Bald Man's Comb - Irish Proverb

 

Fluoxetine

8^th March 2012

Dear Cassi,

Well, today I started Fluoxetine a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. This in an effort to quell the anger I feel and dispel the dread. I know that it will do something but what I cannot say for sure. On the three occasions I have been proscribed this medication I have mellowed and done well but never before have I known what to do about my problems.

       

I must now exhume the bodies of those souls whose ghost haunt me still. I have to recall my bad times and in doing so take from them the emotional energies that they hold. By reliving my pain and holding myself calm I will suppress my emotions and desensitize myself.

       

The nature of my need in this is to speak, but not necessarily for you to listen. As the letters come they will be like tears from my eyes dropping onto the cold ground. My pain and anguish will flow through them and away from me leaving me purged. It will be a pus from a wound bursting forth and in its passing so much a relief for my red and fevered skin.

       

Fluoxetine is only a way of suppressing the emotions but it is not a cure. The cure is within the self and I only use this medication to aid in healing. It cannot heal me for only I can do such things.

Stay safe, little sister

Richard Leland Neal

Moving On

7^th March 2012

Dear Cassi,

When I left grade school we had a graduation. I thought it was silly and so it was given that we had no mortarboards or gowns. Somewhere there is a Polaroid of me in a red shirt and green tie that was taken that day.

       

Off all the students of North Wittier Andrews Elementary I have no knowledge of any that did not pass. Why we would have some graduation signifying that we have accomplished something? To make the teachers feel as if they did something I assume. I couldn’t read until a year before my mother’s death. The teachers just thought I was stupid so they never tried to help me. Still, there we were in the patio sitting around being happy the summer was coming.

       

There were so many of those faces that I would never see again, but still none that I honestly miss. That was a part of my life I left behind when I went to middle school. I do recall they gave me the opportunity to attend a math academy at what would become my high school but I opted to attend a prep course at Edwards instead. It had an impact on my life, but what kind of impact I’ll still need to sort out.

Stay Safe, little sister

Richard Leland Neal

Cow Invader - Irish Proverb

 

Cruel Folks

6^th March 2012

Dear Cassi,

So I’ve been rather morbid this week and that is because I’m to see the doctor soon. They say it is darkest before the dawn and I hope that is true. What comes to mind to me in this dark and brooding state is my stomach problems as a young man.

       

I recall some group therapy session shortly after my mother’s passing that the therapist was talking about expressing ones feelings. Then my cabbage aunt turned to me and said “You through up your feelings,” and the family laughed.

       

The idea of them all laughing at a child who has just lost his mother is rather cruel, but those folks are a cruel bunch. They had disowned me in all but name before I turned away from them and this was but another point on the plot of that movement.

       

What the cabbage had referred to was the fact that after visitation sessions with Alan I would come home and vomit. This could have had something to do with the fact that the old man would go to the local discount mart and buy all the candy his three children could eat. It also could have had something to do with my decaying mental state and the fact that Paul would never let me get a good night sleep keeping me up with his stories.

       

Then, it is beyond my ability to say that my parents splitting up didn’t have an impact on my digestion. Then, the fact that my mother was undergoing chemotherapy and was getting sick as well could have had a hair to do with this a well.

       

Still, it kindles the fire in my head that they felt I was so badly off mentally and found it funny. To laugh at the suffering of others is an ugly thing.

Stay safe, little sister

Richard Leland Neal

Home Left Me

5^th March 2012

Dear Cassi,

       

The other day someone told me that they had left home young. I returned this note with the information that I had not lived with my parents since the age of ten. The conversation went well, but as I was left alone to think a spark of anger grew into a fire that has lived in my chest since.

       

When my mother passed there was a commotion and a swooning over that lasted for a month of two, but then the family turned away and left the three of her children to live on. The eldest of us was fourteen and I the youngest was ten. They were well aware of my older sibling’s mental problems at the time so I cannot even begin to believe that they felt he would be an acceptable guardian.

       

I would tell the other two to make out the shopping list and then once a week I was taken to the store to buy the house keepings. A ten year old in charge of their own nutrition is never a good idea, but I think I did all right.

       

Still, that fact that no one step forward to say “look after you children,” sticks in my gut like bad beef. Worse than the beatings I took or the headaches is the fact that the world looked away. Childhood is a time of light and life but I lived in the dark cold of indifference. It is that cold that lives in my heart even today and the reason that I do not get lonely. I have come so used to being alone that it is who I am.

       

There have been so many times in my life that I have stood wounded and bleeding without the aid of others that I now have litter faith in its coming. I know not what the dawn will bring, but whatever comes I will great alone. This is the cold nature of my life and what I have come to understand.

Live in light and warmth, little sister

Richard Leland Neal

The Cat who Called for Help