Life Frustation

"Life must be frustrating for you," the Advisor comments.

Currently, yes. What are my options? Reduced function or obsession with jumping off of a bridge?

I Can't Take it, Part II

"You think you can just wish me away, that's not how it works."

--Nora

I Can't Take It

"You can't control me, Lace, I'm a voice in your fucking head."

--Nora

Future

I don't want to die, but suicide is the only future I see for myself.

Any Less Alone

"I regard their more conventional domestic lives with the same sort of ambivalence. Like everyone, I’ve seen some marriages in which I would discreetly hang myself within 12 hours, but others have given me cause to envy their intimacy, loyalty, and irreplaceable decades of invested history. [Note to all my married friends: your marriage is one of the latter.] Though one of those friends cautioned me against idealizing: 'It’s not as if being married means you’re any less alone.' "

--Tim Kreider

Cycle of Fear

"It’s more like the view from the top of the Empire State Building, of people as infinitesimal dots circulating ceaselessly through a grid. Eventually we have to descend back to street level, rejoin the milling mass and take up our lives; you lock up your bike and become hostage to the hours again. But it’s at those moments that I become briefly conscious of what I actually am — a fleeting entity stripped of ego and history in an evanescent present, like a man running in frames of celluloid, his consciousness flickering from one instant to the next."
--Tim Kreider

Real Life

"Real life, in my experience, is not rife with epiphanies, let alone lessons; what little we learn tends to come exactly too late, gets contradicted by the next blunder, or is immediately forgotten and has to be learned all over again. More and more, the only things that seem to me worth writing about are the ones I don’t understand. Sometimes the most honest and helpful thing a writer can do is to acknowledge that some problems are insoluble, that life is hard and there aren’t going to be any answers, that he’s just as screwed-up and clueless as the rest of us. Or I don’t know, maybe it’s just me."
--Tim Kreider

Dying Young

I have this overwhelming, deep seated belief that I'm supposed to die young. I've felt this for as long as I can remember.

It's just been a matter of when to do it.

Some Reason To Live

It's a horrible disease. I keep clinging to some reason to live.

If I go back to Stanford, the doctors will want to do more ECT, where the treatment is as bad as the illness--memory less, confusion, cognitive effects.

I think about my life, where I'm going, where I've been. At nineteen, I wanted a graduate degree.

Now, I can't pass a community college course without taking it multiple times first.

Everyone has hopes and dreams that don't work out. People adjust and move on. They find new interests and goals--or they make do with what they have. They live with the cold resentment and disappointment. For others, nothing is ever good enough.

I feel like life has just moves on without me. I get up every day, and people are busy going about the world, and nothing I do matters because I can't affect anything--I'm silently behind some glass--banging against some window--ignored by the rest of the population. I exist--but only as a ghost which no one sees nor hears. As goes my days. I can touch nothing but my cage.

And so is my deep sense of isolation.

Essential Absurdity

"THE operative fallacy here is that we believe that unconditional love means not seeing anything negative about someone, when it really means pretty much the opposite: loving someone despite their infuriating flaws and essential absurdity."
--Tim Kreider

Tinder, Your Welcome

I say, "Hello."

He-shall-remain-nameless says, "Gross."

"In general or something specific?" I wait then add, "Please--do lend me your criticisms."

He clicks "unmatch" so we can't chat.

Dead

"You're thinking about how nice it would be to be dead--the silence of it all."

--Nora

Rot

"You're going to rot in hell."

--Nora

More From the Master

"Why are you so depressed, Lacey?" Nora says. "Why don't you just hang yourself, Lacey?"

The Voices Have REturned

I'm looking in the mirror to apply lipgloss.

Nora says, "You're ugly."

I Hardly Know These People, Part II

On Tinder.

From David: "[Jae's] mom has got it going on!"

Hmmm? 

Now I'm creeped out by the idea that some random stranger has found photos of my mother online.

I Hardly Know These People

On Tinder.

From Josh: "I mean no disrespect but I'm just looking to hook up."

Me: "I'm busy this weekend."

Josh: "Well that's lame."

More From Tinder, Part II

James, I'm very tired from all that fucking. It might have just been easier to learn to spell.

More From Tinder

From James, "Did you know it [Forrest Gump] was a boook [sic]?"

