My Truth Part 1: Shattered Dreams

There is hell, but it is not what you think…It is the experience of the worst possible outcome of your choices, decisions, and creations. – Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 1

July 26, 1997 – The Emergency Room of Hackley Hospital – Muskegon, MI

I am in hell.

The demons that are surrounding me, tearing at my psyche, bring with them the most intense feelings of fear, despair, and hopelessness. Those feelings are gripping every fiber of my being. Somehow, the emotions aren’t just within me- they are palpable in the air. It is as if the atmosphere is charged with them. They have taken control of me and completely surround me. They are everywhere. I can’t escape.

The emergency room is brightly lit, but all I see is darkness. My eyes are open, but I only see the blackness of the fear and unimaginable despair and hopelessness that I am gripped by. I’m not aware of the nurses around me, checking on me.

The feelings are primal, raw. They are coming from the deepest, animalistic parts of me. They are pure and almost unbearable.

The despair, hopelessness, and fear are like a black sea trying to pull me under. I fight to stay above the surface but the feelings are too strong. I’m drowning in the blackness. The screams that I let out are like gasping for air as I keep getting pulled under by the blackness.

I am not experiencing the emotions, I am consumed by them. They are alive in every fiber of my being. Somehow they want more. It as if the fear and despair don’t just want me to experience their pain – they are trying to pull me into an even deeper, darker place. I am fighting back, but I can feel myself losing. I am fighting, but I know that part of me has already given in to the fear, the hopelessness, the despair. There is no longer a “me” apart from those feelings. I am those emotions and feelings. My efforts to fight them are like that of a dying animal’s futile attempts to run after being dragged down by a much more powerful predator. I am in the jaws of hell. I’m trying not to give up, to give in, but the emotions are so powerful. I can’t see past this moment, past the emotions trying to consume me. I have never been as scared as I am in this moment. I feel a fear that I didn’t know was possible.

Like the animal that is trying not to succumb to the predator, I am wounded. With each scream, blood flies into the air and falls back down on me. There is blood everywhere. I can feel it on my face. I can taste in my mouth. I can smell it in the air. I see right foot, so many parts of it are pointing in so many wrong directions. The physical pain is there, but it is completely subdued by the emotional hell that I am in.

I am screaming. I am yelling. I am wailing a the top of my lungs. I am sobbing. The noises are guttural, like the wounded animal that knows the wound is mortal. I am yelling in the hopes that someone can save me from this, but I know that there is no saving me from it.

The hospital staff is trying to calm me down, but it is no use.

My brother is standing over me at some point. He is holding my hand, trying to calm me down. He knows me like only a brother can, he knows that I can’t be calmed down but he’s trying. He squeezes my hand telling me that it’s all going to be ok. We both know it’s not. I am in hell. I cannot be comforted.

“HE’S DEAD” I scream at the top of my lungs.

“HOW COULD I BE SO STUPID! JASON’S DEAD!!!”

“I KILLED HIM!!! I KILLED HIM!!! HE’S DEAD BECAUSE OF ME!!!”

“THEY ARE GOING TO LOCK ME UP FOREVER!!!”

I am experiencing the worst possible outcome of my choices, of my decisions. In a very uncharacteristic and disastrous decision, I got behind the wheel while intoxicated and caused a car accident. My passenger, my friend Jason, is dead due to my actions. My body is broken. I am in shock. I am in hell.

I’m screaming because I’m hurt. I’m screaming because I’m still drunk. I’m screaming because I am as scared as I have ever been in my life. I am screaming because I know that I just threw my life away. I’m screaming because Jason is dead because of me.

I see nothing past this moment. I feel as if I will remain in this tortuous moment forever. And why not? I deserve it. Jason’s life is over because of me. Even though I survived, my life feels over as well.

I am thrashing in the ER bed, screaming, “JASON’S DEAD….I KILLED HIM” over and over. I scream at the top of my lungs until my throat becomes raw. I scream until my voice no longer works. I scream until all I can muster is a whimper. I whimper until the sedatives take effect as I am wheeled into emergency surgery.

I am in and out of consciousness over the next several hours, mostly due to the anesthesia from multiple emergency surgeries. I am in a dreamlike state and in this state, my mind is somehow trying to make sense of what happened. The events of that night, and leading up to it, are playing on a loop as I drift in and out of reality.

