Well, you can probably tell from the title that this is going to be pretty controversial, and I think a lot of people are going to hate what I have to fucking say about this. But it's my life and it's my experience, and fuck you. You know, you can think what you want, and you can keep promoting it all you want, and I don't give a shit. Do what you want, but this is my opinion, this is my experience, and I'm going to document it.

Now, I don't remember the exact day that I called them in September, but I do know that it was days before I had an attempt and went into the hospital.

I called them while I was in crisis. I explained to them that I had no intention of hurting myself yet, but I was in crisis and I was seriously thinking about it. Then I tried to proceed to explain to them everything that had been going on since August and everything with my medical—just everything that was going on that was uncertain and unusual. Like, I had vocal tics, my right arm had a tremor, I had episodes where I couldn't speak, I had other episodes of paralysis. I was terrified of everything, and I was terrified of continuing to live like that. I was afraid of what I would wake up with next. I explained to them that I was waiting on Baylor because HCA Hospital neurology department believed that I had a neurological movement disorder.

Sidenote: Baylor denied me twice. Fuck you too, by the way.

Anyway, so I got to talking about everything and kept getting interrupted by this fucking guy asking me other questions, like, "Are there any weapons in the house? Do you have a support system? Do you have family who lives with you?" All this other fucking bullshit like it fucking mattered and would fucking save anybody if they actually wanted to hurt themselves.

And here's another fucking problem with those questions: people can fucking lie, you God damn idiot. What makes you think that they would tell you the truth? Since when does anybody fucking do that? Now, granted, I'm really fucking honest, but 90% of those fucking people are not going to answer those questions honestly. They're just not. So you have to assume that they have a weapon near them.

Your whole purpose is to keep them out of crisis, to get them out of crisis so that they don't escalate and go into an attempt. That is the whole fucking point, because at that point, once they're in an attempt, there's no guarantee you're going to be able to save them. All you're going to be fucking doing is calling an ambulance for them, which doesn't mean shit because a good portion of people who do an attempt call an ambulance themselves.

In fact, in all my attempts, I called myself, stupid asshole.

Kept interrupting me when I needed someone to vent all of this to and talk with and get it all out, and just have another fucking human being hear my frustrations and my concerns about everything that was going on with my body that was unknown to me and that I didn't have control over.

Eventually, we got to like 49 minutes into the call, and then this guy wants to say, "Okay, well, I have to let you go because I have more immediate calls."

IMMEDIATE? FUCKING IMMEDIATE? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

What's more immediate than me, somebody about to shoot themselves in the head? Because I guarantee you, chances are they're going to do it. There's not shit you can do for them but call them a fucking ambulance. Meanwhile, you could have prevented me from attempting anything on the fucking 8th of September, you asshole.

And here's what that did, by the way—which, you know, you see that I'm talking with you now, so I've survived it. The problem is, thanks to them not preventing this from happening and not getting me out of crisis, I now have knowledge of a way to die that I didn't have before. I could give that knowledge to others if they so asked.

So basically, what they did by not helping me is I learned how to fucking die. And at any point, I could choose this.

Now, am I saying I want to die now? Of course not. But being who I am and having clinical depression, that's always going to be in the back of my mind. And now I have knowledge. It's different. It's different now because next time, should I choose it, I believe I will be successful.

And it's going to be their fucking fault in a lot of ways, because you could have prevented this so that I had no way of putting all of this together and figuring it out. Finally, now that I know this, I can never get it out of my head. So I hope this mother fucker can sit with this. I hope that somehow he reads this chapter and he's like, "Shit."

Because my choice, if I ever choose to take it, is not going to be 100% his fault. But the fact that the knowledge came about because of them not getting me out of crisis in the first place? Oh, yes. The fact that I know this now is your fault. 100% your fault.

So yes, fuck 988, because all they wanted to say is, "Well, I'm not immediate." Well, I wonder if you had said that to anyone else in the scenario where it was really, "I'm not immediate." Okay, hang on one moment. Pause. Silence. Comes back. You hear a weird click, and then POW. "Am I immediate now, motherfucker?"

And if you think that that scenario would not happen, you're wrong.

And I bet it's happened, and I wonder how many people 988 actually killed.

Because when you declare them not immediate, what you're saying is, YOU'RE NOT FUCKING IMPORTANT ENOUGH!!!

I mean, that was the message I got in my head. If anybody else can listen to "you're not immediate," you know, or "I have to attend to more immediate calls," and you not take it that way when you're in crisis, let me know, okay? Let me find one person on the face of this fucking Earth who would not take it the exact same way that I did.

And I asked him, "We've only been on the fucking call for 49 minutes. If I was talking to my therapist, they'd give me at least a fucking hour. Why?"

And he said, "Well, actually, our policy is only 30 minutes, but I've given you some more time because of everything going on."

OH, GEE, THANK YOU SO FUCKING MUCH FOR BEING SO FUCKING KIND AND ADDING WHAT, 15 MINUTES TO MY CRISIS?

Like life and when you're in crisis can be solved in 30 minutes. What is that shit? 45 minutes? What is that shit? Like I said, at least my therapist will give me a goddamn hour. And here's the thing: they don't even tell you the time that you have. They don't even tell you this. I had to find out at that point in the call, and I was like, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

If I was running this shit, I would tell them, "You stay on the phone with people in crisis and get them out of crisis as long as it fucking takes. I don't care if it's an hour or five fucking hours. The whole point is to save that person, keep them out of the hospital, and keep them in a safe state. You save a life today. It shouldn't matter how fucking long it took."

