tracey, i love you so much. i think i’ve been doing REALLY well. i had my first depressive episode from my bipolar disorder in a while last week, and it really caught me off guard. i was super overwhelmed, and i questioned everything. my depression has always stemmed from my bipolar disorder - essentially, it’s because i feel i can never be sure if my thoughts and passions are mine or just the result of a manic episode, or if my sadness is real or just the result of a depressive episode. i got into a really bad thought cycle on monday night. i felt like i couldn’t be sure of anything. i didn’t know if i was doing well by working two jobs and going to class, or if i only thought i was doing well because i was ignoring my true feelings. i felt i couldn’t be sure if i had made any progress on grieving bri, or getting over what charlie did to me. i felt so delusional. i knew in that moment that in order to calm down, i needed to start small. to think about empirical things that i know to be true: i am a fantastic worker at both my jobs. i do well. i saved up and bought a truck. i have one of the highest grades in my class. my mom loves me. i love my mom. i love tracey. tracey loves me. but see - i felt no motivation to do this because i felt i couldn’t judge even the empirical things. i was SO delusional, it was horrifying. i felt crazy, and it was exacerbated by the fact that i had one of my best days in a LONG time. it didn’t make sense for me to feel this way, and i hated myself for being so caught off guard and manipulated by these irrational feelings. however, i realized something. maybe i’m not supposed to be able to rationalize these feelings. it sounded crazy at first, but i remembered something. shortly before bri died, i discovered the works of Albert Camus, a philosopher. particularly his essay, The Myth of Sisyphus. in it, Camus discusses two things - suicide, and what’s called the Absurd. the Absurd is a philosophical term describing human’s inherent desire to seek meaning and reason in life, and the human inability to detect any. he discusses suicide, and declares that it is the most important question one can ask hemselves, because without answering whether you should kill yourself or not, nothing has any meaning. this is why Camus’s most famous phrase is ‘should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?’ in the essay, he supports this sentiment by using philosophical questions contemporary philosophers ask themselves. he talks about consciousness, categories inside the mind, etc. however, if you can’t answer whether you should kill yourself or not, then these things are meaningless.

Camus writes about how he sees people kill themselves because they feel their life has no meaning or purpose. paradoxically, Camus sees people dying for the reasons of illusions that give their life meaning. martyrs, soldiers, battlefield medics, etc. he comes to the conclusion that a reason to live is just as good as a reason to die. this hit me very deeply in march of 2018. i wanted to die because of my bipolar disorder; the uncertainty i felt over my feelings was agonizing and i didn’t deserve to have to suffer from this identity crisis. however, i realized because of Camus, that i deserved to live despite this. my reason to die works just as well as a reason to live.

now, back to my breakdown. i realized maybe i’m not supposed to understand these irrational feelings. maybe i’m not supposed to be able to make sense of them. maybe, just maybe, it’s an example of the absurd! me trying to seek meaning in life but lacking what i need to detect any. me trying to rationalize the irrationable. i felt so stupid, how could i not have realized this before? i was aware of the absurd before, so how could this not have occurred to me? i stopped giving that eureka moment concerning ‘a reason to live is just as good a reason to die’ credibility a long time ago. this was because despite the enlightenment it gave me in march of 2018, and how my resolve to never commit suicide was strengthened when bri passed because i knew SO well how it affected those around you, i still ended up being suicidal. i grew apathetic, and increasingly dissociated. i still loved philosophy, but i couldn’t comprehend why it worked for me so well one point in my life, yet became meaningless at another point.

i doubted this revelation of the absurd, because i knew that my struggle is the result of a chemical imbalance in my brain. that’s what bipolar disorder is. yet, i realized something. if philosophy could save my life at one time, why can’t it do it again?

never mind the fact that ‘a reason to live is just as good a reason to die’ contradicts the absurd. that’s the beauty of philosophy - it’s open to interpretation, and we can derive any meaning we want from it. this gave me hope. i couldn’t believe how ignorant i had been - my struggle relates directly to what Camus and other existentialist/absurdist philosophers write about! sure, empirically my bipolar disorder is the result of an imbalance of chemicals. but aside from Aristotle (who was all about empiricism) and some 17th-18th century philosophers (some of whom are John Locke and Desmond Hume, who characters in my favorite tv show Lost are named after. they represent these empiricist ideals so well, i didn’t realize it until i started reading into philosophical movements of that time and i found out their namesakes. pretty funny how this ties into my love of Lost, but I’m starting from the point), philosophy doesn’t give a shit for what’s empirical. this made me feel very secure, and i was able to calm down and fall asleep. i woke up the next morning feeling rejuvenated, and i realized that the progress i’ve made is real, and not just a delusion.

