August 19, 2009
The Little Men

When we last left our hero had mentioned something about four little men living in his head. What about these men and what are they doing inside his head. I will attempt to clarify.

There is a lot of chatter that goes on in my head. It ranges from musings on the world in general, to rage against creation or myself. Random thoughts that ping from subject to subject at the speed of thought. My head is like a school cafeteria. It rings with voices but it is very difficult to focus on one conversation for any length of time.

And it seems that all of this is controlled by four different and distinct entities. Four little men that battle for dominion over my personality. It’s not as crazy as it sounds. Well maybe it is as crazy as it sounds. Do I believe that these little men exist, that there are real flesh and bone beings living in my head. Yes and No. No they aren’t real.. If you sliced my head open you would find the usual stuff inside. But, they do affect my actions and emotions in a very real way. I know who is in charge at any one time.

It is still a mystery as to why I came up with this system to deal with my personality shifts. I can’t even tell you when it first manifested itself. There was not one crystalline moment when, Poof, the all appeared. It was more in the way of making sense of the thoughts in my head. If there was a physical manifestation of my behavior, someone who was in control, than I might figure out a way to control him. If the angry man was in charge than this is how I should handle him, and so with each in their turn. Sounds loopy when you put it down in black and white but it makes perfect sense if you are me. But your not, so you’ll have to trust me.

In order to understand a little more, I will introduce each little man. The one that is nominally in charge is the Normal One. He is the face of reality. The public face that holds the others in check while dealing with the everyday world around. We all have that aspect of our personalities. The Public Face. What we want people to see not the one that is pathetic, manic or scary.

There is the Pathetic One. This is the little man that takes control when I am in the depths of depression. When I am so depressed that I feel nothing. When I’m so dead in side that all emotions have disappeared, it is this one who is in control. It is he that wields the knife, who checks to see if I, indeed, bleed.

What is the importance of bleeding. When you bleed, when the blood actually runs down your arm, it is proof of life. If there is a working heart than the blood flows. Dead or mechanical devices do not bleed. The pain is dulled when this man is in charge but there is pain. The dead don’t feel pain. Any felling, not matter how destructive it is, is good. The alternative is worse than any physical pain. Something is better than nothing.

Of all the little men, I hate this one the most. I am a pathetic worthless piece of shit and a total waist of skin when he is at the controls. I can’t muster the energy to fight back and so begins a feed back loop that drives me deeper into hopelessness. I have spent months like this. I have lost jobs, lost friends, and lost experiences when in this state. Death is preferable. And death is the prevailing thought at these times.

So why not choose death? Many reasons actually. The foremost of which is that my family would be the one that would have to live with the consequences. Suicide is a selfish act that does more to hurt the living than the suicide. The living are the ones made to suffer for the suicide’s cowardice. I do believe that. I have had friends who have had people commit suicide in their families. They are left to wonder what they did wrong. How come they did not see the signs? What could they do different? I love my family more than I hate myself. Until that changes than suicide is not an option. If cutting is the only alternative than I’ll buy a sharp knife.

At other times the Happy One is at the helm. He is a joy to behold. The life of the party. Everyone’s friend. This is the one to have around when your ready for a good time. Sounds good to me, but wait there are costs to having Mr. Happy in command, cost being the optimal word. There are no breaks when Mr. Happy is driving. If it sounds good it must be good. There is no self control at these times. Don’t have the money, charge it. Not getting to your destination fast enough, push the car to 100 plus miles an hour. Got to work tomorrow but having to much fun, call in sick. Live for today for there is no tomorrow. The only trouble with that thought is that, so far, tomorrow always comes, and with it comes the hangover, the bills, the tickets, the questions. Why the fuck did I do that? What the fuck am I going to do with this? Who the fuck are you? Later comes the regrets. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Right? Wrong! When it comes to doing stupid things the opposite reaction is exponentially worse than the original action. The fun is fleeting the consequences linger.

Now on to the scary one. This is the one that I have no control over. When the rage comes it comes fast and usually when I’m in a manic state of mind. Happy one instant and raging the next. I doesn’t take much. A look, a word, an action and it’s off to the races.

It seems that the only way to control Mr. Pissed Off is to drug him. I take a lot of drugs to keep everyone settled down. They tend to work to well at times. Imagine, if you will, a large thumb and forefinger and you are standing in the middle, you can neither go up or go down. Your just there. Creativity dries up and it is so easy to slip into apathy. It’s a Catch-22, take the drugs to control the mania/depression and be “Blah” or don’t take the drugs and be manic or depressed but creative and screwed up. Dandy choices.

So those are the men who live up there. I have learned to live with them as they jostle for control. It makes for a crowed head but never dull. Always something going on. Next time I will write something completely irrelevant.