Final Draft

DJ Ellis

English 112

Autobiographical Essay

Final Draft

The Monster

                Test yourself.. can you think back to a time in which you were so angry that you physically harmed someone else or even  yourself, for that matter? I can. Now think about it.. what’s your deepest, darkest, and coldest secret? Would you tell? If you would’ve asked me three years ago I would’ve said, “hell no.” But if you were to ask me today, my answer is way different.

                Battle with your demons and face your fears. Run into them with a full head of steam at full speed; all while daring to challenge yourself to find out whom the real YOU is. I battled my own demons and always set out to never let them define who I truly was. Write your own destiny and define yourself as what you want to be remembered as.

I always knew I was an angry kid, short tempered and hot headed, but never would I have thought I was violent until my seventh grade year of middle school. Ryan Shiel decided he wanted to get tough, maybe try to pick on me and call me names; I snapped. I hit him so many times to the point where I blacked out and had to be pulled off of his motionless body. I remember coming back into a state of almost realization and seeing his bloodied face and what they thought was a broken nose. I thought to myself, “I couldn’t have caused this?” If you ask some people.. I’m sure they’d say this is when The Monster was formed. The Monster that lived inside me and could be turned on just as easily as you’d turn on the lights. That Monster followed me to high school, slept with me in my dreams, and stared back at me every time I looked in mirror. Who was I? What have I become? Those were constant questions that ran wild in my head and as much I wanted to push them far out of my mental, I couldn’t. The anger was inevitable.. inescapable. It lurked inside of me waiting for any little thing to set it off.

As I got older and finally touched down in high school, I formulated ways to calm The Monster. I felt like a lion tamer to my own inner person, my own brain. “Keep cool Monster! It’s never that serious.” was the only thing I found myself saying inside of my head and sure enough, for the time being, it worked. Everything was fine until The Monster decided to turn his back on me and betray me. This anger turned towards self-anger and self-hate and seeing as I had just truly started playing competitive team sports, the self-anger and self-hate worsened. I hated failure but I loved to compete. Competing against others was fun and all, and I was seen as dominant athletic force in Connecticut; but the daily competition that took place inside my head was unexplainable. The angry thoughts that The Monster had set free in my head began to resonate and turn to the thought of self-harm. The Monster was fascinated by it.. He loved it. At this point in time I was viewed as one of the nicest kids in school; no one would have ever suspected that Good Ol, Athletic Deej wanted to die…. Or should I say, no one would have ever suspected that The Monster wanted us to die? You see, The Monster and I were two completely different people. The Monster was fixated and infatuated with the thought of violence, more-so of the self-harm nature and absolutely hated the real me. While I, my true self, was in love with sports, my family, my friends, and the idea of being a normal teenager. For some reason, The Monster’s thoughts and my own just didn’t quite coagulate.

People said they understood and felt for my struggle, but I’m a firm believer in the fact that you cannot understand or feel anyone’s struggle until you have walked a mile in their shoes. For this exact reason I hated the idea of therapy and counseling. The more I went to therapy and was diagnosed by someone who didn’t hate themselves or had never felt an ounce of my pain and struggle, the more The Monster took over and began to triumph from the inside out. The thoughts of suicide became more vivid and more realistic; it was my fixation and my fucked up fascination that played throughout my head over and over and over. It was almost as if in my brain I had a single track CD on repeat.. only this track was a blade maneuvering its way through skin and finding the main vein that could put this struggle to a quiet end.  