I was as excited about my life and my future as I think I had ever been during that summer. It felt like it was all coming together. I was weeks away from starting the fall semester at Michigan State, after transferring from Muskegon Community College. I had just had my orientation at MSU 10 days before the accident. I was in a serious relationship with my HS sweetheart and I saw my future with her. She was going to be at MSU that fall as well, along with some good friends who were already there. I was planning on going into teaching, dreaming of one day becoming a high school history teacher and football coach. Jason and I had already been planning on him coming down to visit me in East Lansing. I had my whole life ahead of me and my future felt so bright.

Jason and had only known each other since September of the previous year, but we had become close friends and talked about us being friends into old age. It was one of those special friendships that are rare in our lives. His friendship came at a time in my life where I was in great need of it. All of my good friends had gone off to college at bigger schools, hours away. I barely knew anybody at MCC and felt out of place and lonely. I met Jason on my first day on the job at Menard’s. He trained me over the next few weeks and we became fast friends. As the months passed, our friendship became closer. Over time, I called him my best friend because he was. I don’t know if I was his best friend, but he was mine. I felt lucky to be his friend. I looked up to him.

I was a responsible kid. I wasn’t a really a drinker. The first time I had gotten drunk was shortly after my HS graduation. In the year between that and this night, I had drank maybe a dozen times. My friends in HS knew to not to try to pressure me to drink then because I wasn’t going to give in. During my senior year, I had spent a lot of Saturday nights at home while others were out partying. In the rare instance that I did show up at a party in HS, it was to be a Designated Driver. I knew better, or at least I usually did. I wasn’t a saint, but I like to think that I was a good kid that knew right from wrong.

The night leading up to the accident was like a last hurrah, a sort of going away blast before I left for Michigan State a few weeks later. Jason and I had been trying plan a night out for most of the summer but it hadn’t worked out. We finally made it work and went out with some of his friends.

The last thing my mom said to me as I left for the night was “Be careful”. I said, “I will mom. Love you”. I was usually very careful. I had every intention of being careful that night. I ended up being anything but careful.

I didn’t wake up that morning and say to myself that I was going to go drink and drive that night. I didn’t think that when I was driving to meet Jason and the others. The idiotic, tragic, regrettable decision to get behind the wheel at the end of night was the result of numerous, smaller wrong decisions that kept snowballing.

I remember meeting at an apartment complex. I remember the excitement and anticipation of finally getting a chance to go out with Jason and the guys. I had hung out with them all before and had always had a blast. Besides, hanging out with Jason pretty much guaranteed that you were going to have a great time.

I remember being at Parties in the Park in downtown Muskegon. Everyone is laughing.

I remember leaving for a house party.

I remember that I was supposed to go home at 10pm to hang out with my girlfriend.

I didn’t leave for home.

I’m not remembering as much from that point on.

The party kept going.

I couldn’t stop.

I was having too much fun.

It’s my last night out with Jason.

Live a little, I tell myself.

Let loose.

Fuck it. Go all out and get crazy.

One memory stands out from the rest. Jason and I are on a dance floor, dancing with some girls. “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems” is blasting out of the speakers. We are smiling and laughing. We are just some kids having some fun with nothing but our dreams ahead of us.

It’s the last memory that I have of that night.

It’s the last memory that I have of Jason.

I have no recollection of anything past that moment.

I have no memory whatsoever of the accident.

Just a few short hours later, Jason’s dreams would tragically die with him and my dreams would be shattered into a million pieces, facing prison and a lifetime of guilt and shame.

After hours of floating in this surreal state of unconsciousness, I can feel my mind and body start to pull out of it. I can feel myself preparing to wake up, to open my eyes. As this is happening, my mind starts racing… was it all a dream? Was the hell that I was experiencing only a nightmare? Could Jason still be alive? I slowly open my eyes, finding myself in a hospital room. I slowly take in the fuzzy shapes that eventually form into the faces of my family and others gathered around me. I quickly turn my head to the other hospital bed in the room, hoping beyond hope that Jason will be there…alive. He’s not. The bed is empty. I close my eyes again and think to myself, “My god, what have I done?” That is a question that haunts me to this day.

