I can’t pretend I wasn’t hoping just a bit
To get blown off this tower
Of broken dreams stacked up like bricks

What desperate minds do in desperate times
They make it worse most every time
Somebody stop me

‘Cause I’ve got bad intentions
Too many to mention, too many to mention
And I’m too slight to mention
Baby, I’d be a peasant
If I was paid in attention

You know, I’m back to training jiu jitsu when I can, and to be honest when I walked in today, I wanted to walk right back out. There is one coach who kicks the shit out of us during class and when I walked in and saw that motherfucker I was already ready to leave. I didn’t though, can’t give him the satisfaction.

When I leave jiu jitsu I go through this really weird series of events. For some background I started jiu jitsu October 25th, 2022. The day I was going to kill myself. For the first 6 months or so that I trained, I still lived in the house that i bought with my ex, still had my dog. Fiance had left, but me and the dog would sleep on the couch or in the guest room every night. You know it’s weird I never thought about it until now, but when she left neither myself or the dog ever slept in our room again.. It’s like we both knew.

So when I leave jiu jitsu now all of that flashes back to me and leads me to a miserable moment of panic and anxiety. I keep going back because eventually I’ll beat that feeling. Once I get a certain distance from the gym headed towards home now, which is the complete opposite direction, I start to calm down. About 10 minutes in the dopamine hits, I feel really relaxed, like I just got the shit kicked out of me for an hour and change.

During this time I always think of something… I consider to be profound. It’s like whatever the lesson was for the day hits me. See what I love about jiu jitsu is I didn’t just learn 4 ways to break someone’s arm and one way to put them to sleep, you also learn about yourself, life skills.

Last night watching Yellowstone one of the characters demonstrated a choke they use in the military that puts people to sleep almost instantly. Essentially you put pressure on the corroded artery and within seconds they faint. I kinda watched and was like well this is a tv show no way it happens that fast. So when I was rolling with one guy he left his neck exposed and I grabbed on, I decided to try it, and almost instantly, he fainted.

What a lot of people don’t understand about jiu jitsu is it’s not violent. We are not there to hurt each other, we are there to learn and train together. Today I decided to be violent, and I feel guilty because I don’t feel bad about it. It’s like a rule that you don’t do that kind of stuff, I’m early enough in my training I can just say it was an accident but it wasn’t.

I’ve noticed recently I’ve been more angry than usual, and a shorter fuse to ignite that anger. I’ve also noticed that I’ve entered an episode of depression. At some point today I really felt…nothing. Choking that guy I kinda felt nothing.

Tradition is the wrong word, but I have a tradition, where when the feeling of nothing gets really bad I go to the beach in South Boston and self harm. Today was the first time I’ve ever trained without some sort of spandex pants on under my gi. When you train in a gi throughout different moves and positions your pant legs come up, and when they do you can see the inside of my ankle where I cut. Someone noticed but didn’t talk about it, for the first time in life I wasn’t ashamed by it.

I can’t really explain it, and I only know of one person I talk to that can take me out of it, but sometimes I get so ramped up and almost manic that I’m feeling everything and nothing at the same time, and something that relieves that feeling is cutting. I know I need to find an alternative. It’s hard to find because you can cut anytime, I don’t need the beach or a special place or anything, I keep a pack of razor blades in my backpack, no one knows. I can’t leave work in the middle of the shift to go do a cold plunge or take a cold shower, so it’s become what’s always accessible. I know that doesn’t make it right, or safe. I’m working on it.

But selfish minds do what they like
Somebody stop me

Where the skies are gold not gray,

J.