So yes, this is why I say fuck 988. I'm sorry if you're in crisis. Just please go to the hospital, okay? That's my advice to you. Truly, that's my advice to you. Just go to the hospital, because you can tell them that you feel like you want to hurt yourself, and then what they can do is they can, you know, watch you for 72 hours. You can get a room, you can get some food, you'll have a sitter, you'll have somebody looking after you and making sure that you don't hurt yourself. And it's much better than 988, because these people do not want to really listen to you. They just want to see if you're about to hurt yourself right now, and then if not, they need to get off the fucking call for people who do.

Which is stupid, because then you're just basically saying that all you are IS GOD DAMN LYFT. YOU'RE A FUCKING CAB FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE HURTING THEMSELVES. You're just calling an ambulance. That's all you're fucking doing.

At the end of the day, how is that saving anybody? Because you don't know how that person turned out, if they survived or not. They're just on the way to the hospital. That doesn't really mean anything. Meanwhile, you know, again, you could have prevented everything that happened to me, got me out of crisis, so I don't have to know what I know now, because now it's always going to be in my head.

So yeah. Thanks for that.

Fuck 988.

Well, you know what they say: actions speak louder than words, and it seems like this year I have found that out real well. My so-called friends with their empty words, yeah, and then when action was necessary, they all fucking disappeared real quickly. That was surprising. I thought—I wasn't expecting that, since they said, "Oh, I care about you," and "Oh, I hope you're doing well," and "Oh, I'm going to be here for you and support you," and "You're not going to be alone anymore."

And guess what? No, seriously, guess what?

I'm fucking alone. And I'm still fucking alone, and there is no fucking support, and there never was. But fucking empty words. I've never had a friend in my life who has ever taken any real action to show me that they're fucking there.

Now, I have people help me. Don't get me wrong. I definitely have some people in my life that help me and continue to try to help me, because my life has gone to shit and I'm literally in hell. But when it comes to these actual so-called support friends, they don't fucking exist, and they don't support anything. You can have a goddamn rock with googly eyes support me more than them.

So today I gave up friends entirely. The two so-called friends I've had in my life for a little while, I told them basically, "Have a nice life. Wish you well, but I'm done," because when I really needed you, you were not there.

When I really need you and I wait for hours for your call, or wait for hours for you to be online, and then you're not there, or when you are, it's all about you. It's all about what you're doing and what you're going through, even though you know the shit that I'm going through.

And I'm sorry, if we have to compare, significantly worse—my problems are significantly worse than your goddamn problems. I don't give a shit about what you're going through. I'm sorry.

You try going through withdrawal after being an alcoholic for 10 years, cold turkey, bitch. Go ahead. Try it.

And yet I'm still fucking surviving. I'm still fucking here. And all I fucking ask was for somebody to fucking talk to. And oh, fuck 988, by the way. Kiss my ass. Well, now I would get into it, but you know what? They're not even fucking worth my time.

You know, the bad part about all of this is I kind of see where all of this is heading anyway, and you know, it just kind of sucks anyway I look at it. Because, you know, if I'm alive, then I'm alone, and if not, well, you know what happened.

But from now on, as long as I'm alive, every fucking person in my life is going to benefit me in some way. I'm going to be using them. They're not going to be using me in any regard, okay? I'm going to be using them; they are going to be giving me something, offering me something, providing me something. It's all going to be about me, because guess what? It is now Chris's world, and in Chris's world, Chris gets whatever the fuck Chris wants.

So, that being said, yeah, I'm absolutely going to get whatever the fuck I want. And if I don't, I'm going to find another way or something else, or I'll just do without it, because, hey, I spent a good portion of my fucking life without shit, so I know how to go without.

I also know how to be my own best friend, my own lover, my own every fucking thing on the face of this fucking planet that I need to be in order to take care of myself and survive. So you think I can't go back to that? Bitch, please.

Go ahead and count me out. Go ahead and put the black tag on me. Go ahead and say, "Blah blah blah, it's this and this and this." I don't give a shit what they say because it's always going to be some excuse and somehow be my fucking fault anyway, so what the fuck does it matter?

Before it was the fucking alcohol. Next time I get sick, it's going to be, "Oh, cuz you don't fucking exercise," or "You don't fucking eat right," or "You don't get enough fucking sleep." Yeah, it's always going to be something to do with me, and it's my fucking fault.

You know what? I got two hands for you, and both of those hands have two middle fingers up, so I think you know where you can stick it.

Yes, I'm angry. I'm on the seventh day of being sober. I fucking hate it. I fucking hate who I am sober. I told everybody that this is what was going to happen and that I was going to completely change and not be a person that you would recognize anymore.

So sorry, but now I would like you to meet Chris 2.0, who doesn't give a shit about anyone but themselves.

I've lived with anger so long. It was the one thing that got me through so many years, and earlier this year I had let go of it. A lot of it was directed towards my mother and my stepfather because of the abuse. I let go of that and I moved on pretty well.

But then I also got really sick right after that. Here we are now. It's a full circle back again, and now all I have is fucking anger yet again. This time it's not directed towards any one person or myself, but it's directed to the God damn fucking world in existence itself, because I basically fucking hate life now, and it is what it is.

But I'll survive. I'm a goddamn survivor. You don't remember everything I've already survived? Well, if you haven't read the other chapters here, go ahead and read those, and then if you still don't know, make sure to read my memoir, My Life After Silence, because wow, that should give you a good idea of what I've already fucking gone through.

So, to recap: no more friends, no more bullshit, no more people saying, "I'm going to support you," "Be there," blah blah blah.

No. You're going to show me. You're going to physically show me with actions what you're going to do, and then by that I will be able to see what you can actually help with. And you're going to fucking help and do something, or you're fucking out the door. I don't give a shit.

