The Voice Within

For every voice there is a countervoice singing dischordantly. And so it is with me, because for as long as I can remember, there has always been an alternative voice speaking to me. It is another Dave, one who treats life very differently.

He is the Dave that gave up 25 years and more ago, the Dave that refused to fight, that buckled under the weight of depression. Very few of you will have met him, some of you will have heard him for occasionally this is the Dave that speaks for both of us, the one who gains the upper hand and control of the host. I feel the need to out him, talk about his background and reason, in case he ever begins to show up more often and with a louder voice.

He is the me that never really got hold of his drinking habit in his twenties and did things to his body that would constitute abuse in any polite society, the me that collapses into tears for no reason at the cruelty of the world. Think of him as the Dave that forgets people love him for who he is, and never want him to be something he cannot or will not be. For him, life is a lonely, bitter struggle against impossible odds, and he simply cannot feel the warmth of the arms that embrace him, metaphorically or in reality.

For all his negativity, I pity him, because he could so easily be me, mental illness is a lifelong fight and there are many times that both voices will speak. I can only ever take one road at a time, and the battle is to stay on the right track. His way is the simpler way, to give up, to admit defeat and let depression wreak its ruin upon me. It is so hard to explain in simple words how much pull that option has sometimes, despite the inevitable bleakness of the outcome, because fighting is tiring, and you can never win the war, only the immediate battle.

Of course, that is why I must never let his voice become my voice. I have to rage against the dying of the light, I have to gird myself and spring into action in every battle, no matter how hopeless or difficult it seems, because it is simply the only option that keeps me whole. I said I pity him, and with good reason, because for him the war is over, and there is only bleakness and despair, his demons cannot be bested and they will take him, piece by piece, until there is nothing left. However low I get, however desperate life seems, I am still fighting. I cannot begin to comprehend the horror of life as my countervoice.