The philosophizing wasp… and other such neurosis.

Yes, you heard me.  A philosophizing wasp.  You’d better believe it! Yessiree!  Well, sort of. Er…  essentially.

Ok.  Maybe “philosophizing wasp” is a bit of a… misnomer. To say the least.  I suppose it would be more “accurate” (if you’re really so stuck on accuracy) to say that I was the one philosophizing over a wasp.  Or… for him maybe?

Well ok, here’s what happened. Today, I was walking to class (continental philosophy class, as it just so happens)  and I see a dead wasp on the sidewalk.  This expired insect strikes me for two reasons:
1.  It’s the middle of winter.  What’s a wasp even doing out of its… winter time hiding place?

2.  THAT’S HIM!

Now, the former is just your run of the mill query, so I’ll leave it at that.  The latter, however, certainly needs a bit of qualification.  Or explanation. Or a psych ward and a straight jacket.  Whichever.

HIM refers to the philosophizing wasp.  Last semester, whilst waiting for a class to start, I was sitting outside when I spotted a wasp passing by.  And this wasp just impressed me inexplicably.  I was… moved.  Or rather, perplexed and disturbed, I think.  This wasp’s sad, insignificant life struck me as being incredibly sad.  So overwhelmingly futile.  As I watched him brace against the mild breeze (that to him must has seemed a whirlwind), and crawl about from here to there unknowingly brushing shoulders with death whenever some oblivious passer by came crashing through with two gigantic deadly feet, I both pitied and envied him (or at least I assumed he was a he).  Did he even realize how small his existence was?  That his lifespan was probably already almost over?  That his existence was so small that we humans not only think little of haphazardly traipsing upon him, but that he’s even an object of spite and deadly malice?  Did he realize anything at all?  Could he?  Or, was his existence perhaps even more significant that my own?  Who was I to say what his life meant?  For which purpose he was created?  Who was I to condemn him to futility?

I told him all of these things and more, often chastising him for his haplessness- as if he could help it.  I watched as he, oblivious -as far as I could tell- to the imminent dangers all around him, went about his waspish business.  Needling the bits of debris and shoe dirt that littered the concrete over which he casually crawled.  Wasn’t he, regardless of his ontological situation, much happier than I?  Is ignorance truly bliss?

I talked to this wasp for nearly a half hour.  I’m sure I looked positively INSANE sitting there talking to what most likely appeared to be myself.  But I didn’t care.  I grew quite attached to that little wasp.  I even imagined his wasp wife and six hundred wasp babies (how many babies does can one wasp even have?).  At any rate, I was reluctant to leave him.  And I was in tears, actually.  Not particularly in mourning for what was sure to be his untimely demise beneath the rubber tread of some high end brand of shoe, but because I still didn’t know the answers to these questions.  Because that wasp didn’t even give me a hint.  Because these weren’t just questions.  They aren’t just questions to me.  They mean everything.

Now, just a bit in my own defense, I was at the height of an existential crisis at this point- neck deep in metaphysics, existential writings, communist manifestos, Rand, Nietzsche, Freire, Kierkegaard, Kant… and I was all on my own.  I hadn’t even had a philosophy class at this point- just a mental breakdown a lot of free time.  I’m not much better off now, but I’m not in quite the crisis mode I was in then.  I just keep looking for the answer to the question that Camus poses- the question that strikes me with a deep panic- “why not kill yourself?”. Of course, philosophy is exactly where NOT to look if you want definitive answers.  But in truth, I’ve come to know that I’ll never accept any answer.  My desire to die will manage to unravel every strand of logic or faith, and I’ll still say, but what is the ANSWER?  However, I do passionately enjoy philosophy.  Reading it, studying it, laying awake all night pulling my hair out and worrying over it… it’s all very grand.  Anyways, that’s why I think I was sent into a panic over this wasp.

This is why, when I saw that squwasp (squashed wasp… do ya like that? hehe)  today, I thought THAT’S HIM! and then I was utterly down.  I knew logically that of course that couldn’t be him.  He’d have long ago been scraped off of someone’s shoe.  But still, I couldn’t help but entertain the idea.  And I was bereft.  I thought… his whole life he must have been crawling to get here (this was a fair distance from where we’d had our conversation previously).  His whole life he worked to travel to THIS spot, and it all ends for him here?  He never accomplished anything.  He never MEANT anything.  He may not have even known he was a wasp.  he probably didn’t even know that he WAS.  And here he is.  Dead.  Squashed.  Nothing… ground into the concrete.  I just couldn’t help but mourn a bit.  For him and, honestly, for my own futility.  For my own existential nothingness.  For meaning less to me than that wasp did.

