Erie, PA; on a billboard advertising a fireworks store:
"Pepper spray & stun guns
Sugar-free fudge."
11.08.2010
10.29.2010
So
It goes without saying that my most recent post (since deleted) was beyond the pale. Your dear blogger is in an interesting bind at the moment; updates will at some point ensue.
10.13.2010
So...
At what point do people find things to enjoy? Like, is there a switch to turn on where you wake up and look forward to anything? If so, please let me know.
10.06.2010
Notes from Inside III
The second thing you notice on the psych ward is the alteration in the passage of time. This is hardly my insight -- Thomas Mann explored the strange slipping of time in an institution to perfection in The Magic Mountain (which I definitely will need to read again in light of recent circumstances). The hours drag on, and every time you check the clock you find that only half the minutes you thought had passed actually did. Your life breaks down into hour-long increments, punctuated by mealtimes and medication. Breakfast is served at 7:30, and you wake up and stagger groggily toward the common room. You grab your tray from the metal box on wheels and try to find a seat near the people you know are somewhat sane. You fill your menu out at breakfast for the next day, and while the food isn't as bad as you might have expected, it's hardly fantastic. You learn quickly that you can add items and change quantities, so that my tray each morning comes laden with three covered plastic cups of extraordinarily weak coffee.
It's pretty much a given that there will be an incident at breakfast. It's more or less inevitable, mealtime being the only times during the day when the entire population is gathered in one space. This morning, it was Stephanie, she of the suspected wet brain, who set off this sweet elderly African-American woman who rightfully had had enough of poorly-coded racism. See, one of the schizophrenics had an outburst yesterday in which she repeatedly yelled "nigger" at the staff, which is about 70% African-American. I believe she also called them "gorillas," at least before the sedation hit in. In any case, Cassandra -- the elderly woman -- was really on edge wrt overt racism, and so when Stephanie started ranting about "the blacks" and how you can't trust them, a deeply-buried rage in Cassandra roared to life, and she threw her fully-laden breakfast tray at Stephanie, and when she missed, she picked up the tray and tried again. Naturally, both parties were separated and ushered in to different rooms, yet the incident was fairly typical of the increased pressure and tension that accompany a full house. More typically Carolyn (about whom more later) will start on a rant and at some point her scattershot will touch someone's exposed nerve, and then shit goes down. You learn to tune most of this out.
Carolyn is pretty much the queen crazy, bipolar with psychosis and delusions. She's by far the least-liked person on the ward, and this holds true for patients and staff. Carolyn is 38, and has spent most of her adult life in and out of psych wards, mental hospitals, and group homes. In many cases, such a life trajectory owes in large part to poverty and the appalling fraying of the American social safety net. Individuals who express mental illness at a young age often are victims of inadequate living situations, abusive parents, parents who abuse drugs and alcohol, neglect, and left to the mercy of Departments of Mental Health that are woefully underfunded, inadequately staffed, and a part of no politician's stump speech. The mentally ill remain largely invisible in America.
Carolyn, on the other hand, comes from a well-off family of Russian-Jewish immigrants. Her father is a well-respected psychiatrist (ironically enough) in New Jersey, and she was raised in suburban comfort, educated at good schools, has a college degree. Not that her relative luck in the family lottery makes her case any more tragic than the hundreds of thousands of less fortunate individuals who fall into the black hole of the mental health system, but it does add an interesting wrinkle. From what I could gather, Carolyn grew up in suburban New Jersey before moving to Boston in her late adolescence. She graduated from Lesley University with a degree in human services, and apparently that's when things began to fall apart.
