Welcome to Throwback Thursday where I look at an old post and compare how I was mentally doing then to how I’m doing mentally now.  The goal is always to be doing better now.

Please read the following piece written January 27, 2013, entitled “Female Fortunato.” I assume this name was taken from Edgar Alan Poe’s short story entitled The Cask of Amontillado regarding the infamous character named Fortunato.

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I realize now how foolish I was.
I thought I would never be back here.
But there is no mistaking that I have come home for the final time.

What a wretched place this is!
It feels so primitive, so endemic,
that my mind must have been born into this deathless sunset.

Though a citizen of dejection, I was neverless than agonized in my nation.
I redundantly tried to disappear,
to escape with every piece of artificial joy I could steal,
But I was always captured by shadows smarter than myself,
And a frantic despair more purposeful than my own.

I thought I had triumphantly escaped this last time
but realized I never went anywhere at all
when I felt my dark, listless heart still moaning with each beat,
and the helpless cries of my struggling hopes
choking, choking, choking on death, death, death.

What a fool that lives beneath this skin!
I persistently close my eyes to pretend I am somewhere,
anywhere other than home,
but my eyes are demanded open by the shadows that
Still teach me the message of worthlessness,
Still thieve the last suggestion of light,
Still sing to me the lullaby of a concluding sleep
I hoped I would never crave again.

I am not made of stone.
Fade to black . . . I’m sick of trying.

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When I Wrote This Piece

Let’s start with the title.  Taken from Poe’s short story, Fortunato is a character that eventually meets his demise through his own arrogance, obnoxiousness, and greed.  Why I called myself “Female Fortunato,” I can only guess, is because I wanted to meet with the same fate as Fortunato.

This piece of prose is more about me feeling like I wanted to end it all, not necessarily by suicide, but for the pain just to be over.  The pain and agony I felt seemed so natural and organic, I felt I was born into the pain.

I remark  that there was a time I thought I’d gone through the worst of my misery, but I was mistaken, and as the second to the final stanza says, the shadows still teach me I’m worthless, still take any light I hoped was left, and still sang to me my final, concluding song.

The last two lines really sum the writing: I wasn’t made of stone.  I hurt too much.  I was sick of trying.

Compared to Today

I recognize the person who wrote this, but I am not living in the space where I want to die.  One could argue I have positive things going for me that I did not have at the time.

I do still feel like I was born into this pain and suffering, as if it’s my birthright, and I will always be trying to escape it.  But when the writing refers to “shadows smarter than myself,”  it is referring to my head mates, my dissociation, my alters/parts, that would look for ways to hurt me.

While I don’t think my head mates and I are one happy party, there is ever so slightly less fighting and the slightest trace of compassion.

All in all, I would say I’ve gotten better than I was at the beginning of January 2013.  Still have a ways to go, but at least for this second in time, there’s more to me than death and hurting.