today I scheduled another psych evaluation.

saying that feels like rock bottom for some reason, I suppose I thought I could handle it myself. To be fair I never have handled it alone, i type as I smoke my vape.

I recently stopped drinking alcohol. Before that I stopped gambling. Before that I stopped drinking lean. Before that I stopped taking ambiens mixed with my alcohol. Before that I stopped smoking weed. Before that I was a boy in his doctor’s office being diagnosed.

It feels like that scene from Ratatouille, where he’s transported to being a kid. That’s what the past 9 months of sobriety has felt like. It almost feels like

“Who’s life is this?”

“Who was making the decisions around here.”

I just struggle man, it look good but I be struggling. Struggling in conversations, struggling in work, struggling with life. The suicidal actions have lessened, I’m not self harming anymore; direct and indirect self harm. But I am in a constant state of existential crisis it feels like. It feels like disassociation. It feels like after all these years I’m finally traveling back to my body. And goddammit is it taking a long time. It still feels like I’m watching myself through a window.

Self conscious is the word.

I am in constant awareness of myself. I hate dancing, I feel I look so stiff. I hate singing along to songs around people (when I get really excited I have a stutter.) I hate learning my prayers, I feel so stupid when I stumble over words and a dialect I’ve never practiced in my life. It’s an every day effort to get out of my own way. To remove the consciousness of self which comes with self judgement and just being. Sobriety has given me the gift of being aware but I am fully aware of what I struggle with, and boy am I struggling.

My struggle look good man. My capacity is large, admittedly. I can still smile. I can still pay my bills. I can still let you in. I can still make it to the events. But I struggle remembering names. I struggle completing tasks. I struggle being consistent. I struggle being reliable. I struggle finding enjoyment. I’ve never smiled for fake, I don’t like my smile, so I have no reason to show it beyond what it naturally occurs. So its hard for someone to hear me clearly when I say I’m struggling.

“Struggling with what?”

Everything I don’t know?

I went through a lot in the past year and a peak of it was reverting to Islam, but man them valleys were so low. It feels like I completely had to deconstruct myself if I wanted to stay alive. Through tears on the phone I called my dad at 4 AM one of these nights and just broke down.

Fast forward to now

I was talking to my dad,

I was telling him you know there’s this phenomena of being the kid no one ever had to worry about. And how I think that’s where things are in my relationship with my parents. Which I then told him is unrealistic because I’ve for a long time been the kid that self harmed, was drunk more often than not, and lived thousands of miles away; I’ve always been worrisome. I then added, I think now that its not the familiar struggle of: “my son is depressed and it looks like this.” A lack of maintenance is offered.

He agreed.

I cried on the phone with my friend Giselle and I said:

“I feel like a parentless child.”

And I hate saying that because I don’t want to imagine life without my parents and I seen my duas to anyone who has lost a parent. But I can’t describe it in any other way. Facing things I’ve never faced before and making leaps I’ve never made before. It feels like I heard from my parents more when I was further away both physically and mentally. Why is no one here on a good day? Why is no one here during the slip, not the fall.

Catch me, please.

I grew up in a home where we joke often, things that really hold emotional weight are said in joke font as well (to soften to impact of course.)

We were talking about how my mom always has plans with my older brother even though he lives out of town and visits for 2-3 days. Imagine this sort of as a tennis match, (if you read what I said in my last substack post this is the “arguments have to be won part)

Mom: Well you aint never came over here and made lamb chops. (In relation to me bbq’ing at my dads house)

Me: He invited me over.

Mom: Oh.

Me: When’s the last time you’ve came to my home? (something I’m internally hurt about and brought up here childishly.)

Mom: Really? That’s what we doing?

Mom (cont’d): I be working.

Me: And I don’t be?

I hated this conversation so much. I hated that I even brought it up like that in a fashion I’m not proud of. I tried to stuff the feeling down for aslong as I could until I was prepared to talk to her like I was with my dad. But to be met with “I be working” hurt even more. Cause so do I. I’m not 9 years old, where the concept of work and the way its takes your time is this abstract idea anymore. Work doesn’t take me away. I tell myself I work for my family, that’s what I tell myself. And then I feel guilt and shame for what I’ve done for love interests who have came and went while my parents still work. I don’t feel worthy most times of leisure, of success. I send my PR packages to my mom’s house so even if I get wrapped up in my world I have to go see her. It just made me feel two things

Crazy for how much I try to consider everyone in my decision making.

