Staring into the eyes of doom...









I spent a few minutes today staring down, or rather attempting to stare down, a beautiful barn owl who had the blackest, most disturbing eyes. (The only more disquieting eyes I've seen are those of the gorilla. Simply too human to be caged.) As I became engrossed in his steady, unflinching gaze, I couldn't help but think. Think about death...the grand finale that flashes "game over" on everyone's entire life sooner or later, and the lostness of soul and hope that sometimes finds us even while we're still breathing. Imagining how I would tremble if he were 6 feet tall instead of 16 inches. Wondering if I could have ever gotten close enough to see those frightening eyes had there been no cage to contain him. Thinking of how I'd occasionally like to have eyes like that...cavernous eyes that could penetrate those who hurt me with the perfect ratio of condescension and utter nothingness. It was a small thing. Just a moment, to be sure, in the middle of a beautiful spring day.

But the eyes.
Oh, those unsettling eyes spoke to me from another world.
A place where the sun can't reach and my lips are bitten instead of smiling. Eyes that will follow me into my dreams...

Apotemnophilia: the sexual desire to have limbs removed

Teratophilia: the sexual attraction to deformed or monstrous people.

Acrotomophilia: sexual attraction to amputees.

urophagia: the consumption of urine.

Emetophilia: This fetish involves vomiting or watching others vomit. Also known as a Roman Shower when the participants actively vomit on each other.

Coprophilia: sexual pleasure derived from feces. The fetish can involve defecating on a partner, frequently in the mouth of the other person. Coprophilia can also include coprophagia, which is the consumption of fecal matter. This can lead to serious health risks.

Crush Fetish: A crush fetish is a desire to see small insects or animals crushed to death.

Klismaphilia: is the fetish in which pleasure is derived from enemas.

Necrophilia: a sexual attraction to human corpses. This fetish can lead to grave-robbing and sexual activity with the dead body.

Omorashi: arousal from the feeling of having a full bladder. Climax usually coincides with the moment of relief and embarrassment experienced when the desperate individual loses bladder control.

Infanitilism: sexual pleasure from dressing, acting, or being treated as a baby

Agalmatophilia: sexual attraction to statues or mannequins

Blood Fetish: when a person derives satisfaction from watching someone bleed, or simply seeing blood on partly or entirely naked skin. Blood fetishism is often accompanied by some licking or drinking blood through bloodletting. This is sometimes done by biting (referred to as “love-bites”) however this is not the norm due to the potential for damage from bruising or infection. Most often a razor blade is used.

The air has never been so still.

Tonight I sat outside...intending on doing some thinking while looking at the trees in the rapidly dimming light. As I cleared my mind, I realized how perfectly -nothing- the atmosphere seemed. Some might call the stillness something like peace, or serenity, but I found it more like death. Uncomfortable. Stagnant. I was driven quite quickly back inside with a heavy feeling suddenly gripping my heart.

I am addicted to movement.

Bobbing my head to music, turning on lights in the blackness and wearing the darkest of shades in the sun, I am rarely satisfied with what is and eternally chasing something that very likely isn't simply elusive, but may well be nonexistant. When my nerves are sanded down smooth, I am bored. When they are on edge, I am jumpy and miserable. Where is contentment? Is there even such a thing, aside from the rare snatches that temporarily make life worth living that come upon me now and then....usually after sex, dancing, or particularly interesting time spent with someone I haven't yet grown bored with?

I often get the urge to take a tire iron to a mailbox or a window while screaming like a banshee. The intensity I carry inside of me is malignant, I fear, taking my mind and heart to darker and darker places as the years pass. No longer can I successfully pass for sane. No longer can I carry on polite conversation without wanting to beat the hell out of the boring fuck in front of me. I want to run. To fly. I want to escape this treadmill called life. Not via body bag, mind you, even though I am aware that is my destiny (as it is for us all), but to step off the hamster-wheel and run full-tilt through a more interesting landscape than I have been looking at for so long now. Run till my lungs burst. Till I lay down throbbing with exhaustion and watch the sky move, thinking "how beautiful!"