Before getting into her story -- or at least what of it I could piece together -- it's really important to explain the sort of psychosocial milieu in which Carolyn spends her days, and will in all likelihood spend the remainder of her days. It's important to preface all of this with the fact that Carolyn is an extremely kind person, and has an extremely kind heart; the circumstances of her illness conspire to mask that kindness and to isolate her when she craves human contact. It requires, first of all, a staggering amount of patience to hold a conversation with her. She sits forward in her chair when she speaks and gesticulates wildly, all while emitting a garbled logorrheic stream of consciousness. It doesn't take more than a minute or so to realize the obvious paranoid and delusional ideation underpinning most of what she says. She'll tell you that she's putting together an operation, and that the nurses and counselors are bad people who need to be taken down. She's going to send in the black belts and they'll bleed so, but the FBI and CIA are watching her every move, and have put her in here to prevent her from carrying out her global mission. When I came back here for my second stint, she was certain that I was FBI because I was back. They've assaulted her with chemical weapons, so she won't take her medication, because the nurses work for Dick Cheney, who is the real president and who has been offended highly by her protestation against his regime in Harvard Square, and by her calling George Bush "George Tush." Similarly the chemical weapons have invaded her group home, and her face and lips burned and the skin on her feet rotted. She has access to special software, which, if you choose not to be on her team, will monitor your every move and can immolate you instantaneously should you act unethically. She's in love with a man named Dan Crowley, who, as far as I can tell, doesn't exist, but apparently is the most gorgeous man in the world as well as a legendary musician who can change his face to look like anyone. He's secretly written every hit pop song of the last 20 years, and is the shadowy figure behind the entire operation. But she also refers to pretty much every male under 40 (yours truly included) as "gorgeous" and makes vaguely sexual overtures that become quickly uncomfortable. She wouldn't believe that I'm gay because "someone so gorgeous just couldn't be. It's not fair" (lawlz). She suffers from tremendous delusions of grandeur. She believes herself to be a virtuoso piano player and composer, but when she sits down at the piano, the sound that results is best described as aleatory. She believes that she is a gifted designer, even though her "designs" amount to random blotches of paint on t-shirts under a thick coat of glitter. The other day her room had to be steam cleaned because she had managed to cover half the floor in paint and glitter. Similiarly she thinks of herself as a fashionista and model, though her style amounts to one of her paint-splattered t-shirts over zebra print leggings with flip flops, and her body type is best described as spherical. If she gets agitated, she'll tell you that you're headed to an internment camp where you'll eat carcasses until your carcass is eaten, and that they'll test new chemical weapons on you and zap you. But there are flying cars and flying houses ready for you if you play, and it's all about playing. She at times mouths bits and pieces of Christianity, but one doubts that faith plays much of a role in her life, or that she has the cognitive equipment to understand faith. Which is not to say that she's dumb, because that's very much not the case -- she has an impressive vocabulary and a wide body of knowledge. I imagine she was once a very intelligent person with a bright future.
And that's part of what makes Carolyn's story so tragic in an almost Shakespearean way -- there's a great deal there beneath the surface that her illness, the drugs used to treat it, and other drugs more recreational in nature have so mangled and garbled that only this manically paranoid word salad remains. From what I could gather, her illness began to present in her adolescence. She received treatment, which was apparently inadequate, and was medicated through her early 20s and college. I guess her condition seemed to worsen in her mid-20s, because she was incapable of providing any semblance of chronology for the last decade or so. She's used crystal meth on and off. She's been a prostitute and has slept in Harvard Square for weeks at a time. She's been in and out of psych wards like this one, has amassed over $30,000 in credit card debt, and lived in section VIII housing on disability payments, because her illness precluded the possibility of working. She has worked, however -- in a kitchen remodeling store, in a shoe store, as a waitress. One gets the sense that her Dan Crowley was a boyfriend sometime in her early-mid-20s, maybe the first time she fell in love. Maybe it was a brief and tumultuous affair, maybe the one stable long-term relationship she's had, but the impression is that his memory has winnowed its way so deeply into her psyche as to color many aspects of her psychoses. Her group home situation is terrifying to her -- the housemaster is cruel and uncaring, several of her other housemates sociopathic. Her parents have cut her off entirely. They won't return her calls or help her financially, and she can't get her own apartment. If she can't recover here and return to her group home, she'll be headed to one of the state mental hospitals to be institutionalized. During our conversation, she repeated over and over that she just wants to have a life, she wants to fall in love, she wants a life like anyone else.
