This is why I love the show House. Right here. This picture sums up most of it. The picture is a screenshot after House learns he has pretty much destroyed some guy's life. Now, you look at Hugh Laurie and you see his eyes. There are a lot of actors who can look pained, but their eyes don't sell it. This is where it's different. The look in his eyes is absolutely pure pain and stunned realization of what's been done. That is talent you normally see on the Silver Screen, not the Boob Tube.
Now that's not the only reason. I feel I share a lot of things with the character. The physical pain. Having been abused. Being bitter. Trying to get past things. Now I'm not a brilliant doctor. I never had a long term drug problem.
I have been through a lot in my life. Un-imagineable things. I was abused, I was raped, I did hard core drugs (needles) when I was 15. I through some stroke of luck didn't have any issues with the fact that I like guys more than girls. I pretty much have always accepted that - maybe a credit to the house I grew up in, knowing I had two gay aunts from a young age, and that my god father is gay. *laughs* My father's first wife (marriage only lasted a year) was a bisexual stripper. But... I have seen and experienced things that to this day send chills down my spine and wake me from sleep in a cold sweat. To this day I have extreme difficulties hugging guys or girls who are not blood relatives, and it took my father's death to be able to hug my family.
This isn't self pity. It's just I am sitting here alone in the basement, awake, after another nightmare at four o'clock in the morning. There is a very real possibility that I will never be able to have a relationship with a guy again, and it's been 10 years, we are rolling heavily towards 11 years since I have had any sort of intimacy with another guy. Now I hear guys who are 18 who say "well I got you beat, I've never been with a guy" but I know that they will, and I also know that they don't know exactly what they are missing. I'm not jealous of people who can experience what I can't right now. But sometimes I get a little bitter. It's not my nature to be bitter, I am almost always smiling, I can't stay mad at people for more than a few minutes - unless they have Really fucked with me.
We are coming up on two dates that really mean a lot to me - and for very different reasons. On Feb 4 is my best friend's birthday. On Feb 3 is the anniversary of Sam's death. Technically they could both be Feb 4 -- but I choose Not to see it that way.
Sam was the fountain of hope for all of us, those of us who were involved in what we were. Adam died first, but none of us mourned his passing. In a way he was dead to me long before then. He was my first and only boyfriend, we dated for over a year, and I loved him very very much. He is also a very strong reason why my life is so fucked up, and at the time of his death he was trying to blackmail me.
But Sam - Oh Sam. Sam was different. He was very young when I first met him. I was 14 and he was 9 - and he was already involved. I am still unclear as to how he managed to get away from it, his father was pretty powerful - but a drunk. It doesn't matter.
Sam got out and got clean when he was 15. He had seen so much more than I had. Father Bruce (never met him) said that what we experienced, he described kids who went through it, the phrase was "Seeing the Elephant" and man Sam saw the Elephant.
And yet he got away. He started working hard in school. He put on muscle, he started playing lacrosse. Ie was kicked out of his house at 16, but he didn't stop school - he had dreams and ambitions, he was going to become a shrink and help kids who had been abused. He worked hard as hell. He sold drugs to pay for the apartment which he shared with another guy, whom he loved, but frankly was a degenerate fuck up 19 year old.
Sam was like the guiding light. He and my friend Sean kept tabs on all of us. He was someone I'd hoped to someday introduce to my new friends (who are now all old reliable friends).
I won't go into it, not tonight, not in depth, but on Feb 3 really late at night in 2006 Sam overdosed on painkillers and died in my arms. I will never shake that night out of my head.
After Sam died, the group began to drop like flies. Nick was next, then Kevin, Tim, Frank, Mark, Tom...
This is an old list I wrote up, its not up to date because its an old picture, but the wreckage, the result of what we went through is very apparent
I'm indifferent tonight. I'm not sad. I'm not angry. This is just the stuff rattling in my head as I watch "House" and try to forget the dream I had, a dream that has haunted me for over 14 years.
I can remember Kyle trying to comfort me when I accidentally mixed some meds one year and had a waking dream (I was hallucinating) at a party, he and who ever else was there saw my deepest fears that night, and he worked hard to protect me from the ghosts of my past. I will never forget that.
Ok. I'm starting to tear up, so I'm done.
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