Archive of Our Own

When I woke up this morning, it clicked. I finally had it. It felt like a revelation, suddenly seeing it all so clear.

”I’m nothing” I say, thinking how accurate it is.
“Nothing?” Misha, my therapist, asks me, “what do you mean ‘nothing’?”
“Nothing,” I repeat, “There is no meaning with my life. There is nothing to do, nowhere to be. I just sit here, in an eternal waiting room.”

For years I’ve been battling with these thoughts. The what if, the how long can I, and the do I really have to? The thoughts about holding on, for how long and for who?

”Surely you are something. Someone,” Misha argues. "Why wouldn’t you be?"

“Because I have no value,” I think. “Because I am void of purpose. I am just leftovers put together when all the important people have been made”

I’ve been battling with the thoughts about being allowed to die.

“And who decides now?” Misha prods.

“What do you mean?”

“Who is it that doesn’t allow you to die now?”

“You have the control,” Misha taught me, years ago, when I first started therapy. It feels hundreds of years ago now, even though it really is only four.

“I don’t,” I tell him. “It’s me.”

“Nothing will happen, as long as you don’t let it.”

And that’s the thing – as long as I don’t let it.

And I didn’t – let it, I mean. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. Because I could not. And here’s the funny thing, even though Jared gets angry when I say this, but it’s true. The funny thing is that the reason I could not, was because I was not worthy to die. I wasn’t allowed to, because I didn’t deserve that way out. My pain wasn’t important enough to deserve such a drastic action. I would be a coward if I did, and then everyone would know it. They would see it plain as day that Jensen Ackles was a coward and a sissy, and he couldn't even cope with a little bit of pain. And I couldn’t let them see that. I couldn’t. So I had to keep going…..

“What do you do for a living?” she asks, smiling at me across the table. I have seen her around before, buying coffee and a muffin for her and her friends. They sit here now and then, to chat and laugh, always with a book tucked down in her bag. She’s a student at the college down the street, and now and then she sits in the coffee shop to read. There are too many people here today though, and all the tables are full, so she asked if she could share my table.

“I’m a web designer,” I say, almost choking on the words. Truth be told, it’s been more than a year since last time I even opened dreamweaver, much less actually worked on a site.

“Oh, cool,” she says, smiling over her cup of coffee.

I smile back at her and take another sip of mine.

“You work from here a lot?” she asks, nodding her head towards the laptop. The screen is mocking me, displaying tabs upon tabs of open threads in sci-fi forums. I wouldn’t call discussing the latest development in Doctor Who. working, though.

“Sometimes,” I say, and close the lid.

“Oh, sorry, don’t let me disturb you,” she says and looks apologetic.

“Don’t worry” I say, “It wasn’t anything important, and I was due for a break anyway.”

I wouldn’t go as long as to say I lived, because I didn’t, not really. I merely existed.

“What have you done today?” Jared asks and gives me a kiss.

I love his kisses, not so much his questions. “The usual,” I say, and he hums and nods.

“Did you take the kids out?” He crunch down to scratch Harley behind the ear, and lean over to give Sadie a hug too.

“Yup,” I say, not feeling the need to elaborate. Not like anything exciting happens anyway. Just the usual people taking a stroll. Mr. Hansson from down the street was outside when we walked past. He nodded. Looked like he was waiting to be picked up. He was standing there, leaning on his walker-chair, and fumbling to put a plastic bag in the basket at the front. There were a couple of mommies, or nannies, out on the playground with the kids. One of the children spotted the dogs and wanted to play, but Harley tends to be a bit too over-excited when meeting small people. He would probably knock them over, so I decided to make a little detour.

I didn’t walk too long though. Just until Sadie had done her thing, Harley was quicker this time, and then straight home to bed. I hope Jared is okay with take away today, I didn’t have the energy to even think about making food.

I know people look at me strangely if I say that I wish I had cancer instead. I did once say it, and it didn’t go down well. Well, what can you expect, really? But I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t wish I had the pain and the chemo and all of that, I just wish that I would either have the prospect to be well, or, if not, could die and not be called a coward and a selfish prick. I could die, and people would think of me as dying a heroic death.

