Breaking Points

In my life I've been very, very fortunate. I've gotten to points at which I thought I would NEVER make it past without severe damage to my mind and body.

These points may seem trivial to some, but they're an examination of how hard you have to fight at least on a personal level, to make it past those events that you have considered nightmare scenarios. There will be a point afterwords, I promise.

The first horrid point in my life was the moment that my car was stolen. Now this is a silly, almost nonsensical thing to be upset about, but when my car was stolen, you have to keep in mind the situation. I was Married to a very pregnant woman, I had just started a job, and we were in a new city. I had no way to get to work, no way to get her to the doctor, no way to even transport groceries. I had friends, but relying on them is tantamount to begging, and where I was the only shelter for families was heavily religious. Yes, we lost our apartment and our new city, and our new life because of this.

So how'd I get out of it? Simple. I begged off my parents, as many of my generation have been forced to do. We went from a 2 bedroom apartment to a ROOM. With my parents constantly calling CPS on me. I wasn't the best parent, but when you are constantly getting social workers again, and again, how long is a landlord going to put up with that?

Which led to the Second horrid point. Moving in with my wife's parents. First time I ever got a gun pulled on me, while I was working 2 jobs, etc. All for accidentally opening a door into a room I shouldn't have. Not a pleasant situation, but I sucked it up, thought of my daughter, and did NOTHING with a gun in my face. WE moved out, I worked, and we kept trying. All until my ex decided she didn't like living in her home state anymore.

On to the Third. Homelessness. In a state I had never been in before. I did everything I could. I gave every penny to secure an apartment. We made it. Barely. Only with food stamps were we even able to live. But my ex wasn't helping. I'd go to work and find that CPS had been called on the kids. I even freaking whistleblowed on Medicare Part D which was screwing over seniors in Wisconsin. I got fired and lost my apartment for my trouble.

Which led me back to CA, after sitting in a burned apartment. (Long story, but was just a step on the journey) My parents threw me out. I was on the street with two children. CPS was called on my ex, and she lost the children, since men are not able to stay in Family Shelters...

This was one of the darkest moments of my life. I actually contemplated attacking police. I was suicidal. I was in a dark, dangerous place where I felt like there was no possible way out. I was on the street. I had nothing.

And yet I didn't break. I don't know why I didn't. I had no reason not to break. I wanted to break. I wanted to become a statistic. And the next morning I think I really did try to commit suicide. I signed up for the Army.

I told myself that It was to get the kids back, because I could get housing, medical, and a guaranteed income. I told myself that I could do it. I told myself that the odds weren't as bad as I thought they were, and I could be an example. I told myself a lot of lies, in order to hide the truth of how desperate my situation was.

The only reason I'm not dead is I'm a damn good soldier. That's not me bragging, that's a statement of absolute fact. I loathe war and all it stands for because I know exactly what I am capable of. I did a tour in Iraq, AND managed to get my kids back from CPS at the same time. My marriage ended, another breaking point which should have killed me, but I continued. I did parenting classes sitting on a rack with a flashlight over one shoulder and a KPOD on the floor next to me. I did not give up and I did not quit.

The war did a lot of awful things to me. The worst part was having to pretend that it hadn't gotten to me. Pretending that my heart wasn't rent, and my mind shattered by the horrid acts and inhumanity I was forced to confront. I lied, and claimed I was just fine. Nothing to see here. My children were returned because I denied reality, not because I accepted it. However, for five years afterwords... I am not proud.

I was a functional alcoholic for the last of my Military career and years afterwords. I stopped drinking only because my children talked me out of it. I started smoking pot because I finally accepted that the war had done damage to me that I cannot recover from. I found another town when my family refused to help me further. I passed through another trial of homelessness and landed here in Oregon where I am happy.

I have two women in my life who make my life wonderful. They help, they talk, they listen. It's a hard thing to accept that I am worthy of and deserve even a basic human emotion as love. I had to accept that the way I love is not the same as everyone else, and I'm just fine with that. I am getting better, slowly, surely, and with the help of others. I have bent, very far. There are parts of me that are broken. But I have never, never broken fully. I have never dropped to that point where I will abandon the social contract and resort to the state of nature.

But for every moment I mention that I did not break, I know there are THOUSANDS who did. I know why they did. I tried to find statistics for single dads who get their kids back. News flash, there aren't any. It's THAT rare.

I am saying this because I see far too many of my fellow citizens where I have been. I see many, many potential breaking points forming in this new future that the monoparty wants to create. Many people will break. What will it be for many? For some it may be as simple as being denied a medication that allows them to bend. It may be being denied the simple act of sleeping indoors. It may be watching a child gunned down by an enforcer with a badge.

Those that have been through the forging of adversity and survived, do not break in manners that are pleasing to the Powers that Be. We do not write polite angry letters identifying ourselves. We do not peacefully protest for the redress of grievances, were that even an option any more.

If we break, we do what we are good at. And I'm a damn good soldier.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4LJdJeGE9k]

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Whatever the particular situations you survived, congratulations on not breaking.

That which does not kill us supposedly makes us stronger. By that standard, some of us should be indestructible. But I don't think that standard is necessarily reality. Some of us suffer, but without breaking, or even the catharsis of crying. It doesn't mean we don't feel or hurt.

Whatever. We all cope differently.

Again, congratulations on not breaking. (Not that there's anything wrong with breaking. It happens to very good people.)

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detroitmechworks's picture

@HenryAWallace There's a parable about it...