As someone addicted to movement, I am somewhat dazed from emerging from my cell. A comfortable cell with many amneties, but a cell nonetheless. I don't quite know what to do with my mind, my heart, or my self these days. I am clinging to the small word "hope" with clenched fists and teeth grinding. I am frightened and unsure. No wiser today than I was at 17, for wisdom can find nowhere to take root inside me...my heart contains no substance, just a black hole of swiftly shifting wind. What I crave with a constant ferver that pales heroin addiction often dooms me. Movement.

Right now, I have to beleive there is something out there waiting for me. Something that will cause the tornado in my head to move with a better rhythm, to daze and mesmerize like the purest lsd, and spin prisms of light containing every gorgeous color in the world. I call that something true happiness, and what fashion or form it may take when I find it I can't pretend to know. The day I stop believing that I will find it, I will suddenly be old. I will wither. I will die of a broken spirit.

But not today.
I am not dead yet.
I still choose to believe....

Hee hee...I'm back.
Feeling lots of things today.

My thoughts, moods, and feelings are coming and going quite randomly. This is normal for me. Today I've been alternating between feeling hopeful, peaceful, worried, horny, nervous, sad, bored, and excited.

For some reason, everything that goes through my head has a feeling to go along with it. Rarely can I simply think about something and have the thought arrive in my head alone. My thoughts always come dragging an emotional state behind them. I don't like this much of the time, but cannot seem to help it. Telling myself not to think negative things is like telling a toddler to color between the lines. Pointless.

The way my brain works is undoubtedly the reason why I devote my life so wholeheartedly to the pursuit of fun. When I am engaged in some joyful activity, the worry, sadness, regret, and fear cannot put their bony grasp around my mind. However, I know those awful thoughts/feelings are always there - waiting in the wings to grab ahold of me the second they get the chance.

And so I live my life running...

I am fuzzy and dazed.
Dreamlike.
Devoid of all feeling.
Blank.

Feels as if I've misplaced the thing inside that makes my eyes sparkle.
My smile is but a ghost.
Is there anything for me to drink, smoke, or swallow that will return me to the land of the living?

For now, I have punched the clock and gone home to that place in my head where no one else can reach. It is a gray place. Dim. As if the pause button has been hit on my very soul...

I hope I'll be back soon.

Current Playlist:

City in the South - Tara Jane O'Neil
Gentleman Caller - Cursive
Message from Our Sponsor - Legendary Pink Dots
A Ribbon - Devendra Banhart
Spy in the Cab - Bauhaus
Abattoir Blues - Nick Cave
Aeroplane Blues - Black Keys
Ain't Gonna Rain Anymore - Nick Cave
Alice Practice - Crystal Castles
American Woman - Butthole Surfers

These have been strange days...
I continue to bounce between a contemplative space of thinkage and trying madly to fill up the hours so I don't have to contemplate or think. All in all, I think I'm okay. I feel everything with great intensity, but I'm quick to heal. Freedom is often lonely. The price of love is pain. Without hope there is no future. Stay away from the moldy mushrooms. Remember when you eat chicken that it used to be a chicken. What goes up must come down.

I can't talk anymore.

Everything that's in my life and in my head right now can't be written about, despite the fact that only a very few people even know this blog exists.
So much is going on. Some of it I understand, some of it I don't. Some of it makes me happy, some of it makes me want to break down and never stop crying.

Fortunately, my mind is in a surprisingly peaceful, contemplative spot.
I think - given some time - I will figure things out. How long does it take to understand the workings of your own heart once you've spent so many years trying to control it's very beating?

Call me or come by for a beer if anyone wants details.
You won't get them here. This blog will have to be vague and trivial for awhile while I wrestle some very big shit. Bear with me, please...

The veil lifted.
Hooray!

By the time Sunday afternoon rolled around, I felt like myself again.
Tired and a little worn out, but balanced and thinking clearly.
Actually I felt great most of the day on Saturday, too. Once I had been awake long enough to shake off the dusty emotional ick left over from the panic attack I suffered on Friday night, that is. Saturday night, however, I was being dumb and took an illegal detour (I knew better, but sometimes my thrill-seeking nature overrides my good sense) and ended up sick. Throwing up over and over and over. Ugh. Thank God my head is okay, though. For the moment anyway.


