Jamiemccarthytv

Tag: #mentalhealth

  • The Calendar Didn’t Change You

    We’re all dysmorphic

    January Is a Mirror, Not a Door

    The calendar did not absolve you at midnight.

    It did not forgive December.

    It did not sprinkle moral disinfectant on your habits while you slept.

    January 1st is not a beginning. It’s a receipt.

    If you were moving toward something in October, you’re already closer now.

    If you were lying to yourself in November, you brought that lie with you—carry-on, not checked.

    Resolutions are charming in the way apologies are charming when they arrive late and rehearsed.

    They sound noble.

    They feel ceremonial.

    They allow us to pretend that discipline is seasonal and courage can be scheduled.

    But character doesn’t wait for fireworks.

    Anyone who truly meant it—the running, the quitting, the writing, the calling back, the drinking less or loving better—quietly started when no one was watching. Usually on a random Tuesday. Usually without an announcement. Usually without permission.

    That’s the part no one sells you.

    Change doesn’t arrive with a slogan. It creeps in through boredom, discomfort, repetition.

    It shows up looking unremarkable and asks if you’re willing to be consistent instead of inspired.

    So keep your resolutions if you like. They’re harmless theater.

    But don’t confuse the theater for the work.

    If you want to begin, begin now.

    If you already began, don’t stop just because the calendar caught up.

    January doesn’t make you new.

    It merely exposes whether you were honest before the countdown.

    And that, inconveniently, is the only resolution that ever mattered.

  • MANUAL FOR SPOTTING A KNIFE

    By Jamie, not Cormac, McCarthy

    Manual for Spotting the Knife

    There’s enough rot in a regular person
    to fuel a thousand comment sections
    and still have leftovers for Sunday.

    You don’t need monsters.
    You just need people
    with slogans
    and something to protect.

    The loudest about mercy
    keep their hands clean
    by pointing.

    The loudest about love
    need an audience
    or it spoils.

    The loudest about peace
    sleep with one eye open
    and a thumb on the trigger
    they swear they don’t own.

    God-talkers rent God.
    They don’t live with Him.
    Peace-talkers rehearse it
    like a line they keep forgetting.
    Love-talkers mean approval
    and charge interest.

    Watch the ones with microphones.
    Watch the ones with certainty.
    Watch the ones who underline books
    but never bleed on the page.

    Watch the ones who romanticize hunger
    or mock it—
    both are tourists.

    Watch the fast clappers.
    They clap to hear themselves.

    Watch the ones who police language—
    they’re terrified
    something feral might get loose
    and name them.

    Watch the ones who need crowds.
    Alone, they evaporate.

    The average man isn’t harmless.
    The average woman isn’t gentle.
    Their love wants a receipt.
    Their love wants witnesses.
    Their love wants to be normal
    so it doesn’t have to be brave.

    And here’s the part nobody says out loud:

    There’s brilliance in their resentment.
    A precision.
    A teamwork.
    A choreography.

    They can’t stand silence
    because silence asks questions.
    They can’t stand solitude
    because it doesn’t applaud.

    They can’t make anything
    that didn’t already exist,
    so when they fail
    they blame the room,
    the time,
    the culture,
    the weather,
    you.

    They don’t understand art
    because art doesn’t ask permission.
    They don’t understand love
    because love doesn’t negotiate.

    So they’ll tell you
    you’re doing it wrong.
    That your grief is excessive.
    That your joy is suspicious.
    That your freedom is offensive.

    Then they’ll come for you
    not messy,
    not emotional—
    but clean.

    Their hatred is efficient.
    It shines.
    It passes inspections.
    It wears credentials.

    It doesn’t rage.zwzwq
    It executes.

    And that—
    that is the only masterpiece
    most of them will ever finish.

  • Dr. Falls Freud 2: The Refill

    (The Diagnosis Was Wrong, But the Confidence Was Strong)

    “Doctor, the patients are restless.”
    Good.
    If they were calm, I’d think the meds were working.
    Hand me the clipboard—
    the one covered in my old resentments
    and your new insurance co-pays.

    The refill

    I need a refill
    on whatever I prescribed last time.
    Don’t check the dosage—
    I wrote it during a blackout
    and the AMA refused to comment.

