For several years Now I have been dealing with grief. It is a No-holds barred, bare-knuckle match against an opponent you can not beat. Four years ago my roommate, who might as well be my sister died somewhat suddenly from cancer. I had been trying to deal with this grief by discussing it in therapy, but at certain points it just becomes too much and I seek an escape. As I was already on a medical marijuana plan, I would escape the grief by playing video games endlessly, attempting retail therapy periodically and/or getting high when the dark cloud of reality just became too much. As time went on, I discovered I didn’t need to escape quite as much, so I focused on finishing some games (as opposed to just murdering as many NPCs as possible) and trying to deal with the grief. Piece by piece. She was no longer here, and there was just nothing at all that could be done about that. I would drive by her tree, where her ashes were, and call out how well I was finally doing. I threw myself into whatever work I could handle, whatever projects I could stomach, and trying to let the grief just pass through me. But I found, over and over again, that by the evenings, I was so annoyed with the world that I would just end up smoking a lot of pot in the endless pursuit of getting so high that I could just ignore the outside world.
Musical Interludes
I had made a deal with myself that I wasn’t going to write any music at that time because the pain of losing her would only be amplified every time somebody brought up a track that was obviously linked to her. But three years into it, I started writing and experimenting with sound again. In July of of ‘24 I was asked to be the drummer for a man that I really respected. I thought of him as a jazz guitarist, and was very curious about what I could possibly do for him.
I am not a drummer. I don’t have the rhythm or the coordination necessary. So being asked to be a drummer was quite an odd proposition to me.
But, somehow, Walter had heard that I was a rhythmic genius, and he wanted to find out what I could do. I explained I could program a beat, and make it sound fairly human if needed. I was also learning a lot about proper dub techniques and was trying those out. Walter really liked the idea, and we arranged a time for me to come over and see what we could do together. I had known Walter for many years, he had been my brother’s hair stylist first, and then had been mine since I was in my twenties. We had discussed music many times over the years, and again, I really respected him. I knew that coming to meet him for music would turn into a networking bonanza, and would be well with it, if only because I loved talking to him. He had a way of making you feel special, like what you did really was worth sharing with others, and he seemed to believe in me. So heading over to his house was always a wonderful time. I enjoyed our chats so very much. When I played him the pieces of what I had been working on, he insisted I had to release it. He truly believed I just had to play it for the right people and the rest would fall into place. I had never felt such confidence. I put out two EPs, and an album at his insistence. I was happy to do it, and I wanted to see what would happen. I got decent numbers, nothing chart-topping, but enough to give me more confidence to try more. To do more. Between Walter and some of the rock stars I had met over my years just outside the industry, I felt like there was a point to all of this music making. I had somebody to bounce ideas off of, and there were sooooo many ideas. So many plans.
Fear and loss
In November, it started to sink in that my father really was dying. I started thinking about just how much he was supporting me; not just emotionally, but financially. That my safety net was going away and the only thing I ever wanted in life (to have a dad, not a father, but a real dad that I could relate to and enjoy) was about to be taken away. Permanently. I started to lose it, because my foundation was eroding.
That’s when I found out that Walter had stage 4 lung cancer.
I started escaping earlier and earlier every day. The video games were not enough anymore, and I started smoking the pot earlier and earlier every day. You see, I had been holding myself to not smoking pot until it was dark out. I was trying to get back to taking three hits before I went to bed, but as my world came crashing down around me, I started smoking earlier. First starting smoking at 7, then 4:20 and then waiting until my anger and frustration had overcome me completely, until eventually just doing wake and bakes whenever I didn’t have responsibilities for the day.
The Episode
In late November I had been visiting family and had some problems with my apartment as soon as I got there. I had just been enjoying my family so much, and when there was a break in the festivities, I had received an email stating that my apartment was unacceptably messy and that I was going to be inspected that Monday. This was on Friday. I couldn’t enjoy the family because all I could think about was the inspection on Monday. That I needed to go home and take care of that as soon as possible. I left early and got home at night. I began cleaning immediately. Grumbling to myself about how pissed off I was about the whole incident, placing the blame entirely on the management and the exterminator who had reported my apartment unacceptable.
Sometime around 11:30 PM I realized I was yelling too myself in the hallways while taking out the trash. This struck me as odd behavior, and I decided to go inside and get high. It was the only way I could think of to calm down.
It didn’t work.
I believe it was 2 in the morning while I was scrubbing the walls that it occurred to me that I was an old man scrubbing the dirt into awful patterns on the wall that maybe I was not quite sane in this moment. I began to realize I was not helping things I was just moving the grime from one place to another. I also realized that maybe I should take some responsibility in all of this, that maybe I should have been cleaning the apartment all along.
That’s when I decided to go to bed.
The day of the inspection I had worked myself into a full hypomanic mess. I was raving mad at that point. I had done all the work I could handle, but the apartment still looked a wreck. I decided to try and talk sense with the building manager and see if we could work something out. When she came to do the inspection I tried to offer to have a sit down discussion. Instead she offered to either fine me $1000 or have me vacated at her earliest convenience. I began seeing red, I became much less than my usual unpleasant self and in the end I asked her to leave in the bluntest way possible before I ended up violent.
I’m not proud of this, and posting this on a blog strikes me as a way of maybe taking accountability for my actions. I don’t think it counts as she will almost certainly not read any of this, but I am incredibly sorry and embarrassed by my actions that day.