Right this moment I am taking a few minutes to think about and pray for all the people in my life who need - well, something.
I have friends that are happy, and I pray they never lose their joy.
I know people who are staring death in the face, and I hope that they receive a miracle and are able to enjoy good health and more time to live this life we've been given.
I see marriages that are tense, crumbling, and stale. I pray for all these people to find life's best joy - whether it be together or apart.
I have friends who are scared, and I hope for their courage and confidence.
I have friends who are addicted, and I pray they find their way out of the cage before their life is irrevocably stolen.
A few people I know & love are confused, and I hope they find clarity and purpose.
And for the many, many of us who are dissatisfied and longing, I pray for inner peace.

I feel slightly better than I did on Tuesday, but I'm still pretty mentally fucked.

I suppose the particular manic spell I've dealt with over the last month or so is over now, because I've crashed into an apathetic, bone-weary sadness that has no cause and seemingly no remedy. I keep putting band-aids over the gushing wound that is my heart, but nothing seems to be working. I've lost touch with my emotions almost entirely...they are are a swarming whirlwind inside of me, landing briefly, like a mosquito, to pierce me, then gone - making way for a different (usually contradictory) emotion to land and stab me once again. I cycle like a hurricane daily through depressed, elated, anxiety-ridden, confident, feeling loved, abandoned, hopeless, bright, and insecure.

I had the first real panic attack I've had in months last night, in the balcony of a theatre. I couldn't breathe, my heart was racing at an alarming rate, everything around me went bright, then fuzzy, then tunneled. All I could hear was a roar, and my own heart's pounding. I excused myself, stumbled into the stairwell, shaking all over, and tried to breathe and collect myself. People saw me like that, squatted on the concrete floor, head down, panting, and passed me by, clearly uncomfortable about what to do - should they should stop and help this crazy girl or just pass by? They all passed by, thank God. No one needs to see me like that. Whether stranger or friend, episodes like last night's humiliate me enough without the added shame of me being made into a public spectacle.

I wish I could just be well.
I wonder, as I often do, if this time the crazy is going to stay.
I'm exhausted. Heartsick. And very, very scared.
I wish someone could help me...

My heart is breaking.
God, it hurts so bad.

If there are words to describe what's inside me right now, they are completely out of my reach. Today is my birthday and I have rarely in my life felt so alone. I have so many, many things to be grateful for, but still I am

hollow...
bored...
frustrated...
passionless...
lonely...
depressed...
aching...
dying...

I could be scandalous and forthcoming with the details of my pain, but there's no need to send my black tentacles of discontent and misery into the lives, hearts, and minds of the friends who actually like me enough to read this (and who I like enough to allow to.) I am making (yet another) doctor's appointment today and will beg for the medicine that will most effectively render me emotionless. I have fought tooth and nail for years and years against the drugs that would steal my fire and passion. Now I find myself more than willing, eager actually, to hand over everything I am - my exuberance, my agony, my joy, my lust, my hope, my blinding light, my love, and my suffocating blackness. Fuck fire. Fuck passion. Fuck feeling. I just desperately want to be numb.

I shouldn't feel like I have to censor myself in my own blog, but of course I have to. I'm married! Wheeeee! Screw being honest and real and expecting someone else to love you, judgment-free, just as you are. Like an idiot, I always seem to forget the working description of love, which is far different from the poetic description. Let me see if I can re-learn this now....


Love is ownership.
You now belong, slave-like, to another person. You have the right to be yelled at, put down, condescended, given ultimatums, the cold shoulder, etc. when you dare to defy your owner's expectations of you.

Love is parasitic.
Love feasts on everything you think & want & have that is yours and only yours. You are no longer a person with unique thoughts and feelings and dreams. You are half of a pair. And don't you forget it.

Love is misleading.
Just because someone acts okay, says they are okay, and appear to actually be okay for the moment doesn't mean they are, in fact, okay. Expect explosive repurcussions at the most inappropriate times for either your (1) lapses in behavior, often which have nothing at all to do with your partner (2) patterns of thinking that happen to conflict with your partner's thinking patterns or (3) if the wind blows the wrong direction.

