Hope Is A Muscle-Work It Out
If you’ve experienced something like this, you know how Godlike it is.
I’m not sure if I ever mentioned my addiction to true crime podcasts. If I haven’t, then let me say it here: I have an unhealthy obsession with crime. If I have mentioned it before, I apologize. I’m old. It’s not my fault.
To some of you, it may sound a lot like a “guilty pleasure.” People like me don’t generally have guilty pleasures. We have what psychologists call “compulsions.” How do I know this qualifies as a compulsion? Well, not only have I listened to every well produced true crime podcast there is, I have listened to multiple sources on the same crime.
A lot of these national stories get covered by Dateline, 20/20 and 48 hours. In addition to that, companies like Wondery and Audiochuck sometimes do 6 and 7 part shows about the same crime. But even if an episode I know intimately enough to name the killer, the defense attorney and the victim’s 10th grade Biology teacher, I got to the point where I’d opt to listen to a fifth or sixth version of the same sensational crime rather than music, audiobooks or more fulfilling and educational podcasts.
I’m not kidding. If I were my own patient, I’d tell me that I was obsessive.
Because of this, I have recently started to limit the amount of that content I’ll take in because I am certain that all of those stories (that, by the way, nearly always involve men sexually assaulting and murdering women) are destroying my psyche from the inside. I have daughters. It’s very hard to watch this stuff knowing the random nature of these tragedies. One can’t help but come to the conclusion that everyone is susceptible.
I made a sincere effort last night to ditch the true crime, I listened to Sherlock Holmes radio shows, Johnny Dollar radio shows, Jackson Browne, Dylan bootlegs and finally, by night’s end, 20/20. 20/20 did not disappoint. It was, of course, about a gross man doing something terrible to a little girl.
That’s right, a 14 year old girl being abducted and sexually assaulted and essentially tortured for 9 months before getting free. If this situation sounds singular, it’s because it is. If you’ve followed how enough of these cases go, you know that 99.8% of women in these situations are killed.
I’m sure, by now, you’re probably thinking, “Why all the doom and gloom?” You should know me well enough to know that’s not where this story is going.
This girl who was abducted–Abby Hernandez–talks about how she was bound with handcuffs, blindfolded, forced to wear a motorcycle helmet over her head, assaulted daily, tased, hit, and made to live in an intermodal cargo container. Nearly all people in that situation would’ve fallen into a state of despair. And with good reason.
Abby, now 19, had this to say at the end of the episode, “Just don’t lose hope. I feel like hope, even when you feel like you’ve lost everything, hope is something that nobody can take away from you. Keep that and it will keep you going.”
Those words stopped me in my tracks for many different reasons. Not the least of which was checking out my paystub online before I got home, reading a letter from Tesla about why they just gave me a huge bonus and thinking about how I can buy Gloria that fancy vanity she wants without thinking twice about the price.
These are all things I once prayed and hoped for. Especially during my active addiction. Like most people in that state, I was broke all the time, not taking care of myself, and swinging back and forth between two moods: euphoric and miserable.
More than even all of that was the drumming in my head that kept telling me things were never going to get better. I should have never gotten involved with my first daughter’s mother. I should have taken that stupid multiple choice algebra test to complete my BA. I should have continued on the path of being an English professor instead of the next Kurt Cobain.
I’m telling you, things in my belfry would get batty.
The strange thing was, no matter how bad things got, when I would fantasize about suicide, I would push the thought out as quick as I could. Something in my heart saw this very day coming. Maybe not consciously, but on some invisible level. That place of knowing without knowing we know. The ether.
If you’ve experienced something like this, you know how Godlike it is. And you know that words can not scratch the surface when you try to explain that catharsis. That moment where your suspicions are confirmed.
You are living your dream.
If you read this and think to yourself, “I have no hope and I can’t just invent it from the sky,” I’d contend that you are wrong. People with no hope don’t stick around. They either proactively kill themselves or, as was the case with my father, just feel sorry for themselves to death.
So, I believe that if a person is obsessed with thoughts of hopelessness, they aren’t devoid of hope but just deficient of hope.
Hope is a muscle and we need to work it out. And before I get a nasty email, I need to qualify that with the understanding that everyone is unique. Of course some don’t attempt suicide merely because of religious reasons or the fact that taking one’s own life is against human instinct.
For the most part, though, hope can be accessed in the most dire circumstances. Especially if we work it out. Abby Hernandez is an extreme, but significant example. There are others just as superhuman.
And, look, for all I know it could’ve been the belief I had in myself that was responsible for my unparalleled good fortune. Not simply fate or something written in the stars. This could also be why David Bowie is David Bowie and Taylor Swift is Taylor Swift. Not because they had superpowers but because they allowed unreasonable goals seem reasonable.
If it turned out that was the case, wouldn’t it be lovely?
"... some don’t attempt suicide merely because of religious reasons or the fact that taking one’s own life is against human instinct." THIS IS some people's hope. They're the lucky ones. Judging from my name, you can see I'm not one of them. But I was brought up with an abundance of covert hope. THAT'S what kept me going until I reached my current pinnacle!
Great title. Yes, you have an obsession, but seem to be dealing with it. Abby is amazing, and yes, hope is a muscle. Thank you Billy.