So yes. That is the tale of the philosophizing wasp.

A riveting tale of my own neurotic existential crisis.

It always ends up there… huh.

Oh to shave it all off…

ARGH.  Sometimes, I truly wish that I weren’t so afraid of people.  That I would make a friend, instead of hiding from the ones I already can’t get rid of.  (I mean that in the best possible way, of course…)  Because it’s times like these that I wish there were someone here to tell me to stop.  SOMEONE to care enough, and to understand, and to take my hand away from my hair, and my scalp.  And just tell me, lovingly,  to STOP IT.  To stop pulling out my hair.  To stop picking at my scalp until it’s bleeding and looks positively… diseased.

I suppose it is though.
Insanity is a disease, isn’t it?

I’d rather be bald.  I’d rather have no hair, as opposed to this disgusting compulsion to pull the hair I’ve got, out.  I ought to just shave it all off.  I wish that I were courageous. That I didn’t become crippled with social anxiety when I feel self-conscious.  I wish that I didn’t care.
WHY do I do this?  Pull pull pull pull pull.  PULL PULL PULL PULL PULL PULL.

And before I know it, there’s hair EVERYWHERE.  And I get that itchy, tickling feeling.  Like I’m positively covered in hair. Like I’m crawling out of my skin because the hair is all over me.  Like it’s everywhere- every strand taunting me.  Mocking me.  As if to say ha HA! We are free and you are a failure, and don’t you just look like a balding fool!

As if to make even more evident the fact that I’ve got no self control.  No common sense.  No… anybody.   I’ve got no one to take my hands and say please stop.  Please stop ruining yourself.  Please stop being so crazy.

Please do not pull out your hair.  Do not, in a fit, cut the majority of what precious little hair you have left all off.  Again.  Do not, for heaven’s sake, keep cutting and cutting and pulling and then cutting.

But no, it is, of course, only me.  Just me left to my own devices.  All alone to wallow in the shame of knowing that I cannot even do a proper job of making a mess of my life.

I’m not lonely. I’m desperate.  I’m desperate to be relieved of my duties of a living, breathing, responsible human being.

I want so badly to succumb to these fits of raging crazy and just LET. GO.

I want to be allowed. Won’t anybody tell me it’s ok to go?  To let go and finally leave?  Won’t anybody please give me permission?
Won’t anybody please just tell me it’s ok to sleep?

So which do I want?  To continue on like this alone until I inevitably die, or to be helped and to be controlled?  Neither, I guess.

What I want is to be allowed to die.  I just don’t want to die alone.  I need permission, because at least that means someone else was involved. That I wouldn’t be dying so profoundly alone.

I’m terrible at living.

Ah well. I suppose I’m just feeling sorry for myself, at this point.
But that’s something I’m good at, after all.

Besides, this is my ridiculously futile and long-whinded blog.  I can be self-indulgent if I want.

From everything in sight, to nothing at all.

It’s happened.

The moment where no matter how fervently I deny it, no matter how much rationalizing I do, no matter how much I constantly THINK, I simply cannot continue to convince myself that I don’t have a problem.

Oh but not to worry, this admission of adversity or “disease” is isolated strictly to my nasty habit of stuffing my face and vomiting.  The rest is still safely tucked away in my “oh no no no, it’s nothing, just don’t think about it” file.  PHEW.

Anyways, why have I been broken, at last, of my denial?

The worst. binge. ever. Sincerely.  Last night has taken its place (and rightfully so) at the top of my “worst episodes of mental instability of all time” list.  I shudder to think about it, honestly.   And I guess I can’t actually pinpoint why, which is strange.  I’ve compiled a list of a few of the generally awful things about it.

1) Waste of money.  I spent thirty dollars that I didn’t have to spare on one “binge” … or whatever.

2) Painful.  Oh the stomach pains.  Oh the bloating.  Oh the throat ache.  Oh the pain that I am in right now, nearly 24 hours later, because of it.  ick.

