🔵 By Timothy Brunner. Photo by lauragrafie.
I would love to have an open dialogue in which someone was to parse these words and challenge me on my faults. I can take any criticism offered to help. Anything meant to assist me in becoming a better person is accepted for the value it contains. I will definitely offer my honest opinion on the value, though. That is necessary for an honest dialogue, and that is what I value more than almost anything. I want someone to know me well enough to see the spiders hiding in the shadowed rafters of my thinking and shine a light on them. Someone I know well enough to do the same, and a mutual trust and respect to allow that to happen.
I am acutely aware that my choices have put me in a position where the consequences I suffer are my own fault. All of those consequences. My charges were a significant contribution to my sister’s decision to commit suicide. I will never talk to her again and that seeds a sense of loneliness that is profound.
My incarceration makes it next to impossible for many family members and friends to see me because of various reasons. They played no role in my case and so share no responsibility for my actions. Yet they pay the consequence of a lost loved one.
It distances me even more to realize that the value I believed I placed on these relationships was not enough to factor into my thoughts at the time I made those decisions. No justification. I didn’t think of anything or anyone outside of my immediate circumstances. 100% self centered.
I also never got to see my brother again because before I could complete the necessary paperwork for him to visit me, he overdosed on heroin and died in his sleep. He was found in his bed by his 3 year old daughter. My lack of closure is my fault. My nieces trauma is partially my responsibility for the added stress I was in my brother’s life. Burdensome in my selfishness.
Had I considered what might have been as opposed to miring myself in what I believed I was stuck with, I may have seen things in a way that changed my decisions. The guilt from this simple reality and, oh, so much more… The guilt adds to the disconnect that roots my feeling of being alone. Why would I let others get close to me knowing the potential I bear for completely destroying anyone in my life? I caused my sister to write a suicide note because she couldn’t accept a world with me being who she thought I was.
That is the power of perspective. She killed herself because she could not live in a world where I was the person she thought I had become. That decision was based off of the newspaper reports that I was a torturer and crazed lunatic who had beaten a woman to death. No matter how wrong it was, that was her perspective. This same perspective led to my mother abusing sleeping pills and alcohol for years, as well as inability to acknowledge my existence for the pain it caused her.
This is why I feel so strongly about perspective being rooted in reality and not a misconception. I know how hard it is for anyone to care for or about, not just someone in my position, but me in particular. The amount of trust necessary to believe I am not the man I used to be is immeasurable. The risk is probably too great for a reasonable person to take. I understand. If I were strong enough to face the darkness of loneliness on my own maybe I would stop reaching out.
I am not strong enough to face this life I have created on my own, though. I feel guilty, too, that the weakness in my character causes me to exploit others’ feelings for me in a way that keeps them stuck dealing with my shit.
Yes; my life is shit.
I said all of this to a friend years ago, but I offer the same to the world at large: It might seem pointless to reach out to someone like me, but I disagree. If you have something to say, anything you feel the need to get out, then speak. Don’t hold back when what you have to say may change the world. Even if it only changes the world for one person. Please get that I am reaching out, not lashing out. Any lashing out is self-flagellation as I am the one at fault. Feel free to lash out if you need to.