It's pretty much a given that there will be an incident at breakfast. It's more or less inevitable, mealtime being the only times during the day when the entire population is gathered in one space. This morning, it was Stephanie, she of the suspected wet brain, who set off this sweet elderly African-American woman who rightfully had had enough of poorly-coded racism. See, one of the schizophrenics had an outburst yesterday in which she repeatedly yelled "nigger" at the staff, which is about 70% African-American. I believe she also called them "gorillas," at least before the sedation hit in. In any case, Cassandra -- the elderly woman -- was really on edge wrt overt racism, and so when Stephanie started ranting about "the blacks" and how you can't trust them, a deeply-buried rage in Cassandra roared to life, and she threw her fully-laden breakfast tray at Stephanie, and when she missed, she picked up the tray and tried again. Naturally, both parties were separated and ushered in to different rooms, yet the incident was fairly typical of the increased pressure and tension that accompany a full house. More typically Carolyn (about whom more later) will start on a rant and at some point her scattershot will touch someone's exposed nerve, and then shit goes down. You learn to tune most of this out.
Carolyn is pretty much the queen crazy, bipolar with psychosis and delusions. She's by far the least-liked person on the ward, and this holds true for patients and staff. Carolyn is 38, and has spent most of her adult life in and out of psych wards, mental hospitals, and group homes. In many cases, such a life trajectory owes in large part to poverty and the appalling fraying of the American social safety net. Individuals who express mental illness at a young age often are victims of inadequate living situations, abusive parents, parents who abuse drugs and alcohol, neglect, and left to the mercy of Departments of Mental Health that are woefully underfunded, inadequately staffed, and a part of no politician's stump speech. The mentally ill remain largely invisible in America.
Carolyn, on the other hand, comes from a well-off family of Russian-Jewish immigrants. Her father is a well-respected psychiatrist (ironically enough) in New Jersey, and she was raised in suburban comfort, educated at good schools, has a college degree. Not that her relative luck in the family lottery makes her case any more tragic than the hundreds of thousands of less fortunate individuals who fall into the black hole of the mental health system, but it does add an interesting wrinkle. From what I could gather, Carolyn grew up in suburban New Jersey before moving to Boston in her late adolescence. She graduated from Lesley University with a degree in human services, and apparently that's when things began to fall apart.
Before getting into her story -- or at least what of it I could piece together -- it's really important to explain the sort of psychosocial milieu in which Carolyn spends her days, and will in all likelihood spend the remainder of her days. It's important to preface all of this with the fact that Carolyn is an extremely kind person, and has an extremely kind heart; the circumstances of her illness conspire to mask that kindness and to isolate her when she craves human contact. It requires, first of all, a staggering amount of patience to hold a conversation with her. She sits forward in her chair when she speaks and gesticulates wildly, all while emitting a garbled logorrheic stream of consciousness. It doesn't take more than a minute or so to realize the obvious paranoid and delusional ideation underpinning most of what she says. She'll tell you that she's putting together an operation, and that the nurses and counselors are bad people who need to be taken down. She's going to send in the black belts and they'll bleed so, but the FBI and CIA are watching her every move, and have put her in here to prevent her from carrying out her global mission. When I came back here for my second stint, she was certain that I was FBI because I was back. They've assaulted her with chemical weapons, so she won't take her medication, because the nurses work for Dick Cheney, who is the real president and who has been offended highly by her protestation against his regime in Harvard Square, and by her calling George Bush "George Tush." Similarly the chemical weapons have invaded her group home, and her face and lips burned and the skin on her feet rotted. She has access to special software, which, if you choose not to be on her team, will monitor your every move and can immolate you instantaneously should you act unethically. She's in love with a man named Dan Crowley, who, as far as I can tell, doesn't exist, but apparently is the most gorgeous man in the world as well as a legendary musician who can change his face to look like anyone. He's secretly written every hit pop song of the last 20 years, and is the shadowy figure behind the entire operation. But she also refers to pretty much every male under 40 (yours truly included) as "gorgeous" and makes vaguely sexual overtures that become quickly uncomfortable. She wouldn't believe that I'm gay because "someone so gorgeous just couldn't be. It's not fair" (lawlz). She suffers from tremendous delusions of grandeur. She believes herself to be a virtuoso piano player and composer, but when she sits down at the piano, the sound that results is best described as aleatory. She believes that she is a gifted designer, even though her "designs" amount to random blotches of paint on t-shirts under a thick coat of glitter. The other day her room had to be steam cleaned because she had managed to cover half the floor in paint and glitter. Similiarly she thinks of herself as a fashionista and model, though her style amounts to one of her paint-splattered t-shirts over zebra print leggings with flip flops, and her body type is best described as spherical. If she gets agitated, she'll tell you that you're headed to an internment camp where you'll eat carcasses until your carcass is eaten, and that they'll test new chemical weapons on you and zap you. But there are flying cars and flying houses ready for you if you play, and it's all about playing. She at times mouths bits and pieces of Christianity, but one doubts that faith plays much of a role in her life, or that she has the cognitive equipment to understand faith. Which is not to say that she's dumb, because that's very much not the case -- she has an impressive vocabulary and a wide body of knowledge. I imagine she was once a very intelligent person with a bright future.