thank you so much for everything you’ve done for me, tracey. i know i don’t talk to you very much, but i think about you ALL the time. you help keep me grounded. i don’t think i’ll be able to make it up there this winter, which i regret very much, but it’s okay because we have a lot of time. i still want to talk to you and record us talking about bri and our feelings. i know i have it in me to use our feelings to help others. i don’t mean to sound full of myself, and the organization of this message certainly may lead you to disagree, but when i apply myself, i am a fantastic writer. it’s one of the few things i am certain of. combined with my knowledge and love of philosophy, i feel i could really speak to people in a way that touches them deeply. not just people who struggle with suicidal thoughts, but those around them. i want to increase awareness on all sides. i want people to better understand what they’re going through, and i want people to better understand what others are going through. i am confident that i can do it. and it wouldn’t be just for them, it would be for bri. i love you so much tracey, and i’m so sorry for not talking to you much. i’ll call you soon. i am extremely busy, but i don’t want you to ever let that make you feel i care for you, or for what i’ve expressed i want to do, any less. you mean the world to me, and i know together, we can save lives. i’ve already impacted dozens of people around the world - every now and then i’ll vent my feelings into online communities, just because it helps to write it out and get it out of my head. i’ve received hundreds of responses, with many being from people who are going through or have gone through something similar. one recently stuck out to me. this is what they said: ‘I saw your post, and it really struck a cord with me. I have been thinking of killing myself lately because I hold myself so low. I beat myself EVEN more while im down. Even though I'm better today than yesterday, your comment showed me how selfish it is to commit suicide. I have a family that loves me so much, and a girl who would go to the ends of the world for me. She's my rock, and thinking about how I can cause those around me so much pain is not fun to think about.

So I thank you for sharing man. I give you my condolences and send you some love :)’

my intention wasn’t to show that suicide is selfish, and i made sure that this person knew that in my response, but it felt great to know what i’ve said has helped people to take a step back and examine themselves. and these posts i’ve made are just random tangents i’ve gone on when i’m particularly overwhelmed by my emotions. my reach and influence could go so much further in the form of concise, articulated thought, yknow? this gives me hope and inspiration. another thing that gives me hope was the result of one of these tangents, and it led me to have a conversation with this guy. in my post, i put the sentiment about grief coming in waves that i told you about long ago. i’ll send it to you when i send this message. this guy said this:’Thank you for this comment. It is so much like my own situation that it feels it was written by future me.

I think it will help me to know that those waves get further apart as time goes.’

i told him i’m very sorry to hear he’s going through something similar, and i linked him to a response i made to another person from the same post that i felt may help him. in that response, i wrote about how i am happy to suffer this intense grief because it’s a testament to how much bri meant to me, and a celebration of her life. he responded this:’I've felt like that too, thanks to my therapist. I'm just vastly lethargic now. I feel like I have to fake all my emotions.

How long did it take you to not feel as if it was your fault?’

i told him this ‘until i could rationally say and believe it wasn’t my fault? a little less than a year, probably. it’s hard to give a definite answer because i still feel i couldve done something depending on how i’m feeling if that makes sense? like i may feel rational but i may be moderately inconvenienced and that’ll cause it to hit me harder. sorry for my shitty articulation, my sleep medicine has me quite sedated’

and he responded with:’It totally makes sense. I guess I still have a while to go until I can be rational most of the time instead of the opposite.

Thanks for your answers, I'm gonna head off to bed.’

this response of his really struck a chord within me because it helped me realize how much progress i’ve made. at the time, and on some days still, i felt i had made no progress. but his comment helped me realize i’ve made incredible progress, and i let him know. to paraphrase my response to him, i told him something like ‘while i dont mean to make light of your suffering, your comment has helped me realize how far ive come’ and i described to him how i felt when it happened and how some days i still feel that way. i told him i hoped that this realization of my own progress will give him hope, as some day, he will get to the point i am at.


i’m sorry this was so long. i just wanted you to know. i love you! talk more soon.


here’s the thing about grief and waves: ‘
As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything...and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.

Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O'Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll come out.

Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don't really want them to. But you learn that you'll survive them. And other waves will come. And you'll survive them too. If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.’