                The monster finally won. I tried to kill myself. I cut. I cut deep. I bled. I bled a lot. I was taken to a hospital and questioned like no other. They checked me into the psych ward like I was insane. I was dangerous and a threat, not to anyone else because I was more than cooperative, but only dangerous and threat to myself. The question finally hit me.. “Was I insane?” Shit, I might’ve been. I talked to myself, well, I talked to The Monster; and to those white jacketed doctors they insisted I had schizophrenia. This was the prognosis until I sat them all down and handed the reins over to The Monster. He smooth talked our way out of the psych ward a couple of days later. He told them everything they wanted to hear just because he wanted to stay my little secret concealed away and only let out in privacy, making me literally crazy in my own head. He convinced them I was normal and far too bright and to in depth with reality to be schizophrenic. Some tests were run and the actual prognosis was that I was suffering from clinical depression, chronic anger disorder, chronic temper control disorder, and just to top it all off like you would a chocolate sundae with a cherry; for shits and giggles, they added a slight case clinical anxiety.

All of my disorders led to therapy and you already know how I to this day feel about therapy. After the therapy came medication. When I had the monster completely tucked away, I was the most fun and outgoing kid.. completely normal. I had this secret and I was extremely good at hiding it, but The Monster finally fought its way out. I swear I had no intentions of letting The Monster be known, but he had grown tired of being my little secret.

As much as I hated the medication, it was a stronger kryptonite to The Monster than I ever could have been; so without my 80 milligram Prozacs, which is the highest dosage prescribed to a patient, who knows where I’d be today. When I had The Monster tucked away as my own little secret, if you asked me where I’d be in 2014, I’d tell you all the aspirations and goals that I had fooled everyone into thinking I had. But if you asked me the same question when The Monster was let out to run wild, I’d answer in a short-mannered, simple, one-word answer.. “Dead.” I’d answer this question showing absolutely no feeling, emotion, or remorse. But I promise if you looked closely and deep enough into my eyes, you’d see not my own eyes but the eyes of The Monster staring back at you with fear, sorrow, hope, and hate all at the same time. The only reason I can tell you what The Monster’s eyes were like is because whenever I took a look in the mirror, a smiling happy Deej isn’t what I’d see. I’d see eyes that were elaborated with so much pain and hate. I’d see eyes that fed and thrived off of my weaknesses. I’d see eyes that became filled with joy when my normal eyes were filled with self-hatred and sorrow. I’d see eyes dark enough and strong enough to pierce into anyone and send chills down their spine.

I guess it all makes sense now. Everyday someone would tell me that my actions and attitude were affecting others around me and I just couldn’t quite seem to understand. But those piercing eyes were only the beginning; my actions started to change once The Monster was released and would break down those who cared for me slowly but surely. After I tried to kill myself, I finally decided it was time to face my fears. I stopped taking my medication one year after I attempted to commit suicide and decided it was time to face The Monster head on; to be my OWN, more powerful kryptonite to this dreaded Monster. I felt that I no longer needed my medication and three years later the doctor’s feel so too.

That suicidal, dangerous, threat of a teenage is no more. I’m no longer on medication, and no longer feel the need to harm myself. I can honestly say that what I went through in my life was a bittersweet struggle. I recall saying it was bittersweet around someone and they gave me the upmost craziest death stare ever.. they were in utter disbelief. They just could not understand how having been diagnosed as almost psychotic and schizophrenic came back to be something that I’m proud of. Well it is.

I’m happily alive and able to say that without this struggle I would not know how much I truly can endure as a human being. I’ve broken bones, had multiple surgeries, and even went through the windshield of car; but no physical pain will ever compare to the pain of hating yourself and the pain of having a mental breakdown. No pain will ever amount to the pain in having to put on a charade every day in public just to hide The Monster that lurked within. No obstacle in life will ever be harder than what The Monster had put me through in the four years I spent in high school. I can truthfully say that this struggle and what felt like a never ending battle with The Monster made me; it shaped the man that I’ve become today.

Because of my struggle and what it has taught me, as ironic as it may be, I plan on taking my story and my struggle into a career of mental therapy. I plan on being a psycho therapist, working with teens that in short, hate themselves or find themselves dealing with their own demons or Monster within. Think about it.. who better to talk to than someone who has once been trapped in solitary confinement in their own mind? Who better to talk to than someone who has danced with the devil? And who better to talk to than someone who can teach you the things necessary to become your OWN kryptonite to The Monster.