Unimportant. It made me feel unimportant.

I thought being 30 minutes away vs thousands of miles away would mean I’d see my parents more often. That is not the case.

I was filling out the psych evaluation in-take slip and the question was

“Who do you spend the majority of your leisure time with?”

Answer: My dog, Rika.

I often feel unimportant. I don’t know what that’s about. Just me and my puppy man. I overvalue people. I undervalue myself. I care, but why so much. Why do I remember the moment I met friends, their interests, some of their funniest jokes and it feels like I get forgotten often.

Am I goob?

I struggle knowing if these are delusions or reality. Irregardless change is needed and the only thing I can change and control is myself.

SOMETHING GOTTA GIVE AND MORE THAN LIKELY ITS GONE BE ME.

This for me is the other side of suicide prevention.

Choosing to live is hard too nigga oh my God.

I ain’t leaning on nothing, my legs have become weak with all of the crutches I used. Now I feel everything. I know my shortcomings, its not just a feeling, its knowing and knowing is killing me.

It’s not a gun to my head, its not mixing pills, its not reckless driving, its not reckless behavior. It’s literally waking up outta bed and choosing life and that’s a whole different hard, showing up? Goodness gracious.

I’m not even sure who I am these days. Not sure if I like my home, if I like myself, if I like the path I’ve walked, if I like my career. And just putting my head down and trotting forward when I aint did that in so long, I’m struggling with it. It felt like before everyday just kind of started and ended. If the end was the end, then hey… we had a good run didn’t we. Not really ever hoping to wake up.

Now its like:

Oh I have to write down a to do list before bed? So tomorrow has direction?

I have to keep track of whats in the fridge and buy groceries for the week?

I’m not just trying to live for today? I aint ever did that. And surely things were falling apart before but I just wasn’t here for it. Now that I’m aware of it it feels like I’m running diagnostics on my life and my habits and anything that doesn’t serve a purpose must go. But I ain’t ever lived life like that, I aint ever lived for me?

I was joking (sure) with my friend. And I said:

Yeah man I be having to just hold on to random stuff to stay alive like:

“If I k*lled myself who would feed Rika cause no one would find me til maybe Jummah.”

I’d like to get to a point where I have a thirst for life. A constant appreciation for it. I know these changes I’ve been trying to make show signs of it and don’t mean to dilute them. But I always just wanted to be normal. I think that’s why I stayed away from getting another psych evaluation for so long.

“I can’t handle no more being wrong with me.”

That aint stop it from festering man. That aint stop it from corrupting everything in my life. And if I say I want this life I have GOTS to start moving towards solution and maintenance and not just allowing hubris to think I can handle chemical imbalances in my brain all by myself. It’s high time I call a nigga in who get paid to do this, a professional some would say.

I say that to say, the hardness of choosing to live and get better at it in no shape of form compares to the hardness of apologizing for things you can’t remember saying or doing because you blacked out. Or the hardness of realizing you took more than you should’ve before blacking out unsure if this is the end of it, just to come to with the “shame” of failing at ending it. Or just the hardness of being so distant from yourself that no one can ever truly reach you. This shit hard man, but so if life, and you just gotta choose your hard.

Here’s to another day man.

- Demetrius Darius Harmon.

&

a bridge dont care who built it

the effect of it is all that matters

I think the distance we feel in a lot of our relationships is the third thing, pride/ego.

No one wants to do things first, being first is dangerous and it opens you up to rejection.

I grew up in a pretty volatile household. At any given moment, any noise heard was met with me running upstairs to make sure no one was fighting. So I kind of grew up thinking the way to solve problems was through means that involved winning. In a fight there is a winner and a loser, so if we’re arguing the only next escalation is fighting and if I want to avoid that I would shut down or leave.

Literal Fight or Flight.

You know you can stop fighting in the middle of it?

The apology doesn’t have to come after a drawn out fight and separation? You know even if you didn’t start it you can be the first one to drop the weapons and show the other person they can too?

“If you love somebody you should gone head and tell em”

I think pride is actually destroying us.

The love was unrequited? So what?

Loving someone only opens your eyes to the capacity at which you love, it’s never a wasted effort. To apologize is to humble yourself, to accept imperfection. To forgive someone is to see imperfection in someone and yourself, these things are opportunities to return to being human, to being just a person; like everyone else.