I have no more time to be wasted on people who can't fucking do anything and just spread empty words that mean nothing. I don't need your words.

I need your fucking actions.

I feel like I'm descending into madness.

Like I've entered some deep circle of hell, some pit so astronomically deep that I'll never be able to crawl out of it again.

My body craves touch.

I can feel my skin aching for it.

I ache to be held. To be kissed. To be fucked.

I want to feel another person against me. I want the warmth of someone's body, the closeness, the intimacy. I want to feel wanted. I want to feel someone holding me because they actually want to hold me, not because they feel obligated to or because they're doing me a favor.

And I hate how much I crave it.

I hate how much my body can want something that my life seems determined to keep away from me.

My whole life has been suffering.

From the day I was born, I've been struggling.

I came into this world struggling to breathe, weighing ounces instead of pounds. From there, I went into a childhood where I was sick all the time, dealing with asthma on top of everything else.

Then I became a preteen struggling with gender dysphoria, hating my body in practically every respect, trying to understand myself while feeling like I didn't belong inside my own skin.

Then I became a teenager who had to endure immense sexual abuse and neglect while everyone else looked around and said:

"Well, you have a roof over your head. You have food in your stomach. You have toys and video games. So what could possibly be the problem with this household?"

That's the kind of shit I've had to deal with.

People look at the basic things you have and assume you must be okay.

You have a roof over your head, so you must be fine.

You have food, so you must be fine.

You have possessions, so you must be fine.

But what about the abuse?

What about the neglect?

What about the fear?

What about what happens inside a person when the people who are supposed to protect them are the ones who make them feel unsafe?

Nobody seemed to want to look at that.

And for a good majority of my life, I was uneducated. I had to learn everything later on by myself, much of it through technology. Technology has helped me learn things I never had the opportunity to learn before.

But even now, there are words I don't know.

There are things I still have to teach myself.

There are gaps in my education that I have had to struggle to fill on my own.

And that's just another part of the life I've had to live.

I've always suffered.

I can't remember a time when I didn't.

I can't remember a time when I wasn't disappointed with life in some way.

Because somehow, the things I really wanted—the things everyone else seemed to have—I never got.

Whether it was school.

Whether it was a relationship.

Whether it was acceptance.

Whether it was the opportunity to simply be a normal person and experience the things other people seemed to experience without having to fight so fucking hard for them.

I never had those things.

What I had was trauma.

Abuse.

Neglect.

Loneliness.

And now, when I look at my life, I realize that pretty much nothing has changed.

I'm still trying to survive.

I'm still trying to keep myself from falling into that black place.

I live in the gray because I'm trying to keep myself out of the black.

Because I don't want to be pushed back into that place where my life is at risk again.

So I live in the gray.

And the gray is neutral.

The gray is nothing.

The gray is numb.

But it's the only way I know how to survive sometimes.

Feel nothing.

Crave nothing.

Want nothing.

Don't expect anything.

Just live off the basics.

Whatever gets me through the next day.

And then do it all over again.

That's it.

That's what my life feels like.

Suffering and loneliness.

Suffering and loneliness.

And more fucking suffering and loneliness.

And if anybody wants to tell me otherwise, if anybody wants to fill my head with some bullshit about faith, God, or hope, they can kiss my ass.

You have no idea what kind of pain I've suffered.

You have no idea what I'm suffering through right now.

You don't know what it's like to live inside this body.

You don't know what it's like to carry all of this history around with you.

You don't know what it's like to want something so badly and then have to convince yourself that you don't need it because wanting it hurts too much.

So you don't get to tell me that everything is going to be okay.

You don't get to throw some magic word at me.

You don't get to tell me that some magic God, some magical force, or some other fucking thing is going to come along and fix everything.

Because there isn't a magic word.

There isn't some simple answer that makes all of this disappear.

There isn't some magical solution that erases the abuse, the trauma, the loneliness, the pain, or everything I've had to carry throughout my life.

And I'm fucking tired of people acting like there is.

I'm tired of being told to have faith when what I need is something real.

I'm tired of being told to have hope when hope doesn't change what is happening to me in that moment.

I'm tired of people acting like I haven't already tried to survive.

Because I have.

I've been trying my entire fucking life.

And I'm still here.

But sometimes being alive doesn't feel like living.

Sometimes it feels like existing in the gray, trying not to fall into the black, trying not to want too much, trying not to feel too much, and trying not to let the loneliness consume me.

And that's where I am right now.

Somewhere between wanting everything I've never had and trying to convince myself that I don't need any of it.

Somewhere between craving love, touch, intimacy, and connection, and telling myself that I need to stop wanting those things because wanting them hurts too much.

I don't know how much longer I can keep living this way.

But I know that this is what my life has felt like for far too long.

And I'm tired.

I'm so fucking tired.

You know, people can speak of love and friendships and this and that. But at the end of the day, I haven't really seen that.

I've seen people help me. I've seen people do what they can. And I appreciate those things. But there's a difference between someone helping you and actually having a friendship, a romance, or even just a hookup where somebody actually wants to fucking have sex with you and that's it.

I've also experienced something else. For whatever reason in this life, the more candid and honest I am, the less I receive.

I swear to God—if there is a God. Remember, I'm a fucking atheist.

But I'll tell you what: if I lied, I'd probably have everything I fucking want right now and then some. I'd probably have people lined up at the fucking door for what I'm asking for.

But instead, because I'm honest, I get used and abused. I get lied to. I get manipulated. I face scammers and other sick people who apparently have nothing better to do with their lives than fuck you up and make you feel worse than you ever did before.