The pain. I can’t fucking take the pain. It’s one of those days, where the medicine only works so well. It’s taking the edge off the headache, but it leaves me completely drained. I can’t even roll over, my body is so sore. It’s like someone has poured concrete in my bones, and glued my eyes shut. I can’t fucking move. I hate it. Hate it so much. And the nausea, it drives me crazy like a mother fucker. Give up already, leave me alone. Leave me the fuck alone, because I can’t take it anymore.

I just want it to end.

Now.

Soon.

I can’t take it anymore. I can’t… I just… can’t. I’m so fucking tired. I’m so tired of this, I have no words. No words. No thoughts. Nothing but pain.

I hate the fucking pain.

Hate it.

Hate. It.

Hate it.

I can feel myself shaking with tears, no strength to hold it back. No strength at all. I try to let it flow freely, it’s too painful to hold it back. My head can’t take any more pressure, it will explode. Don’t move. Don’t make a move.

“Get down.”

I push him down. I try.

“Harley, get down.”

He can sense my distress and just wants to comfort me.

“Harley, please,” I cry. “Get down, you make the mattress dip.”

It hurts. It hurts so fucking much.

I dim the light, put cold dressings on my forehead and crawl under the covers. This is my den. This is my life. This. This. Fucking this.

I feel awful thinking about it now – that I actually thought like that. That is probably what I’m the most ashamed of. Because who am I to belittle anyone’s situation like that. I believe everyone in that situation would envy me, because migraines aren’t terminal. Not even when they are chronic.

At least not on the surface.

“You don’t have migraines every day, right?” Jeff asks, trying to give me a smile. I smile back, telling him that sure, I have those days as well. I do all I can to make a good impression. I’m dating his brother after all, and I don’t want his family to think he’s dating a loser. I’m not telling him that, even if I don’t have a migraine that day, it isn’t necessarily a good day.

The thing is – too much pain may make you wish to die. What happens if I one day come to the point where I lose control? What happens if I one day say “not one more day of pain, I am too weak to bear this”? What happens if one day I am even more tired than this? More tired than a 35 year old man feeling like he is 90, because that’s how tired he is of life.

But I woke up this morning, thinking about something Jared said. Something he has said many times, but it hadn't really sunk in before. Something he said about being left behind.

“How do you think that makes me feel?” Jared says, pacing back and forth between the kitchen counter and the dinner table. “That you don’t want to live? That this, this life we have together isn’t enough for you?”

He palms his face and dries a couple of tears when looking up at the ceiling , hoping to find some answers there.

“I love you, Jensen” he says and looks straight at me, willing me to see the gravity of his words. “I love you, and when you say things like that, I get scared. I get fucking scared, and that angers me. I get angry, and frustrated, because my boyfriend says he doesn’t want to live.”

And I’ve always thought of this as me not being worthy of dying. That my pain when living is less than their pain if I die, so I don’t have the right to inflict them with such pain, when I cannot even carry my own.

“You cannot die Jensen. You cannot die, because if you do, I don’t know how I can go on living.”

It would prove once and for all how selfish I am. What a lowlife I am, and really, they would probably be better without me anyway. But we would not be able to test that, since I didn’t have the right to die.

”I love you too,” I say, and I hope that is enough.

It wasn’t until much later that it hit me, that if I was an animal, they would have put me down. If an animal was in this much pain, and they couldn’t do anything to help it, they would have let it die. But not me. Not people. I started to feel that humans were the only ones being treated inhumanely when tired of life. What the irony in that.

“Do you think it’s dangerous?” the doc asks, looking straight at me. For most of the time he’s been facing the computer, but now he’s focused solely on me.

I am all too aware that it’s not dangerous, so I say “I know it’s not.”

He nods, takes a little break and then speaks again. “People can learn how to live with pain. They can cope pretty well.”

"I know," I think. "It’s just me being a sissy again."

“Pain isn’t dangerous, you know.” He say and I want to remind him that we’ve been over this. Less than a minute ago. And I still know.

"I just hate it"’ I want to tell him, but I already feel belittled. Like I’m being told off by the principle. I feel like I’ve been told to pull my shit together and act grown up for a change. Be a man.

Someone should have told him that men don’t cope well with pain.

