Rent Boy

by James Anthony Ford

  My employer was getting rather concerned about the length of time I had been absent from work. I think they really just wanted to know what my diagnosis was as I refused to tell them and neither did my doctor. But they displayed patience and kept saying that there would still be a job to go back to once I’m well. I knew I was far from that yet. This was just the beginning.

  I continued to see a psychologist and psychiatrist on a weekly basis. Both of them still a bit baffled as to why all my fears, insecurities and terror have risen to the surface now in my early thirties. I didn’t know the answer to that. But what I did come to realise is that all those years of an excessive lifestyle were a cover up or a mask to deny my abusive past. During those years which I call my ‘party years’ I was always trying to be one step ahead of life. Everything one person did, I would do but I would take it up a notch. My whole life was full of lies and denial and I felt ashamed now.

  I had discussed the nightmares about me being ‘snuffed’ on film to my psychologist and psychiatrist and both again are confused as to why I have these disturbing nightmares. I told them that I felt like I was being stalked or watched and that my time was coming. They called it paranoia. I called it a fact.

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  Every day was just a struggle. I had no energy yet I was in good physical health. I had desire to do anything and I mean anything. Even if I did a simple task like washing the dishes I would have to sit down afterwards huffing and puffing like I had just ran a marathon. I was exhausted. I had no idea what was happening to me and neither did my doctors. They just dismissed it as being symptoms of psychotic depression. I hated it. In fact I hated everything and anything. I hated the world. I blamed the world for what I was suffering. I had stopped going to the gym along with starting to eat badly like missing meals and eating junk food. I didn’t even realise I was doing it as I had always been a bit of a health freak. So my health started to decline and so were my looks. I just didn’t care anymore how I looked. I would walk down the street and gone are the days when I would get sexy looks from guys and girls. Now I just get bumped into and ignored. My days are over and I was not ready for it. I was not ready to get older. But most of all I was very lonely. I felt as though I was the only person in the world suffering from depression. It was a dark world I was living in. Then one night, as usual, I was sitting on the couch dwelling about the past events of my stepfather abusing me. I would cry and cry and cry until I fall asleep. Only this time the mental anguish was too unbearable that I had to put a stop to it as I cannot go on any longer. Without any delay I reached for a shiny clean kitchen knife and went to my dark bedroom. I kneeled at the end of the bed crying to god. “Please God...” I cried “Please, end my misery, I can’t take any more of this sadness.....please just kill me.....I’m begging you” I don’t think I had ever felt so depressed and ashamed of myself. I felt dirty, I felt disgusting, I felt tortured, I felt numb with pain. I didn’t even think about it. I just did it. I sliced my wrist with the knife feeling an instant burning pain with blood pouring out and dripping down my arm and onto the carpet. But the cut was not deep enough to die from. But I just could not do another cut, it was too painful. I was a coward and bandaged up my wrist in shame. But once I bandaged my wrist I felt a sense of relief that I actually took step one towards suicide. In fact it is awful to say this but I actually felt a rush of adrenaline about self-mutilating myself. I wanted to do it again. Only this time I put my same bandaged wrist against the bedroom door entrance and smashed the door on my wrist causing it to sprain. I was hoping I had broken it. But I didn’t. But the pain felt good. It was like this my deserved punishment.

  I had told my psychiatrist and psychologist about my suicide attempts and how I was self mutilating myself. I even told them about one day just out of the blue I wanted to hurt myself and see blood so I stuck knives up my fingernails just to see my own blood. All my doctors were now concerned and was in danger. They had put me on suicide watch and arranged with the psychiatric team from the hospital to check up on me from time to time. I don’t really know this but I think they may have also informed the police just in case. But I am not sure of this, but I would not be surprised.

  The withdrawal effects from the Tramadol and Valium were taking their toll on me. Day by day I could not do anything. I was paralysed but I begged for pain relief from doctors and they would not give me anything apart from the stupid anti-depressants and anti-psychotic drugs. Neither were working. In fact we have had to change the medication several times as I was just getting severe side effects. My psychiatrist knew I was in danger of hurting myself but did not recommend another trip to a psychiatric hospital as the first time it did not help so that would not be of any use. I think my doctors were quite helpless at this stage. But really, it was up to me to try and get better. I wanted to get better as I went to every doctor’s appointment and took the medication as directed. I did everything that the doctors ordered but was getting no results. The fact remains that I was mentally scarred for life and it was not going to go away.

  I kept in regular contact with my mum and Will but I would not disclose the true pain I was going through. I just told them that I just had mild depression and told mum I had stopped work due to glandular fever. I didn’t want them to worry. But the problem is that I had and always had an issue with opening up to people. I wanted to fight this battle on my mind, but perhaps I shouldn’t have. But I was too ashamed of myself of what I was going through that I was embarrassed about it. I would cry myself to sleep every night. I would even sometimes talk to the pillow next to me as if it was Steve lying next to me. It was my dream to have been caressed in that way. That was not to be, but it was nice to dream about it. But months and months have gone by, still not at work, still crying every day and pretty much became a recluse. I developed a fear of society. Every time I went outside, like just to the shops or something, I would hear laughter and think that they were laughing at me. Perhaps they were? Or perhaps I was just paranoid? After all, I too would laugh at someone like myself as being as ugly and weird looking as I am. I was a nothing and worthless to society. So I became a recluse. For days I would not come out of my apartment for fear of being teased or laughed at. I was ashamed of how I looked and was conscious about my HIV and depression. But I kept telling myself that one day, just one day, I will do it. My escape. The deed to be done is coming. One day.

