I have a soft spot for marines. I dated one this time last year who was far more emotionally banged up than my current guy. I can’t help gravitating toward fucked up people, because they are filled with stories and I can relate to their emotional struggles, but my current marine is nice and mentally stable. Relatively speaking…..
If I can ignore his annoying pro-gun facebook posts.
I have another local friend with tons of guns, plus two pit bulls, and I was initially a little uncomfortable, but figured, as long as I don’t know how to, or have to, use them, I’d be good. I tend to be in a relaxed and happy state of mind when I’m with this friend, as well as my new flame, which keeps the thought of self harm to a minimum..
But my friend isn’t this gung ho marine who wants to talk ad nauseum about gun control on facebook. I take offense to people getting so up in arms (literally) about gun regulations following Sandy Hook.
This guy I’m dating treats me well; he picks me up and drops me off at work and cooks for me. He’s affectionate, and does me other little favors without acting whipped. His reaction to my revealing I strip was very chill. We’ve already been through each other’s family stories, including my admitting I’m the black sheep for more reasons than being outed as a stripper (ie drinking and not managing my mental health to my nurse stepmom’s standards.) These are all good things. But I know the companionship I’m enjoying now isn’t meant to be long term.
We are on opposite sleep schedules and I’ll sit up drinking his bourbon, watching movies past his bedtime. It makes me uneasy that he has so many guns and that I let him teach me to use two of them. (The safety is nothing but a flip you switch, painfully easy!)
I asked him if he’d lost friends in combat during his two deployments. He hadn’t (they launched ammunition, so were able to passive aggressively kill people in Fallujah without looking them in the eye or going man to man.) He’s lost a good 4-5 military friends and associates to suicide. He wasn’t in hard core situations, so that helps him have a sound mental state; he literally did a presentation for trainees about ammunition citing kill numbers as “morale booster” (instead of eat-away-at-you-til-you-off-yourself boosters.)
I discussed the issue with a high school buddy who loves him some guns (he was the token non-bleeding heart guy of my liberal Boston suburb growing up.) He said:
“As pro-second ammendment as I am, manic depression combined with substance abuse means no guns for you!.”
At my High School reunion, one of my classes’ two casualties came up; “Yeah, I heard he was shitfaced when he shot himself” was my friend’s line. To the point, and painfully true.
My new flame doesn’t know the full extent of my problems. He knows I pop pills to sleep and always stay up later than him and he knows I get anxiety and drink more than him, but I haven’t copped up to him that his guns make me weary. He definitely hasn’t figured out telepathically that I secretly see his guns as opportunities; the motive is already there, but usually suppressed by fear, Klonopin, and most importantly, lack of access to firearms (I’ll be quicker to call 9-1-1 and take care of myself than fire a bullet.).
My greatest fear is accidentally overdosing on my sedative pills combined with alcohol. I discussed openly with my last, fucked up, marine, how I’m often scared to sleep, because I’m scared of not waking up, which contributes to my insomnia. Getting drunk and shooting myself is just so much easier. It’s not like I’ve had my heart broken, I’m just very morbid. I have morbid obsessions, such as Amy Winehouse’s downfall, dating guys who’ve had to kill people and reading shit like Naked Lunch by William Burroughs.
I really want our society, as a whole to make some headway as far as the suicide and mental health stigma. Which is why I’m plugging this post from TheGoodMenProject.