This tale is not for those with even a modicum of happiness,\njoy or love on Christmas Day. This tale\nis for those who experience Christmas Day as a cardboard box, as a mockery of\ntheir selves. This tale is for those who know that there is no hope, no\njoy, no love; only emptiness, despair\nand dread. Oh, and by the way, this tale\nis not a tale \u2013 it actually happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1975 I took a one way trip to Hell. This account is told from the inside. There are many ways to analyze what happened\nto me. Over the years have worked\nthrough them all. It could have been a\npsychosis. It could have been an\nillusion. It could have just been the\nLSD\u2026and, many more \u2013 it certainly was a transition, an abrupt transition, from childhood to adulthood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I started smoking weed in sixth grade. I started doing LSD early after. My brothers were in Vietnam and the 60s had swayed me towards peace, love and war protest. I had numerous joyous, amazing, wonder filled trips on LSD. I was even able to guide others from potential death trips to bliss while tripping. However, as it happened one night, in 1975 at the age of 19 years old, I had been out partying with my friend David in Baton Rouge. We found some guys that told us they had some blue acid. I think it was actually STP but, in any case, it went down the hatch. My friend was driving the two guys and myself around LSU. We pulled into a wooded area to smoke some dope. I was tripping really well. We were sitting in the car passing a reefer around, laughing, enjoying when, all the sudden everything crashed like the universe was made of glass and crumbled. Time was no more\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I found myself in a rusted, rotten, very old car. The two guys in the back of the car had demon faces. They smiled and laughed and said, \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong? This is what you wanted isn\u2019t it? Party forever, right? It suddenly occurred to me that no, this is not what I wanted, especially forever. I got out of the junk pile of a car. I was in an ancient swamp. All around me were small miry, mossy, stick huts. The huts were soul abodes of the damned. I walked aimlessly around the bog and knew there would never be a way out. I was here for eternity. The weight of timelessness pulled me into an absolutely empty oblivion which could nevertheless, never end. Endings only occur in time not eternity. I was filled with a vacuous and intense thirst – an ultimate, painful thirst nothing could ever quench. All hope was gone but not forgotten. Instead, hope turned into a mockery of demonic proportions. No soul in that place could think of hope as anything other than an absolute mockery, a salt into the gaping wounds of eternal damnation. I fell prostrate to the ground, face down, and three words came out of my mouth: \u201cGod forgive me\u201d. In a very quiet but subtle way I heard a faint battle of some type starting. However, nothing was any different. Then, my friend David found me on the ground. He stood over me and said, \u201cI know what you are feeling. You are feeling eternal hopelessness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The place I was in had no sympathy, no love, no hope \u2013 all that was only mockeries of my eternal dilemma\u2026and yet, David’s words were impossible in that universe, that Hell.\u00a0 I felt a nudge of acknowledgment in myself.\u00a0 Then, David said, \u201cCan you get up?\u201d\u00a0 With the eternal weight of damnation on me there was absolutely no hope.\u00a0 And yet, \u201cin hope against all hope\u201d, I got up.\u00a0 David said, \u201cCan you walk?\u201d\u00a0 Again, with monumental effort I took a step.\u00a0 From eternity, endless hopelessness, I took another step.\u00a0 We walked back to the old junk pile of a car.\u00a0 I got in.\u00a0 The two demons were still there.\u00a0 David pulled out of the swamp and when we got to the road, the demons got out of the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I cannot begin to tell anyone how much effort it took to slowly and eternally make my way back to anything humans would ever recognize as \u2018reality\u2019. There was no instant happiness. There was no instant joy, no God of love riding in with a parade of angels; only me and hopeless, timeless despair and anxiety. Yet, step after step, I was driven with an unrelenting effort to leave Hell, to make my way back to the land of the living. It was ten years of horror and anxiety. At first, I could not even put thoughts or words together in head \u2013 I only had a drive to move forward or get back somewhere that inside I knew could not exist, it could not be. In eternity, there is no hope, especially in death. Death offered nothing to me, no way out. Hell does not cease in death. In Hell, death is not an escape. I knew this in my very bones. In all those 10 years and, my entire life, I could never and have never seen suicide as a way out \u2013 only a way further into Hell. Slowly, in hope against all hope, step by insignificant step, over the coarse of ten years I made my way back to the land of the living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later in the journey back, I made myself think and reflect\non the experience. I found others that\nwould listen and even those that had similar experiences. I analyzed, read and continued to make myself\nmove, slowly take external steps to \u2018fake it until I made it\u2019 so to speak. I eventually went to college and got a B.S.\nin Electrical Engineering. Since then, I\nhave been extremely lucky and extremely hurt. \nIn my early thirties, I actually and surprisingly found that I could\nstart to feel love again. This was crazy\nand unbelievable. I thought I would\nnever again have that feeling. Somehow,\nit slipped back into my life and since then increased more and more. I also found, over time, that with love can come\nintense pain. However, the pain one gets\nfrom real love is a \u2018full\u2019 pain. It is\nradically different from the hollowing out pain of Hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Hell, there is no love. There is pain but empty pain. The pain hollows out. It destroys anything anyone ever believed or thought as hopeful or positive. In 2017, my 20 year old son committed suicide From birth it was evident that anxiety would haunt him over the years and it did. In kindergarten he was in therapy. I would join him when the therapist would let me, to do play therapy with him. I have a very detailed report from that therapist which identifies him as having generalized anxiety disorder. Over the next 20 years his mom and I did everything possible to help him. We had doctors, phycologists, psychiatrists, group therapy and eventually, against my desires, various drug and anti-depressants. The best thing we gave Chris was absolute and unconditional love – the kind of love that leaves one totally vulnerable and open to handing oneself over completely to another human being. I believed in him and told him many times that his anxiety would pass. A word of wisdom to anyone dealing with a loved one like this \u2013 you are correct in telling them to do the three things: sleep, exercise and eating