Tipping Point: Suicide or Exploring a New Identify

This post is dated 2016 and written in 2022. I had a good life. A lucky child. I was a veteran. I married a pretty girl. We raised ideal children, both high school valedictorians. Now one's a PhD and the other's got her Master's. I had some modest financial success; I could pay my bills, we had health insurance, when my family needed something I could pay for it. When I was 58 years old in 2016, it all collapsed. It had started to collapse five years before, in 2011 when I was 53. My wife insisted on couple's counseling, and each of the several counselors we saw told me that I had too much going on myself yo be effective in couples counseling without first graplling with individial counseling. It turns out, from the age of 2.5 years I was beaten, viscously and regularly, but my father who would have been about 28 years told at the time. He was a timekeeper at Domino Sugar in Brooklyn when I was born (it's on my borth certificate) and got a job as a police officer, which was his career aspiration. Every Irish New Yorker wants a Civil Service job. I don't know why he beat me. His phrase given decades later was, My son was two and a half and I beat him just like we beat the prisoners. I have a theory. It's based on malformed and swiss-cheesy memories. I think I was a Momma's Buy and I was fascinated by her udnerwear, her foundation, her lingerie, the who stocks and garter belt thing. I think that's what propmpted the beatings. I can't be specific, it's just a hunch. Later in school we read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and there's a young boy named Neelie Nolan. He was beaten by the father when the old man was in his cups. I hated Neelie because he wimpered and cried and didn't just shut up and take it, which (guess what) was my own technique. When I was in 4th, 5th, and 6th grades I was routinely and consistently raped by a parish priesnt, Father Eugene Aurnaud. When I look at the Diocesan database of priests with multiple complaints, it looks like every priest in the parish, in the rectory, was fucking a few young boys. I tried to tell my Father about it. He didn't believe me. He beat me several nights trying to get me to recant. I didn't. Finally, over the weekend, he took me to an empty cellblock at the 61 Station House (the old one on E16 and Avenue U) and locked me into a cell. He said, we'll see how much of a tough guy you are. He turned and left me along. Everyhing you've heard about the enormity of closing cell dppes and the shutting of cell block doors is true, and possibly an understatement. It was terrifying. I know he wanted me to recant about the priest sticking his dick in my ass, but I was not backing down. I was probably alone in the cellblock only long enough for hin to have a coffee and a smoke, but it was an eternity and my life changed that day. He came back, asked if I had anything to say, asked if I would take it back. I said No, It happened, it's the truth, I'm not taking it back. He released me from my cage, took my to the car, and we never spoke of it again. Never. My life was different now. No longer an innocent happy boy. I was eternally on high vigilance. I was very defensive. I would be a very good boy to avoid gettng in trouble, and I never wanted to get locked up again. I roamed Brooklyn on my bicycle, being home was not much good. I ended up in a career field that sought after compartmented minds, people who could retain their functional cool in the face of great tragesy, people with a sense of game, people who were mentally very quick, could triage, dealt with deteriorating situations well. I thrived. They identified all my bugs, exploited them, and declared them GIften Features. I did well there. When I was 2011 and 53, my wife insistedon Marriage Counseling. Each counselor in their tuwn told me, you've got mahor issues you need to deal with yourself. So I started seing individual counselors. They all saw that I had hidden things under "rocks" in my compartments and persona. I told them to be careful; if you lifted those rocks, scurrying insects and untold monsters would slither away and get loose, and you'd never get them back under the rocks. You could open the box but there was not guarantee of closing it. Those little monsters scurried everywhere, like cockroaches when you shone a light on them. I wish I could put them back. I came to realize that my entire life, from being beaten at 2.5 years old until 53, 55, was a lie - a twisted set of survival behaviors that didn;t always serve me well, and probably weren't nice to the people around me. An entire waster life, shadow-boxing with Parents and Priests and Schools and Expectations, and none of it was Me. By 58 years old, in 2016, I was planning suicide. The problem with suicide is that generally, some poor slob or slobs has to find you, and I didnt want to do that to anybody. But I devised a pretty good plan, with the possibility of appearing to maybe be an accident. A sidebar: during this time i had to put a family pet down. She was suffering with no hope of improvement. I saw it right away. My wife and kids clung to the status quo for months. Finally, we did it at the Vet's. I am so jealous of the dog. Why can't I have a death as peaceful as my dog? Why do I hace to do violence to myself, and leave some poor stranger with the task of finding me? It seemed crazy. I just want it as good as a dog gets it. I descided, before my suicide, to try the other life, the unexplored life, the life I should have persued. My marriage was over, my kids had timed out and graduated and launched. There's so much resistance to change. Other people want you to remain the version of yourself that they angaged with. Smokers want you to smoke. Alcoholics want you to drink. They all want you to stay the same, and they will smother you with their well-appearing desire to maintain the status quo. They don't believe you about the priest. Or they say, maybe once sure, but 19 times? They don't believe the savagery of a police beating; my dad hit me and I'm ok. I've rejected almost every bit of the personality they installed on me. I'm struggling to be me. It seems more productive to suicide, and after all the terminal option is still available. Nobody supports Me being the new-me. Some people tolerate small aspects of it. Most wish I wouldn't do it. Most wish I hid it and maintained the old appearances. They don't get it