Apparently I shouldn’t call myself a lazy, unemployed layabout. Seems I’m not crazy and they’re not ‘crazy pills’. Supposedly it’s not a weakness injury. I’m told I didn’t ruin everything. Anxiety doesn’t make me a loser after all. Perhaps I’m not a disappointment to everyone. Maybe satirizing my alcoholism isn’t helping. It has been suggested that having feelings doesn’t mean I am a failure. The implication is that I’m not broken and useless. I am to believe that I am not a shitty paramedic or a shitty person. My self-deprecation is not an asset to my situation even if I find it humerous.

Why do I mock myself? I make jokes to try to reduce the sting of shame and humiliation over my mental health. It feels like I don’t even know myself. I wasn’t being cavalier, it wasn’t machismo. I didn’t think putting on a uniform made me immune, I ultimately thought growing up knowing death did. People dying is just a fact of life so get high and enjoy still having yours. I have once again learned the hard way; I’m actually supposed to have feelings and seeing death factually is problematic for that.

It is a fine fall day and a cool breeze is lazily blowing through the trees attempting to hide the nuisance noises of humans. Like sirens. Seems once you realize getting better is about moving forward and not going back it all gets to be a little bit easier to take. I can’t ‘go back’ when sirens make me intensely picture, say, mangled people in mangled cars, but I can move forward in terms of how I cope with that happening. PTSD. Because of course it was my brain instead of my back or knee. There’s that “humour” again…