Love is unchanging.
And so you must be, too. Any fluctuation of the needs, wants, and heart are completely unacceptable to someone in love and will be met with hurt feelings, threats, and heroic measures of guilt-eliciting. It doesn't matter at what age you met and how long you live, you must remain forever exactly the same in presence and mind until the day you draw your last breath unless (of course) your partner wants you to change. In that instance, refer to definition #1.


I am aware that I'm not an obedient person.
I am aware that my mental issues & strong personality make me a nightmare to live with. I am aware that my owner/husband does nothing wrong and that everything is my fault. I am aware of how hurtful, and selfish, and irresponsible I am. I am aware that I expect too much and give too little. Now that I've admitted many (but not all, I'm sure) of my shortcomings and have said nothing personally attacking my owner/husband, I wonder whether or not he will still try to "make me" delete this post. I am wondering, if he does attempt to force my hand, whether I will cave like a good little wifey should and pretend (before all 5 people who read this damn blog) that I don't have any dissenting feelings about the way my home life has been running for the last several months. I guess we'll see....

Holy shit...
Holy shit...
Holy shit...

Antony and the Johnsons "the Crying Light"

Excellent. Two of the tracks are nothing short of amazing, but all of them are quite good.

This is very, very specific-to-mood music. It would fall flat 90% of the time for me, but when I am alone, melancholy & vaguely sleepy, it's perfectly on target. Men will have trouble admitting how much they like this band because Antony is so obviously homosexual. Lovely, but definitely not for the musically unevolved.

5 days?
6 days?

I still have not slept.
I cannot eat.
I am now sick - headache and coughing and almost total incoherence.
I've lost 8 pounds in a week.
If I weren't so vain I would post a picture of my poor eyes...formerly pretty eyes that now look like I've spent the last month on a meth binge.
My face is white as a sheet, and I have a fever.
The things coming out of my mouth are suddenly uncencored and vulgar...I use curse words for emphasis (the correct usage, imo) but lately I've been filling my sentences with wild, stampeding herds of them and (worse) forgetting not to use them in front of my son. Oops.
Basically, I am not well.

Today I am going to the doctor, prepared to take anything that will make this horror stop. I no longer feel crackling and alive....I feel like my mind has snapped and leaked out every bit of whatever was in there holding my thoughts together. It has never been this bad for me. Close, but never this bad. I need this shit ripped out of me! It's tense and wound like a tightly coiled spring....ravenously waiting for the fight, the screaming sex, the drug, or the dancing to the point of exhaustion that might allow this pressure some avenue to get the hell out of my head.

The bright side: I have friends who make me very happy through even the worst of my lunacy and, like a kiss on a skinned knee, the pain goes away - at least for a little while. So you smile and I smile and we laugh and talk and dance and dream and ponder. Thank you so much for being there for me.

I feel so sad for Michael Phelps.

America's beloved golden boy/pride of the USA/athletus extraordinairus has been busted in front of the whole world holding in his large, gold-medal winning hands......a bong!

Ta da! How could this be?
Could it be possible to partake of illegal substances and still be (gasp!) on top of your game? Maybe. Is it possible that marijuana isn't the evil, life-destroying devil that government propaganda makes it out to be? I would say it's more than possible. Is he going to get all his endorsement money yanked because he was caught doing what the majority of guys his age do at least occasionally (albeit without media fanfare?) It is almost certain, unless High Times decides to endorse him as poster boy for their "pot is good for you" campaign.

I am so tired of alcohol being legal and marijuana not.
The laws are backwards, stupid, and wrong. I have never had substance issues, thank heavens, but I know alot of people who have. And it's never pot causing the trouble. In my limited but intense research and experience, drinking alcohol is the most common culprit when it comes to life-destroying addictions. Followed by cocaine, meth, and prescription pills. Heroin (of course) is a no-brainer when it comes to how-to-quickly-flush-your-entire-life-down-the-toilet, but since 95% of all the people I've known are terrified to touch the stuff, it kind of falls off the radar. I can say with absolute conviction that marijuana is the least problematic drug in existence.

