The “Strong Friend”

When I was a child, asking for help meant pain. It meant getting beaten, locked away, and ridiculed by the adults that I was told I had to defend and trust with my life.

When I was an adult, asking for help meant weakness. It meant being mocked, thrown away, and called useless by the people that you’ve broken your back for trying to help.

When I was a director, asking for help meant loss. It meant that every failure of the company was mine and mine alone. It meant that those under my supervision were going to be jobless because I didn’t know everything.

So. I learned everything.

I stayed away from friends, because I needed to learn everything.

I isolated away from my partner, because I needed to learn everything.

I stayed away from joy, because joy was a distraction and I needed to learn everything.

I stayed glued to my doctor, because I needed to learn everything. Even if my body was trying to kill me.

The irony of it all is the hero that has inspired me since my first suicide attempt as a child in middle school. “Wisest is he who knows he knows nothing” was my soul and mind’s mantra. To this day, my philosophy is I don’t know anything. I know skills. I know goals, but those are behaviors not rooted in formulaic knowledge. It’s interpretive, fluid, and dangerous.

So. I knew everything.

Every thing that I was told I needed to know. Every thing I wanted to know. Everything I wanted to know.

And then they called me cold.

A monster.

Distant.

Egotistical.

But I wasn’t any of those things, they just couldn’t hear me screaming.