right. However, the first thing they need to do is what I did in Hell \u2013 put one leg in front of the other. You cannot help anyone that does not want to help themselves \u2013 no matter how much you love them \u2013 no matter how much you want to help them. If they are intent on doing nothing and giving in to their anxieties, you must know that there is nothing Heaven or Hell or your love can do to change that. You may very well be looking at the dead body of the one you love most in the whole universe one day. I tried to help Chris over and over again \u2013 I told him to take a step, get up, move around, even if you do not want to or feel it. He would make half-hearted efforts, mainly to please us I think, but the bottom line is he could not or would not get serious about helping himself. The worst case, tragedy was the result I will take to my grave \u2013 hurt beyond belief. But, honestly, I would take that hurt, that \u2018full\u2019 hurt over never having had that incredible love for another human being. The hurt you get from Hell is empty and hollows you out like a shell of something that once was human. The hurt you get from real love teaches you and, I think, eventually makes you stronger. But, for me it will always be there. It is the last and parting gift my son gave to me. It will not kill me. It will make me stronger, more compassionate and more convinced that there is a way, no matter what, Hell, death, eternity to always find ones way back to love. I still believe in Chris and, when I take my last breath \u2013 the only way I will not find him and be there for him forever is if there is nothing after death. There may well be nothing but my life intention now to love my son unconditionally will not change and will continue as long as there is any such thing as \u2018me\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many easy ways to go to Hell and few hard ways to come back.\u00a0 Folks that drift along their entire life, over time, step by step, can become negative.\u00a0 They can think of themselves as victims.\u00a0 They can blame others for their perceived failures and insecurities.\u00a0 They can blame the government.\u00a0 There are a million demons nagging in the background that justifies and rationalizes negativity, dishonesty and hatred.\u00a0 Ultimately, they all bring you to your own personal damned, soul abode.\u00a0 When time finally slips away you are left in eternal Hell.\u00a0 Robin Williams made a notorious, critically declaimed movie called \u201cWhen Dreams May Come\u201d. \u00a0If you want to watch a movie that depicts a \u2018soul abode\u2019, watch this movie and pay attention to his wife.\u00a0 She ends up there and even though Robin Williams went to Hell to bring her back, he found that no one can leave until and unless they make a move to do so.\u00a0 Even Robin Williams himself could not leave there at least in this life.\u00a0 As Dante also found, there is no escape from Hell except to go through its center.\u00a0 You are the captain of your soul abode and you can steer it into the rocks or set a path towards hope and love.\u00a0 For those who find themselves in Hell, this nightmare of a Christmas mockingly called life,\u00a0 death will not stop your torment.\u00a0 As I told my son, I believe there is no way out \u2013 even death \u2013 you must deal with it \u2013 you must take a step against all hope, against everything that you know is \u2018real\u2019 and you must keep taking those steps.\u00a0 No one is going to fix you \u2013 only you can fix you and it will take each day, each step, unfaltering resolve to find what you know to be impossible, the abyss you will know for some seemingly infinite lapse of time until one day, as when you were born \u2013 you find that somehow, some way a new reality has dawned \u2013 one that you could have never imagined in your wildest nightmare \u2013 you will find your way back to love \u2013 to the silliness of Christmas \u2013 to the light.\u00a0 When that day arrives you will know that you can love again, you will be stronger than you ever imagined through life\u2019s storms.\u00a0 Another person will be born that day you will only come to know in the way a baby comes to know life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, I have a daughter that I love as much as I love Chris. She is here and beautiful. She needs a dad and she knows I am her \u2018A\u2019, number one source for being there, supporting her and always doing what I think is in her best interest. All you younger folks that think romantic love is the pinnacle of life \u2013 if you are lucky you will find that those feelings pale to the love you will have for a child. No songs are written for that unconditional love. Pop culture gives no hint of language to the journey you can have for your child. And now, especially for me, the only music I have for my children is what I make for myself when I play guitar. It is a solitary journey but one that everyone would be extremely fortunate to have, to live, to give of oneself so completely, so vaulted and without a safety net below. At the age of 62, I recently wrote a post (The Wood<\/a>) which kind of summarizes where I am these days from the depths of Hell to the heights of love and beyond. Professor Cohen, a scholar of Levinas, whom I have written about elsewhere describes Judaism as a religion for adults. I can appreciate now at my age that there is such a thing. You will be so fortunate as to, by hook or by crook, find your way towards an adult religion and philosophies of yonder hills not often tread. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This tale is not for those with even a modicum of happiness, joy or love on Christmas Day. This tale is for those who experience Christmas Day as a cardboard box, as a mockery of their selves. This tale is for those who know that there is no hope, no joy, no love; only emptiness, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[247,246],"class_list":["post-4786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hell","tag-suicide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4786"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4800,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4786\/revisions\/4800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixermuse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
(His Eulogy<\/a>). No words will ever express or contain the love and the super special relationship I had with Chris for 20 years. I know it was special for him too. It was a love that only a father and a son can be fortunate enough to know. Chris had so much going for him. He was called \u2018the lover\u2019 in elementary school by his teachers. He was tall and very good looking but he was always for the downtrodden kids. He made friends with the kids that other kids would not talk to and would make fun of for various reasons. He protected them and made them feel fully accepted. Most of the time Chris seemed happy and like a typical kid. For most of his life, he shied away from drugs and alcohol. I had told him my experiences with drugs when he was old enough and admonished him not to do drugs or alcohol to excess. I told him it was a waste of time. However, Chris was born with anxiety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n