3) humiliating.  Not only is it utterly devastating for me to endure buying that sort of food in front of people (I have SEVERE shoppers anxiety–somehow I manage to sincerely believe that every other shopper in the entire store is judging me harshly and spreading malicious rumors about me based solely on what I am purchasing), but there’s something about being bent over a shopping bag in the far corner of your dorm room throwing up thirty dollars worth of disgusting junk food that just really delivers a blow to the ole pride.  Not to mention the smell. (yeah yeah, tmi. imagine how I felt) and the fact that the girls living next door to me probably think that I’m utterly crackers now.  I had music blaring and the sink running to try and drown out the sounds of my desperate gagging.

4) dishonest.  Everything I ate was absolutely NOT vegan.  Like… terribly not vegan.  I LIKE being vegan.  I made the choice.  it belongs to me and yet, I find myself feeling utterly worthless and overwhelmingly guilty when I imagine anyone finding out that I had dared ingest something containing animal products.  I feel like utter… shit, to be quite frank.  And I don’t even curse.  But that’s how I feel.

5) totally out of control.  I hadn’t even planned it.  I didn’t WANT to.  It was almost as if I HAD to go to the store and deliberately buy the food.  I don’t enjoy the shame of buying all that food.  I hate to spend what precious little money I have.  I hate the feeling of being nauseatingly full.  I HATE having to throw up.  And lemme tell ya, I had to throw up a bunch just to accommodate the sheer volume of the food that I ate.  I HATE having to deal with the mess, and then the slew of emotions that follow.  I hate all of it.  And yet, I couldn’t not do it.  There’s some part of me that wanted to.  Or had to… was going to no matter what.  And I can’t deny the pleasure that I derive from the fill up and empty cycle.  It’s like… when I purge the stuff I eat, I feel somehow… sated.  Not nutritionally, of course.  Mentally, somehow.  Something is being filled.  Only for a moment.  A fleeting moment of… bliss.  and then it’s over.  And this happens.  I can’t say I have control anymore.  Because I don’t make these decision.  They are making me, I guess.

Those are just a FEW things.  I will spare myself the shame and embarrassment of disclosing any real details.  Not that anybody would want to hear them anyways… but if I were going to punish myself properly, I’d subject myself to it nonetheless. But obviously I have been slacking in the punishment department. Or else I’d be more disciplined.

ANYWAYS.  That episode was a bit of a last straw.  I feel desperate to stop this.  I DO NOT WANT THIS.  All the other stuff I do sort of impulsively…whatever.  I can handle it.  But I can’t handle this. I can’t keep doing this, but I can’t stop.

The desperation got to the point that I ACTUALLY considered (and I mean really seriously considered) getting help. Like… from a real person, with real credentials and everything.  In fact, I was almost set on it.  And then I tried to make some physical motion towards it.
Just get up.
just walk across campus, walk right into the office and say it flat out.  Say you need help.
be objective.
no big deal.
It’s NO big deal.
You are allowed to need help.
people need help sometimes.
And then… I was paralyzed with fear.  With the realization that I will never be able to ask for help on my own.  That I am utterly terrified, and as much as I would love help, I’m never going to let myself have it.  I CAN’T.

I can’t decide if this is weakness, or strength.  My mind won’t let me think about it.  I get so scared.

I guess that makes me weak.

BUT, I wasn’t joking when I said that I wanted out of this.  I can’t doing this whole throwing up thing.  It’s begun to hurt me in obvious ways that I can’t ignore, and it’s impeding my progress.

Cavities, ulcers, dizzy spells, awful awful awful digestion, mental and physical exhaustion, and something a bit more serious (or so it would seem)… my heart has starting doing flip flops again.  I thought this boat had sailed when I got control of my vomiting way back when. But I guess it’s made a bit of a 360 and come to bite me in the arse.  At any rate, my heart sometimes skips beats and does this really funny-feeling flip in my chest.  I can’t breathe for a moment, and my head feels frozen or something and after the acrobatics, I feel alright.  Just a tad out of breathe.  It’d be pretty embarrassing to die of a heart attack or some other such nonsense because I couldn’t keep my fat mouth shut and quit eating and throwing up.  I may want to die, but I don’t want to die THAT way.  (yeah, I don’t get it either.)