Me: "Yes I never read it though"

James: "Can you read?"

No, I have them all fooled. Grade school teachers, professors, friends, family. I cheated, I fucked who I had to fuck to graduate high school, and then, of course, I banged the entire Animal Science department to become a Junior at CAl Poly.

Getting Out, Thanks to Tinder, Part II

Eh. I cancelled my "date" tonight.

I didn't feel like dressing up, and figuring out how to fire off enough questions at someone to keep him entertain for a few hours.

Plus, I keep having this thought, I use to get paid for this shit.

Trying On Tinder, Part II

More.

This time from Keenan.

Keenan: "do you want to hook up?"

All I've seen is his picture. And I know he's legal to drink. Thank you, but I think I'll pass.

Trying On Tinder

So, I recently joined Tinder because I was curious about the app, and what I must say is that the creep factor is high.

For instance, one exchange.

Ryan: "What are your plans for today?"

Me: "Homework and housework :-)

You?"

Ryan: "If you message me your phone number I will show you :)"

I'm not quite sure what that means, but I don't want any part of it.

AGain, another exchange, talking about my last boyfriend, who was technically Hades, with a Tinder member named David--explaining that the relationship ended mostly because Hades and I were in love with other people.

Me: "No, it's okay. I was in love with someone else too."

Dave: "How is that possible, you hadn't met me in 2010...unless you are a stalker..."

Really? It's not cool to throw stalker jokes around unless you've known the person for a while. And if you want someone to fall in love with you, that's great--but keep it to yourself for the first few weeks, or months--or years.

I think I'd rather just drink at a bar, and see what happens.

Get Over It Already, Part II

"What your grandma doesn't appreciate is that you're a writer, and writers never get over anything."

--Harry

Get Over It Already

I don't know why I said it.

Grandma and I were both watching TV. I popped off with, "Yeah, and the love of my life is married to someone else..."

Grandma replies, "That happens to a lot of people, and then they get over it."

Being Ignored

"I hate being ignored," says Rosa.

THe Blog No ONe Reads

"You have your blog," the Case Manager says, listing the things I'm doing right in coping with my depression.

But does he realize that no one reads it?

Pre-Destination

The Case Manager asks, "Do you believe in pre-destination?"

"In the Calvinist sense?" I ask, slightly confused.

And Death Shall Have No Dominion

"Though they go mad they shall be sane,   

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;   

Though lovers be lost love shall not;   

And death shall have no dominion."

--"And Death Shall Have No Dominion" by Dylan Thomas

No One Ever CAlls, Part III

People still ask me how I'm doing (either in person or via email). I don't know how to respond, so I usually say I'm fine or "okay."

I don't know how to express that I want to drown myself in a hamburger, fries and a quart of ice cream. And pasta, can we get pasta with that? The eclairs that I have saved away in the freezer, I might down one of those also. Just for the variety.

And I'm sad, I'm sad for a lot of reasons, you want to go down the list? Well, buddy, I don't fucking feel like typing it all out.

And if we're sitting next to each other, I don't have the energy to start the conversation about my fucking sex life or lack there of.

So, we don't get into it, which is healthy.

We're currently out of vodka, which is a natural disaster. I don't drink tequila, and I don't drink Jack Daniels, which are sitting in the cabinet.

It's normal to just drink, and feel sorry for yourself, and be alone in your misery (because to be honest, nobody really gets it, no one gets that the pain is like shooting up heroin on the weekends and then going through withdrawals for weeks, and then fucking doing it over and over again for months which turn into years, and then finally fucking yourself over by calling it quits).

So, you're alone in your misery (this is important, so I'll say it again), and you can be proud of yourself, how brave you're being. Isn't this great?

Just hand over the pasta, and no one will get hurt.

Mumbling

Mumbling to myself, I said while petting Beck, "At least my dog loves me."

Dad overheard me, and replied, "Lots of people love you."

Somewhere deep down inside, a place I don't bother with anymore these days, I have the typical depressive mindset. Life is shit. I'm not loveable. I'm too fat. Look at me, I'm ugly. None would want me. 

And I thought I outgrew it.

Write It

"So, don’t let anyone tell you to stop writing. If you feel a story in your heart, write it — even if it’s just for you."
--First Page Last by Evelyn A. Lauer

Happiness

You see, writing doesn't make me happy.

