The coals in the wood stove are thick as tomorrow’s promised snow. Winter’s hand pulls Dan under–to converse with his dead–his brother, his dad, his aunt, an old girlfriend.
“There are so many things I think about now. Things I see differently. I sit in front of my friend Jerry’s wood stove and I daydream about things. It’s kind of dark out all day. I’m not depressed; I’m grateful for what I see. I miss my brother. I couldn’t really feel it all before, but now I do and it’s good.”
“I can see myself. You know, I can remember now how when I was off my medication; I thought there were people in the ceiling. Or I would think that I was on a rooftop somewhere when I was just sitting at the bar. It was all wrong, but it seemed normal and I couldn’t understand why people were pretending they didn’t see what I felt and saw. I figured they were all out to get me. Like there were rules to a game I had to figure out and the price was life or death if I lost. It sounds crazy now. And, I guess it was.
Being off your meds is no joke. What your mind can do to you… whoa. I’m glad I know that now. It makes me have more patience for people who have trouble in the ways I had trouble. And I was a big guy. Real big.
I was in a panic all the time. I just ate and ate. When I was a truck driver, I was sitting a lot. Eating and sitting.
I loved working as a mechanic, but I stopped being able to go to work once I started thinking everyone was sabotaging my engines just to get me. It wasn’t really happening, but I thought it was.”
Dan came to the Carson Center with goals in mind. He had already taken his own steps forward.
“Once I got back on my medication for the Schizophrenia, it was like I could feel myself again…and I felt heavy! I wanted to lighten up. The Carson people got me into a Weight Watchers group. What helped was the hiking group they had, too. There are ways I just never said good-bye to my aunt or my dad or my brother. Even my ex. Sometimes in your life you just need a long walk under a beautiful sky and fresh air. For me, I need a lot of long walks. Even when it is cold and rainy, I don’t mind. I work things out that way.
Carson staff brought me to Alcoholic Anonymous, too. That was a no-brainer. Drinking was only the symptom anyway, covering up all the stuff I had to deal with, causing me a mess more problems than the ones I had underneath it all. I see guys come in to the AA meeting looking like I used to look—a hundred pounds overweight, talking stuff that makes people afraid of them. Times like that I know for sure that I have a purpose. We are meant to help each other, you know? And who better to talk a guy out of the idea that there are Martians in the coffee pot than me, you know?
And there’s my mom. I can help out with her now. She’s old. When I help her walk across the room, I can’t help but think that this lady helped take my first walk across the room. She looks at me and pats my hand and I know that she’s at peace because I’m at peace.
It’s the winter now. It’s a good time to think about what matters. It’s like there’s tangle in there, inside me—where I came from, what I feel. Winter roots. And right there, in the middle of that dark underground, I got hope. I can feel it. It’s green.”
By JAC Patrissi