And so my warning to you, and the point of this chapter, is this:

Realize that life is suffering.

And you will always fucking be alone in the end.

So get used to it.

Learn how to live by yourself. Learn how to live with loneliness. Learn how to live with chronic pain. Learn how to build coping skills inside your own mind. Learn how to build anything else you can build for yourself, by your damn self.

Because at the end of the day, that's all you have.

You.

Yourself.

And I.

And the people who do care about you can only do so much. Sometimes they can't do what you're asking, even if they want to.

That's the reality.

So yeah.

I'm hurt.

I'm tired.

I'm in pain.

I'm lonely.

I'm sad.

But I'm a goddamn survivor.

And this shit won't kill me.

I won't let these motherfuckers kill me. I won't let them hurt me so badly that they put me in the ground just because they think it's funny.

I won't give them that.

And I won't disclose anymore about my past or my trauma or anything else.

From this point moving forward, if you want to know what happened to me, you're going to have to read this journal. Go back yourself and see what happened.

Otherwise, don't ask.

I'm also not going to ask anybody anymore for what I need.

I'm going to find a way to achieve it myself.

Even if it won't be the same.

Even if I'll be alone.

I'll survive.

And I'll find a way to do it by myself, damn it.

I don't care what I have to build to make that happen. I don't care how long the fucking process takes.

I'm going to do it.

Like I always have.

Because I've always been alone.

I've always suffered.

This has been my whole fucking life.

I've always had users and abusers and everyone else come along and hurt me.

And sometimes I blame myself.

One reason is because I believe what these people say. I believe them before I wait to make sure they actually take action and do what they said they were going to do.

I believe their words.

And then I get hurt when their actions don't match them.

And on top of that, somehow I even end up giving away my information anyway. I try. I put myself out there. I try to be honest about what I need.

And if the world wasn't so fucked up, if things actually worked the way they were supposed to, you would look at my situation. You would look at what I'm asking for.

And I swear to God, if things were the way they were supposed to be, there would be people fucking lined up at my door like it's Christmas.

What I'm asking for is something most people can go to a fucking bar and ask a perfect stranger for and probably get what they want in five minutes.

But first, I can't do that because I'm a goddamn alcoholic.

Me walking into a bar is like handing me a fucking gun.

I'm not going to put myself in that situation.

And second, apparently nowadays there are so many fucking people who just want to hurt you because they can.

You can't trust anybody anymore.

So don't.

And that's the point of my chapter here.

Don't trust anybody anymore.

Don't ask for anything.

Lean on yourself.

Learn how to depend on yourself.

Learn how to survive without somebody else coming along to save you.

And accept that you're always going to be alone.

I'm sorry.

But that's the truth.

At least, that's the truth I've learned from my life.

Maybe people will tell me I'm wrong.

Maybe they'll tell me I'm too angry.

Maybe they'll tell me that I'm looking at the world through everything that's happened to me.

Maybe they're right.

But right now, this is where I am.

I'm fucking tired of being lied to.

I'm tired of being used.

I'm tired of being hurt.

I'm tired of being honest and feeling like honesty is what gets me punished.

I'm tired of reaching out and getting my hand slapped away.

So I'm done.

If I have to build my own fucking way forward, then that's what I'm going to do.

If I have to carry myself through this life, then I'll carry myself.

If I have to learn how to live with the loneliness, I'll learn.

If I have to learn how to survive the pain, I'll survive it.

Because I've done it before.

I've been doing it my entire fucking life.

And I'm still here.

That's the part nobody gets to take away from me.

I'm still fucking here.

And whatever happens next, I'm going to find a way to keep going.

Because that's what survivors do.

They keep fucking going.

People talk about life as though the simple fact that you are alive automatically makes life fucking great.

“Life is precious.”

“Be grateful you're alive.”

“Things will get better.”

And I'm not saying you shouldn't appreciate life.

There are wonderful things in life. There really are. Animals. Trees. The ocean. Music. A good meal. A fucking beautiful sunset. There is so much beauty in this world, and I'm not going to lie to you about that.

But there is also an enormous amount of suffering.

And the cards you're dealt are not the same cards everybody else gets.

The pain you experience is not necessarily the pain somebody else experiences. And somebody who has never lived inside your body has no fucking idea what it is like to wake up in it every day.

I've talked to people about chronic pain. I've asked people in their sixties and seventies, “Are you in pain every day? Do your joints hurt every day? Are you constantly dealing with pain?”

And some of them look at me and say no.

No.

They don't live like that.

I've been dealing with pain since I was ten years old.

Ten.

I spent years not knowing exactly what was wrong with me. Years of pain. Years of trying to figure out what the hell was happening inside my own body.

And as I got older, it got worse.

Painkillers didn't fix it. Tylenol didn't fix it. Aspirin didn't fix it. Whatever over-the-counter shit somebody wanted to recommend, it didn't matter.

Eventually you start questioning something that most people don't seem to question very often:

What is the quality of this life?

Because being alive and having a good quality of life are not the same thing.

Some people have a relatively easy life.

Some people have an extraordinarily difficult one.

And for the people who drew the shitty hand, what exactly are we supposed to pretend? That suffering doesn't matter because technically we're still breathing?

If someone is suffering every fucking day, don't just shove another pill down their throat and call it treatment.

Especially when that pill creates another problem.

Then you need another pill to treat the side effect of the first pill.

Then another medication creates another side effect.

Pretty soon you're not treating a person. You're managing a fucking chemical ecosystem.

And that's what I mean when I talk about quality of life.

I have survived fifteen suicide attempts in my life.