And that's part of what makes Carolyn's story so tragic in an almost Shakespearean way -- there's a great deal there beneath the surface that her illness, the drugs used to treat it, and other drugs more recreational in nature have so mangled and garbled that only this manically paranoid word salad remains. From what I could gather, her illness began to present in her adolescence. She received treatment, which was apparently inadequate, and was medicated through her early 20s and college. I guess her condition seemed to worsen in her mid-20s, because she was incapable of providing any semblance of chronology for the last decade or so. She's used crystal meth on and off. She's been a prostitute and has slept in Harvard Square for weeks at a time. She's been in and out of psych wards like this one, has amassed over $30,000 in credit card debt, and lived in section VIII housing on disability payments, because her illness precluded the possibility of working. She has worked, however -- in a kitchen remodeling store, in a shoe store, as a waitress. One gets the sense that her Dan Crowley was a boyfriend sometime in her early-mid-20s, maybe the first time she fell in love. Maybe it was a brief and tumultuous affair, maybe the one stable long-term relationship she's had, but the impression is that his memory has winnowed its way so deeply into her psyche as to color many aspects of her psychoses. Her group home situation is terrifying to her -- the housemaster is cruel and uncaring, several of her other housemates sociopathic. Her parents have cut her off entirely. They won't return her calls or help her financially, and she can't get her own apartment. If she can't recover here and return to her group home, she'll be headed to one of the state mental hospitals to be institutionalized. During our conversation, she repeated over and over that she just wants to have a life, she wants to fall in love, she wants a life like anyone else.
10.05.2010
Freedom!
I will be discharged tomorrow! Headed into an outpatient program tailored to LGBTs and looking forward to an excellent weekend.
10.04.2010
Notes from Inside, II
So a very important thing with the bipolar/schizophrenic/drug-addled crowd is that they are mostly harmless. This could be because their meds render their bodies sluggish and oils their brains with glue. It could also be because, despite even their most violent-sounding outbursts, the Pavlovian reflex to four-point restraints and additional sedation keeps them one step shy of actual violence. The outbursts, however, can be quite disturbing, frightening even if you're new to the ward. Once you've encountered a few psychotic rants, you begin to pick up the general rhythms and frayed webs of association that can lead from doctors to the CIA to chemical weapons to omnipresent software. Yep. A schizophrenic outburst from R. would be typical -- a situation in which he staggers into the common room and announces to anyone who will listen that the voice of God speaks through him and that the world is ending soon. Eschatology seems a major theme in many such outbursts. As are conspiracies involving various covert agencies and operatives, not to mention violence, often horrific, often involving necrophagy and other unsavory practices.
An example (which may be disturbing to some) from a particularly troubled woman in her early 30s (this from earlier today; sedation with haloperidol was required to shut her up): "I fuck children in the river of blood. Because I'm a pedophile? Because I like having sex with children? Stay away from me! Stay away from me!" Granted, I have no idea whether or not the above is true, and I highly doubt it, but it's a pretty good example of the sort of utterance to which one quickly becomes accustomed here.
