I’ve been through a lot of crap in my life. More than some, far less than others; I am still alive. The crap started when I was an infant and died of meningitis. It has continued on through today.

I can’t remember the last time I saw a doctor. I have to somehow pay $1200 “bail” for that traffic ticket. I don’t have $12. Literally, I do not have $12. My bank account balance is currently negative. I need new brakes on my car. My dog needs to go to the vet. There is no human food in my house. I have no health insurance, no savings, no retirement plan. I own nothing of value. My job is insecure. My whole life is insecure. I am leaping from paycheck to paycheck and barely making it. Just barely. Sometimes, I don’t make it and have to borrow money from friends. I already owe a friend $500 that I can’t afford to pay back and I’ll probably have to borrow another thousand for “bail.”

Male is gone and I am alone. I don’t know if we’ll ever be together again. I used to live with one of my best friends. I moved away from his house and so did he. I haven’t seen him since he moved. I haven’t seen my best friend in weeks. I hardly ever go out because I can’t afford it. I hardly ever go out because I’m not much fun to be around these days.

It’s very easy to let this get to me. It’s incredibly easy to go down the old familiar rabbit hole of despair and wallow in self-pity. It’s so simple to just not get up again. It’s so much easier not to fight. I drive home from work and a little voice in the back of my subconscious says that it would be so effortless to just let go of the wheel on the freeway interchange where I have to bear hard right. If I let go, I would hit the cement barrier and go careening into nothing. Do you know the subconscious thought that stops that other subconscious thought? It’s not a will to live. It’s that, knowing my luck, I wouldn’t die. I would end up in a hospital with thousands of dollars of medical bills instead, making it that much worse.

This is not right. I should not be thinking these things. I don’t want to think these things. Really, I don’t. They are there all the same. Even with the anti-crazy medication I’m on, they are still there.

My entire life has been a struggle. I’ve been bullied. I have been tied up, gagged, sexually molested and left in a closet. I’ve been forced into sex before I even knew what it was. I have been strangled and punched and kicked when I was already down. I’ve had teeth knocked out with fists. I’ve been hit so hard that I thought I’d never get back up. I’ve been bruised and swollen and scarred. I have bled. I have been aimless and homeless. I have broken fingernails, scratching and clawing, trying to survive. I have lost my memories. I have been in the grip of a serious drug addiction. I have been raped. I’ve had things forced down my throat and inside of me. I have been violated. I have been threatened and cursed at. I have been demeaned and belittled. I’ve had a gun pointed at my head. I’ve been stepped on with no one to help me up. I’ve been powerless to do anything. I’ve been on the verge of death so, so many times. I have been lied to so, so many times. I have been betrayed by most of the people I let get close enough. I have major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. I have panic attacks and a persistent voice in my head telling me to stop it all. I have no professional help.

If you told me when I was seven years old that this is where I would be today, I wouldn’t be here. I would have ended it a long time ago. Fortunately, we don’t know the future, so I have continued to struggle. I have continued to try. I have continued to wade in the muck down at the bottom looking for sanctuary. I’ve found none.

I keep thinking that it will get better. I keep telling myself that tomorrow will be better. I keep lying to myself, saying that it will get easier. It has to, right? Because it can’t really get much worse.

It can always get worse. You can always slide even further down. When you think you’ve hit bottom, the bottom just sinks again. It has never gotten any easier. It has never gotten any better. It is still a goddamn struggle. I am still not any better off than I was then. I have nothing to fall back on. I have nothing.

That is not my voice. That is the “woe is me” voice making a move in the never ending game we play for life and death stakes. Its entire purpose is to win this game. If it wins, we both cease to exist. It is the voice in my head that wants me to give up. It is the evil lurking inside of me, whispering in my ear. Sometimes, I listen to it. It is really quite easy to listen to it, to believe it, to let it convince me that I have, that I am, nothing. It is so easy to just give in to it, to give up, but I won’t.

Now, I can recognize the woe is me game. I see it for what it is. It wants to be seen as this:

I won’t let it. I see it as a stuffed donkey named Eeyore. I call it Eeyore and that just pisses it off. I see it as this:

I have emasculated it. I have cut off its tiny furry balls and keep them in a jar around my neck. It is very unhappy about it. It tried even harder, yelling louder. I blocked it. It tried a less direct approach. Instead of confronting me, it went around to the back door and quietly whispered in my ear. It tells me how easy it would be to just let go. Just let go.

I can’t help but listen to it sometimes. It is insidious and pervasive. It is that voice which tells me letting go of the wheel would be a good thing to do. It is my voice that counters by telling it I’d just end up with hospital bills. I used its own ridiculous “every break is a bad one” psychology on it and it listens.

Now, when I drive past that curve every day, it’s a victory. I win. I will be alive for another day to continue the battle with Eeyore. It will never go away, but I put it in a cage. It will always find a way around it because that’s what it does, but goddamnit, I will not let it win.

It will get better. Even if it doesn’t, even if the next decades are as awful as the last few, I will be here. The only way to experience happiness is to be alive.