    Bring in the next disaster.
    Who is it?
    Ah yes—
    the man allergic to responsibility
    and addicted to horoscopes and whores.
    Put him in the trauma bay;
    tell him Mercury’s been in retrograde
    since his third divorce, and Amber retired anyway.

    And someone get me my reading glasses.
    Not to read—
    just to look smart
    while I guess wildly.

    The nurse asks,
    “Doctor, are you okay?”
    Of course not.
    I’m a mental health professional.
    We don’t heal—
    we outsource.

    Now… where were we?
    Ah yes, the refill.

    RX #1:
    Take one truth
    with two lies
    and chase it with a childhood memory
    you haven’t processed yet.

    RX #2:
    Apply gratitude
    directly to the wound.
    If burning occurs,
    good.
    It means you’re still alive.

    RX #3:
    Stop saying
    “everything happens for a reason.”
    Everything happens because
    people are irresponsible
    and God clocks out early.

    Next patient, please.

    Mr. Ego returns—
    as usual—
    complaining of a swollen sense of self.
    I recommend ice.
    Preferably Antarctica.

    Miss Co-Dependence is back too.
    We tried cutting her off last visit,
    but she refused
    because she “didn’t want to be rude.”
    We’ll keep her overnight.

    And you—
    yes, you—
    the one pretending to be fine
    because you bought a new candle.
    You need a refill most of all.

    Your diagnosis?
    Life.
    Chronic.
    Terminal.
    Relapsing and remitting
    but mostly just remitting.

    The nurse hands me a chart.
    The chart hands me my fate.
    I stare into it, horrified.
    “My god… is this my handwriting?”
    No wonder half the patients
    left the building enlightened
    and the other half
    started a podcast.

    Time of day:
    who knows.
    Cause of day:
    capitalism.
    Treatment plan:
    “fuck around and see.”

    I sign the discharge papers
    with the confidence of a televangelist
    and the accuracy of a man
    throwing darts in the dark.

    Before I leave,
    I grab my coat,
    my stethoscope,
    and the final universal truth:

    Nobody’s cured.
    We just refill the prescription
    until the bottle or the body
    runs out.

    Fade to black.
    The credits roll.
    Freud slips again.

  • Equality, My Ass

    she fucked 1,245 men in a day
    they called it empowerment
    i call it a goddamn endurance test
    with a participation trophy
    and a yeast infection

    feminism?
    sure.
    if you can sell it
    if you can pose for it
    if you can fuck it
    and file a tax return after

    they say women are free now
    but I’ve seen more chains in lace
    than I ever did in iron
    the old chains told you what you were
    these new ones
    whisper it
    in the middle of the night
    while you scroll, naked
    trying to be wanted
    by strangers
    who wouldn’t stop to piss on you
    if you were on fire

    patriarchy?
    at least it was honest
    it said: “you’re mine.”
    now it says:
    “you’re free to degrade yourself
    however you see fit”
    and sends you a promo code for lube

    this isn’t revolution
    it’s rebranding
    with lipstick, hashtags, and a ring light
    everyone’s selling their soul
    some just get better lighting

    i miss the women
    who didn’t have to prove anything
    didn’t need 1,245 pricks
    to feel something
    didn’t scream liberation
    while crying after
    the 8th faceless man
    and another fake orgasm

    but what the hell do i know
    i’m just a recovering drunk of 24 years
    I guess sobriety is watching freedom
    take its clothes off
    for tips…equality, my ass.

  • Forgive the Darkness

    By Jamie McCarthy

    I used to think pain was a phase.

    Like acne or Gucci shoes.

    Something you grow out of

    if you drink enough water

    and pretend your parents didn’t screw you sideways

    before you had a chance to know what “boundaries” meant.

    But no.

    Pain’s the long-term roommate.

    It doesn’t pay rent.

    It just smokes your last cigarette,

    eats your leftovers,

    and laughs at your dreams as it takes the last bite.

    I’ve loved people I shouldn’t have.

    Hurt people who didn’t deserve it.

    And spent years thinking guilt was a personality trait.

    Turns out it’s just spiritual cholesterol.

    There was a time I thought I could out-run my grief.

    So I ran.

    Straight into a bottle of Crown Royal,

    my ego always leading the way,

    believing meaningless sex would cure me,

    and finding worse friends to somehow give me virtue.

    All of it, from this end, feels like a bad dream.

    And the American one?