  It had been almost a year I had been absent from work. If you ask me what I did during that year I really could not tell you. It felt like just existing and living was a full time job in itself for me. I did not really do anything apart from the odd trip or two interstate for a few days break. But that’s it, nothing else. I spent every day feeling sorry for myself. But there was something else on my mind that needed sorting out. It was stepfather. The fact that he knows he has gotten away with what he did, killed me. I loathed him. Every day the hate grew and grew. I had to get revenge and I didn’t care what I had to do. I didn’t care about the circumstances. But I knew I had a problem of letting go of the past.

  I would discuss the issue of my stepfather with my psychologist regularly and she really did not help matters. She basically just kept saying, “Let it go, let it go”. What? Was she kidding? How can I possibly let go of the anguish I was put through. The images of him abusing me are tattooed on my brain. I can’t let it go. It was impossible. Then one day I was required to see another independent psychiatrist regarding my income protection insurance.

  I saw this psychiatrist and once again, like for the millionth time went through my past history. Her reaction when I discussed the abuse was frightening. She was shocked to the core. She knew that I was in no position to get back to work yet. But she also gave me some advice that no one else had suggested and it got me thinking. “You realise that you could lay charges on this monster?” she said to me. “What?, even after all these years and yet we have no evidence?” I asked “Of cours
e, you can, you don’t need evidence these days” she replied. It got me thinking.

  The next few days I was thinking about what the psychiatrist had said to me regarding laying charges. I could very easily do that but it would just open up a whole new can of worms. I was not ready for it mentally. I don’t think I had the energy or psychological strength to handle it. But I still wanted revenge. Laying charged on him seemed way too easy for him. He needed to be executed. Of course, that was impossible in this country. But not impossible for me. So I dwelled on it and dwelled on it and dwelled on it. Then bang! I was going to do it, I had to. But then the thought would diminish. I would end up in jail and all sorts of crap. You see, the problem is the fact that no one else knows about this abuse I endured except me and my stepfather. My mother doesn’t know a thing apart from the odd verbal abuse and slap here and there. She or my brother do not know of what he really did to me and I never had the courage to tell them. But there were so many times after their divorce that I wanted to tell mum. But knowing my mother, if she found out what he did to me she would probably take the law into her own hands and murder him. She was so protective of her boys. I couldn’t bear to have my mother upset over this. This was my own private nightmare. But I kept telling myself that one day I will have my revenge. I just had to work out what to do, that’s all.

  Then one night I got myself so worked up that I wanted to do something. I arranged to hire a car for the day. Then that night I drove to his house in Glen Waverly. The same house we lived in. I am being honest here and I have no idea what I was doing at the time. I do remember erratically driving to his house. I think I crashed into several cars on the way. I was in some sort of mental psychotic trance. But I was full of hate. I arrived at his home and parked my car outside his house. I noticed the lights were on in his house. He was there. I now he was. But all I remember is that I had a strong urge to get him. I didn’t know what I was going to do but I wanted him to feel pain. I wanted to kill. But I just sat in the car staring at that house. That house of horrors with a monster lurking inside. Then I decided to ring his phone number and by chance that same phone number we had when we lived there was still the same. He answered the phone. It was him. He answered with that disgusting British accent ‘Hello?’ I paused for a second. Then he said it again “Hello??” Then I yelled through the phone “You fucking pig!!!!!!” Then I hung up my mobile and then sped off in my car. So that confirmed one thing. I was not a homicidal maniac. I couldn’t do it. But I really wanted to. The reality is that I could bring myself to hurt another human being. Perhaps there is some decency in me after all. But the deed to be done could not be done. Not this one though. It was the other one. Suicide. It was the only solution.

  The next day I had another appointment with my psychologist and I told her about how I drove to my stepfathers house and elaborated on the amount of hate and loathing I had developed that I just could not help myself but to do it. She kind of understood though and was actually surprised that I actually did not take the law into my own hands by killing him. I actually surprised myself. Not only did I not want to end up in jail, I saw the fact of killing another human being as a disgusting act of violence. It was wrong. No matter how much the victim deserved it. Even my step father. But the thoughts about killing him were still there although I knew that was never going to happen. I was not homicidal. I knew that was wrong, very wrong. In fact I am against war of any nature.

  Another month, another month of emptiness. I felt that there was no future for me although my doctors saw that differently. They really believed that there was light at the end of the tunnel for me but I disagreed. I eventually got paid my income protection insurance after a year of waiting, thank god. I had used up all my savings and every bit of credit on all my seven or eight credit cards. Even though I now had an income I was in serious financial debt. That only made my depression worse. Then the harassing phone calls started asking for payments of the credit cards. I struggled. The amount I was receiving in income protection payments were not enough to cover all the debts. So one by one I had to arrange financial arrangements to repay back the debts slowly over time. This would at least keep them off my back for a short time until I get back on my feet.