Maybe you are judging me as you read this. Please know that you can never judge me as harshly as I have judged myself. Maybe you are feeling angry at me as you read it. Please know that you can never be as angry at me as I have been at myself. Maybe you are feeling hate towards me as you read it. Please know that you can never hate me more than I have hated myself for what I did. I have had to live with the unfathomable consequences of my decision every second of every day of my life for the past 23 years. There is no amount of judgment, anger, or hate that anyone can direct at me that I haven’t felt towards myself.

Two futures were shattered that night. Jason lost his life. The bright future that I had in front of me before that night was no more. I had thrown it all away. My future from that day forward has been filled with guilt, shame, pain, adversity, and struggle. That night sent me on a long journey, like stepping through the looking glass – a surreal journey that sent me through the criminal justice system, court dates, prison, parole, losing my license for 12 years, and so much more. It took me decades to put my life back together. I’m extremely thankful to have had that opportunity. Jason never had that opportunity.

I had never met Jason’s parents prior to the accident. Miraculously, they became some of my biggest supporters through everything. Even though we had never met, his mom came to visit me in the hospital. I am still in touch with his dad. They didn’t blame me for what happened and didn’t want anything to happen to me legally. That decision was out of their hands though.

I have struggled with writing this blog because I thought that I could never do justice to both Jason as a person and the impact of that night with words. As Stephen King has said, “The most important things are the hardest to say…because words diminish them”. No matter how hard I try, I can never honor Jason and his memory with words. Words diminish who he was as a person. I only knew him for a short time and I can’t possibly capture him as a person in a short blog like this. Also, how can one try to encapsulate the impact of that night on so many lives with mere words?

There are so many lives that were affected by the accident, so many lives that were forever changed. I wish that there was a way to provide a voice for the others, but I can only speak about my experiences and my perspective. I’m not trying to portray myself as a victim of anything other than my terrible choice to drink & drive. I accepted full responsibility of that decision from day 1. No matter how difficult things were for me and my family, I know that they will never compare with what Jason’s family and friends went through. My actions took a son, a brother, a grandchild away from a family and that still haunts me every single day. He would have been 43 this last May. It’s my fault that he isn’t here.

I have learned a lot about trauma over the last few years. Our brains can only handle so much. They can’t handle events like that night that have incomprehensible ramifications. It has been 23 years since that tragic night and I still can’t wrap my head completely around what happened, the aftermath of it – the many lives the events of that night touched – the many lives that it wreaked havoc on – the many lives that I stole Jason from. There are times where it all hits me. It’s not a conscious thought, but a feeling in my chest, like the gravity of it all hits me at one time. That feeling takes me to a different time like a time machine. I can only describe it as the feeling of clarity when you think that you have the world figured out when you a drunk or high. It’s like an epiphany. But this epiphany doesn’t just bring understanding and knowledge, the understanding and knowledge it brings is of the pain and destruction that my decisions caused. It brings horror, despair, and sorrow. I see with total clarity the way my decisions that night set off a nuclear bomb in so many people’s lives. The clarity brings extreme sadness. It’s like someone, or something collected all of the pain that I caused and hit me right the heart with a burst of it. I’m fortunate because those moments of clarity do not happen often and typically only last less than minute. Any longer and I know that I wouldn’t be able to handle it.

I sometimes find myself staring in the mirror when I’m washing my hands, or staring off in the distance as I sit on the back patio. I’m not experiencing the moment I’m in – I don’t see the face in the mirror looking back at me, I don’t feel the water pouring over my hands, I don’t feel the cool breeze against my skin. I’m not there. It’s like I’m staring through time and space, looking through the eyes of my 19 yr old self up at those fluorescent lights of the ER. I’m yelling, there’s blood everywhere. I’m back in that hell. For just a split second, I’m back in the horror of that moment. Even that split second is enough to take the breath out of my lungs. I only get glimpses of the gravity of that night, but those glimpses shake me to my core.