So I’m done with it.  But I have no control, as I said.  I always end up doing it.  I can’t stop.

SO, I’m going on a fast.  A water fast, to be exact.

YES, I have done my research.  I know the science behind it, and I know how to go about it, and how to end it as well.  Now, I guess since I’ve got anonymity on my side, it’s safe to be honest: I don’t really care about doing it safely.  I don’t really care what happens to me?  I mean, I have always had this strange preoccupation with dying the RIGHT way.  It makes no sense, but I have a set conception of which ways I would die, and which ways I wouldn’t.  FAT.  that’s how I don’t want to die.  I have panic attacks sometimes, when I imagine being a dead thing.  A large dead thing. I imagine that the paramedics would make fun of me for being such a heavy dead thing.  Maybe make jokes with the dispatcher and the ambulance driver, or go home and tell their families about the horribly fat dead girl they had to haul around.  And I imagine my parents drifting hopelessly from store to store because they can’t find a casket big enough to fit their huge dead daughter.  (disclaimer:  I’m not actually THAT large in reality.  I know that… sort of.  I mean, I blend in just fine.  I fit into regular accommodations-chairs, seat-belts, beds, etc.  but then, something in my head doesn’t agree.  I don’t know.  I dunno.  whatever. )  So yeah.  That’s no good.  But somehow dying from complications of a fast gone wrong doesn’t trigger panic.  So, I know the safe way  and intend to employ it just in case dying via fast does become a “bad” way to die.

Not to worry though, I have no intentions of starving myself to death.  I’m doing this for forty days in order to try and fix my body and fix my head.  And ultimately, try and fix my “relationship” with food, as they say.  If you are going to lecture me, don’t bother. I know that I’ll just gain a ton of wait when I get off the fast if I don’t eat properly etc. Currently, I eat a healthy, balanced vegan diet aside from the whole “binge and purge” thing.  I LIKE health foods and stuff.  I love to eat healthily.  I just can’t not vomit though.  And that’s what I aim to figure out.  I’m afraid that I’ll go right back into doing it after these forty days, but hopefully between now and then, I’ll figure a few things out?  I need this.  For the RIGHT reasons, for once.

I have to fix this.

I’m sick of being trapped.

So cheers *raises glass of water*, because this is the beginning of what will hopefully change things for the better.  I can do this.  I have to do this.

So there that is.

Oh and one more thing.  Because why not add on to the obscenely long post that nobody is going to read all the way through anyways?  ha.

I had a bit of a panic about my hair and decided (for whatever the heck reason) to cut it.  A lot of it.  And it was already very short.  And strategically designed to hide my massive bald patch (or mostly hide it.)  But I, being the BRIGHT individual that I am,  decided to chop chop chop chop away for quite some time.  The results?  I look epven MORE disgusting and ridiculous than I already did, AND my massive (like… half the back of my head) bald patch is just THERE.  Absolutely exposed for the world to see and ridicule accordingly.  I had one of those brave, screw what they think! moments.  Which obviously lasted for all of the three minutes before I actually walked out of the safety of my dorm room.  I can feel the freezing wind on my scalp, but that’s ok because it’s warmed right  back up by the hot glares of all the people walking behind me and sitting behind me in lecture, as well as the heat from my bright red embarrassed face.  And the only thing more humiliating than being humiliated is for people to see the humiliation all over your face. How would I even explain it if someone actually confronts me?  “oh yeah, I just pull it out.”  Like anybody is going to understand that.  So I’ve devised a few clever responses.  In fact, I’ve entertained myself with them all day.  They are delightful and witty (or so I’ve deluded myself to think) but even then, I know that I don’t have the lady balls to actually say anything to someone who confronts me.  Tsk tsk.  Such a waste.

So yeah, I’m coping with that… via withdrawing from social situations even further.  For which I really deserve some commendation.  Because I didn’t think you could GET any more withdrawn than I already was.  But once again, I go above and beyond. SUCH the overachiever.

Can I get a little recognition?

ha.

Why are you suicidal?

I had to answer this question.

What is the answer to this question?

