Roller Coaster Therapy
By: Timothy O'Neill
Tags: Addiction, Mental Health, Fiction, Psychology, Horror

Roller Coaster Therapy

Strap in.

Photo by Marc Schaefer on Unsplash

Living with addiction and chronic mental illness and visions of blood-hungry demons gnawing at your heels can be like spending your life on a roller coaster. A one-way trip to nowhere. You get used to the thrills and chills, the highs and the lows. You know once you go up, you’re about to come crashing down. You know what lies around the next bend. And still it’s exhausting. You lose a little of yourself upon the completion of each cycle. It’s a ride that has no exit point. You pulled the lever and hopped on. Or fate pulled it for you and threw you into your seat. Round and round we go. Now you’re whirling and twirling through the twilight sky into oblivion. You scream at the stars. You think about taking off your safety harness, jumping and plummeting to the ground four or five stories below. You couldn’t jump from any lower. The cars are whipping through too fast and you are enshrined in webs of metal. You wouldn’t be the first to jump.

Where is the hope? Where is the healing? When and how does it end?

You ask, and you are not alone.

There are other lost souls traveling with you on other cars. In the beginning they were all screaming and either hanging on for dear life or throwing their arms in the air with reckless abandon. Screaming in excitement or in terror. Now they’ve all gone quiet. Their arms lay limp in their laps. Their eyes are bloodshot and glazed over. They are resigned to the maddening meaningless revolutions. Hope departed from their souls long ago, to be replaced by a leaden weariness, a torpor that has constricted their limbs and anesthetized their minds. They feel no anger, no desperation. Can they still be reached? Can they still be saved? In fact, they may be closer to salvation than most.

Still others clamor for control. They think they can regain their agency in a situation that has spun far outside the arena of their thoughts and emotions. They refuse to surrender to a state of graceless passivity. They analyze, calculate, formulate plans. How can we make this work? How can we use this, this and this to our advantage? Where is the weak point? There has to be one. It’s just a ride, after all. I will not do this forever. I’m smart, I’m strong and I will not be rendered a captive observer to my own life experience. If we work together, we can overcome any challenge. All their ideas result in utter failure. They try again and again. They’re a stubborn group, but even they get worn down by the relentless whirling and spinning of the coaster. Time takes its toll. Soon they slump back in their seats, defeated and dejected. But there is still a glint of fire in their eyes.

People begin yelling at each other, venting their frustration, their fear and their blackest despair. Blame spreads like wildfire. It is a deadly contagion, sickening everyone who hears it and internalizes it. The living dead say nothing, their bodies slumped and their jaws slack. But everyone else is looking for recourse from someone. They want to know why. Why them? They want to know how. How could this possibly be? What did they ever do to deserve such hellish torture? Where are all the people? And, inevitably, the question is asked, are we all dead? Some chew this over. Ponder it. Others discard it immediately as complete insanity. They want practical answers and practical solutions.

The pain is palpable. It seems on the verge of coalescing into a living, breathing organism born of human agony. Finally a woman with a quiet but firm voice cuts through the bickering with a question, ‘What if the person or persons who designed this monstrosity wanted to break our minds and spirits so they could create us anew? We’re already a little broken. We’re all dying. What do we have to lose?’ She is instantly rebuffed by a torrent of indignant responses. ‘I’m not broken. How dare you!’ ‘So your solution is just give in to torture?’ ‘I have my dignity to lose, you bitch! And my life!’ ‘They just get to play god with our bodies and minds without our consent? Fuck them and fuck you!’ The woman takes it all in stride and lays back in her seat.

Then a tall, solidly built man in overalls and a dark t-shirt emerges from the darkness. No one notices him at first. The coaster is speeding along too fast and the discussions and recriminations between passengers have descended into full-blown chaos. People have even taken off their safety harnesses and started taking swings at each other. The man apparently takes no notice. If he does, there is no trace of it on his placid expression. He walks calmly over to the lever and as the coaster comes swooping down he pulls it and the cars come to a screeching halt. A few people who unstrapped themselves tumble over the side of their cars, but quickly pick themselves back up and dust themselves off. There is great rejoicing. The passengers swarm the tall man, hugging him fiercely, rubbing his shoulders and patting him on the back.

When they step further out into the open air they find themselves in the middle of a gigantic deserted theme park, with the rides all lit up and buzzing as if it were opening day.

Everyone is confused and disoriented and absolutely exhausted. But they are free. They are free to walk the earth in whatever direction they choose. What a magnificent gift. Some are licking their lips at the thought of a drink. Others are scratching their arms at the thought of a shot of dope. All of them are angry. All of them are depressed. Some want to end it the first chance they get. This was punishment. This wasn’t treatment.

The living dead are now animated enough to start stumbling towards the exit. Most of the people try to follow their lead. It seems the best way to go. The best way to continue their journey. To firmly cement their freedom and return to the glory of the wider world, in all its beautiful ruin.

But they are quickly corralled by the tall man with the black shirt and overalls. He shakes his head.

“You’re not ready yet.”

One woman collapses to her knees and begins to shriek at the sky. An older gentleman approaches the tall man.

“We’ve done our penance. Enough is enough, sir.”

The man frowns. He looks truly sorry. “No, sir. I promise, on my heart and on my word as a good man of God, you will thank me when this ordeal is done.”

Then he turns back to the crowd and points his finger to a ride off in the distance.

“To the Tilt-A-Whirl!”