    Just a scratch-off ticket with not a goddamn thing to scratch off—

    which doesn’t matter,

    since I don’t remember the last time I had a quarter in my pocket.

    But somewhere along the way, I slowed down.

    Not by choice.

    Knees cracked, knuckles busted.

    Friends—the good ones—passed on.

    The mirror stopped lying.

    And there I was—

    worn out, scarred up,

    but somehow… aware.

    It’s poetry—

    the moment you stop chasing what you thought mattered,

    only to trip over what actually does.

    I learned to say “I’m sorry”

    without adding “but…”

    Learned silence is sometimes louder than performance.

    Learned forgiveness isn’t something you get—

    it’s something you give,

    to others, yes,

    but mostly to the idiot I used to be.

    Now I’m on the back 9.

    Ball’s in the deep rough.

    And there are no mulligans after the first tee.

    And yet—

    somehow—

    I’m finally relaxed, swinging better than ever.

    Isn’t that the rub?

    We spend our youth running from the fire

    only to become the match that lights the way for someone else.

    So yeah, I’ve made an enormous mess—monumental mistakes.

    Unforgivable, if you asked the old me.

    But the new one?

    He’s got crow’s feet, a shorter fuse,

    and no interest in faking a smile.

    He’s lighter.

    Less righteous. Open-minded.

    And if the darkness still follows—

    I just turn and nod,

    “Come on then, bastard.

    You’ve earned the ride.”

  • BOY, STILL

    Don’t think i’ll ever not be one

    even when the back goes before the mind and i’m in aisle 9 arguing with a teenager about fiber supplements and suddenly crying because they don’t carry dad.

    I was a boy when dad looked at me, rope in hand, the knot a mess of looped embarrassment,

    and said,

    “boy, you’re not very salty, are you?”

    and i swear to god,

    i’ve been trying to earn that salt ever since.

    So call me boy.

    Boy when i’m on the floor, face down and sobbing for jack— my boy, my riot, my soft middle finger to the universe that left too early,

    like a drumbeat with no downstroke.

    Now i walk around with a ghost in my shoe and no idea how to dance anymore.

    Call me boy when i get stuck in the same daydream where jack is on some interstellar skateboard, wearing a crown made of mixtapes and unspoken apologies.

    He tosses me a beer that tastes like everything we never got to say, and says, “Don’t get too heavy, dad. this ain’t heaven, it’s just the white room in waiting”.

    so we just sit there,

    talking shit,

    swapping memories like baseball cards—

    me, the failed magician,

    Jack, the vanished trick.

    Call me boy, with a body never sacred, just a frame for grief to hang its coat on, a joke with a punchline i forgot halfway through.

    Call me boy whose grief has a sense of humor that knocks before entering and always farts when leaving.

    Call me boy

    when i weep at dog movies

    but not funerals.

    Call me boy

    when i stare too long at the moon

    like it’s my missing report card

    and then wonder,

    did we really land there?

    Boy like a lawnmower that only works in reverse.

    Boy like a sandwich made of spite and peanut butter.

    Boy like someone who thought stoic meant quiet rage earns trophies only for men.

    I’m all the boys

    who said, i got this

    then promptly didn’t.

    Who held screwdrivers like they were bones from animals they never learned to kill.

    I am not very salty but i am trying.

    maybe i became man too early,

    Maybe i went boy again too late.

    Or, maybe this is just the rot you earn when you outlive both ends of the line.

    And when death comes,

    i hope it’s weird.

    I hope it shows up in a bathrobe,

    smoking a cigar shaped like my childhood.

    I hope dad’s there—

    leaning against a celestial pier,

    watching me tie one last knot,

    and he says,

    still not salty, but boy, at least you’re funny.

    And when they bury me,

    call me boy one last time.

    Make it a joke.

    Make it sting.

    Make it true.

  • Father of Madness

    “They say time heals all wounds.”

    Who in the fuck are they?

    Some bureaucrats of grief, clocking in, clocking out, wielding the second hand like a scalpel, deciding when the wound has been stitched,

    when the blood should dry,

    when the rage should settle into something softer.

    Time—the prison, the con artist, the liar.

    It doesn’t heal. It magnifies.

    It twists the knife while whispering lullabies.

    It counts the days like a debt collector, reminding me of every second Jack no longer breathes, and every hour the bastard who gave him poison does.

