornings talking over coffee, both feeling guilty over the pain we had caused each other. 

I eventually started seeing a therapist and taking 20mg of Lexapro daily, and finally I got the monkey off my back. I found a job, first working in a warehouse, and then a bank. Mom’s condition worsened, of course. You don’t survive a third diagnosis, so the chemotherapy she was taking was only to extend her life bit by bit. April of 2015, she was on so many fucking drugs she was getting loopy, culminating in her telling me “You were the beginning of the misery in my life,” while I was putting away the dishes one night. I brushed it off, but when I was alone I completely lost it, just burst into tears, and I confronted her, and she was shocked at her own behavior. She had no explanation. She was hospitalized for the last week of April, they recalibrated her meds, and she entered hospice care in May.

She lived for another six months, until October 15th, 2015. I got reassigned at the bank to one of the most hellish, tedious jobs I’ve ever experienced. During lunch I would go out, guiltily smoke cigarettes and contemplate jumping off the parking garage. I was catastrophically lonely August through September.

The night mom died was a Friday. I had gone to pick up some hard cider after worked - Rhinegeist Red. The day before, she had gone to the clinic where she received her chemo and said goodbye to all the technicians - some of these people she had known for ten years. I have to imagine those are some of the most peculiar friendships in all of human experience. She and dad also went to say goodbye to the neighbors from the house I grew up in. Dad was surprised that night - she seemed stronger than she had in months. This “golden day” is apparently typical for people in hospice care.

Friday morning, mom had started to have trouble breathing around 10:00 am. She just couldn’t catch her breath, and she was in a lot of pain. The hospice nurse came by and upped her morphine dosage, and told my father to continue to administer another dose every half hour. 

When I came home, it seemed like the house was empty. I put my cider on the kitchen table, and suddenly the bathroom door opened. Mom had braced herself against the door frame; dad was holding her up. As he carried her into the kitchen, I saw death like I never had before.

My mother’s left eye was cast toward heaven. The right one wobbled ghoulishly in its socket. Her skin was the color of old glue. Her eyes had been off kilter for a few weeks - somewhere a tumor was interfering with her ocular nerve - but the pallor was new.

Dad called the hospice nurse again, after putting mom in the hospital bed that had become a fixture in our living room. I drank a can of cider. Mom fluttered in and out of consciousness. 

My yoga teacher had suggested I read to her while she lay in bed, and out of sentiment’s sake I had chosen Winnie the Pooh. I was in such a poor state that I had only done it once before that day, though, so I started the second chapter as we waited for the nurse.

As fate would have it, it was the story where Pooh goes to Rabbit’s house, eats too much honey, and gets caught in the door on his way out. Wouldn’t it be odd, I thought, morbidly, if this was the last story I read to her? This story of a sweet old bear caught halfway out the door.

The hospice nurse arrived, checked mom’s vitals and swabbed the saliva from her mouth, as she could no longer swallow. The nurse walked dad and I into the other room, and told us she probably had a week to live. It was like a grenade went off in the room. I needed to steady myself, so I went upstairs, got on the computer, and read comics reviews.

Shortly thereafter, mom’s morphine pump ran out of batteries. Dad went upstairs to get the replacements. When he was halfway down the stairs, the nurse shouted “Steve, she’s going!” He vaulted the rest of the steps, and I followed shortly thereafter.

When we arrived, mom sputtered out her last few breaths. Dad said, “I love you Mel. I’ll never forget you, as long as I live.” All I could say, was sorry, over and and over again.

Dad stayed with her body, and I went to pick up my sister from college. It was a I miracle I didn’t get into and accident. I bawled and wailed the whole way there, a and then I was done. 

The day of the funeral was sunny and crisp, autumn at its most sublime. The service was held a the church mom had grown up in, a small Lutheran chapel with stained glass windows.

I wrote my mother’s eulogy. I had planned to for years. It was the best speech I ever gave - my diction was clear, my gaze met the crowd. Afterwards, they would tell me they saw her standing behind me.

I didn’t stutter until the very end, when I said the words she wanted to be remembered for:

“Life is short; be kind, and be memorable.”

And then I sat in the pew, and shed one last tear.

I wish I could tell you I fixed after that, but I wasn’t. I spent another four months at that hellish bank job before I quit. When I quit, I took up yoga again, and started cooking. I began to rebuild myself. During that time, my friend’s mother helped me find a teaching job, here in Korea, and that’s how I finally began living again.

Is everything perfect now? Of course not. I still have trouble getting close to people; I’m a twenty six year old virgin. But things are a hell of a lot better, and it’s getting easier all the time.