I have clinical depression. I have anxiety.

And until June of 2026, I was managing those things surprisingly well on my own, without medication.

That isn't because I believe medication is bad.

It isn't.

Medication helps people. Sometimes it saves lives.

But medication has also sent me to the hospital.

There have been medications that made me worse instead of better.

Have you ever actually listened to the warnings in those antidepressant commercials?

They tell you that some medications can increase suicidal thoughts or behaviors in certain people.

That's not some imaginary possibility.

So when you've already experienced medications making you worse, you become fucking cautious.

One medication that helped me for a long time was mirtazapine.

It helped me sleep.

And sleep mattered.

For a while, it worked.

Then something changed.

My joint pain became worse.

I was already dealing with chronic joint pain, and now the medication that was supposed to help me was making another part of my life harder.

Then I couldn't sleep.

Then I started drinking more.

And eventually I had to ask myself what the point of taking the medication was if the medication itself was making my overall quality of life worse.

When I stopped taking it, I felt better.

That doesn't mean I'm telling you not to take medication.

I'm not.

What I'm telling you is to pay attention.

Monitor what happens to you.

Write things down.

Know what you were taking, when you started taking it, what changed afterward, and what symptoms appeared.

And if something feels wrong, tell your doctor.

Don't just assume that feeling worse is something you have to tolerate because somebody prescribed the medication.

At the same time, you can't do everything alone.

I know that because I've tried.

Sometimes you need therapy.

Sometimes you need medication.

Sometimes you need both.

And sometimes you only need them for a period of time.

Treatment doesn't necessarily have to mean taking something forever.

Sometimes the things that help the most are sleep, meditation, grounding techniques, routine, finding things that genuinely make you happy, and building a life that actually fits your body and your mind instead of forcing yourself into somebody else's idea of what a functional life is supposed to look like.

Finding that balance is fucking hard.

But when you find it, you know.

I knew.

I was there.

Until June of 2026.

Then something happened.

I don't know exactly what happened.

And that sentence is important because I am writing this book while I still don't know.

I was processing a lot of trauma.

A lot of anger.

Anger over what I had lost.

Anger over what I had been denied.

Anger over what had been taken from me.

Anger over things that had been done to me.

And eventually, somehow, I let go of a lot of it.

I finally let go of the anger.

And strangely enough, when I let go of it, I got very sick.

My blood pressure suddenly went through the fucking roof.

I went to the hospital.

They couldn't explain it.

Eventually, I determined that an artificial sweetener I had been consuming might have been contributing to the problem, so I stopped consuming it.

My blood pressure returned to normal.

But my gastrointestinal symptoms didn't.

I couldn't eat normally.

Eventually, I was surviving on salt water, sugar water, and crackers.

For two weeks.

That's it.

Two fucking weeks.

Somehow, I survived.

And I was still working.

I was trying to function while barely eating.

Eventually, even keeping water down became difficult.

I started retching.

So I went to my primary-care provider and explained everything that was happening.

I was told it was the stomach flu.

But I did what I always do.

I researched it.

And the average stomach virus doesn't typically last for more than two weeks.

So I kept looking.

I considered another possibility: GERD.

I already had acid reflux.

I also drink alcohol, which made that possibility seem even more plausible.

So I added Prilosec to my medication regimen and increased my famotidine to three times a day.

Four days later, I started improving.

Two weeks later, I was almost back to normal.

I could eat again.

Within reason, anyway.

I still couldn't handle certain foods or spices, but I could fucking eat.

And here's the part that bothers me.

I still didn't have an answer.

I was suffering.

I was trying to figure out what was happening to my own body.

And I ended up trying to figure it out myself because the explanation I had been given didn't make sense to me.

Maybe I was right.

Maybe I was wrong.

That's the point.

I don't know.

As I write this book, I still don't know what is happening to me.

Maybe by the time you reach later chapters, I'll have answers.

Maybe I'll discover something that explains all of this.

Maybe I won't.

But this book is being written while I am still inside the fucking problem.

I'm not writing this from some comfortable place years later where everything has been resolved and I can tell you exactly what happened.

I'm writing it while I'm still trying to figure it out.

And that matters.

Because some people are dealt a really fucking bad hand.

Their cards are bad from the beginning.

And sometimes there doesn't seem to be any way to win the game.

You just keep playing.

You keep losing.

You keep suffering.

And everyone around you keeps telling you that eventually things will get better.

I think everybody wants to believe that.

I think we desperately want to believe that somebody in a uniform has the answers.

A doctor.

A nurse.

A paramedic.

A therapist.

Somebody.

We see the uniform and assume there is knowledge behind it that will somehow make everything make sense.

But they don't always have the answers.

Sometimes they can't run the test you need.

Sometimes the facility you're in doesn't have the equipment.

Sometimes you need a specialist.

Sometimes you need another specialist after that specialist.

Sometimes you need insurance.

Sometimes you need money.

Sometimes you need transportation.

Sometimes you need medication you can't afford.

Sometimes you need a treatment that isn't accessible to you.

And sometimes you have to choose between food and medication.

What the fuck are you supposed to do then?

That's the part people don't want to talk about.

Because it's much easier to tell somebody to take their medication than to ask whether they can afford it.

It's easier to tell somebody to see a specialist than to ask whether their insurance covers the specialist.

It's easier to tell somebody to get help than to ask whether the help actually exists.

And being single can make some of this even more difficult.

There are programs built around families.

There are programs built around children.

There are programs that seem to recognize that certain people have dependents who rely on them.

But what happens when you're just one person?

When you're alone?

When you don't have a child?

When there isn't another person whose needs automatically make your situation more visible to the system?