Often it’s for existential reasons. The futility of existence sort of gets the best of me, I guess. For lack of a better explanation. Other times I just… am consumed with this inexplicable desire to die. Sometimes it’s to kill myself, others it’s to die a hapless and coincidental death, and often it’s simply the desire to disappear. I guess I have “reasons” in a temporal sense that would constitute suicide in so much that they are just as valid as the next average joe’s invalid reasons for being suicidal. But I don’t care about those that much I guess. But then, I do get incredibly overwhelmed with all the junk in my head sometimes, and with all the bad stuff I do. And that makes me want to die urgently… but that’s not the same as my existential dilemma.

So, I suppose I don’t even know why I’m suicidal.

I don’t know much of anything, after all.

The crazy creeps back in, and confessions.

I was convinced that my recent bout of misfortune could be directly attributed to my return home for christmas break.  My family makes me crazy.  Being socially obligated and exposed makes me crazy.

I thought that coming back to university would fix everything.  That I’d be magically “better”.  Or at least, to an extent.  As it turns out, I had no idea what crazy was when I was home.

I’ve been back at university for four days now.  First day:  I felt rather anxious, obsessive compulsive, and totally stressed.  This is because classes hadn’t started, and idle time is a TERRIBLE opportunity for me to obsess and dwell and go bonkers.

Day two:  Looking up!  I started a running program, did yoga, sorted out my financial aid, did my grocery shopping, had a lovely time in my classes, and felt generally well.  Until, of course, I decided to stuff my face and throw it up.
I know that, technically, this is called binging and purging.  But I feel so terribly uncomfortable using these terms.  Mainly because I perceive them as pertaining exclusively to bulimia, and I do not identify myself as bulimic.  The question of whether or not I “have bulimia” is one that constantly presents itself to me.  I do not know the answer. Seems it would be easily “diagnosed” because I *shudder* binge and purge at least two times a week, and this has been going on for quite some time.  It used to be upwards of six to ten times a day, but I got it under control on my own.  And then I lost control to some extent and here I am.  But, and I am literally nauseous as I confess this, I am still fat.  And NO I do not mean “fat” in the absurd, eating disordered manner.  I meant that I am textbook, absolutely, undeniably, objectively FAT. As in, I am medically considered obese.  And now I feel panic and embarrassment and shame and guilt and I am sure that not only will I be viewed as less of a person, but MORE of a fool for the nonsense about which I write, and over which I struggle.  How absolutely pathetic is it that I’ve “struggled” with constantly making myself throw up for nearly six years, and yet I am still so very obscenely fat?  I loathe myself for that (among other things.) I’ve just always been so out of control.  In all respects, I suppose.  So I couldn’t possibly have an eating disorder, could I, because those are all about being IN control.   Oops, tangent.  Where was I?

