Life Under A Rock

I think that what makes being crazy so difficult is that teetering edge where you still care what people think of you.  I stand on that edge quite a bit, and while I’m generally pretty open with the “I’m clinically batshit” part, there’s always going to be a portion of my personality that doesn’t want to be unreasonable. Because I don’t want to be a bother and I don’t want to cause problems and I would really rather not have the whole day’s conversation be about me and my shortcomings, because I’m human.  And most humans would rather be recognized for positives than negatives.

So I scream and I blow up and I mention that yes, I am seeing things moving when there is nothing really there, but when push comes to shove I don’t push.  Because everything would be very much easier if I pretended that a few days where I feel normal are enough to outweigh all the days when I’m so wound up that every unexpected noise makes my heart stop.  Because everything would be so much easier if I changed my definition of “normal” to “functional” to “clawed my chest bright screaming red but didn’t actually cry.”

I pretty much hate everything that’s happening in my life right now, and most of it is actively driving me nuts.  And even though things are not currently moving in the shadows I am not actually fine.  Because what I’ve currently got going is a very thin layer of me holding things together, on top of several miles of everything having long since fallen apart.

I’m glad the hallucinations seem to be gone for the moment, though.  Because that shit was just weird.

I’m sorry to anyone who’s tried to call or text me–my phone has been rather temperamental about whether or not it will actually charge, so it’s currently dead and misplaced somewhere inside the house.

I’ve started to see things that aren’t actually there.

The first time I ever suffered from clinical depression was during my junior year of high school.  I remember that one day, as I was walking to school, it occurred to me that I didn’t have to go to class at all.  I didn’t have to go to class and I didn’t have to go home and explain myself because I could just keep walking.

But I had no idea where else I could actually go, so off to school I went.

I feel like that a lot lately–like I should just grab my purse and leave.  My whole life is just this seething mass of resentment and anger and bitterness, with sadness underneath the rest.  I’m trying, really trying, to not feel this way.  But every time I start to feel a little bit better, someone will come over and metaphorically kick me in the face.  It’s little stuff, truly, and under normal circumstances it would just anger me, but right now it just makes me want to…I don’t even know.  I don’t want to die, but I feel like I’m running out of options.  No matter how hard I try to get out of this mess, I never  manage it.

I wish I could just keep walking.

I’ve decided to try posting every week day for the entirety of 2012 because everyone needs goals.  And also because I’m so rusty when it comes to blogging that I might…lose the ability to whine on the internet.

THE HORROR.

Anyway, speaking of horror–I was in the Cleveland airport, facing a four hour flight back to Phoenix (ick) and I HAD NO MORE BOOKS LEFT.  I also had about thirty minutes before my flight left and George was fucking with me about which gate we were supposed to go to, so I was extra anxious about my lack of reading material.  THANKS FOR THAT, HONEY.  So I rushed to the nearest Hudson News and grabbed a suitably dense-looking work of nonfiction, because my mother taught me that plane rides are for getting through the canon and other books you don’t really want to read.  In fact, the only reason she’s read A Journal of the Plague Year is because she was once stuck on a long flight during which she had Defoe and NOTHING ELSE TO READ.

Guys, this was before they had TVs on planes.  SHE COULD HAVE DIED.

Anyway, I grabbed this book, paid more than $16.00 for it, and it is APPALLING.  It is outright HATEFUL.  Racist and thoughtless and full of the laziest analysis I’ve ever seen.  I can’t believe it got published.  I am genuinely shocked that every agent this author went to didn’t just say, “You’re kidding me, right?”  Because that would have been the only appropriate response.

The book is Empire of the Summer Moon and no, I will not link to it because IT IS GODAWFUL.  It’s so bad that when I was stuck on the plane with it, I started fantasizing about setting it on fire.  No fucking joke.  The thought of dousing it with lighter fluid and then watching it go up in smoke was so satisfying that it was almost sexual.

Now don’t go all Ray Bradbury on me and start lecturing about how every book is sacred and knowledge must be preserved and blah, blah, blah.  Empire of the Summer Moon is a bestseller; there are god knows how many copies in print, and I very much doubt that most people will have my desire to BURN THE UNCLEAN.  So, you know, it’s in no danger of being wiped off the earth.  A book is a source of knowledge, but it’s also an object–and sometimes there are so many copies of a particular book that by destroying one, you’re just destroying an object.

All of which is to say that when I finish reading that bitch, I am going to roast it like a marshmallow. Ugh.

Happy New Year!

You are currently dealing with Mankiller 1.0.  The crappy model without any of the fantastic pharmaceutical upgrades.

…I’d brace for impact, if I were you.