Breathe and Step Back

So, I'm in ninth grade at Ridgeview Junior High School on a sunny weekday afternoon in the Napa Valley. I'm standing on top of the school's gym roof, gathering up all the tennis balls that landed up there during school.

Oh... and I'm thinking of taking a step off and killing myself.

It was a year that included not only my father dying of cancer in our home...I was also the victim of sexual abuse by a priest who was a close friend of the family.


And for one moment... maybe ten seconds at best... my brain just sort of went blank. It was like when you're using Facebook chat and it doesn't post what you've written, it just says "sending" over and over.

That was my brain for ten seconds.


And during those ten seconds, I thought about how great it would be to just let everything go black. I wouldn't have to see anything, hear anything or feel anything for a nice long time.

I didn't do it, of course.

But I remember saying to myself, "it can't get any worse than this." And saying that made me actually stop. I sort of realized that I didn't, in fact, know if it could get worse. The only way I could really know if it could get any worse... was to actually stick around and find out.

I climbed down the rooftop and dropped the tennis balls off and headed home. It wasn't one of those "Full House" moments, where the crowd goes "awwwww" and the screen fades to black as I make my way home. It was an intense moment.

I quit the job that day. I didn't feel like tempting fate again and I think it's why heights still freak me out a bit. I know what it's like to actually stand there and be hypnotized by the option. And it was also the first time in my life I'd made a decision to save myself.

And I made another decision to save myself. I took all those feelings associated with these two events... anger, pain, fear, sadness, guilt, etc.... and I buried them. I shoved them deep inside me and I stood up on the garbage heap to press it down enough to put a lid on it.

And I went about my life at school by being a class clown. I got into theatre because it gave me the chance to let out some of those feelings onstage. It was incredible. Making people laugh took my mind off what I'd gone through earlier.

Then mom got sick. Senior year of high school.

And it felt like I couldn't stuff any more of that crap down and still keep a lid on it. There's just no way. If she goes, we're all going to be screwed. I would go days where my sister had to change my mother's dressing. Alone.

My sister was a teenager. I know kids who are 19 who feel they're mature. They say they're adults and, yeah, maybe they are. But when you consider what my sister had to go through at that age, you cannot say that it's something every 19-year old is ready to go through.

It was my senior year when I lost mom.

At spent her entire funeral looking for space to shove those emotions down and still get a lid on it. And I did.

Most of the kids I went to school with had no idea what I was going through. I was just the funny guy who be at all the dances. I was also the artist of my school. The cartoonist.

But I was a guy who was literally hanging by a thread, emotionally. I really don't know how I made it this far without ending up a heroin addict or an alcoholic or dead. I really don't.

I was able to sort of hold it together until last year. I took a fall down our staircase and I somehow developed a tremor in my drawing hand. I couldn't hold a pencil or brush without getting a line that looks like Charles Schulz's later work.

It was devastating. I couldn't draw my characters the way I saw them in my mind and it resulted in me trashing my studio on a repeated basis. I was an emotional wreck.

And that's when the lid finally blew.

It was like being dropped into a tornado. I had the stress and emotions of not being able to draw swirling around dad's death, mom's death and the sexual abuse. I went through the rest of the year sinking into a pretty dark place. I just don't have the words really to describe it.

So, in January of 2009, at two in the morning, I told my wife I needed help. I was tired of burying emotions and I just didn't want to be that kid on the gym roof again.

She just held me and said "okay."

I started therapy a week later. I was terrified at first and I basically felt like a cat knowing it was on its way to the vet. There's an unstoppable feeling of guilt and fear of being judged when you start therapy. And I had it huge.

But at the same time, I didn't want to fuck around with that hour I get with my shrink... Dr. Pando. The name alone is worth the hour. I decided that I was going to pick up a shovel and start dumping my emotions until time was up.

Sometimes the sessions kill me. Sometimes I discuss shit that nobody, not even Lily knows nothing about. It's like putting on the spelunking gear and lowering yourself into darkness. But eventually the darkness becomes a pretty familiar place and you spend less time on that and more time on exploration.

It's now September and I'm going to be 47 on the 25th. And for the first time in my life, I feel... good. For the simple reason being I've learned to let go of so much of that shit. Carrying those emotions can make you feel like you've entered one of those Strongest Man competitions. Letting go of that weight... no matter how small the amount... is sooooooo nice.

I've forgiven my assaulter. And because I have, he has no control over me anymore. I also forgave my mother and father for leaving me. And I've also learned that it wasn't my fault. It wasn't because I was a bad person.

You cannot understand the relief that realization can bring to a person.

The reason I'm telling you all this shit about me is this.

If you're standing on a gym roof... wondering what a relief it'd be to just take a step off to a very long nap.... just don't. I suggest you put it off and just talk to someone and get it out. Doesn't matter who it is... just get it out.

I know what it can be like and I'm just saying that life can truly suck the devil's cock one day and it doesn't mean it'll always be that way. The sun eventually shines if you can just hang in there and really get it out.

If it's a therapist, don't pay for the time and not squeeze every second out of it. You'll be amazed at the headway you'll make. When I'm in that room, he's a professional listener and when I want his thoughts, I ask for them. He's my bitch for that hour.

The odd thing is, the more I got out of my system, the fewer the shakes in my drawing hand got. I've wondered if my condition was from my emotional garbage bursting the dam.

Yesterday, we spoke about how this year has been for me. I told him that sometimes I feel like I've climbed mountains and sometimes I feel like all I can see in the distance is more mountains. He went on to tell me about how he's seen me make huge progress.

I went to Starbucks this afternoon with my sketchbook and began sketching pages for my "True Story, Swear to God" series. I had my small mocha and cup of ice water and started laying down the blue pencil of my characters.

The lines were smooth and my characters looked like themselves again and I had to stop a second and sort of gather myself. It's weird to feel a wave of goodness like that. I actually laughed out loud as I saw what I drew.

Eight months of therapy has me embracing something I'd thought was going to be gone forever. More than anything else.. my cartooning represents me most. It's how I express myself and now they look like how I see them in my head.

I feel, for the first time in my life, that I'm living life without worrying about what I have to keep bottled-up. And it's like discovering wings. It really does.

I'm so glad I never took a step off that roof.