I recently reverted to Islam. After years of drug dependency and alcoholism, it feels like a lot of my life and interactions and relationships needed remodeling. For the first time in a long time, apologies came with the weight of the wrong, because I could remember it. Islam says that those you have wronged will speak to your character on the Day of Judgement.

There are steps:

• Seek forgiveness from Allah

• Seek forgiveness from those you’ve wronged and if they do not forgive you, pray for blessings for them and their forgiveness of you.

It put me in a very, vulnerable place, when I was learning how to make dua for about the first 3 months I forgot I could pray for things for myself. I would pray for others and say “Ya Allah if there’s any blessings intended for me please allow it to pass through them first and if there’s any remains I’ll be more than satisfied with that.” No one likes someone who is always sorry though. That’s the point I got to, tired of saying sorry when the feeling of “I want to be so sorry to the point I stop doing things that require apology.” And that’s what I’ve been trying to work on now, taking an extra moment before I speak, slowing down before I move, giving before I take.

If I’m honest it’s left me in a peculiar state because it’s not like something I ever grew up seeing.

“I am sorry.”

“I want to fix this.”

“You were right.”

I was talking to my brother and it’s like in the heat of things every time we speak or we act, we choose the action that makes it worse. It doesn’t feel like a choice because it’s instinctual but it is a choice. As easily as I can argue I can say “Let’s take a second we’re going too far.” And that’s scary. But living life there other way hasn’t yielded any result worthwhile.

There’s no space for pride in love. Pride is just fear dressed up in big people clothes like the little rascals. And if pride must exist, weaponize it.

Take pride in your work

Take pride in your character

Take pride in your abilities.

But don’t let pride take control of you.

-D.H

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I don’t think its unreasonable to be emotional, I just cant specifically place where the emotion is coming from.

I’m not sure why me and Deontae are so close. It’s one of those things that trying to provide a reason for will cause more stress than just accepting it.

I feel, well I suppose I feel like I’ve had a front row seat to this person’s life and I’m watching the protagonist

WIN

finally.

I feel like I sat through the backstory, the training montage, the “all is lost” moments; to finally see the hero win.

Don’t get me wrong there’s been wins along the way, but this feels different. It feels like a compound win, like everything has led here.

Watching my brother cry through his vows, what else can be done.

Watching my niece and nephew (now the age I was when they were born) dance, laugh & cry.

How could you not be emotional?

I’ve just never not seen him try.

He done fucked up fasho, but I aint never not seen him try & never seen him give up. I grew up looking to him as my “cool” brother. He always knew the new music and clothes. And it felt like he actually wanted me around. I never felt like his little brother. So to see him such a step, such a commitment; the first of my siblings. Now I believe I can too?

In a lead by example way. We’re grown men now, but I’m still their baby brother. I still hope to impress them, I still hope to carry some of their characteristics.

I guess the overarching feeling is:

I got go see my nigga win

so now I believe I can too?

Admittedly…I be tricking. Its something about taking care of a woman in that way, its proper, the smile being the return on investment.

Not that I think love or a person can be bought but things come with a determined value.

“I love you so much I got you this” is easier communication than I love you so much I didnt hide in the bathroom to have a panic attack is.

I love you so much that I try.

I love you so much that I pray for you.

I love you so much

And frankly its safer, I’d like to stop operating from this “safe” place, its destroying me.

having that undervalued is disheartening. and with reflection maybe I give things of predetermined value because you can’t say its worth more or less than it is, its right there on the tag.

lately i’ve been reflecting upon that and maybe its undervalued because i undervalue it. I undersell it, the little intricate parts that make me, me. Hiding behind things that are a bit more appealing, never intentionally but through reflection i’ve noticed its connection to my desire to please.

“oh u like that?”

a thing me and my friend ty say often when we say a slick joke in the middle of a slick conversation that causes one of us to say “mhmmm”

but it is like “oh you like that???” i’ll do more of it.

I think about what i received praise for in formative years & how it relates to how i interact with myself and intimate relationships now.

For a bit there I think I actually was invisible in my household.

Then a W9 came to the house. I had started a clothing brand from learning photoshop and made about $10,000 in 8th grade. Now I was visible. Now I was valued.