I write because I know nothing else.

My Anxiety For Narcissism

"With my shirt rolled into a makeshift half-top, I stood on my tiptoes, looking at my profile in a full-length mirror and surveying my exposed stomach. By this point, such behavior was not unusual. I did it several times a day -- when I first woke up, before and after every meal, and as a last minute ritual before slipping into bed. In fact, I did this whenever I passed a reflective surface, glancing around to make sure no one misconstrued my anxiety for narcissism."

--A Tale Of Recovering Anorexic, Part Three, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brittany-kelleher/tale-of-a-recovering-anorexic_b_5183992.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000046

 I thought I was the only one who did that, oopsy.

"Alone"

"I feel like I am going to be alone all my life, to live out my days in solitude. This was never my plan, actually, but it's how things have turned out. I'm an aging crazy cat lady and there will be no children in my future because I am too old, too medicated, and too disabled to have them.

I'm okay with not having kids. It's the not having a life partner that is making me lonely. I feel so cut off from people..."

--Suicidal No More, "Alone"

The Other Married Man, Part I

He describes his wife as "amazing."

I feel like I'm swimming through bullshit, and I could ask myself why I'm bothering to entertain any sort of contact with The Other Married Man.

 My curiosity and loneliness have taken the wheel. I can't remember the last time a man actually flirted with me.

So, I asked him, "Have you ever cheated on your wife?"

He says, "My ex-wife I did...I would never ever think of it with my now wife though."

Somehow I imagine him waking up in a hotel room next to a girl he picked up at a bar, surprised. Shocked. Wondering where she came from--

"I Don't Want Your Pity..."

"...But our idea of respectability is predicated on social and economic oppressions, to wit: being a sex worker is not respectable or morally acceptable. We assign a cultural significance to sex; it is for procreation and the preservation of the family unit. We are told it is for romance, it is special, cherished and not commodified, but meanwhile sex screams at us from every billboard and television channel. Sex can be used to sell everything except for sex itself. Sex work, then, is dirty, it is sleazy, it is something only truly desperate people do. The pity and subsequent marginalization of sex workers as people to be rescued, or damaged, goods is grossly offensive and contributes to the caricature of the street walker: it dismisses and erases the person behind the job, no more so than when we paint all fast food workers as high school dropouts. The desire to see people in work we would not choose for ourselves as victims is immature and reactionary, and it harms the people within those professions by creating a line between us and them."

--The HuffPost, "I Don't Want Your Pity: Sex Work and Labor Politics," http://www.huffingtonpost.com/belle-knox/sex-work-politics_b_5148528.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000046&ir=Women

Slight Step Above Masturbation

"I don't even care I fucked this chick and I don't know why I did beyond the base offer it was. A slight step above masturbation, but in terms of actual intimacy, that's what it was."

--Life in the Age of Byrony, entry: "Sometimes They Do Work For You"

No, Of Course Not

"You're not going out with married men, are you?"

--Dad while we were driving, checking out properties, one of which happened to be owned by the LSU Professor

Stay Safe

"You stay safe today, promise?"

--Mom over the phone, while at work

On Depression ONe Last Time

If we are depressed, we all have our own cages that we build and refuse to leave because we can no longer see the future.

The Past

I don't know why relationships end--I mean relationships in which two people are happy when they are together.

You see, I only remember being happy with Lucky--I have no memories of why we broke up--during that summer was one of the best periods of my life, granted, I was manic--but I was so--

Freely pleasant and pleased with how I was traveling down the road, the map of where I was going for life.

I have fought with Morpheus, but those memories are consumed by the happiness of being with him--they are ate in the belly of love--disintegrated into nothingness.

"Baby..." Part II

I bought a knife at Home Depot just for cutting my arms, but during my psychosis, during a rage, I threw it in the spare room, purposely in a corner so I wouldn't know where it was easily (to keep me from injuring myself on impulse).

We moved from the ranch to a little mobile home, and sometime during the move, the knife was lost.

"Baby, be a simple kind of man," --Shinedown, "Simple Man"

I have the strong urge to slice open my arms, but to be honest, all the knives we have in stock are too dull.

Ruins that idea.