    And still, they tell me time is the answer.

    That I should let it pass, let it work.

    I want to take that very hand of time,

    the well-intended, patronizing hand,

    and smash it for 19 straight minutes

    with a dead blow hammer,

    until the gears stop turning,

    until the numbers scatter like broken teeth,

    until time itself finally understands

    what it means to be overwhelmingly crushed. 

    Miranda, devil in a hoodie, dealer for pocket change was never a scapegoat.

    He was a man who knew exactly what he handed over.

    I wonder if he ever wakes up sweating,

    if he ever feels the shadow behind him,

    if he ever senses the weight of me

    staring at the back of his skull.

    Sixty ways in a minute,

    three hundred sixty in an hour,

    eight thousand six hundred forty in a day—

    I could carve my grief into his flesh.

    I could become time,

    the father of madness,

    breaking him down into seconds,

    watching him beg for a mercy

    that he never gave to Jack.

    But there is no justice.

    Only the slow, excruciating unraveling of the world going around the sun, 

    where killers breathe and sons are buried.

    There is no closure, no grand moment of reckoning.

    There is only the hell of waking up each day,

    wishing for ghosts,

    praying for gruesome vengeance,

    and knowing—the only end is mine.

  • The Green Tablet

    The green tablet.

    All my life I stumbled, staggered like a drunk at closing time, reaching for something, anything. I’d been told to find meaning in the sermons of men, the wisdom of books, the clink of coins in a beggar’s cup

    it was all more of a junkie’s dream. The kind of thing you’d find slipped in between the folds of the Interzone, tucked inside the sweaty palm of some two-bit dealer with half his face gone, nodding off in the alley. I wasn’t looking for it, not really. But it found me. They always find you.

    Years spent in the static haze, the off-channel white noise of existence. I moved through life like a virus spreads—covert, unnoticed, but always present, always creeping. Everything felt slippery, synthetic. The streets, the people. All part of a bad signal, fuzzing in and out of view. I tried to decode it, cracked open veins and heads alike, trying to read the messages in the blood and the circuitry. It all led nowhere. Circling the drain.

    Then the tablet. Green. The color of rot, the color of new life. One third of the tricolor draped along the walls of the long, hollow corridor of time, reverberating with the somber hymns of Irish proverbs, and maybe, just maybe, carrying enough luck to turn pessimism into hope. Sort of like a coin toss, only with a tablet. I didn’t so much find it, it found me, pressed itself into my hand, throbbing like some living thing. Organic. Synthetic. All of the above. I swallowed it without thinking.

    And then the world folded in on itself, a collapsing wave. Time ceased to have meaning, space unraveled into dimensions I didn’t believe  existed—places where gravity was just another bad trip, a suggestion instead of a rule. The walls of the room bent, melted, reformed. Faces flickered, sliding in and out of their skulls. Bureaucrats with insect eyes and needle fingers. All the usual suspects.

    The tablet wasn’t knowledge. It was beyond knowledge. It was access, a key to a hidden layer of reality, a frequency just out of reach unless you knew where to tune the vibrations. And there it was—the whole system laid bare. The machinery behind the facade. The puppet strings of control, the invisible hands pulling us all in circles.

    The thing I’d been looking for in gutters and bars, in the eyes of strangers and the bottom of empty bottles. Turns out, it was the very thing that made me stop searching.

    I don’t remember what was written on it. Maybe there was nothing. Maybe it was just the act of finding it that mattered. That green tablet wasn’t salvation, not in the way they sell it in churches or schools. It was just a reminder that the world, the one I had spent years fighting, didn’t give a damn. It never would. And finally, I no longer needed it. 

    I wasn’t stumbling anymore. My new found saunter suggested confidence, not arrogance—just the ease of a man who knew the system and could slip through its cracks unnoticed, the few eyes that caught me probably green with envy. But I always looked past them, through their lost souls, and left a simple inscription on their softened brains…

    “You want out? There is no out.’”

  • Lessons from the titans.

