My life with depression

As I sit here typing this, I’ve been a juggalo for 3 years. I wasn’t always a juggalo though. There was a time I hated ICP and made fun of anybody who listened to them. Then one day, that all changed…

When I was a younger boy, at the CD store with my mom, she told me words that I won’t ever forget: “Sean, you can listen to whoever you want, just promise me you won’t listen to 2 bands: ICP and Marylin Manson.” It’s funny, cuz 2 of my favorite things to listen to are MM and ICP. 

ICP was first introduced to me by my dad, inadvertantly. He would play 2 kinds of music every day as he smoked: Death Metal, and ICP. In my room as a little boy, I learned the sound of the music. I couldn’t really get the lyrics, but I knew the beat of “Chicken Huntin”. Sometimes I would go out of my room to get a juice or whatever, and I’d hear like 3 seconds of lyrics before my dad muted the radio. So I got the beat, and “Blood guts fingers and toes” lyrics. I didn’t think too much of it though. It was definitely weird though: not gonna lie, I felt the music calling to me. Like, “Ssssean…. You are meant to listen to thissss!”.

I remember vividly one experience I had at the fair: My parents and I saw 3 juggalos smoking a cigarette, and a cop gave them a ticket. My mom laughed and said “Ha… Idiots. That’s what they get for dressing up like that. They all deserve to get thrown in jail.” My dad just agreed and said “Juggalos…. ha” I kinda laughed too, and said “I’d never be caught dead acting like that! Ha… Clowns”. We were all haters. Well, some time after I met Jim, we were in a NJROTC thing, and he gave me a CD to listen to. It had random ICP songs on it. I told him I would listen to it later, and when I got home I promptly shoved it some random place and laughed. 

At that time I was having a lot of issues. One day, I got really depressed, and planned to cut myself. I got up, and looked for my knife. As I was, I saw the CD just sitting there. I thought, I may need a laugh to cheer myself up later. So I got my Walkman, and my knife, and sat there in the dark. I put the first song on and put my knife to my skin. It was “Chicken Huntin”! I could finally hear the whole song! I stopped and listened. After that, it was “Marsh Lagoon” (by Twiztid). Then “Hell House” (Dark Lotus). I felt a weird sensation as I heard these songs, I can barely explain it. Basically, as I sat there, locked in my closet, naked, with a knife to my wrist, the music made it feel like it was… Hugging me. Telling me it would all be ok. 

Of all the songs on the CD, the one that got to me the most was “Pass Me By” by ICP. The whole song just made me feel…. I don’t know. Maybe if you, the reader, go listen to the song, you’ll feel it. If you don’t, I feel sorry for you. Cuz that song made me cry. I dropped my knife, and Just mouthed along the chorus. “We all gon die. But I’m not gon fry, even though I most never try, I’m not gonna let this pass me by”. I can’t even begin to explain to somebody who isn’t a juggalo how it made me feel. All I can say, is that after hearing that song, I zoned out and saw something. I saw myself walking along 2 paths, one at a time.

The first path was lonely, nobody was there, just money, and a bunch of cool stuff I wanted. At the end of this road, there was just blackness. Lonliness, sorrow, and pain. The second path was much longer. As I walked it, I fell sometimes. When I did, my friends helped me up and walked with me. The road was brighter, and I never reached the end, but I enjoyed walking that path. My friends, as we were walking, gave me little pieces of a necklace, and when I had it complete, it was a hatchetman. 

When I came back, I knew that I had to do something. It wasn’t so black and white as me just saying “Oh, I need to be a juggalo!” Nah. This isn’t a movie. I figured I needed to be closer friends with Jim and Devin. Well, I did that, and meanwhile I kept listening to that CD every night. After some time, I came up to Jim, and said I wanted to be a Juggalo. Well, he was surprised. I asked how I could do that, and Jim told me that you can’t be taught, it’s natural. So, I figured, “That was easy. I’m a juggalo now! No initiation or any of that!” The word juggalo still didn’t come easy for me. I never told anybody I was a juggalo, and I didn’t wear any hatchet gear. All I did was drink Faygo, which I explained as it was cheap and good. NOT cuz I was a “Juggalo”. I was still hating.

One memory I have is being in school, and seeing a guy with a hatchetman on his shirt. Now, if you see a fellow juggalo, you can just say “Whoop Whoop”. That’s all it takes. I, however, said “Do you hunt chickens? I hunt chickens.” I feel retarded remembering that….. Well, some time later, I got to borrow a hatchetman hat, and I wore it on the bus. Some black kids said “Take that weak shit off, before we beat your ass, you Juggaho faggot”. I quickly took it off. Woulda thrown it out the window if they’d asked me to. 

I don’t know how it happened, but one day I just realized that the only reason I didn’t like ICP or juggalos, was my dad. And I HATED my dad. I just wanted to impress him, and I figured maybe if I hated juggalos too, he’d be proud of me. It may sound dumb, but I’ve done dumber things to try and get his love. Then it clicked: being a juggalo WASN’T a bad thing. It let me be me, something I’d always wanted. I stopped hiding my ICP CD, and I wore that hat whenever possible, I proudly said whoop whoop to juggalos I saw, and yet again, the black kids told me to take my hat off. This time, I promptly stuck my middle finger up. Yeah, I got my ass beat, but I protected the hat, and I had my pride still. After that day, I vowed that I would wear the hatchetman with nothing but pride. I’d never hide it like I did, or speak badly of it. And 3 years later, I love being a juggalo. It’s like I always was one! And I was, I just didn’t know. I’m proud as fuck to be a juggalo, and I’ll never drop the hatchet. I’m down with the clown til I’m dead in the ground, Mufackos!