But a little research will turn up countless examples of the particular phobias, obsessions, and stomach-turning imagery that turn up in schizophrenic thinking and verbalization. Elyn Saks' memoir The Center Cannot Hold is a powerful look at the manner in which schizophrenia tears and twists even the most brilliant minds into menacing and unfamiliar shapes, and I highly recommend it. John Wray's recent novel Lowboy, though fictional, is an arresting detective story centered around a schizophrenic 16-year old who's escaped from his hospital in New York City.
I had intended to write more on this subject, but the day went by more quickly than I had expected. I'm in much higher spirits; the new medication is helping immensely, and I've been fortunate enough to spend time with some really wonderful individuals here, some of whom I will definitely be seeing on the outside.
An example (which may be disturbing to some) from a particularly troubled woman in her early 30s (this from earlier today; sedation with haloperidol was required to shut her up): "I fuck children in the river of blood. Because I'm a pedophile? Because I like having sex with children? Stay away from me! Stay away from me!" Granted, I have no idea whether or not the above is true, and I highly doubt it, but it's a pretty good example of the sort of utterance to which one quickly becomes accustomed here.
But a little research will turn up countless examples of the particular phobias, obsessions, and stomach-turning imagery that turn up in schizophrenic thinking and verbalization. Elyn Saks' memoir The Center Cannot Hold is a powerful look at the manner in which schizophrenia tears and twists even the most brilliant minds into menacing and unfamiliar shapes, and I highly recommend it. John Wray's recent novel Lowboy, though fictional, is an arresting detective story centered around a schizophrenic 16-year old who's escaped from his hospital in New York City.
I had intended to write more on this subject, but the day went by more quickly than I had expected. I'm in much higher spirits; the new medication is helping immensely, and I've been fortunate enough to spend time with some really wonderful individuals here, some of whom I will definitely be seeing on the outside.
10.03.2010
Notes from Inside
Probably the first thing you notice on a psych ward is that the category of "crazy" spans an entire continuum from severely-depressed-but-otherwise-rational-and-somewhat-functional to suffering-from-irreversible-dementia. It seems that this continuum presents as a bell curve, with a small number of basically "okay" individuals at the far left end, a few of those tragically lost and gone forever at the far right end, and the majority distributed in between. In general, the "okay" individuals tend to stick together for obvious reasons, but probably also to validate their own sanity to themselves. They talk, joke, laugh, play games, and try hard to conceal whatever emotional greyness led them here in the first place. They're no more or less damaged than anyone else, but can either mask their pain or have had a genuine reappraisal of their whole scene. They (or I should say "we," since I rightly or wrongly count myself as a member of this group) congregate for the most part in the common room, where meals are eaten, meetings are held, and staggering quantities of TV are consumed. (I watched eight episodes of House on Friday, for instance). This room serves a double purpose for these folks. Of course it provides the basic and still functioning need for socialization, and this group seems genuinely to be interested in the lives and woes of the others, their laughter never forced, their affection and camaraderie never feigned. On the other hand, however, I think that we use the common room as a sort of safety net. It's easy when you're a generally affable person to surround yourself with similar people in a common place where you can tune out your brain to the Kardashians or Monday Night Football. It's far more difficult to confront yourself nakedly in the harsh light of long-ignored truths.
The folks in the middle part of the curve tend to come and go as befits their mental and emotional state; at times they sleep through the entire day without encountering another person on the ward except their "team" (more on this in a bit). Or they just can't handle being around others. For some, this is due to physical difficulty -- complications with new medication or drug withdrawal. Others are too mired in their own hurt, and require a sort of tortured solitude in which to sort through their scattered emotions and understand their battered psyches. When they shuffle through the halls, faces tight and drawn, they radiate the depth of their ache. Their silence is chilling really, and no matter how badly you want to crack them open and show them some light tucked away in a forgotten place, there are just some people you know better than to approach. Others in the middle flutter around the margins, drawn like moths to what they perceive as light. They'll come into the common room and sit to the side, laughing nervously or venturing a comment on a joke or a discussion about whether or not you'd let Tom Brady have his way with you (this was an actual conversation). They're visible but withdrawn, "around," but not really there.
