Alter Ego: The Relentless Battle of Having Split Personalities
The Sagas of Steven vs Steve: Let’s take a deeper dive into what it’s like to have a split personality.
The Relentless Battle of Having Two Personalities
Some will read this and feel empathy, others disgust, then move on. I’m not looking for anyone to feel anything by writing this. I simply want it out of my head!
Perhaps that will help me overcome Steve.
Maybe someone else feels this way; knows how to win.
Currently, I’m not broke and homeless, nor am I awash in piles of excess cash. I guess I’m snug right down the middle, neither overly worried about getting the bills paid or in the odd serenity that being so broke you no longer care about anything, leaving you with no worries.
I guess you could say I’m now part of the fabled “middle class” that I grew up hearing about.
There’s no such thing as a middle class these days.
I know I need to find the root of this unhappiness because it’s slowly eating at me. So much effort went into changing the person I once was. All I wanted was to be a good father, provide a life for my family that I never had, and above all else, feel content with life.
I’ve lifted mountains to overcome addiction, then had to slowly lower them back down when I realized my ego was getting too big and I was bound for relapse.
It’s very easy to forget where you came from or the pain you felt, even if it was only a few days ago. That’s human nature.
So I forced myself to take another moral inventory, see that I was becoming arrogant in my newfound success. Anyone can think that to themselves, even say it aloud. As my NA sponsor used to say: “If you wanted real results then you had to get real with yourself.”
So I had to humble myself in order to save myself; from myself.
Lies!
I’m still restless, irritable, and discontent. I just want to be happy.
What I’m Running From
Addicted to heroin and meth, the days blurred into one mass of what can only be described as non-existence. Waiting.
Waiting for what? I didn’t know… death perhaps
I wasn’t suicidal, never had been, but depression was eating at every conscious (aka: sober) moment I had, and I couldn’t stand being high anymore.
What do you do when you’re miserable doing the one and only thing that brings you a little bit of peace?
Screw it… I’m getting sober tomorrow, I can’t take this anymore!
1 minute after waking up, that plan was immediately thrown out the window. I realize the only reason that I had the insane notion this would work today was because I couldn’t save that last shot of dope I had last night.
I knew I’d be sick in the morning, that I couldn’t afford to cave in and use my last bit. But the urge was so bad. I couldn’t sleep.
So I justified using it, rather than saving it for the morning so I wouldn’t be dope-sick by telling myself:
Tomorrow is the day! Praise the Lord, I’ve had a spiritual awakening…
That’s what people say, right?
That wasn’t enough to bring me happiness.
Was This Enough To Make Me Happy?
After 3 months in LA county jail, the meanest kick (withdrawal for normal people) I’ve ever gone through in my life on that cold jail floor, I thought I was going to die.
Two years later, here I am. A family, 3 kids, picket fence house, two dogs, (Balto the husky, Panzer the German Shepherd), and the love of my life.
You won’t believe this part…
I became a business owner.
Yep, you heard that right. Couldn’t find a good job to save my life. What, with the criminal record, no high school diploma, and a resume that until recently didn’t even have an address or contact information on it, no one was going to hire me.
I wouldn’t have hired myself to be honest.
Enough was enough, and I decided to create my own opportunities. Plus, I liked the thought of working for myself. it started with small things at first. My buddy had opened a Sober Living and paid me to run the house.
Free rent and $600 per week… Tax Free, (trust me I learned what 10–99 meant when the tax man called me up one morning), but it was a dream come true.
Working there helped me gain the experience and exposure I needed. Once I met some people in the rehab/mental health industry, and with them having seen me at work in my friend’s Sober Living, that gave me some credibility.
Slowly I formed a game plan in my head and begun the journey of starting my own company.
Now I have my own Marketing Company, which helps with outreach and obtaining new contracts for Medical Labs. For example, the Sober Living I ran had to give many people lots of drug tests to ensure the continued sobriety of clients and the safety of the community as a whole.
So I figured that these smaller labs, ones not associated with big insurance companies or have contracts with hospitals, well, they needed business too.
But where would they find it?
This isn’t as large of an industry as some may think. Sometimes when people ask me what I do for a living it’s hard to explain it to them.
An untapped market you could call it. Though it was hardly untapped, it was primed for the taking. I was in a great position considering my friends' newfound success, so I took a leap of faith.
It worked. When I say that, I mean it really worked.
I had buckets (metaphorical buckets) of cash. Finally, I had a family, one which I could thankfully provide a life that I’ve only seen on tv, watching Malcolm In The Middle. Slowly, but surely, the hole I felt in my chest was being filled in.
Yeah right, just like PennDot fixing a pothole in Pennsylvania. (If you’re from there then you’ll understand that joke.)
It wasn’t enough to bring me happiness
How Does One Find True Happiness?
That’s the issue with having a split personality. No matter if I’m doing the best I’ve ever been, or I’m back on the streets and homeless again, I just never seem happy.
I doubt I have a legitimate, (by legitimate I mean a clinically diagnosed), case of Split Personality Disorder.
There are many different forms and names for this disorder, and I wanted to mention that this time so I don’t cause offense to anyone who may have a diagnosed case of it.
Though the Steven vs Steve I talk about in these short stories are real. This is truly how I think and feel. As if there are two different people living inside me, one constantly battling the other.
Writing about it helps, but it’s still there, ever-present in my subconscious. I know that at any time or for any reason, one or the other can take over and wreak havoc on my life.
Even now as I write this Steve is in the back of my head telling me to just erase it and move on, no one is going to read this crap anyhow…
So again, how do we find true happiness?
I have no idea, but if you find out, let me know.
If you enjoyed this story of madness, then check out Pt. 1 of Alter Ego: The Sagas of Steven vs Steve
