start heavy whiny drama blah blah: ok, not a normal topic of discussion for me, most people that know me probably think I'm an atheist, and in fact i used to be... I bring this up, because when I'm feeling really really depressed (as you might have noticed), I have to remind myself that this is not rock bottom...I've seen rock bottom, and while it might be close, I'm not there yet... two things have happened to me in my life that I can't explain...the first is minor compared to the second, and thats when I was forced to re-evaluate my beliefs... 6 years ago I was homeless, I had almost no friends (or at least almost no friends in town), the company I was working for evaporated (as did lots of companies 6 years ago)...I had dropped out of school, for reasons that were not entirely under my control, I stayed out largly for reasons I could have controlled, but I felt very lost with my life... This went on for months, I got worse and worse, I found myself crashing on couches, with people I barely knew, anything to avoid sleeping at my fathers house (if you know me very well you will know why thats a bad option, if you don't, then use your imagination)...I had become, in almost all the ways that I defined it for myself, a failure... so one night, the worst ever, 4Am, im sitting in my fathers living room, doing the depressed thing, being suicidal...I had been suicidal before, but this time i had all the really bad warning signs...i had a plan on how to do it, i was going to slit my wrists (minus 1d6 to my save against suicide)...I had the tools ready in hand to pull it off (minus another 1d6 to the saving throw)... something that you don't hear about suicidal people often is that they rarely actually want to die...I didn't want to die, but it seemed like the only way to stop the pain, a better option than living if you will...I sat there preying to a god I didn't believe in to give me a reason, any reason not to do it...I pressed the blade to my wrist, I started to cut, and at 4AM the phone rings...its for me, at my fathers house of all places, a friend of mine that I've known all my life is on the other end and out of the blue he wants to know whats up and can he swing by to pick me up to just hang out...at that point this was reason enough to postpone my demise, if only for a little while...I later asked him why he called me, out of the blue, at 4am in the middle of the week, and how he knew i was at my fathers house...he said he really didn't know, but at that moment he felt that he had to call me...for me, that was miracle one... we hung out for several hours, but as the sun started to come up, he went to sleep and i started to walk home...the depression kicked back in, and i decided to finish the job when i got back to my fathers place...i once again picked up the blade and this time, as i grabbed the blade a storm came in faster than I've ever seen before and in a flash flood i was up to my knees in moving water...right there, in the living room, and as it happened a voice spoke to me inside my head telling me "no, not now, you don't have the right"...I was useful and needed again for several more hours as i tried to minimize the damage...when the dust settled i felt a little better, enough to bring me off that ledge, the next day a little better, until one day i felt good again...miracle two... I know all this could be explained away, but it was more than a voice in my head, it was like being washed away with a warm feeling that i was loved and that i would be ok...that too could be explained, and doesn't prove anything...but thats the nature of faith, proof is not relevant, all that is relevant is that I felt the presence of something greater, and thats enough for me to believe... anyways, why write about this now...to remind myself, that I've been to rock bottom, and I came back from that... :end heavy whiny drama blah blah |