Often the individuals in the middle part of the curve are older -- seasoned veterans when it comes to institutions and psychotropic drugs. To a younger observer, their situations are both heartbreakingly tragic and troubling. What to make of the gentleman in his 60s who hasn't said a word the entire time you've been here? He's like a ghost, a bearded ghost who sort of haunts the hallway, and you can tell he's been through some shit in his time, but what happened to him at this point in his life to bring him back here? (You've learned this is hardly his first time). What kind of infinite sadness causes life to break down so many times at a point where identity has been negotiated, decisions made, major life experiences conquered and celebrated? But then there's the woman in her 40s who does nothing but laugh, whose ataxic staggerings and stumblings into your chair has already caused two coffee burns, and whose slurred queries re: AA meetings make you wonder if maybe she isn't here because of an acute emotional crisis, but rather a solid case of Wernicke-Korsakoff.
The third subset is without question the most tragic. These guys are the ones who aren't coming back. They're entirely enclosed within their illness or the ravaged remnants of a decades-long addiction. You generally try to steer clear of these folks, or at the very least, interact with them while exercising extreme caution with the awareness that there's a pretty good chance that the conversation will veer off into a succession of disturbing non sequiturs. For which reason, this crowd tends to function as entertainment-cum-antagonist-in-chief. The one exception I've come across here is a 19-year old kid whom we shall call R. R. is one of the most gentle and kind individuals I think I've ever met. R., however, suffers from advanced schizophrenia, and has been put in four-point restraints three times since I've been here. The meds he's taking to keep him from flying apart keep him heavy-lidded and sedated. He plods through the unit and speaks slowly when he speaks at all. He sleeps 16 hours a day. This is unspeakably sad.
The others that comprise this group consist pretty much of your garden variety schizophrenics, bipolar individuals, and addled former drug addicts. There is naturally some blurring of these boundaries. We'll pick it up there tomorrow.
The folks in the middle part of the curve tend to come and go as befits their mental and emotional state; at times they sleep through the entire day without encountering another person on the ward except their "team" (more on this in a bit). Or they just can't handle being around others. For some, this is due to physical difficulty -- complications with new medication or drug withdrawal. Others are too mired in their own hurt, and require a sort of tortured solitude in which to sort through their scattered emotions and understand their battered psyches. When they shuffle through the halls, faces tight and drawn, they radiate the depth of their ache. Their silence is chilling really, and no matter how badly you want to crack them open and show them some light tucked away in a forgotten place, there are just some people you know better than to approach. Others in the middle flutter around the margins, drawn like moths to what they perceive as light. They'll come into the common room and sit to the side, laughing nervously or venturing a comment on a joke or a discussion about whether or not you'd let Tom Brady have his way with you (this was an actual conversation). They're visible but withdrawn, "around," but not really there.
Often the individuals in the middle part of the curve are older -- seasoned veterans when it comes to institutions and psychotropic drugs. To a younger observer, their situations are both heartbreakingly tragic and troubling. What to make of the gentleman in his 60s who hasn't said a word the entire time you've been here? He's like a ghost, a bearded ghost who sort of haunts the hallway, and you can tell he's been through some shit in his time, but what happened to him at this point in his life to bring him back here? (You've learned this is hardly his first time). What kind of infinite sadness causes life to break down so many times at a point where identity has been negotiated, decisions made, major life experiences conquered and celebrated? But then there's the woman in her 40s who does nothing but laugh, whose ataxic staggerings and stumblings into your chair has already caused two coffee burns, and whose slurred queries re: AA meetings make you wonder if maybe she isn't here because of an acute emotional crisis, but rather a solid case of Wernicke-Korsakoff.
The third subset is without question the most tragic. These guys are the ones who aren't coming back. They're entirely enclosed within their illness or the ravaged remnants of a decades-long addiction. You generally try to steer clear of these folks, or at the very least, interact with them while exercising extreme caution with the awareness that there's a pretty good chance that the conversation will veer off into a succession of disturbing non sequiturs. For which reason, this crowd tends to function as entertainment-cum-antagonist-in-chief. The one exception I've come across here is a 19-year old kid whom we shall call R. R. is one of the most gentle and kind individuals I think I've ever met. R., however, suffers from advanced schizophrenia, and has been put in four-point restraints three times since I've been here. The meds he's taking to keep him from flying apart keep him heavy-lidded and sedated. He plods through the unit and speaks slowly when he speaks at all. He sleeps 16 hours a day. This is unspeakably sad.