I have known exactly one person in my life who had serious addictive behavior when it came to pot, and he (unfortunately for my heart) had deep personal and emotional issues that contributed to his need to stay high. His was a psyche problem, not a drug problem. And even where he is/was concerned, it is better that his drug of choice be something safe rather than something that would have already put him 6 feet under, like all the other drugs I just mentioned probably would have by now, including the wonderfully socially accepted drug called beer/wine/jack daniels.

I have great respect for people who choose not to imbibe in mind-altering substances. It's a great choice for mental and physical health. It is a fine moral choice. But I have to give a huge eye-rolling, condescending sigh to all those drinkers out there who will catch a legal buzz from bud light or martinis while shunning pot and all those who partake in it as if it/they were from the pits of hell. Why must people be so blind and sheeplike? Why can't people just open their eyes and realize that our government is a bureaucratic machine that thrives on money (and only money) and rarely upholds stances that are right, smart, or best for the American people.

To: Michael
Good luck with this one, buddy.
In a perfect world you wouldn't have to deal with this huge load of bullshit. I hate seeing you get chewed to pieces and spit out by the cogs and gears of the good old USA when you didn't do anything wrong. As I see it....something being legal doesn't always make it right. And something being illegal doesn't always make it wrong.

I haven't slept in 4 days.
This is why bi-polar people don't live very long.
They just wear out....

My thoughts are barely making sense.
I stare into space like I'm catatonic one moment and whiz around a thousand miles per hour the next. My eyes are as red as beets from being open for nearly 96 hours straight. It feels good to shut them, but they fly back open after just a minute because I'm so wired.

I'm miserable but I kind of love it, in a demented sort of way.
I feel crackling and alive....

I'm on a roll.

Twice during the month of January I dealt with mean-spirited people whose viciousness was directed at me for absolutely no good reason. I mentioned the girlfriend of my friend M already, and that situation still leaves me scratching my head in amazement. She was so crazy that I was never able to work up a really solid anger about her being so hateful and accusatory. It's kind of put away now....I'll never see the lunatic again and I'm doing all I can to be supportive of my friend in hopes that he can be successfully single until the right girl comes along.

Last night was quite different, as I enjoyed my second bout of being randomly mistreated. These guys were acquaintences - friends of friends - and had a sketchy track record of being assholes to other people, especially where alcohol happened to be involved. Well, let's just say I endured a minute or two of a real, honest-to-goodness, seventh grade style bullying that was directed entirely at me by two adult men (my Lord!) These two big, stupid dumbasses evidently have to get their metalhead jollies by mocking, offending, abusing, and insulting people who have done nothing but be nice to them. It's retarded, and I'm disgusted. Are these really grown men? One of them is my age, for God's sake!

I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and excuse bad behavior as much as I reasonably can. I know as well as anyone than about black moods and being annoyed, but these guys seem to honestly think there is some coolness or virtue to verbally hammering innocent people out of pure meanness. One leads, the other mostly follows and laughs along (as is the norm for bullies and their sidekicks.) The thing that really ticks me off worse than anything else is that I have gone out of my way consistently to to be very, very nice to these two horrible people!

Well, I'm done.
Absolutely freaking done.

The fact that I am in love with this book proves that I'm quite sick. It also proves that I have at least two equally sick friends. The one who recommended it to me, of course, and the other whom I immediately thought, "C just HAS TO READ THIS!!!!" before I finished even the first chapter.

I am sorry, I am quite open minded and try to be ecologically savvy and all, but this is just GROSS! It's a composting toilet. The shit stays in there and is electronically turned to compost instead of going into the sewer like it does after you use a "normal" toilet. It is touted as being odorless (hmmm....) but it says nothing about being leak-proof (which is important) and also there's the fact that you have to clean them out periodically (fun!), presumably to dump your transformed feces into your garden. No thanks. It would creep me out to a great degree to eat vegetables that had been nourished by my own (or worse, other people's) crap!

Plus, it's over $1,500 for a smaller model.
How many of these things do you think they sell, anyway?
And to whom?

Ten great things are happening for me right now!

1. President Obama made it safely through the inauguration. I didn't realize how worried about his safety I really am until I flinched badly when the cannons that signal his official enthronement went kaboom.

2. My friend with the insane girlfriend came to his senses and is single again, meaning that I will get to see more of him now!