Buddha told a parable in sutra:

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

"I'm sorry that happened to you" feels extraordinarily inadequate. I am sorry, though.

But about breaking points--I think they want us to break and run amok.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

detroitmechworks's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal but it's not what they're gonna get.

They're gonna get me at my absolute worst if I ever break.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YyBtMxZgQs]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@detroitmechworks Well said.

Wish I could start a movement based on this kind of thinking. The constant poking at us and trying to make us break, and most of us continuing to refuse to do so, should be something that large numbers of people are consciously aware of, and that provides one of the philosophical cornerstones of our strategy--if we ever get one.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

detroitmechworks's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal It's like half the world is on a ledge, and the PTB are lining up to push.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@detroitmechworks Spent a lot of time looking for a clip of that part in Snatch where Brick Top uses the cattle prod on the dog to make it fight--couldn't find it.

What they're really trying to do is get us to rip each other's throats out. Right vs left, Black vs white, immigrant vs native.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Pluto's Republic's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

A recent statistic showed that a record 42 million people were displaced last year, around the world. Many in their own countries. We built that, most of it anyway. People don't know that the US toppling of Ukraine set off a huge flood of migration. The Jews mobilized first, fleeing from the NeoNazis we installed. Refugees average about a two-year lifespan.

I haven't really thought about US depopulation, But I recall that WHO announced recently that in the US, the overall lifespan was going to take a dive. I do know that the US now tops the 40 most developed nations in mothers who die during childbirth. That's the kind of stat that can reverse population numbers. Doesn't that strike you as a weird thing? I had to ask myself, "What did we do to women to make childbirth a potential death sentence?" Likely, we kill them by denying them pre-natal care.

In any event, US chaos is so deliberate and deadly, that it's hard to believe these adversities are not meticulously planned. It's the Neoliberal answer to global warming, a workaround for the dreaded carbon tax. To your point, I think they've successfully transformed the American public into enemy combatants. And who better to exterminate them than the formerly deployed who staff every police force in the nation — large and small.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Pluto's Republic Indeed--but I'll add to that, they also love it when we do the job for them, by killing each other. Then the cops can be brought in to add to the carnage. That, IMO, is the brass ring for the establishment.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Amanda Matthews's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal @Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
to all they covet outside the window.

My crazy brother John once said "there are people who better pray that I never hear the words you have six months to live". I think that in light of the fact that we're all being pushed toward extinction by TPTB, we all might profit from what he said. We are on borrowed time ourselves. We need to abandon our fears and act like we have NOTHING to lose because we don't. TPTB want us for cannon fodder and slave labor, nothing more. Is that the kind of world we want our kids to inherit? It's been Hell for us, but what they have in store for the future goes beyond anything we've seen thus far.

EDIT: got rid of a useless 's

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

Steven D's picture

Not for serving as a soldier, but for overcoming such terrible odds.

For staying committed to your kids no matter what.

For learning to ask for help when every thing you;d ever been taught was that real men don't do that shit.

These are hard lessons for men to learn or accept in our society where males are brainwashed from an early age to stifle emotions, to not show pain, to endure any hardship, to "man up."

Your generation also confronts a society that devalues human life, and one that provides little help to living breathing human beings, much less hope for the future. I know so many people who have had to move in to live with their parents or relatives even well into their 40's because of how the economic well-being of this country has been sucked out of the vast majority of us to feed the bottom line of corporations and Wall Street.

This may be hard to hear or accept, but you have just shown tremendous courage by posting your story here. Until we reach our breaking points none of us knows what we will do. You have been broken, but you persisted. That's rare. I am so happy you have your kids. I don't know what I would do without mine.

Thank you for telling us your story. You risked a lot by doing that, I know, but I'm proud to know you, even if only online.

Send me a personal message if you would like to talk sometime. When I'm not blathering on about myself, I'm told I'm a good listener. And, having been broken myself (not in the ways you were, but nonetheless) I'd be happy to speak with you. Learn from you, too.

Steve

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

detroitmechworks's picture

@Steven D I do talk about these things a lot with SO K and SO M, who are extremely helpful in my getting my shit back together recently.

Hell, they're the ones who remind me to smoke when I am not taking care of myself, and they're the ones who got me to the hospital when I was avoiding going.

I don't know about today, but I appreciate your offer of conversation greatly, and hope to take you up on it someday.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Lookout's picture

to live and enjoy your kids. They grow so fast...enjoy their youth while you can.

Peace and good will to you brother!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

detroitmechworks's picture

@Lookout I just don't want it to change. I wanted to change for the city, not the other way around.

Unfortunately, it's starting to turn into CA up here... and that's not a good thing. I loathe CA Democrats, but they are getting aggravating.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Amanda Matthews's picture

@detroitmechworks

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

earthling1's picture

When we met at the last c99 meetup, I remember what you told me about your experiences in the Army. And I thought that was a life changing experience in itself. And now, the full monty.
An incredible journey.
Your success in the face of such adversity demonstrates what a real Home of the Brave American looks like. It is a pleasure to know you, Sir.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

mhagle's picture

It is inspirational. Thanks. Smile

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

EyeRound's picture

DMW, and know that many, many others are with you.

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You did it and deserve the victory dance. Even if you hesitate. Much respect...

Just remember there are many (I know you know) who struggle through hatred anonymously due to homo, trans phobias and more.

but life is good (but life is good) and it just takes some kindness from others to persevere and prosper. Right?! Yes.

Peace. Your posts are appreciated.

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