Sometimes it feels like you simply don't matter.

And I don't want children.

I don't want to pass my genetic problems onto another human being just because society thinks having a family makes a person's suffering more legitimate.

When I was born, I weighed ounces.

Not pounds.

Ounces.

I could fit in my mother's hand.

I wasn't a normal-looking baby.

I've seen the pictures.

Honestly, she probably should have never shown them to me.

It was fucking traumatizing.

Looking at a photograph of a living human being that small and fragile is difficult to process.

And when I look at that picture, part of me thinks that maybe it would have been better if someone had been allowed to make the decision to let me go.

Because that didn't look like life to me.

But I fought.

I fought like hell to live.

And I'm still fighting like hell to live.

Even while parts of my body seem determined to make living harder and harder.

That's the contradiction.

I have fought like hell to stay alive while simultaneously experiencing things that make being alive fucking miserable.

And that is where the phrase quality of life becomes important.

Because I don't want to die.

I want to live.

I want to live without constantly fighting my own body.

I want to sleep.

I want to eat.

I want to function.

I want to understand what is happening to me.

I want to be able to wake up without wondering what the fuck my nervous system is going to do today.

I want to have a life that feels like a life.

And I've seen enough in my lifetime to know how badly the medical system can fail people.

Especially mental-health care.

It can be ridiculous.

It can be sickening.

And sometimes it is completely unacceptable.

Somebody should do something about it.

I've always believed that if something is seriously wrong, somebody should fucking do something.

But I don't see enough people fighting for this.

I see behavioral-health hospitals giving patients peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches even when allergies are known.

Think about that for a second.

You're in a psychiatric hospital because you're suicidal.

You're vulnerable.

You're already in a situation where your ability to make decisions may be compromised.

And then basic safety procedures can still fail.

That is not some grand philosophical problem.

That's a fucking sandwich.

And yet somehow even the sandwich can become an example of how badly the system can fail.

Then there are the medications.

I went into the hospital with my medical history.

I have a medical card on my phone.

I tell people what I'm taking.

I tell them my history.

The good.

The bad.

The ugly.

My drinking.

Everything.

I try to be completely honest because I want them to have the information they need to treat me.

And then I watched them make decisions anyway.

During a recent hospitalization, I wasn't given my thyroid medication.

I kept asking why.

Nobody gave me a satisfactory answer.

Now I'm dealing with severe fatigue while trying to get those levels back where they need to be.

And then, after all of that, the hospital wants to call me for a fucking survey.

“How did we do?”

Really?

You want to know how you did?

Okay.

I'll tell you.

I'll tell you the good.

I'll tell you the bad.

I'll tell you the ugly.

I'll tell you exactly what happened.

And then I'm told, “I'll call you back. I have to take care of some other things.”

And they never called back.

Apparently the patient survey doesn't matter that much after all.

Apparently what I have to say doesn't matter that much either.

And then there's the question of safety.

This one really fucking bothers me.

I entered the hospital following a suicide attempt.

That should mean something.

If you are putting someone into a room under those circumstances, that room should be safe.

Not eventually safe.

Not safe after somebody gets around to it.

Safe.

The room prepared for me still had curtains.

There were cords.

There were things that hadn't been secured.

Nothing was properly tied down.

If you are treating somebody as an active suicide risk, then you have to think differently about the environment.

You have to think like you're protecting a baby.

Anything a baby could potentially get itself into needs to be considered.

Anything that can be tied around something needs to be considered.

Anything that can be used to hurt someone needs to be considered.

I had sitters.

They were supposed to be watching me.

Some of them fell asleep.

They snored.

I could hear them sleeping.

And I remember thinking:

If I wanted to do something right now, I absolutely could.

What the fuck were they going to do about it?

They were asleep.

That is not supervision.

And eventually somebody came in and started zip-tying things down.

Why?

Because I was leaving.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to ask what the fuck the point was.

You are securing the room now?

Now?

I'm being discharged.

I'm already cleared by psychiatry.

I'm already leaving.

The person doing it probably didn't know that.

He was just doing his job.

He didn't know how long I'd been in that room.

He didn't know that I had already been sitting there with unsecured cords and curtains.

He didn't know that the person who was supposed to watch me had been asleep.

So I didn't scream at him.

Because the problem wasn't necessarily that individual person.

The problem was the fucking system around him.

That's what I'm trying to explain.

This is not about one bad doctor.

One bad nurse.

One bad paramedic.

One bad hospital.

It's about what happens when enough little failures pile up around one vulnerable person until the entire system becomes unsafe.

And all of this brings me back to quality of life.

Because after everything I've experienced, I understand why someone might look at me and think I wanted to die.

I had attempted suicide.

I had been suffering.

I had been dealing with pain, depression, anxiety, physical symptoms, insomnia, financial problems, medical problems, and uncertainty.

But there is something I need people to understand.

I did not want to die.

I wanted help.

I wanted the suffering to stop.

There is a difference.

A fucking enormous difference.

I think we make the mistake of assuming that everyone who attempts suicide wants death itself.

Sometimes what they want is an end to a life that has become unbearable.

They want reassurance that somehow, some way, tomorrow can be different.

They want somebody to tell them that there is another way out of the pain.

They want the quality of their life to change.

And when somebody is standing on a bridge, or sitting alone in a hospital room, or staring at a bottle of pills, maybe the question shouldn't only be:

“How do we keep this person alive?”

Maybe we also need to ask:

“What are we keeping them alive for?”

Not because their life isn't valuable.

Because it fucking is.

But if you want someone to keep fighting for life, then you have to give them something worth fighting toward.