More Tears

I got teary-eyed during a short TXT-message conversation with the Advisor, telling him, "I'm a little drunk but I wish you were ten years younger although I'm probably too liberal for your tastes...I'm really rather fond of you..."

He sent a quick, "Thank you."

Alcoholism, here I come.

I drink all of my calories.

Thank you.

Romance

 People who have extramarital affairs are the most hopeful people in the romantic realm because all others look down upon us, and because we are gambling with such risky odds with our hearts and souls--knowing that hell likely awaits us. 

The Truth to Yourself

"The most intimate connection in your life is the one you have with yourself. Dishonesty in this relationship is at best counterproductive, at worst catastrophic. If you want your life to work, tell yourself the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth..."

--by Martha Beck, "A Little Right Lie" in O Magazine, issue April 2014

"Grief is worthless..."

"Because grief transcends value. A man would give entire nations to lift grief off his heart and yet, you cannot buy anything with grief, because grief is worthless."

--"The Counselor" written by

Cormac McCarthy

Day Five, Part III

I'm trying to think of reasons why I shouldn't commit suicide.

(entry not finished...)

Day Four, Part II

I'm drowning in my own pile of shit.

As YOu Grow Up

I don't stay in contact with too many people from high school (a few and primarily through Facebook), but they all (no exceptions) have children, and I believe only one of them isn't married.

I could have led that life too, but something happened along the way--

I remember watching FB graduate, he's standing there as a line of people come up to hug him and shake his hand and give him best wishes--and I know I should be one of those people, but I'm so overcome with sadness and emotion that I'm still next to my chair. I run off to go cry in my Camaro in the parking lot.

Now, he's married with a kid. I never talk to him.

Day Three

Still no response.

"I know you are deeply ambivalent about me being in your life, and for that I am sorry...I know you struggle with your own demons..."

--from the "Saying Goodbye" email, sent on March 22, 2014

Day One (Part III)

"I love you, all I ever wanted was to spend time with you because being with you makes me so happy..."

--from the email "Saying Goodbye," sent to Morpheus on March 22, 2014

Tricked Out of Progress

Yesterday sucked.

For the record, Morpheus apologized for yesterday--today.

So, he emailed me at six thirty-ish pm, saying he was going to have a movie night, maybe, he wasn't sure yet.

I just sort of stared at my cell phone, thinking, okay, is he going to invite me? Is he just toying with me?

I really didn't know how to react. I waited, and waited. No invite. Finally, I emailed, "Hope you have fun :-)"

He emails back, "I always have fun."

I kept waiting for an invite. None came. After almost an hour, I emailed, "I'm sure you do."

Time passes, I email, "Hey when are we going to have our cup of coffee together at starbucks?"

No response.

Another email, "We don't speak for weeks at a time and that's all I get. We don't ask each other how we are doing? We are not friends to each other at least?"

Another email, "I worry about you, you know. If you're happy or not. With Work and your family life.

I miss the way you kiss me."

At this point, I've had four shots of vodka (I had the booze earlier in the day, around four and five pm) and taken my night meds.

Finally, he answers me with a "don't worry," and a short paragraph and about his life.

At 11:37pm, he emails with just a title, "can u come over."

Now, I can come over?

Hello Evening

Dad came home yesterday from work, and stood in the kitchen, pouring almost a full glass of pure vodka (Tito's) in ice, and then cracked open a bottle of Corona Extra.

"Is Depression Just Bad Chemistry?"

"Perhaps the most frequently cited evidence in support of the chemical imbalance hypothesis is the effectiveness of antidepressants, many of which increase the amounts of serotonin and other neurotransmitters at synapses. Zoloft, Prozac and similar selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) result in such an increase and can often relieve depression, at least when it is severe. As a result, many believe that a deficiency in serotonin and other neurotransmitters causes the disorder. But just because a drug reduces symptoms of a disease does not mean that those symptoms were caused by a chemical problem the drug corrects. Aspirin alleviates headaches, but headaches are not caused by a deficiency of aspirin."

--"Is Depression Just Bad Chemistry?" by Hal Arkowitz and Scott O. Lilienfeld, Scientific American Mind, March/April 2014

Six Months to Live

When I told the Advisor that the Stanford ECT doctor told me that I would never be stable enough to finish college, the Advisor said that, "at best, it's an educated guess...it's like saying you have six months to live."