I ended up calling the cops on my self and through one of the more amazing coincidences in the universe, the officer who showed up happened to be one of my contacts at Montgomery County CIT. I was taken to an emergency room where they removed my AirPods from my possession, leaving me effectively deaf. (This is standard protocol for someone who is mentally ill and threatening homicide and/or suicide. It makes sense in the macro picture, but it blows for the patient who can’t hear) I was eventually put in a featureless room and waiting for transport to a behavior modification facility. Which sent me further into my mania.
The facility itself was not my favorite that I’ve been to. I made a lot of comparisons to the prison riots I had experienced in another facility in Delaware. I signed the AMA as soon as I could and 72 hours later I was headed home and away from the madhouse.
I learned from this experience that emergency care for the mentally ill has lapsed quite a bit over the years and I don’t want that kind of treatment ever again. The only good thing that came out of all this was that I recorded an EP afterwards that captured my experiences and emotions from the episode.
Coming Home
Upon surviving that whole experience in emergency care, I started smoking as much weed as I could. I explained to my dying father that I wasn’t sure I would make it without him. I tried to explain how much he had come to mean to me. And the old man just told me it would be alright. That I was better prepared than I thought I was. That he loved me and always would.
I was so distraught about the entire event that I began to think the only thing worth living for was leaving me. So I got incredibly suicidal. But I had tried so many times, and so many ways and none of it had worked. But then I had a thought…
“The only thing that has caused me damage over the years is when I ignore my diabetes and start with the smoking!"
So I started smoking cigars. First one a day and then many. I stopped taking my insulin. I started eating all the junk food I could manage. I ate anything and everything I wanted. I would start getting high at 11 in the morning and just eat junk all day. Eventually, the DKA kicked in and from late December to mid-January I lost 30lbs. I was peeing nonstop, but I was living the high life and the best part was, I was getting lots of compliments on how good I looked.
In January I decided to come clean and go see the endocrinologist. My A1C was high. 13.6! Not the highest it’s ever been, but definitely up there. I decided to see all of my specialists to get the damage report.
All I had done was raise my A1C. Everything else looked fine. So I stopped, because clearly this wasn’t going to end me. All I managed to do by trying to kill myself for three months straight was lose weight.
And then Walter died…
He had gone for surgery. We had so many plans. He gave me the original recordings of his punk band from the 80’s to re-master. I did everything I could to make them sound as incredible as I could. It was a routine surgery, he was supposed to be fine. But he passed before I finished. We had plans to work on my electronic noise and start an acid-jazz-dub band. We had real rock stars lined up to play or produce or whatever.
And now he was gone.
Death and loss
The day I went to Walter’s funeral I decided to see my dad first. Dad had always loved to see me dressed up in a suit. I thought he would get a kick out of me all dolled up. He really did. Dad loved it. He wasn’t feeling good that day so he would roll away from me and say how awful he felt, then roll back and look at me. His eyes would get bigger and he smiled so wide I thought his face would hurt, and then he would tell me how good I looked. We did this for an hour, rolling to one side and complaining, then rolling back and smiling.
The funeral was not great for me. I didn’t know who anybody was. I was scared. I didn’t feel like I should be there. I just wanted to go home. I gave his wife a hug. I spoke to two of his sons. Then I ran like hell to get home. I couldn’t bear the pain and I just wanted to be out of my head. I genuinely don’t remember the two days after that because I got blackout high. It was just too much.
Then a week after the funeral, my brother called and said my dad wanted to see me. The chaplain had been chatting with him and he asked if there was anybody my dad wanted to see. Dad replied “my son”. The chaplain asked if he meant my brother. My dad replied, “No, I see him all the time, I want to see Joshua.” I couldn’t see him that night, but I went as soon as I could. I wore a button down shirt and a tie just for him because I knew how happy it would make my Dad. When I got there dad was so weak he could barely speak. I just held his hand as long as I could. I gave him a hug as I was leaving, and dad whispered in my ear “I’m so glad you made it”
and three days later, Dad was dead.
I want to be perfectly clear, this is two of the most very important people in my life, dying in two weeks of each other. So how have I handled it?
I can’t play video games anymore, nothing is taking my mind off of the loss. I barely get off the couch, because why would I? I went to South Carolina to visit my alternate family, the people I have called my faux ma and pa since I was 10 or so. I smoked a lot of pot the whole time I was there. If there had been any harder drugs I would have happily done them. I’ve told stories of my dad to anybody who would listen, including a random homeless person I met the night dad died who had asked me for a cigarette.
Speaking of cigarettes, I have been smoking like a chimney. Going to South Carolina was just another excuse to start abusing myself. I’ve made dramatic mountains out of molehills wherever I could. I was incensed that somebody had parked a jeep illegally in my parking lot where I don’t even park. The fact that they left it there for days was something for me to be mad about for days.
I started making one song in the last two months, and it is nothing but a drum beat on several different drum machines with effects. I don’t want to do music because why would I? Nobody is going to listen to it. I set up a blog to voice my thoughts, which is probably the most productive thing I have done since Walter died. I’m thinking I may do a podcast that will be a long-form jam of the songs I have been working on, but I don’t have the desire to start any of that because I don’t believe anybody cares.
That’s the biggest thing. I know people care about me, I know people want me. around, I just don’t believe for a second that anybody cares about what I do. Is art worth doing in a vacuum? Sometimes I feel like the answer is a big yes, right now it feels like a hell no. I’m supposed to put myself out there and make new friends and find the others who feel like I do.
I just don’t believe anybody does, anymore. They all died, and now I am all alone again.