  So there you have it. I was dealing with the anguish of my abusive childhood, I was diagnosed HIV positive, I was in heavy financial debt and I hated myself. My world was simply crap and I kept it all to myself. My own little private nightmare. I wished I was dead. I really did.

  So many times I visited the doctors and it was the same thing over and over again. We were just not getting anywhere with coming to some sort of solution with my depression. I was not getting any better. The fact is, is that this was my time. This was my time for my life to finish. This was it. I am being punished by god and I truly believe that. I deserve it. I told Will that I believed god had punished me but he disagrees. Wills always right too. So what was I to think? My world was now just a tangled up maze with a cocktail of different emotions and feelings and I did not even know where to start fixing them. The problem is that I could not let go of the past, I did not accept my HIV status, and my financial debt is the result of an excessive party lifestyle and the fact that I had to live off credit whilst absent from work on unpaid sick leave. It all just did not seem fair. Why me? But my time was coming. One day I will have the courage, you know?, that deed that had to be done....

  Chapter seventeen......Someone flies over the cuckoo’s nest

  Once again I saw my psychologist. Going through all the past events from the previous week and blah, blah, blah. That’s all I could call it- ‘Blah’. I mean, what else can I talk to a ‘shrink’ about. Although they are a lot more emotional and expressive than the psychiatrists, I don’t think they psychologists really know deep down inside my feelings. They are always relating it back to the infamous Freud theory. You know, the theory that everything you do in life is related back to your own mother. But anyway, I attended every single one of those sessions, never missing any. Which goes to show that I did really want help? But I knew this was a psychological mess that only I can clean up. I was not ready to do that yet. But I was at a stage where I had gone beyond caring for myself stage that it alerted my psychologist. I told her everything though. Everything I did the previous week and exactly how I was feeling. A lot of what I had told her had shocked her. But in this particular session she realised I was in serious trouble. I was behaving very erratically for example driving really fast bumping into cars with intense road rage. I was also talking a lot about death. My own that is. She immediately contacted my psychiatrist. After a discussion between them and them and me and then them again, blah, blah, blah......it was decided I needed to go back to a psychiatric hospital for intense treatment and evaluation. I think they were concerned about my own safety as I talked often about suicide. This time it had to be for a decent amount of time to get my head around things. I agreed to this. I really think I needed it. It was either that, or the next thing, only god forbid. I had to go back and this time I have to take it seriously as the first time I went I thought it was all a bit of a joke. Let’s see what happens this time.

  About a few days later I was admitted to another psychiatric hospital but this time I had a few rules. I wanted a private hospital and I wanted a private room. I felt like I was in charge of arranging a five star holiday, of course this was not the case. My psychiatrist strongly urged me to go to hospital for treatment and to take it seriously. But I started acting like a Diva. After all, I has a top level of private health insurance so why not? I asked for my own room and I want the best room. I demanded it and guess what?, I got it. However I was to be admitted to a different hospital that I never heard of before but it was supposed to be very nice. So a few days later I arrive at the hospital this time feeling a bit more positive that this could be good for me.

  At first, from the reception area, the hospital itself did not feel or look like the typical image of a sterile looking hospital. However the rooms lo
oked awful and looked like mental asylums. There were even holes in the walls. However I had to share a bathroom with another patient next door. This place was supposing were for either rich ones or those with health insurance. The food was okay apart from the fact that dinner was served at the what I call the ‘elderly’ dinner time which was at five o’clock!, once again like last time. That was ridiculous; usually I didn’t eat dinner at home until nine o’clock. So of course, by nine o’clock I was starving again.

  But I tried to make the most of it. I had my own DVD player but there was a small TV in the room. All the patients, after dinner, would gather around the one TV in the TV room. I was the only one in my room. I think the other patients saw that as a bit strange that I did not mingle much with the other patients.

  After about the second day of my stay in the hospital I began to get to know the other patients. They were all very unique in different ways. One was there as he was recovering or sobering up from an addiction to alcohol, another woman was there cause she was having difficulties with her marriage, another woman was there cause she was depressed. They were all there for different reasons. But we were all there for mental reasons. No one really seemed like the typical mental patient. But they were all very candid and open about there reasons for being in the hospital and were very expressive about their feelings. They would gather in groups out in the courtyard chatting about how they were feeling and so on and then there you have, here come the tears! I hated that part. It just depressed me. I did interact with the other patients but I kept my distance. I mean there is a certain level of relationship you can have with them. They were always hugging each other when one of them cries and say ‘There, there, it’s gonna be all right.....” Yeah, well, blah, blah, blah, I say. I just told them that I suffer from depression and that’s all they needed to know. I think that didn’t go down that well as they wanted me to open up a bit more like the others. But no, fuck that. Why should I have to tell them? This was my problem and I was determined to sort it out in my own mind, my way and not be influenced by others. You see, that was the problem in the first place. It was the expectations and influence from other people in society that caused me to become so insecure about myself.