September 20, 2016
JC had a couple of days to kill before he had to fly back to Russia for OWF, so he decided to get in a visit with his psychiatrist. He wasn't happy anyway, considering he just spent his Carnage Wrestling debut getting kicked in the head by Sabiru. He was only here because he had to be, as was the case with most of his visits. While he did want to get better, he didn't want to talk to a stranger, even a doctor, about what was going on in his head.
To his credit, Dr. Jonathan Fuller was sympathetic. After all, it was only his job. He wanted to help. JC understood that, so he kept going and he kept spilling his guts. If nothing else, it would give his wife a break from his usual complaining. He had been quiet about it on the flight over but it still bothered him that he lost that match.
He should have beat Sabiru. Not only that, he should have beat him soundly. Not that Sabiru wasn't talented in the ring, but JC has been in the game for a lot longer and he's beaten a lot tougher than him.
Of course, a lot of those wins came in a time when he wasn't seeking treatment from mental illness. It led him to wonder if the return was even worth it. Maybe he lost his edge. Maybe he should have hit that big boot after all. He could say whatever he wanted to dismiss the loss and look forward, but he was the type that always dwelled on his failures. It was part of what made him who he is and part of what enabled him to eventually go forward.
It didn't change the fact he had a lot of pressure on himself to win and the entire ordeal was a stinking pile of disappointment.
Dr. Fuller's practice was still new, but he was enjoying more success than before. The office was filled halfway to capacity with a variety of people who either uncomfortably looked at everyone else or awkwardly attempted to look in any other direction. There were definitely a lot of people with issues here, at least as serious as his, if not more. He recognized the telltale patterns, especially in those unwilling to meet his eyes.
"Mr. Lee, you're up. Good to see you again."
The receptionist called out his name to let him know Dr. Fuller was now available. It was a regular pattern. He had weekly visits since he went on his medication, which weren't necessarily required, but if his insurance covered it there was no reason not to.
He came into the room where Fuller was already seated. He opted to stand when JC arrived, extending his hand for the first of two doctor-patient handshakes. Everything was standard practice at this point. JC felt as though he could completely zone out and not miss a beat. But he liked that about the visits. It was nice to have a bit of a routine in the middle of his flights in and out of foreign countries and fighting a wide variety of opponents.
Routine was good. Routine was normal.
JC wanted 'normal' more than he wanted anything else at this point.
"So, Joe, what brings you in this week?"
"Just the usual talk, I guess."
"That works for me. I get paid either way."
Fuller laughed, and JC forced himself to give a grin. Not because he was upset with the comment, but more because he didn't find it funny. Fuller's G-rated jokes about his profession were also part of the routine, along with JC's willingness to fake his discovery of the humor in them.
"How are you feeling? It's been about a month since you started the lithium and..."
Fuller looked at his chart to get the name of the second medication right.
"...olanzapine, isn't it?"
JC briefly had a flashback in his mind of where he was a little over a month ago. He was kneeing his best friend in his bloodied face. In just three days he was going to try to reconcile with that same friend and didn't like his chances.
"I'm doing fine. Voice has been quiet, moods are quite stable yet but you said it would take a while."
"Well, anti-psychotics usually take about six months for their full effect."
"So you've said."
"You can't get impatient about this. The brain is a probably the most complicated organ in the body and it takes a long time to fix the chemistry in it. Just remember, every time you feel down, there's just a chemical imbalance. Sometimes it helps my patients if I explain it to them in more physical terms. A lot of people with mental illness love to beat themselves up over not feeling normal."
JC understood that. It was like the good doctor read his mind. It didn't help the fact he was starting to have nightmares, as if his issues needed somewhere else to go as the medication slowly contained them.
"I'm not impatient...well, not about this anyway. I understand how this works."
"I get the feeling you're still not doing as fine as you've said."
"It's just a career setback. It'll pass."
"Go ahead and explain it to me anyway. Maybe it'll help."
So JC relayed the whole story, down to every single detail. He made sure to focus on the fact that he had a moment to finish off Sabiru and get the win with his Big Boot of Death, but froze. He couldn't do it. He could not charge forward and boot the head of this wrestler he only just met. It didn't matter who his opponent was or what they had done. When he was staring at Sabiru, who was struggling to stand, he couldn't move.
It was if there were invisible hands reaching from the mat and holding him in place. He couldn't understand it. Usually he had no problem rushing in and kicking someone in the face to get a win. Yet when it came time to do the same thing at Chaos 25, he was paralyzed. By the time he regained his bearings, Sabiru had recovered long enough to counter his other holds and deliver a kick to the face of his own.
If it had happened to someone else, JC would have found the circumstances humorous. He was hoisted by his own petard in front of a live audience. He was surprised no one else noted the irony. Or was it a coincidence?
He finished his description of what was bothering him and waited for a reply.
"As you know, I'm not well-versed in your profession. I've been meaning to check it out, but it just hasn't happened yet."
"Not a problem, doc."
"But from what you've said, you're disappointed that you lost. More than that, you're worried this is the start of a pattern. Is that right?"
"I'm worried I needed that killer instinct to win. If I don't have it, and I lose, doesn't that prove that everything I've ever earned was because I was crazy?"
"What have I told you about using the word 'crazy' in this office?"
"Right, sorry."
"You're not 'crazy.' You're 'ill'. And illness should have no bearing on whether or not you succeed at what it is you do. This seems more like a confidence issue to me. For the first time in a long time, you're questioning yourself. You're inside your own head and it's making you question everything, even at moments were you shouldn't be."
"So you're saying I should have went for it?"