3. Mushrooms!

4. A full case of Hopslam will be in my closet on Thursday, as will a case of the astoundingly tasty Dogfish Red and White!

5. Dancing, dancing, dancing!

6. Making my debut at a beer pairing dinner tomorrow night, which I am fully expecting to be fantastic!

7. I am fortunate enough to have the best friends anyone could ever ask for, and a husband who loves me enough to let me pretty much do as I please.

8. I have fallen madly in love with Maynard Keenan's newest band, Puscifer. He is one of the most intense musicians to ever grace the stage. I love him! (Thanks, N. This one had flown under my radar till you put it in my hand the other night. You're awesome.)

9. My son is just great. In every way.

10. Tortellini Gorgonzola. Yum.


and an extra little big thing, just to show that I am indeed a girl:


11. My new black boots are the most beautiful things in the world. They make me cry a little every time I see them.

I met a new girl this weekend.
She was crazy as a loon and mean as a snake!
I am utterly astounded that anyone would actually act so abominably in a group comprised of the nicest people I know, and completely amazed that one of the coolest guys I know is actually dating her. I will be shaking my head in disbelief for months over this encounter.

I should, in theory, be able to write an essay about all the berserk things this girl said and did during the 7 hours she spent at my home, but words are actually failing me. All that comes to my mind when I revisit the situation is:

Wow.
Just wow....

Here are some reviews concerning our city's "Hottest New Club":

A pretentious space that is not conducive to dancing. The DJ booth and dance floor are too up front and center. You're not here to have a private experience with the music and discover great new song you're hearing for the first time. You're here to show off your pecs and your Armani or your new cleavage and $1,000 shift dress while pretending to accidentally spill your cosmo on the cutest person in the room. But if you want to marry a plastic doll, architect, engineer or a banker you should get your butt in here right now and start workin' it.

The guys were douchey, gel spiked hair and wannabe Armani black button up guys. Did I just teleport to the Jersey shore? My god the Aqua di Gio overwhelms the senses.

Servers are dressed revealing in black/ gray low cut lace corset tops and black hot pants. All of them seemed to be able to pull off the look. (Read my previous post for insight about how I feel about THIS.)

The reviews I read that were positive all cited the club's "hot, scantily clad girls" "guys with money" "long lines" (why on earth would this be a positive? Elbow to elbow shoving, bitchy, noisy crowds are horrible!) and "attractive decor." The attractive decor I will give them....you can see by the photo that it IS pretty. But add a teeming mass of humanity's dregs (which these types are, and no one will EVER convince me otherwise) and it all becomes cloying, pretensious and ugly.

If I wasn't already convinced, which I was, I must say that this place sounds like a true nightmare! I would be absolutely astounded if the music was worthwhile (little else matters when it comes to dancing.) But even if the sound happened to be tolerable, the fact that you have to wait HOURS to get in means the dance floor would be too packed to move. That said, the type of people described here usually - almost always - listen to total crap. I suspect it's Young Jeezy all the way. I will count myself very, very happy not to join the "in crowd" when it comes to this one.

Barf.

I don't want to take a shower.
I don't want to get dressed.
I smell bad - and I don't care!

(Because I am safe at home.)

I want to go dancing, but don't want the prep work and uncomfortable shoes that always seem go along with a night on the town. If I were a guy, I could wear jeans, a shirt, and tennis shoes. But because I'm the girl (ahem, the aging girl) that generally wears jeans, a shirt, and tennis shoes it puts me in the situation to often mess up the dancefloor....a thorn among roses. A thorn with an excellent sense of rhythm, mind you, but a thorn none the less.

Why do women need attention to the point where we make ourselves miserable to get it? Girls eye each other - wishing for her body, her hair, her clothes. Wishing for the confidence that she seems to have (but really doesn't, the poor bulemic wreck.)

An even more disturbing question is why (WHY??!) does a fairly unconventional, free-thinking person like me play dumbly along with society's stupid, stupid mind/ego games? I eye those girls, wishing for their bodies, their hair, their clothes, their confidence, their youth. We (women) imprison ourselves every day. Men help, of course, the poor primally-driven fools, but it is we women who perpetuate the majority of the bullshit. And, of course, I hate myself for sheepily following the masses, as I forever wonder why a serious, society-toppling female revolution never seems to actually happen. Oh, how I would love revolution to begin...first and foremost within my own heart.