You have to help them live.

Not merely survive.

There is a difference between keeping a heart beating and giving someone a life they can actually tolerate living.

I fought incredibly hard to survive.

I'm still fighting.

And I don't want someone to look at that and say, “Well, at least you're alive.”

No.

I want more than that.

I want to fucking live.

I want answers.

I want treatment that works.

I want access to that treatment.

I want doctors to listen.

I want hospitals to be safe.

I want mental-health patients to be treated like human beings instead of problems to be contained.

I want people with addictions to be treated as human beings instead of labels.

I want people without families, without money, without insurance, without somebody standing beside them, to matter just as much as everyone else.

And most of all, I want the medical system to stop confusing survival with quality of life.

Because I have survived.

Fifteen times, I have survived.

But surviving isn't the same thing as living.

And if we are going to tell people that their lives matter, then we have an obligation to make sure they have some fucking chance to experience why.

Dear Journal,

Apparently, I have been summoned.

Not to a normal appointment. Not to a routine checkup. No, my nervous system apparently decided to issue me a formal invitation to the hospital tournament, Mortal Kombat style.

FIGHT!

I was chosen for this bullshit.

Today I went to the hospital because my nervous system apparently decided that normal behavior was overrated.

I was having seizure-like episodes, shaking, losing control of my body, and generally looking like someone had unplugged my operating system and plugged it back in incorrectly.

Naturally, the hospital wanted to determine whether I was having epileptic seizures or PNES.

Which sounds reasonable.

What was less reasonable was apparently deciding that my established medication regimen needed a surprise makeover.

Because obviously the medications I've been taking successfully for years are the problem.

Never mind that I came with a medication card.

Never mind that I had actual blood pressure numbers.

Never mind that I could explain exactly what I take, when I take it, and what normally happens when I don't take it.

Apparently my body needed to experience some new medications instead.

Because nothing says patient safety quite like changing several variables while simultaneously trying to determine why the patient is having a medical crisis.

Friday night, after another episode, I was told I was being given Ativan.

Approximately 45–60 minutes later, my tongue decided to become approximately 300% larger than it had any business being.

Suddenly I couldn't put my tongue in my mouth.

Then I couldn't talk.

Then breathing and swallowing became difficult.

And apparently the hospital's Friday night entertainment schedule became:

ICU SPEEDRUN ANY%.

EpiPen.

Benadryl.

Steroids.

Blood products.

Oxygen.

Breathing treatments.

More monitoring.

More tests.

More confusion.

At some point my lungs apparently decided they would also like to participate in the festivities, because after all the breathing treatments I was later told I had developed fluid in my lungs.

Excellent.

Just what we needed.

So then we added Lasix to the party.

Because apparently my hospitalization had a subscription plan.

Meanwhile, my blood pressure was doing its best impression of a roller coaster.

At home: “Hey, everything seems reasonably controlled.”

At the hospital:

180/100.

My heart:

110 BPM.

Me:

“Could we perhaps try the medication that has been working for me for years?”

Hospital:

“No.”

My cardiovascular system:

“Interesting choice.”

Then I went home.

Took my regular medication.

And suddenly:

133/79.

My body:

“Oh thank God. Someone finally put the original software back.”

😂

But apparently the hospital wasn't finished leaving me with souvenirs.

Because after all of this, I developed weird white sores under my tongue and another painful lesion on the side of my tongue.

I did not arrive with these.

The hospital didn't know what they were.

They didn't know why they appeared.

They didn't know what caused them.

But eventually the answer was apparently:

“Here is some numbing spray. Good luck.”

The numbing spray works wonderfully.

For approximately twelve seconds.

Then I drink water.

Congratulations! Your pain has returned.

So now I'm eating cold or room-temperature food because apparently hot food is my enemy.

Today August 25th 2026.
I made potato soup.

I am waiting for it to cool down because apparently I am now a Victorian tuberculosis patient who must consume everything at precisely the temperature of a lukewarm bath.

And speaking of pain management...

Yes, alcohol has been helping.

No, this is not a good solution.

Yes, I know that.

No, I don't particularly care right now because apparently my tongue has declared war on me and I would like five minutes of peace.

So here we are.

I'm going to get my medical administration record.

I'm going to get my hospital records.

I'm going to take everything to my doctor.

I'm going to document what happened.

I'm going to figure out what actually happened.

Because at this point I don't even need anyone to tell me that I'm right.

I just want answers.

Maybe Ativan caused the reaction.

Maybe something else did.

Maybe it was an interaction.

Maybe something completely unrelated happened.

Maybe the hospital knows something.

Maybe they don't.

I don't know.

And that's the most infuriating part.

But one thing I do know:

I went into the hospital with one problem and somehow unlocked six additional side quests.

My current medical treatment plan appears to be:

1. Don't panic.
2. Document everything.
3. Eat potato soup.
4. Keep the soup below volcanic temperature.
5. Try not to lose my mind.
6. Find out what the hell happened.
7. Apparently continue existing out of pure spite.

Honestly, I'm starting to think the hospital owes me a punch card.

Five admissions and your sixth mystery illness is free!

Anyway, dear journal...

I'm still here.

Still pissed.

Still confused.

Still hurting.

But still here.

And apparently that's going to have to be good enough for tonight.

August 20, 2026 to August 24, 2026 0/10. Would not recommend.

It's weird growing up in America because I feel like, fundamentally, we don't have a culture of our own. We have ideas of culture, particularly surrounding food, that for better or worse seem to define us around the world. But I don't think we have anything that really defines us as a people, because us as a people is basically the whole world in one country.

We have so many cultures in one place that we ourselves can't really be defined. We're this huge amalgamation of everything, including the food.