I know they try to help me, every time they tell me it’s not dangerous. I know they do it to lessen my pain. The fear that it might be dangerous may increase the level of pain. How ironic isn’t that? That the words they tell me to ease my pain just increase it instead.

”I’m sorry, I can’t” I say, and try not to bite his head off.

“Can’t you just take the nasal spray?” Jared asks, pointing toward the one dosage spray lying on my side table by the bed.

“No, I can’t” I say, a little bit more venom in my voice this time.

“Why not?”

“Because,” I say, and this time I really bite. I can’t do this now. I just can’t….

“We promised,” he says again, and I tell him, again, that I know. How is it that he can’t get into his thick head that I am not doing this on purpose?

“Couldn’t you just try?” he says, and that’s the last straw.

“Fuck you,” I cry and regret instantly when my head explodes in pain.

“Oh, really?” he spits at me and fist his hand before holding up his hands in surrender. “Fine, be that way.”

“Fine” I say, and turn my back towards him. I can hear him hesitate in the doorway, before he turns to walk away. “I’ll be home late,” he says, and I tell him I know.

No, I know it’s not a death sentence. It’s a life sentence, and that isn’t much easier to bear.

“I’m sorry,” Jared says, when he climbs into bed next to me.

“I know,” I say and peck him on the lips. “I’m sorry too.”

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you,” he says, pulling me into his arms.

“You smell like smoke,” I say, pulling out and away from the stench.

“I’m sorry. People were smoking there. I’ll take a shower, okay?”

“Great,” I say, and I turn and look at the time. “You’re home early.” I had no clue as I’ve been sleeping since he left.

“Missed you there.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“No, don’t,” he says, “I had no right to say what I said.”

“I wanted to come, you know?” I say, giving him a little smile.

“I know. I was just disappointed. It’s not every day we throw a bachelor party for Chad, you know?”

“I know, and I hate that I missed it, but the nasal spray would not have been enough today. This was a hard one, and I would not have made it, even if I tried my best. You know that, right?”

“I know that. I just…”

“Yeah, me too….”

“I know you do. I know. You must hate it more than me.”

"Yeah," I think, "but it fucks up your life too…."

Who are they to tell me that I can’t die? Who are they to decide that my suffering isn’t enough to warrant a rest? The thought hits me one day, suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere. Someone said something, on a daytime tv-show, that if they had been an animal, they would have been put down. And that’s it. My thoughts exactly.

And I was thinking, why do we listen to those who have never yearned for death when it comes to this? Why does their opinion weigh more than ours?

”You should have seen her. She was such a trooper. Coping with all that pain, and never a complaint.”

What do they know about my pain anyway?

Have they felt it?

Have they walked a mile in my shoes?

It doesn’t matter how someone else is able to cope with their pain. My pain is mine, and I am the one dealing with it. I am the one that can take no more.

And it doesn’t really help me much that some person someone knows did get better after trying some weird remedy, because I am tired of trying everything new under the sun. I am tired of having people waiting expectantly for me to tell them that their suggestion was what helped me when nothing any doctors had done was doing any good.

I am sorry if I disappoint you, but at some point, enough is enough.

At some point I have to say, these are the cards I’ve been dealt. How can I live with it?

”Jared?”

“Hm?”

“Do you mind if we just order in tonight? I just don’t have it in me to make any food today?”

Yes, you heard me right. I said live with it. Because that’s what hit me this morning, that I want to live, just not like this.

And those three little words right there makes all the difference, doesn’t it? Not like this… Try the words - taste them. ”Not like this.”

It’s not the same as at all, is it? Nope it’s not.

I don’t want to live like this is an opportunity rather than a dead end, isn’t it?

Because it suddenly hit me, that if they want me to live so much, then I am worthy enough to ask them for help when I need it. Maybe, and this is new to me, maybe I can now ask for help without feeling like such a burden?

And maybe even me asking them for help is less of a strain on them, than having them be worried about my mental health all the time? Maybe, and I think this is important, maybe they don’t mind so much helping me, if I just tell them what kind of help I need.

So, when I woke up this morning, it clicked. “I’m me,” I thought, “and that I am allowed to be.”