The others that comprise this group consist pretty much of your garden variety schizophrenics, bipolar individuals, and addled former drug addicts. There is naturally some blurring of these boundaries. We'll pick it up there tomorrow.
10.02.2010
Update
So for the time being, let's just say that I'm okay and fully appreciate the outpouring of love and support. You guys are awesome.
The past ten years have been dark times for me, the past year darker, recent months darkest, and the past few weeks the absolute nadir of my existence. Without going into details, I can tell you that I'm safe, and that I think things will get better from here. What I've realized during this, my most recent hospitalization, is that the impetus to change oneself radically cannot come externally. Medications, therapy, hospitalization, overdoses, withdrawal (which thankfully isn't something I've had to deal with) -- no matter how shocking to the psyche or body, none are enough to push oneself forward unless one wants to move. Without some internal spark that demands life, you're just not going to be able to do it.
So for now, I'm working on that spark.
The past ten years have been dark times for me, the past year darker, recent months darkest, and the past few weeks the absolute nadir of my existence. Without going into details, I can tell you that I'm safe, and that I think things will get better from here. What I've realized during this, my most recent hospitalization, is that the impetus to change oneself radically cannot come externally. Medications, therapy, hospitalization, overdoses, withdrawal (which thankfully isn't something I've had to deal with) -- no matter how shocking to the psyche or body, none are enough to push oneself forward unless one wants to move. Without some internal spark that demands life, you're just not going to be able to do it.
So for now, I'm working on that spark.
9.06.2010
New Things
Out of a 4 1/2 year long relationship, out of the closet, freshly inked, and moved into a new place as of Wednesday. New things abound. I find myself in the sort of nostalgic introspective mood which washed over my late teen years and early twenties, but which has been largely absent for the past few years. You know, that sense that time is ebbing away and that things in your life about which you feel like you should care deeply but can't quite keep moving in cardinalish directions away from whatever sense of self you've salvaged?
So yeah, new beginnings and what not. It's strange being in this place. I feel the clock starting to count down on my youth, and I can't say I've really ever allowed myself to experience it. The careless vulnerability, impulsivity, hope. I lack these things in my life, and yet they're what I'm told defines "youth."
I really can't quantify or qualify anything at this point. I find myself aching for something real with the concomitant knowledge that real emotion is probably beyond anything I'm capable of at the moment. It's funny and yet profoundly sad, as I watch friends and lovers find their mates and fall in love, that I can't even conceive of an emotional connection to another human being. It seems so naive and unreachable. The idea almost seems laughable, and the reality something which I dare not even consider. Emo? Perhaps. It's never fun to find oneself in the familiar position of feeling unconnected to everything.
So yeah, new beginnings and what not. It's strange being in this place. I feel the clock starting to count down on my youth, and I can't say I've really ever allowed myself to experience it. The careless vulnerability, impulsivity, hope. I lack these things in my life, and yet they're what I'm told defines "youth."
I really can't quantify or qualify anything at this point. I find myself aching for something real with the concomitant knowledge that real emotion is probably beyond anything I'm capable of at the moment. It's funny and yet profoundly sad, as I watch friends and lovers find their mates and fall in love, that I can't even conceive of an emotional connection to another human being. It seems so naive and unreachable. The idea almost seems laughable, and the reality something which I dare not even consider. Emo? Perhaps. It's never fun to find oneself in the familiar position of feeling unconnected to everything.
8.26.2010
8.20.2010
Digging the Suburbs
In the interest of resurrecting this site (for the nth time, I guess), let me just say that I am completely addicted to Arcade Fire's new album The Suburbs. So much so that I find myself agreeing with Pitchfork... which doesn't exactly happen every day. I don't really have the tools to do like a full review/critique, so let's just say that it hits all the right places without a single throwaway track. I'm in love.
4.06.2010
3.12.2010
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