So I never really understood Black culture. And I say that having grown up with Black friends, understanding that we're not all the same, and recognizing that there are genuine differences between people. For example, Black people can have different hair textures that require different care, and cultural differences can influence food and other aspects of life. As I grew older, I also learned that Black individuals can be more prone to certain medical conditions. To act like we're not different at all is simply ignoring reality.

At the same time, I like something Morgan Freeman has often said, although I'm probably paraphrasing: if you want to stop racism, stop referring to me as a Black man and stop referring to yourself as white. Stop talking about it.

So why am I mentioning culture and racism? Because in so many ways, I think the two are connected. When you don't have a clear identity, it puts you in a very interesting place.

For me, I don't see a lot of differences between people. I believe everybody is a little racist and everybody is a little hypocritical, and I say that simply because we're human. We have flaws, and we live in a culture that continues to breed prejudice through the media, our surroundings, and sometimes even our own families. To say that we're never going to have some form of prejudice or discrimination is absurd. Of course we will.

But intention means everything.

Most of the time, people aren't consciously aware that they're doing these things. For myself, I try to be conscious of other people and their differences. I try to celebrate those differences rather than judge someone because of the color of their skin, their background, or anything else.

For example, as an atheist, I sometimes have a hard time with somebody who is, for lack of a better phrase, zealous in their religion. But that's their right, and everybody deserves to have their rights respected. I support that wholeheartedly. I don't have the right to treat you differently simply because I don't agree with you. I don't even have to like you, your culture, or anything represented by you, but I have a responsibility to treat you with the same respect I would give anyone else—and the same respect I would expect to receive myself.

To me, that's what America represents.

But we're struggling extremely hard to preserve it.

And I think that is a culture problem because we're not pushing what we should be representing: freedom, respect, equality, and tolerance. We say those things. We salute the flag. But we're not representing them as a people or as a culture. Our media isn't representing them consistently either.

Then we wonder why there are injustices.

Like, really?

You didn't crack the egg, but you decided to drop it, and then you expected it not to break.

For myself, growing up, a lot of my friends would ask me, "What are you? Can I ask you a question? You're mixed, right?"

That's just how kids talked.

Basically, you couldn't tell whether I was a white kid with black hair or a Black kid who just happened to be lighter-skinned. You simply couldn't tell what ethnicity or race I was.

I've never done an ancestry test, but my mother told me that I was Dutch, German, Irish, Cherokee, and Puerto Rican.

Which basically means I'm a mutt.

So it was hard for me to find any particular culture among those backgrounds to connect with. I was left with this idea of, What am I supposed to do? Where do I fit?

Additionally, we didn't really have many traditions growing up. Other than Christmas Eve, when I was allowed to open one present, there wasn't much.

And then there was growing up in the Bible Belt, of course, where I was surrounded by the Ten Commandments while everybody seemed to break every single one. But that's beside the point. It was part of the Christian tradition, I guess.

For me, it was weird because my parents never went to church. I was basically self-taught for a while. I don't remember going to church until I was in my twenties, and that was by my own choice.

I mention that because religion, food, traditions, fashion, and many other things are part of a culture. They help define how that culture is viewed.

If you've ever seen somebody from Guatemala wearing traditional garments, you'll see something uniquely different—very colorful and unlike anything you've seen before. The same goes for Native Americans and anyone who chooses to present themselves through their traditional dress.

But I don't have a traditional food. I don't have traditional dress. I don't have much of anything that clearly defines who I am culturally.

That's one of the reasons I felt so alienated growing up. I was part of human society and part of this world, but at the same time, I felt like I was standing outside of it, observing it like an alien—analyzing it and trying to figure out where I could fit.

It's something I've been thinking about today because it's something we encounter on the internet all the time. People go on tantrums about racism in America and sometimes act as though they personally experienced slavery, as if they have a firsthand account of what it was like.

And the reason I'm saying this is because I think it's a significant part of the problem in our country: people don't understand that this was not part of their generation. In many cases, it was several generations ago.

You don't have a right to claim that you personally suffered through something you didn't experience, nor should you take entitlement from that history and say you deserve to be treated differently because you somehow endured it.

You didn't.

In fact, many people bled, sweated, and died so that future generations wouldn't have to endure those same things. You don't have to.

What's frustrating is when people act as though they're directly affected by events they never experienced. History belongs to all of us, but we weren't there.

Am I saying history should be forgotten or not talked about?

Of course not.

If we don't remember history, we're doomed to repeat it again. But we don't need to act as though we were personally there when it happened, because we weren't. We can never truly know what it felt like to live in that time and deal with what those people had to endure.

And let's not forget that throughout history, not just in American culture but around the world, almost every race and civilization has experienced some form of enslavement or oppression. We don't need to pretend that slavery or discrimination belongs to any one culture or country.

It's part of humanity's selfishness and cruelty.

Unfortunately, that's what it is.

It's the same reason there have been wars everywhere. It's the same reason discrimination still exists today. People aren't just afraid of what's different; they're often afraid of what they don't understand. Sometimes they're even afraid of discovering that the person they consider different might actually have more in common with them than they realized.

So it's easier to say, "You're not like the rest of us, so we're going to treat you differently."

Remember the X-Men movies?

I think they were a great way of discussing this. Go back and watch the first three films, specifically. I think they provide a great metaphor for what it can feel like to be part of a culture and then suddenly be told that you're too different.

"You're different. You need to be more like us. Here's a cure."

And maybe that's the heart of the problem.

We're so obsessed with defining people by their differences that we sometimes forget that being different is already part of what makes us human.