Book of 2016
- Page 22-
The Obsessive Mind
He is thinking it. Thinking it, all his thoughts are bent on it, no matter what he does he can't stop thinking on it. It is like a scratch on a record and every time the things spins it gets stuck in the one spot it can't move on from. Rum bum, rum bum, rum bum the thing squawks each time the need hits that one spot, and it just keeps run over and over the same course. It is maddening. Even if he tried to listen to a book or watch TV it doesn't matter his thoughts return to the one that, that poisons all the others, and leads him back to one place, one thought, one obsession.
He has been dealing with the obsessive mind since he was in high school, maybe before, who really can remember these things. Sometimes it is hard to remember things that happened more than 25 or 30 years ago. It was at its peak in college and the summer of his 21st year. When no booze could silence it, and no amount of talking about it, or hiding from it could make it ever stop. It was relentless and drove him to the edge of madness. The thoughts, no matter what they were how real, how stupid, how whatever, would never stop dancing there dance in his head, and all the crying in the world could never make him not think them. Not until a night September sitting at a night football game did he decide the sky is beautiful, and if I don't fix this, then I have to move on from this world to the next.
He realizes now and only now after this latest episode about something so dumb as his job. Something so dumb as the plots and conniving of another could possible threaten you or hurt you peeps. The peeps that you would go to the very end with, the very fires of hell, and back. The peeps you have come to respect, and love as friends. It angers you beyond believe. You can't rationalize it. You just get angrier and angrier over it because you can't stop thinking about it. The entire ride home. The entire dinner. The entire nights sleep. The entire shower, and finally, the entire ride back up. You do your positive sayings. You listen to your tape, but it doesn't change the thoughts rattling around in your head.
Anger, rage, insecurity, these are the things that feed the obsessive mind. these are the things that feeds the monkey on his back, that would stuff itself at every turn. Something good happens, he eats. Something bad happens, he eats. Something upsetting happens, he eats. Much like the thoughts he can't get out of his head these things just roll on and on and on. Like the never stopping record: rum bum, rum bum, rum bum over the same scratch on the same record.
So he realizes today that perhaps his fear of the obsessions that he though he had long pass on, after seeking help after the football game may still be haunting him? Maybe it is part of the reason he stays fat? Maybe it is part of the reason every night he sits on the couch watching TV and the fucking Monkey on his back starts up,
"I want to eat so bad."
- But we just had chipotle? I don't need anything else.
"I want ice cream! Not a whole pint this time, no, how about some dibs, just a container or two."
- I WANT TO BE BAD! How can I be good when I want to be bad?"
"You want to be SO BAD!"
- Why is the no balance?
Sometimes he wins and beats this monkey, but all to often he loses this fight.
Once he got into the office the obsessive mind was quieted. Good counsel could always do that. However, to much was lost in the time caught in the obsessive mind. However, maybe something was also gained.
He was listening to his book last night on the way home. It was talking about fat programs, and reason why people remained fat. There are a ton of these. the book goes on and on. However, caught in the obsessive mind, he started to think about the obsessive mind.
He started to think about when he thunk he was going to be a monster. When he thought b/c of one fight he could hurt people. Loosing all control one time lead him down a path of self loathing and denial. It was one fight. He had one fight. that really mattered his whole life. It was the end of a breaking of his mind that had started over the 4 or 5 years before.
What if the person who actually got angry enough in that one fight, got loose all the time. What if that person who one time in 21 years lost his shit and fought, for what he thought was the right thing to fight for, was actually a terrible monster that would hurt other people, for no reason. What if we weren't actually in control of our own actions. What if we were actually slaves to an inner demon and so the obsessive cycle began. Nine month later true rock bottom was hit, in the bleachers at Memorial Stadium for what was at the time a rare night game in Bloomington. Where a pack was made.
Time moved on and the obsessive mind went into hiding. It never left, these things never do. Not all the Prozac, therapy, and other drugs in the worlds can make it go away. Just like at 21 booze wasn't the answer. Everyday some aspect of this mind rattles around in his head. Last night and today was worse than it had been in a long time.
However, what if there is some truth to him hiding behind his weight because he is afraid of the anger that hides away in the deep secret places of his mind and heart, the ones that he won't ever talk about? What if this fear makes him think he needs to put a layer of fat between him and the world? What if the monkey on his back isn't trying to destroy him but protect him from what is essentially a nature he tries to hide from the world.
What if some combination of this obsessive mind and the anger that resides in him work together to hold him back? Or what if like trying to become positive is just another excuse, just another way of letting himself off the hook for being a pig. However, he doesn't really believe that. He believes in the power of the mind. He believes in the power that anger, and fear have in his life. He knows he has to find his way. He knows he has to let go of the anxiety, fear, hatred, and anger that lives in him to do that. That is all he has wanted on some level since he was 21.
Then there is the part of him, that doesn't want to let it go. That wants to hold onto it because his best stories rise from the ashes of his anger, hate, and rage. His best ideas are made for a world that indulges these things not deny them. However, letting them go won't mean he will ever forget them. Letting them go isn't giving up on his dream to write like King or Martin. No... No it is not.
The being afraid to let them go because he feels he will lose his creativity is a joke. A bad one at that and it is false. However, not letting go because of the fear of what would happy to let the kid get skinny an let loose on the world, no that is more of real fear. That is something he has to talk about in therapy. If he hides behind his fat because he is afraid he is a monster. that he sabotages himself because he is afraid that once again control would be lost and hurting someone he loved might ensue. He never meant to fight with his brother, but those things happen, it is between the brothers, and it does happen.
He became the healthiest he had ever been after that fight for a while, then, well then shit fell apart, and weight gain started. And now here he is up 20 lbs and wondering why? Well maybe it is time to look to the old obsession and the old fears? Maybe it is time to be honest about if we really want to get better or if we aren't just slowly but surely fulfilling a promise we made on the bleachers at a night game in Bloomington so many years ago. That is a much deeper and darker story to spin.
He must find away to deal with the obsessive mind. It is time to do this. Last night and today have been unacceptable wastes of time and space in my head. Never let people own space in your head it is foolish and not worth it. It is time to be his own master. To be self assured. To be the man who got on the elevator tow nights ago, not the one who woke up today and ate McDonald's for bfast b/c he was out of muffins. There is no place for that version of the kid in this story anymore. He must be phased out. He must fade away.
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