"I'm saying it shouldn't have taken you that long to recover. If you're doubting yourself, then you're going to make mistakes. We've talked about your early career. You didn't always get violent with your opponents."
"That's true. I was able to ignore whatever impulses I may have had. I didn't have to win with violence. Well, unless it was a hardcore match."
"Again, I know nothing of what you do except what you've told me. But it sounds to me like you need to get back into that mindset and stop over-analyzing everything. It's easier said than done, given your condition, but that's what these talks are for. You come in, describe your issues and I give you my best college-educated advice."
"I really appreciate it either way, Dr. Fuller."
"Wrestler or not, a common problem with people recovering from mental illness is doubt. It could be depression or it could be OCD. They question whether or not they'll ever be normal and if they can ever succeed with that specter looming over them. You'll be happy to know that there are a lot of successful people that struggle with mental illness. They get their heads on straight and then they are back to winning. That's what you need to do."
JC considered this. It made sense. Of course it made sense. So much so, in fact, that he was a little irritated with himself that he didn't come up with it first. He supposed that was part of the self-doubt his psychiatrist was just advising him against.
"It sounds so simple. Too simple."
"Sometimes the simplest answer is the right one."
"I think I read that on a t-shirt somewhere."
"Actually, I think it was a motivational poster."
The two shared a genuine laugh for a moment. It felt good to laugh at all. In spite of all he'd been through, he had a genuine support system now. No matter who else rejected him, he had his wife and he had a doctor committed to making him better. At least he didn't have to worry about judgment from either.
He just had to worry about the opinions of everyone else. He didn't know when he was getting booked for a match again, in either promotion, but he knew he had to be better. No more doubting and no more freezing.
The next time he met Sabiru, he wouldn't hesitate. He wouldn't even put himself in the position to hesitate. He had the skills to win. It was just a matter of creating a different routine. That's what he did before. He lost himself in the match. He took his mind out of the equation and relied on his mat wrestling, his power, his uncanny speed (for someone of his size, anyway) to get the job done. If he truly wanted to win another match again, it was time to let his heart and not his brain do the wrestling for him.
Expert on the business or not, Dr. Fuller opened his eyes to how things needed to be.
He decided to stay the full hour as an unspoken 'thank you.'
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We all come from humble beginnings.
If you're in this business. You were a rookie once. You were a kid. You lacked the talent to really get by but someone saw enough potential in you to give you a chance. I was given my first chance in 2000 for a company called Big Time Wrestling. If you can believe it, it was against a guy named Westside G-Money. I lost.
But I got up and brushed myself off, corrected my gameplan and won the very next match against another guy named Bobby Hawk. As for G-Money, I'd end him beating up later on for my first title. My point is, sometimes we need to lose to remind ourselves we're not infallible. We need to make mistakes so we can own up to them and become better.
Do we call it fate or happenstance that pairs me with Lucas Silva? Perhaps it's just the Carnage booking committee looking for an easy story. I don't know and I don't care. I've got the biggest match of my career over in the OWF Sunday night. Then, somehow, I have to hop a plane from Russia to Baltimore and hope the jet lag doesn't give Silva the quickest win of his career. It wouldn't be the first time I slept on a plane and it won't be the last.
My debut at Chaos 25 didn't exactly go how I pictured it. Blame it on ring rust, blame it on overconfidence. You can blame it on whatever you want, but I'm going to stay out of that particular game. I went back to OWF to recharge, beat a guy there and now I'm back to try my hand at the roulette wheel of Carnage once again. It remains to be seen if I can prove anything to anyone, because all I did at Chaos 25 was get my lights turned out by a sociopath.
It's disappointing, more than anything else, that I had all this talk about Carnage being my road to recovery. I put my foot in my mouth, which is ironic considering how many boots to the face I've delivered. Sabiru caught me and now I'm up against a rookie with arguably more to prove. He is, after all, a murderer, if Tweeder is to be believed. We don't know the circumstances and we don't know if it's a one-off deal. Honestly, I'd rather not know. What you do outside of the ring means absolutely dick when it comes to facing me inside of it.
"But JC," you may ask. "You surely can't ignore the fact that The Sandtown Kid killed someone?" Yes I can. Lucas Silva's extra-curricular activities mean nothing to me. Especially when we don't know the whole story. You know what does? Forgiveness. Repentance. Recovery. Does any of that sound familiar? The people getting up in arms over what the kid may have done when he was young and stupid need a reality check.
His opponent isn't exactly a saint.
I've done a lot that I'm no longer proud of, but you can rest assured that at the time I loved every moment of it. That's why the wrestlers in this place talking about being "dark" or "villainous" amuse me. In fact, it's downright adorable. Melody Lennox gets conceited and cheats to win a match and she thinks she's the second coming of Lex Luthor. There's literally a guy that calls himself "The Dark Father", which is a name plucked right out of the 90s when every wrestler was desperate to cosplay as Eric Draven.
I'd argue that Lucas Silva knows more about darkness than any of them. I know I do. And I know that darkness is not a thing to be proud of. Darkness is what we overcome. If the Sandtown Kid is as resilient and noble as I think he is, then I'm sure his demons will go away. I'm not so sure about mine, and I'm a little sick of being in their presence.
So Lucas, let's go out there and make them all forget about whatever it is we might have done. Let's steal the show and entertain them for a while. I want you at 100% up top. I want Tweeder out of your head. I didn't come here to beat the Ultraviolent champion when he's half-assing it against me. Because let me make it clear right now. If you don't give me everything you have, you won't escape that ring with a win.
Every match for me is 'must win'. Not only that, it's must win without maiming my opponents. So trust me, whatever you are outside of that squared circle is inconsequential.
I'm only interested in beating what you are inside of it.
