7 Holes in my Soul

7 Holes in my Soul

When I turned 18, I felt a vibration come over me. It wasn’t a physical change but rather, it was a deep psychological bone-shattering experience that I had never experienced before. I had always thought I was one of the fortunate ones. A lucky guy with a guardian angel on my shoulders. Little did I realize that this change that came over me would ravage my soul forever.

My heart was restless, and my soul was deeply in love with my high school sweetheart. I married out of fear of losing her and was almost instantly cursed with negative feelings and emotions. Inside my head, I knew I was a complicated man. Not only was my heart restless but it was also broken. It felt like there was a hole in my soul.

My feelings were aching, my emotions turned stone cold and my funny bone had disappeared. No sense of humor, my sarcasm ruled my daily use of words that sometimes resembled hate or disgust of the world around me. I felt that I didn’t have a choice in the matter of controlling my emotions. I felt like self-control had left me and that my destiny was now controlled by my anger inside me.

The fear was real. I knew that I would be separated from those whom I loved merely by the fact that we were at war and that all young men, poor and uneducated were prime beef for the Army. I saw my friends enlist to avoid being drafted but none were rich enough to go to college and get a deferment. It was more than fear, it was a horror show that was real and every day I lived in the shadow of death, I grew more and more towards the dark side of life. I lost all faith in love, religion and the ways to walk on the narrow path of righteousness.

My mind was racing, it could not find a place to stop and reset itself to return my head to some state of normalcy. There was a hole in my soul and I couldn’t control it. I felt like I was in a state of vertigo, spiraling out of control and sure to hit bottom any time of the day now. I fed this sensation of paranoia pills and booze. I hit the bottle harder and more often to ease the pain but to no avail, I couldn’t regain control as the fear of death and misery wouldn’t go away. In the end, my head was swarmed with spider webs and dark clouds as I kept feeding it pills and booze in a frenzy that would have killed an ordinary man who was sober.

Yes, it was true that alcohol and drugs eroded my soul to the point of no return. From the moment I was drafted into the Army, I was forced to choose between life and death. At 19, I went to war as a medic and taught how to kill and heal people. An incongruity if I ever experienced one but I did my duty without complaining and found myself wedged between a rock and a hard place much more than I want to mention. Inside my head, I refused to accept the possibility that a higher power could help me. I was doomed to die an early death.

Aware of it or not, the conscience and conscious mind kept the battle raging. No matter how hard I tried, it wouldn’t heal. There were always room for more rage and pain. It wouldn’t go away. Even now, although its been years ago, it still happens and I don’t understand why as I am now an old man who has aged almost a quarter of a century.

Aware of it or not, most people suffer from a condition best described as a spiritual disease. But inside my heart I knew it was more than a disease or disorder, I knew it had grown to be a part of me forever. Although I have gotten rid of the pills and alcohol, there is still the mass presence of anxiety and depression. I may appear to be physically fit but inside I was a mess.

Seven times time in my life I experienced the side effects of this condition. Some people like to sweep their own misery under the carpet and move on with the baggage still there but deeply hidden. Seven times did I experience sorrow and the agony of defeat in trying to find total bliss and happiness. In the process, I have experienced rage, pain, and sorrow related to losing faith in myself and confidence that I was on the right path to correct this feeling.

There was a time where I would do anything to make others happy. I would collect the emotional blackmail and coerce myself into relationships that were based on trying to make things work when in fact, it was never to be. In the process, I became a workaholic, alcoholic, food junkie and a druggie. I tried everything to dull the pain but still, I would trip over my own two feet and it was just a matter of time before I would fall again and hurt myself or others.

In this case of my life, I spent more than 30 years living with a broken soul that kept the light out and with certainty beyond doubt, sealed the darkness inside of me. I was a borderline wreck. It was a scary and lonely place to be and joy and happiness escaped me at every turn of my life. Without a doubt, it was the fear, the silent desperation and the deliberate detachment from others that kept me in human chains in finding the bliss I believed I deserved. I was in fact, my own worst enemy.

I realized I created this disconnection by the emotions I harbored inside of me. It caused me to be mean-spirited, divorced from those I loved and shortened my life that could have been filled with joy rather than despondency. In doing so, I knowingly caused a ripple effect. A causation that harmed many around me and passed on stress, hate, anger, and tension with those who I loved or met. It was enough to deprive others to get to know the real me and vice versa – I lost a chance to know those who loved me.