When I began therapy in 2015 I started to try to work through that night. I never had before. I didn’t know that I needed to. I thought that I had healed from it since it had happened so long ago. Working through that night meant working through so much, but one thing that quickly became evident was that I had to start working on forgiving myself. It goes without saying, but that is a lot easier said than done. Saying that one forgives themself is easy, but it is typically just words. As I began to think about forgiveness, I realized that I have kept that 19 year old part of me in that emergency room for the past 20+ years. I have kept that part of me on the other side of the door, in a sort of purgatory, feeling all of that pain for all of these years. I have kept the door closed and locked. He can’t get out. He is being held there for penance. That part of me needs to stay in that pain, to stay forever in that moment. That’s the price to pay for making that awful, unforgivable mistake. That 19 year old version of me only knows my life at that point and before. He doesn’t know anything past that moment. I had locked that door and thrown away the key. HE NEEDS TO SUFFER, TO FEEL THOSE FEELINGS FOREVER BECAUSE OF WHAT HE DID. The 19 year old me who made it out of that hospital, and the countless other versions of me since that night are on the other side of that Emergency Room door. They have experienced everything in my life since that night, both good and bad, so much bad. But that 19 year old has no idea what is on the other side of that door. He has no idea what my life became after that night. He only knows that fear and pain. He doesn’t know how much contempt I have had for him. How much shame I have for him. How much absolute hate I have felt towards him. To be honest, I didn’t either. Countless therapy sessions spent talking about that night, the carnage that night caused in so many lives. At some point I realized how I’ve kept that 19 yr old from that night captive in that room, suffering all of these years, because I felt that he needed to be held accountable for what he did.  I began to realize how much hate I had for him.  One day, my therapist left me with a question to think about until my next session, asking  me simply, “What would you do if you were in a room with that 19 year old you?”  A few days later I sat down and wrote down what came to me.  In some ways I was surprised by what I wrote. In other ways, I wasn’t. I wrote about how I would beat him.  I would beat him so badly that I couldn’t guarantee that he would make it out of that room alive.  I was surprised with the maliciousness that I saw myself beating that kid. That kid is so weak and scared, but in some fucked up way I think he deserves it.  I would beat him because of what he did to Jason, to Jason’s friends and family, to his own life, the life he had up until that point.  I’m not mad for the life I had after that night, because I got through it. I made it. I persevered.  It made me who I am. I’m a better person because I had to deal with the years of struggle and adversity.  My anger is about what that 19 year old kid did to the life he had, and making the world lose Jason.  He had it all going for him and he threw it all away.  He lost his focus for one night and lost everything.  During this period of my therapy, I realized that I didn’t even refer to that 19 year old version of me, as me.  I always called him, “him” or “he”.  I treated him and referred to him as if he was someone else, not a part of me. “He” fucked “his” life up. “He” deserves to be stuck in that room forever. I had separated myself from that 19 year old kid because of my shame and guilt. I didn’t even acknowledge that he was part of me. With professional help, I have been working on genuinely forgiving myself and slowly integrating that 19 year old version of me into myself.   As author Lewis B. Smedes nots, “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that prisoner was you”.  I’m still working on setting myself free. 

The artist Banksy is rumored to have said, “They say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.” Even after all of these years, there is not a day that goes by where I don’t think about Jason. I have his name tattooed on my arm so that his memory will never fade as long as I’m alive. As Jason’s favorite artist 2Pac said on his song “Life Goes On”, “”Though memories fade – I got your name tatted on my arm – So we both ball ’til my dyin’ days”.

Also, one of the greatest joys of my life was to be able to name my son after him. Later, much to my disbelief, when my son was 4 or so, I discovered that he was also born on Jason’s birthday. A few years ago, my son and I met Jason’s dad for breakfast. We had recently reconnected and we both wanted him to meet my Jason. It was a wonderful visit, an in an unexpected and emotional moment, he gave Jason’s High School class ring to my son. My little boy was too young to understand what was happening at the time, but I have the ring locked away and will give it to him when he’s older. Since the day my son was born, I have taken any opportunity that I can to tell him about the man that he was named after and how much of an honor it is to share a name with him.

I was fortunate to be in West Michigan this past July, on the 23rd anniversary of the accident. I drove to the cemetery alone and spent some time on a beautiful, sunny day with Jason at his grave. Our lives are forever linked because of that night, and no matter what, I will always do my best to make sure that Jason Balcom is never far from my mind and that his memory lives on.

#depression #mentalhealth #trauma #forgiveness #transformation #guilt #mentalhealthawareness #shame