Fast forward to now, I still struggle with leading with myself & a healthy amount of taking care of things for people. I do believe in giving, if I love you I will give you the world, and the world is all I got as far as I know. If I had more I’d give more. Me loving you is receiving everything that “belongs” to me, my heart, my will, my resources. And I struggle with safe guarding that, vetting out that. Because if you exist in my ecosystem I love you? And if I love from a pure place and give from a place even purer then surely it is promised to return back to me even greater.

If I’m honest & I try to be.

My nephew has been teaching me so much about myself and how I show up. He’s now the age I was when he was born and I think about my presence in his life. Buying things, new shoes for school, clothes, advice here and there but definitely present through items and purchases, atleast I felt. And he had such an affinity for me, that felt confusing almost, felt undeserved. I work really hard and I tell myself its for the people in my life and especially the youth like him. But if the work doesn’t allow me to even be present, actively. Is it worth it? He wont remember me through these things if I were to die today, so what can I give him that is precious?

Myself.

From the moment it leaves your heart to travel to your mouth to form into words to make it to someones ears it has already been diluted, no one who isn’t you will ever know exactly how you feel. I think thats where my obsession with words came from, there’s so many ways to say things, so many tools to get a point across. The best feeling is saying something that perfectly conveys the feeling.

I operate my life from a feeling standpoint. And i suppose that just isn’t realistic.

I’m Sensitive, things mean things to me. I start out open. Then fear creeps in, learned fear & hesitation; person to person is the only thing that makes me put the armor on.

I love.

Thats it man, I love, I be loving shit, More than I be hating or even disliking.

What they say?

“Even through the drug abuse I still dream of love.”

Cause isn’t that all we got? The currency of life.

Love.

What keeps someone’s memory, what keeps the lights on in a home, what drives the extra mile.

Its love.

Love is an energy, its inexhaustible. As your heart pumps blood, the same goes for love. During blood loss your heart pumps even harder attempting to replace what’s been loss & if its given enough time it successfully does. The same can be said for love. I’ve loved & lost, and still dream of love. Not just romantically, I get excited at the thought of a new friend.

There’s a thing I heard at a Khutbah one of these Jummahs.

“If you want to be blessed, be a blessing”

“If you want to be loved, give love”

So no matter how hard it gets man, ima try to keep leading with love, cause leading with anything else yields results of the wicked.

-d.h

each moment is all we have, for better or worse.

irregardless the world keep spinning man. it’s something that people typically feel when theyre in new york, the ability to cry in a subway car filled with people. Nothing really matters, ironically and at the same time everything does.

thats my constant struggle. what do i apply meaning to, care for, let go of. I’ve become really good at compartmentalization due to trauma and a visual mind. It feels like decluttering, literally; going through boxes of thoughts, memories, people. And as you come across something you havent seen in years the cleaning halts and you sit down and reminisce. Thats what the compartmentalization feels like at times. Trying to at times keep the lesson and remove the feeling.

Over time as we remember something it goes further and further from the reality and gets warped by our feelings, our perspective and our current emotional state. I find it difficult to remember things, people, moments, myself accurately. Through trauma, alcoholism and drugs since 14 in there and any given day could be remembered any given way.

With that though, I never lose sight of myself in these memories, i always remember how i felt. But at times I more often than not blame myself for things going in any unfavorable direction. “If I did this better then this could have went like this.” There’s a grey area with what ifs, it’s imaginative & my work requires me to be imaginative. The grey area is safe, anything can be anything if i believe it enough. But you can’t live in that place.

Life is very often black and white.

Decisions have consequences.

Input results in output.

Actions bring reactions.

Black and White is harsh, so is life.

Black and white is accepting you gave your all and a person still didn’t love you. Black and white is accepting youre wrong, not the “villain,” just wrong. Black and white is life and death. And if thats all we can be assured of is that with life comes death, life being the white & death being the black. Beginning and End, then possibly the life we live is the grey area? Each decision we make whether stark white, eggshell or ash heather grey lends its hand to creating the gradient from the beauty of birth to the conclusion of death. Idk man idk, balance I suppose thats all this shit is is a balancing act and if nothing matters in the grand scheme of things then what will we hold on to to keep us grounded and planted in this life.

Knowing that my birth changed the world and operating system for my parents but meant absolutely nothing to the surrounding world and knowing that in my death the world will not stop in  troves but will for those i’ve shared a life with provides a bit of relief, life isnt such a big deal and it absolutely is at the same time.