Like the child who takes Ritalin (a stimulant) to calm down, this guy always makes me feel better when I'm in a low mood.

Wow....what a difference three days makes.

I am now deeply, profoundly depressed.
Sure there are a couple of personal situations I'm dealing with that really, really suck, but nothing has happened that should pull me quite this deeply into this black pit of hopelessness. I can't eat. Have nothing to say. Am not even really thinking right now. I'm just wading through gray, thick, smothering air, trying to draw breath and hoping no one will notice that I am completely and utterly NOT okay (and haven't been for quite some time, honestly.) And just so I'm clear about where I stand in relation to my issues - I much, MUCH prefer mania to this awful emptiness. Even the out-of-control-I-am- trembling-like-a-leaf miserable kind of mania is still worlds better than depression.

PS: I guess it is somewhat normal that I am depressed just now.
According to all my books, a manic episode is almost always followed quite closely by depression. It is the normal order of the abnormal mind. Still, when I feel like this, there is always that haunting fear that this will never pass - not this time - not ever - and on the heels of that fear is the gnawing truth that if I have to feel this bleakness for very much longer, well, there are some things worse than death.

PPS: Yes, I am working on getting a new doctor and trying to get the first available appointment. The one I picked is an Indian lady with a caste mark on her head. Doesn't get much cooler than that, does it? Surely she, with all her eastern wisdom, will be able to help me. I have a huge thing for Indian people. I adore and trust them. Not sure why, but I do.

I am happy to report that I am feeling a little bit better.

My brain isn't trembling inside my skull as much as it was, and I've been able to hold conversations without having to concentrate with all my might on what is being said. I am still engaging in strange behaviors behind closed doors, but I've been able to keep my quirks under lock and key so everyone doesn't see and think I'm off my rocker. I am a professional at maintaining a public face and a seperate, more private face.

Right now I'm listening to TV on the Radio's "Dear Science" and thinking about several tough situations that people I care about are dealing with right now. All around this past year has been a strange period of time for almost everyone I know. So much struggle and discontent. Even some of my friends from church (for whom nothing EVER seems to go wrong) are shoving 2008 away with glee and eagerly hoping that 2009 will be a kinder year.

I am in good health.
We have food, running water, and heat.
I have people who love me (a few of them, anyway.)
These are the foundations of contentment, all present and accounted for. I will spend the next year continuing to tell myself that I should be content and, because I just can never seem to get there, feeling like shit about myself. This is what I did last year, and the year before, and the year before, and the year before....etc.

Album of the week!
Cut Copy....In Ghost Colours.

This is what I spent my entire night thinking about. Lying in bed at 2 AM, and 2:30 AM, and 3 AM, and 3:30 AM, I couldn't get my mind off of....

No, not Christian Bale's 5% body fat, but the movie he best displayed it in.....AMERICAN PSYCHO. This film came up in conversation the other night - it tends to do this every few months without fail - and (as usual) I haven't been able to get it off my mind. It's one of the greatest films ever made (and no, I'm not being facetious.) It speaks volumes about our modern culture, doing for the 1980's what "American Graffiti" did for the 1950's.

If you haven't seen it, please do. Even if you don't care for slasher films (of which this is one of the best) you are certain to be enthralled with the brilliant underground humor, philosophy, and irony that makes the film a true masterpiece.

I want this game so bad. It's $4,500, which means I'll never get it. I love playing Whack-a-Mole.

Obviously, my disorder is the thing first and foremost on my mind lately, considering the trouble it's been giving me. Here are some stats on bp....

2.8 percent of the general population have bp.

BP ranks 7th on the WHO's scale ranking causes of disability.

Life expectancy of a bp person is a full 25 years shorter than that of the general population.

25% of bp people have attempted suicide.

15-20% of these attempts are lethal. BP has the highest suicide rate of any mental disorder, more than 20 times that of the general population. About 50% of all suicide attempts can be attributed to bp.

BP was named in 1896 and was first called "Manic-Depressive Insanity." The term Bi-Polar Disorder was not used until 1980.