From the Time I Was Very Young

I had goals--okay, the problem was never that I was aimless.

From the time I was very young, I wanted to be a doctor (treating humans, originally)--but as time pressed on, it became clear that I could never go through the schooling. Science, although I found it interesting, it was not my strength--learning literature was easier for me.

Life, the normal goals and bench marks, they slowed and then they just stopped--like how a beat up truck will just turn its tires in the mud and then finally quit, sinking further and further into a cosmic mess. You can take a shovel around the axle and it can take a lifetime to back out.

I wanted a successful professional life to make up for the empty personal space--so no one would notice the lack of intimacy. Again, in my youth, I figured I'd never marry nor have children. I guessed, I gambled on that idea. Funny how little knowledge we have back then, and how powerful preconceived ideas have on us. At age ten, I only knew of one marriage, my parents, and from that I decided I'd never have my own. I'd grow up and have strength of character that would never lean on another. I'd be timber and tall and terrible to drive all away.

I'm only thirty. Life is far from over. Life, though, slips through the cracks when you're waiting for it to pass by and jerk you to change. When you wait for it to toss you about and create a miracle. 

Clueless Insanity

There are states worse than depression--psychosis with auditory hallucinations.

Losing your mind, and not knowing it.

Being clueless to your own insanity.

Libido

The Case Manager said that Morpheus was "driven by his libido" (hence why he kept calling me in the middle of the night).

When I told Harry about the Case Manager's response, Harry said, "Aren't we all?"

Turning into Grandma

"You're turning into your grandmother, and it's scary," my mother says as she's folding laundry. "Next time you wear this, it's going into the garbage." She holds up one of my favorite sweatshirts.

She is referring to the fact that my clothes are old, and that my grandmother really doesn't give a fuck what she looks like when she goes into town.

At Thirty, The Magic Age

My mom doesn't like my new job. She doesn't like the fact that I work for minimum wage and that I work around hazardous chemicals (thiram).

"I hope you aspire to something better," she tells me.

I don't know what I'm doing with my life--where I'm going--what I'm supposed to be doing.

I drive to work every day through the industrial portion of town, thinking there's a great spot back here to put a topless bar or a strip club. I just have to get the money and the town's approval to do it.


This wasn't what I wanted for my life at thirty years of age.

Retail and Sales (Move that Ass)

The manager asked me as we were handling pouches, "So, what did you do before this?"

I couldn't help but smile, larger and larger. I paused before speaking, trying to come up with a reasonable lie. "I was in retail and sales."

More on Morpheus

All those things I loved--

evaporated.

The Unjust Facts of LIfe

I spent a week working for this ag company doing (I admit) unskilled labor, and I make (after taxes), roughly $250.03, which I could easily obtain in an hour as a private dancer.

But we won't go into that.

Some Harmless Flirting

I have some light flirting going on with the manager.

"YOu're smiling at me," I said to him, as I'm feeding the machine pouches that need labeling.

"What? I like to smile," he says, his grin growing.

He smells oh-so-good.

Rosa Said

Rosa said to me once, "Why do we love these fuckers?"

I've been wondering about that.

More Comments While Working

We're all at the table, labeling (yes, the story stays the same--here), and one of the guys says, "Yeah, girls with ponytails make me horny."

As I'm sitting across from him--with my hair in a ponytail--to keep it out of my face.

Sexual harassment, anyone?

Comments While Working

So, I'm at work, and I'm sitting at a table full of people, and we're all labeling because that's our job and somehow, I don't know how, the conversation turns to people who are having a psychotic break.

Everyone has their own comment about how weird and silly it is--people thinking they have spirits trapped in their skulls so they go digging into their brains with a knife--comments like that.

And I realize that I'm the only person at the table who has actually lived through psychosis and knows a fucking thing about it.

Thoughts On Existence

My life has no meaning.

Life must have meaning.

About College

I've also been worried if I'll ever be stable enough to make it through a full semester at community college, which doesn't seem like that large of a goal to the normal person, but apparently, as history has proved for me--it is rather difficult. I have a medical withdrawal for the past two terms.

The plan was to finish a few semesters there and then transfer to the University to finish up.

We're still waiting.