UNITED STATES—Anyone who personally knows me is probably pooping Twinkies right about now, thinking this is about suicide. In fact, I am using the phrase “KILLING MYSELF” as a double entendre.
I’ve been thinking of doing something and for me, making a ‘public declaration’ is MY WAY of holding myself to whatever behavior or goal it is about. I said it so I better stick to it. The funny thing is that this writing here, it has to do with both a behavior and a goal:
- I am killing my alter ego, or what I rationalize as my PSEUDONYM: Nunya. A former goal of wanting to be a famous crazy writer like Rod Serling.
- I am done with the suicidal ideation. Thinking life would be “easier” for me and those around me if I were gone.
Nunya was pretty awesome, really.
Maybe she was the same to me as an imaginary friend is to others… Giving me the confidence in all kinds of ways. When men were inappropriate I no longer looked down and blushed, frightened and trying to find an exit. When Judy learned that the subservience fueled these people, Nunya took care of it. I held my head up and put my “man voice” on, looking them in the eye as I called them on their behavior.
Of course the unintentional side effect to NUNYA is that I’m definitely considered a man-hating big mouth who never thinks she is wrong.
BUT I WOULDN’T CHANGE IT FOR THE WORLD.
If I had to go back to life before that nickname and pseudonym was created, I WOULD NOT.
The fiction I published, in it’s raw idiot form, was based on 3 very real things: life-changers I survived through, PTSD fears (aka intrusive imagery), and odd mostly apocalyptic nightmares.
IN FACT if you are cursed with nightmares and your MED dosage keeps getting higher but it isn’t helping: I can tell you what to do. With the power of your incredible HUMAN MIND, it could WORK!
You take those fears, nightmares, or trauma, and write them so that you are the VICTOR. Change up the name, time period, genders, as much as you can. Write it down every time a fear pops in your head. Make your main character LOSE if you want, a theme in my own ‘No Happy Endings‘.
Get up and write it down when you wake up, every single night. Make your mind up to publish it, if only for yourself in a book. I REFUSE to believe it worked only for me, even if I think I’m “special.”
I BELIEVE the act of OWNING those scary things, to the point where I was WAITING for more nightmares to finish up the collection of short stories, could be why they went away. No more sleeping medicine.
SO, since I’m now writing about the non-fiction sides of life: it’s with an ODD sadness and happiness that I retire my MENTAL BEST FRIEND: Nunya. She helped me conceptualize a world OPPOSITE than fantasy – an OUGHT BE where children are not used up and ruined before turning legal age to flee.
Perhaps the psychologically trained can rationalize that this change from victimology-minded to purpose-driven HAD TO HAPPEN before my suicidal ideation would go away for good.
Wanting to be gone and dead was a raging battle that I almost lost a couple of times between ages 13-40. For the last couple years it faded, perhaps driven by the need to spit out all the real. Maybe the plethora of undergraduate psychology classes I aced could’ve led to a fundamental change in my mindset, mentioned above.
Or, perhaps, it is just as primitive as when we are on the road to “THE END” we realize how stupid we were to want it prematurely. How much we love our loved ones, would miss them and want to cherish what is left.
Whatever the reason, I DO still believe we should have national death with dignity laws and that the mentally ill should be given the opportunity to utilize them, but only after a process.
Thank you Canyon News, for letting me Speak Easy.