The average age of onset is 23, the average age of proper diagnosis is 40.

The average bp person waits 10 years to seek treatment for their condition.

75% of bp sufferers have been misdiagnosed at least once.

50% of those diagnosed with bp are not receiving treatment at any given time.

50% of bp people who seek treatment discontinue their medication because of the side effects.

Odds are 60/40 that a bp person will also struggle with substance abuse.

Alcoholism rates of bp men are 3 times that of the general population.
Alcoholism rates among bp women are 7 times that of the general population.

Divorce rates of bp people are twice that of any other psychiatric disorder and three and a half times that of the general population.

Mental illness accounts for four times as many emergency room visits each year as all other maladies/accidents/illnesses combined.

50% of all bp and schizophrenic people have no health insurance.

Happy New Year, everyone!
Whoooooo!

Now that the obligitory happy crappy has been said, time for some
catharsis n. , pl. -ses . Medicine. Purgation, especially for the digestive system. A purifying or figurative cleansing of the emotions, especially.

I'm getting very tired of this feeling in my chest that my heart is in there shucking and jiving in ways that a heart really shouldn't. It steals my breath. Physically, I am perfectly fine. Mentally, I'm a mess. As time passes I have less and less control over my craziness. My docs have repeatedly warned me that my particular issue is a progressive disorder that, left untreated, gets continually worse over time. This worries me beyond measure. Institutions are full to overflowing with people just like me. I have tried to stay ahead of the curve by learning tricks to control and/or hide what's going on, but it's getting harder. The parts of me that I like best watch sadly, imprisoned and disconnected, the barrage of shit fly uncontrollably from my mouth and through my head. I'm weary of thinking and sick to death of the sound of my own voice. Most people don't understand what it's like to truly have zero control over their psyche. I've been told countless times to just snap out of it and have been encouraged that I can "choose" not to be this way. If only that were possible. I've tried. Trust me. Normal people (whatever that is) control their brains. I am controlled completely by the constant staccato sputter and sparks of mine.

It's very difficult to sleep in this state, yet lack of sleep induces ever higher levels of mania. I suppose I'll just have to wait until I completely run my batteries dry, which is bound to happen soon. I have been very tempted lately to go back to the doctor, but know too well that the few choices they offer aren't really options at all. I can't bring myself to sell my soul to make this chatter stop. The state of mind that meds have to offer is even uglier than this stupid whizzing and whirling. Maybe one day they will be the lesser of the two evils, but not right now. Not yet.

A couple of friends and I had a discussion about self-confidence last night. I woke up thinking about it. I have no perspective whatsoever on what it must feel like to just be "okay" with myself. That concept is as alien to me as what it might be like to see through the eyes of a dog or a bird - thinking their thoughts and processing the world as they do. Don't get me wrong....there are a great many beautiful things about me that I like just fine. It's when you put all the pieces together that the puzzle starts to look screwed up and looking at it becomes uncomfortable. Cram too many lovely roses into a vase and it starts to look tacky. Add some thorns and ugly, stinky carnations to the mix and you have a real mess. Sigh.

The utter self-absorption that is the bonus prize that goes hand in hand with the gift of mania isn't so great for one's self-esteem, either. When you cannot get out of your own head, it's almost impossible to be a good mother, wife, or friend. Knowing you often suck at the most important thing in life - loving others - is surely not good for boosting the feeling of self-love. Who in their right mind can tolerate for very long someone who constantly bounces between smirking grandiosity and self-flagellation? The ending of my last relationship says it best...sitting on concrete steps, head in trembling hands, tears quietly rolling, he said "I love you with all my heart and I always will. But you've completely worn me out."


Peace.
Love.
Serenity.

Excitement.
Passion.
Intensity.

My perfect self would have roughly equal measures of both the above attribute trios. I can see so clearly in my mind how awesome I could be (if only...) Have fun pie charting yourself, your friends, sometimes even people you barely know! Certain people simply ooze one list or the other out of every pore in their being. Other people have really well-constructed facades and it takes awhile to figure out what's going on underneath. Very few of us are well-balanced, the fact of which helps me go a little easier on myself. I love thinking about people....we are such an interesting species!