    Yo, I’m suffering. “Good” “stay hard, motherfuckers”

    Mental Toughness and Creativity: Lessons from the Titans

    Ah, creativity. A fickle mistress, a deceptive muse, a relentless tormentor. It demands from us everything and offers nothing but suffering in return. Yet, we plunge into its chaotic embrace, knowing full well that true brilliance is born from the depths of our agony. To understand this dance with madness, one must look to the hardened warriors of resilience: David Goggins, Jocko Willink, and the indefatigable Rocky Balboa. Imagine them not as athletes or soldiers but as artists, writers, filmmakers, and musicians. Their capacity to endure, to dig deep and savor the pain, is the crucible of their greatness.

    David Goggins, a man forged in the fires of suffering, would approach creativity as he does his ultramarathons and SEAL training. His canvas is the battlefield of his mind, his brushstrokes the relentless pursuit of the impossible. Goggins would tell us that creativity is not a gift, but a grind. It is the result of thousands of hours spent honing a craft, of pushing past the point of exhaustion, of embracing the suck. His mantra, “Stay Hard,” would become the battle cry of the artist willing to bleed for their vision. Goggins teaches us that to create is to suffer, and to suffer well is to create something truly extraordinary.

    Then there’s Jocko Willink, the stoic warrior of discipline. For him, creativity is a war, a series of battles fought in the trenches of self-doubt and procrastination. Jocko’s advice is simple: get up early, show up, and do the work. He would see the blank page, the empty canvas, the silent instrument as an adversary to be conquered with relentless discipline. “Discipline equals freedom,” he preaches, and in the realm of creativity, this means mastering the basics, committing to a schedule, and attacking the process with military precision. Jocko would remind us that every masterpiece is built on a foundation of mundane, repetitive tasks executed with unwavering focus.

    And then we have Rocky Balboa, the quintessential underdog. Rocky’s story is one of grit, heart, and the indomitable human spirit. As an artist, Rocky would teach us the value of perseverance in the face of relentless failure. He would stumble, fall, and get back up, each time with a little more wisdom, a little more fire in his belly. Rocky’s motto, “It ain’t about how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward,” is a testament to the resilience required in the creative journey. His work would be raw, unpolished, but bursting with authenticity and soul. Rocky shows us that the beauty of art lies not in perfection but in the relentless pursuit of one’s passion, despite the odds.

    In the end, creativity is not a serene stroll through the park but a grueling marathon, a bloody battle, a tenacious climb up an unforgiving mountain. It’s about embracing the pain, finding joy in the struggle, and knowing that every ounce of suffering is a testament to the work we’ve put in. Goggins, Willink, and Balboa each illuminate a path through this wilderness, showing us that the true artist, the true creator, is one who revels in the suffering, who finds strength in the darkness, and who emerges, bloodied but unbowed, with a masterpiece in hand. For in the crucible of our torment, we find the purest expression of our creative selves.

  • Reoccurring Dream on Jupiter Beach

    The dream hits like a cheap shot after last call, every night, same damn thing. There he is, the poor bastard, standing on the edge of nothing, staring at the horizon where the sea meets the sky. It’s calm, too calm, like the silence before a bar fight. And then, out of nowhere, it comes—a tidal wave a mile high, a wall of watery doom.

    This isn’t some Hollywood disaster flick. No, this wave is real, raw, unfiltered. It rises with the fury of every unpaid bill, every broken promise, every lonely night spent in the bottom of a bottle. It’s the weight of existence, the crushing force of life’s relentless bullshit.

    The man, he doesn’t run. There’s no point. He stands there, rooted to the spot, like a drunk pinned by a cop’s flashlight. He knows what’s coming, knows he can’t escape it. It’s not about courage; it’s about acceptance. He’s staring down the barrel of inevitability, eyes wide open, heart pounding like a bum’s fist on a midnight diner counter.

    The wave looms, casting a shadow that swallows the sun. It roars, the sound of a million lost dreams and forgotten loves. It’s beautiful, in a way, this monstrous, all-consuming force. There’s a terrible beauty in surrender, in the recognition that fighting is futile. The wave crashes, and for a moment, everything is chaos, a swirling, suffocating mess of saltwater and despair.

    But then, there’s a strange peace. The man is engulfed, yes, but in that drowning, there’s release. No more running, no more struggling. Just the cold embrace of the inevitable. It’s over, and in the end, maybe that’s all anyone can hope for—a moment of clarity in the madness, a brief respite in the endless tide of life’s absurdity.

    Life’s a wave, kids. You can’t outrun it. You just stand there, take the hit, and hope to hell you find some meaning in the drowning.