The Most Homicidal Thoughts

2000

That Other Me is a series that explores the immediacy and intimacy of various mental health episodes I’ve experienced throughout my life.

I want to kill my dog.

I don’t. Not at all. I don’t. I definitely don’t. Fuck no.

But the thought jags into my head.

I’m lying on the couch, watching a comedy on TV. There’s nothing connected to this sudden violence. Nothing prompting it. Nothing in the same hemisphere.

And yet here it’s appeared.

I see it: I’ll strangle her until she falls limp in my arms. The compulsion to do so drives me with irrefutable certainty.

But I try to refute, try to tell myself I’ll never hurt her, try to tell myself I’m not homicidal.

She’s sitting behind me – a Shepherd-Husky cross, although she has a sort of Kelpy pattern to her colours, mostly black with a brown bow tie and eyebrows. I’m afraid to look at her curled up on the chair behind me the way she does late at night, worried seeing her will trigger me into action and then I’ll be on autopilot, locking the rational part of my mind behind the compunction, helpless, horrified, and forced to watch.

I try to counter with logic.

With reason.

With love.

I bought Wolf five years ago while I was agoraphobic. She helped me leave the house – helped me begin to roam back into the world. I would walk her as far as I dared, pushing further and further with each expedition. Sometimes, the agoraphobia would rear and my breath would catch in my throat. The panic would surge.

Then I would look at her, at her cute little furry face, at the trust in her golden eyes, at the love that she held for me, and that would settle me enough that I could keep going.

But none of that is helping now.

I will not hurt her, I tell myself over and over and over, but the repetition also strengthens the compulsion. If this was an arm wrestle, any time I think I’m gaining inches, my hand’s not only wrenched back, but the pain screeches through my body.

Bed.

Again, it’s the only recourse.

I get up from the couch, pack up for the night – put away the astray I was using to smoke, fill the water cannister I was drinking from, and turn off the television.

Wolf knows these patterns. She hops from her chair, stretches, trots to the sliding glass door, then turns back to me.

I’m not triggered – at least not into action. But I can’t stop these thoughts filling my head until there’s not much room for anything else.

I kneel and hug her. This is the only action that’ll do. Hugging her is close to replicating a strangling action, and I’m proving to myself that even in this position, I would never hurt her.

She endures my hug – she likes pats; will roll onto her back and invite you to scratch her belly; but she’s not a dog who’s always liked being hugged, being constricted. Apparently, most dogs don’t, and will endure it only out of love and devotion for their owner.

But I think there’s something more now to her disposition, like she’s telling me, See? You’re okay. Don’t worry. You won’t do this.

And I gain some small assurance that this evil fucking alien thought isn’t part of me, although the big worry is I’ve been good so long, and this thought has emerged from nowhere. It might be the scout the anxiety’s sent out to test my resiliency.

I see Wolf out to where she sleeps, then grab half a Xanax from my bedroom. Xanax has become my last refuge. I’ll try brave through anything now, but I need something to mollify the anxiety.

Lying in bed, I feel the Xanax half contend with the anxiousness, blunting it enough that gradually, I’m able to sleep.

But it’s an uneasy sleep, a sleep where the fear hovers over me, and come the morning I only feel just good enough to function.

And to recognize something’s returned in a new form

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