Right, well… anyways.  After I did this, I was completely anxiety and guilt ridden, afraid I hadn’t gotten it all, hating myself etc.  BECAUSE, I have actually been “turning a new leaf” or some such nonsense in terms of my… health?  Well, sort of.  Since about 7 months ago, I’ve lost a little under 60 pounds, over twenty of which I lost in my first semester at school.  Which, by the way, involved VERY little throwing up.  Or, at least until the end of the semester, when I began to lose control of myself.  When I went home for christmas break, I lost about ten more, maybe a bit less, and also really wanted to start running/doing yoga.  So, I did.  For the last four days, I have gotten up at five in the morning, gone for a half our walk/jog, and done yoga for about a half hour twice a day.  Now I KNOW that this is practically nothing, and that normal people would probably consider this a pathetic amount of exercise, but for me, it is a big accomplishment because it is consistency and commitment, two things with which I struggle immensely.  With this, I have ACTUALLY made myself a nutritionally balanced and modest “meal plan”, which is vegan and healthy and yummy etc.  But in just four days, somehow, I feel so out of control and so out of it altogether, that I am actually almost in tears.  I NEVER cry.  I haven’t actually cried since I watched the documentary “Earthlings”, and since I read the ending of the Book Thief.  And I can’t even remember the last time I cried over something pertaining to me personally.  I don’t express emotions well, obviously.  So being on the brink of tears is not only embarrassing and annoying, it is scary.  I intended to eat 1200 calories a day, balancing these calories between very healthy amounts of   protein, fiber, carbs, sugars, fats etc.  Healthy whole grains, fruit and veg, no processed sugar, and a LOT of water.  But for some reason I kept making changes and 1200 became just under 1000 but I figured hey, I’m FAT, less calories will be a GOOD thing.  I did well the first day, until I stuffed my face and threw up, but that wasn’t too bad.  The second day, I cut out fair amount of calories for some reason, but I felt good about it and so that was fine.  Today, I found myself almost obsessing.  I cut out a good amount of calories, ached over less than a teaspoon of raw organic sugar in my whole grain oatmeal, beat myself up over a small soy coffee, cut my dinner in half, (but that half was EXTREMELY healthy) and then sat and fought with myself over wether or not to throw up my whole dinner just because I ate the candy that the RA was handing out to all the girls in the dorm as some sort of silly welcome back nonsense.  WHY did I have to eat that stupid piece of candy?  Regardless though, it certainly wasn’t worth throwing up my whole dinner, which I needed in order to have proper energy for my morning run.  But I did throw it up.  And of course, I just threw up the salad I’d eaten, and couldn’t get the candy up.  So then, even though I didn’t want to, and even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to get it all up, I ate Oreos and drank diet coke.  And didn’t even throw it up.  So NOW, not only did I throw up the healthiest thing I ate today, but I also ate too much of something extremely unhealthy, and kept it down.  And I just keep thinking, “you can’t eat anything tomorrow.”   This is RIDICULOUS.  I KNOW that it’s only been four days, and I can’t possibly have become this much more neurotic in that short amount of time, right?  I’ve gone days before without eating, but that has always been just as out of control as eating everything, which I inevitably always end up doing.  THIS is different.  This feels different.  This feels like something I can’t help.  Like something that I am not so sure I want.  But then, I do.  I think what I’m afraid of is failure. NOt sickness.  Not insanity.  But failure.  I’m more afraid of the junk I kept down than of the possibility of developing a proper eating disorder.  But it’s not just that.  It’s not just that at all.

It’s the crazy that is creeping in again.  That black wave.  That ambivalence.  The cold.  The frozen feeling, like nothing is anything.  It isn’t even numbness really.  It’s nothing.  Totally antiseptic. Sterile.  But also despairing.  Also hopeless.  Suicidal.  Terribly, terribly suicidal.  But it isn’t suicide that bothers me so much as the cognitive dissonance arising from my insatiable desire to die, and my desperate need to follow the rules, go through the motions, and please everybody- which means keeping all of this a secret at all costs.  And if I’m dead, then it obviously isn’t a secret.  My wrists burn and scream and itch and practically glow in their potential to be opened.  Why do I want to cut THERE so badly?  Because the potential for fatal harm is so much greater?  Because it feel so much better, so much more satisfying? Because the scars there are so delicate, and pretty?  But then people will see, and so I cannot cut there.  I fell so fast last night into my own head.  When I forgot how poisonous silence can be.  My roommate moved out, so I’m by myself, which  I prefer, but it is so quiet.  And it crept in.  All of it, and crashed around disorganizing the order I’d established in these past few days of rigid rules, study, exercise, and restriction.  I felt utterly overwhelmed and I frantically searched for something with which to cut my arms.  Anything.  Finally, a box cutter.  I allowed myself one cut on the side of forearm, towards my elbow, because I know that nobody will see it there.  I felt rage when the cut wasn’t deep enough.  And I felt nauseous when it was.  I hadn’t eaten in hours, and then just salad leaves, so I felt faint and clammy.  I nearly passed out, bleeding all over the sink.  I cleaned up and told myself no more.  That was enough.  But somehow, even though I didn’t want to, I did, and I made more cuts on my upper arm where nobody would see.  I was cutting through layers of new and slightly older scar tissue and I kept pushing as hard as I could, but still they weren’t deep enough.  They never are.  I don’t know how many I made. I don’t care.  I went to sleep sick with myself, but feeling calmer.  Today, I found myself apathetic to topics in class which usually, I would engage in and discuss with fervor.  I spent nearly two whole studio hours of observational drawing frantically trying to perfect one box.  One box.  While the rest of the class finished page after page of complete sketches, which included about 15 boxes per sketch.  I walk around in a daze.  And now I realize, with despair, that my despair, the despair of Kierkegaard’s sickness unto death, is not that of a will to not to will to be myself, but perhaps of my will to be myself.  That I am irreconcilably nailing myself to myself through a fatal misrelation.  That I will die death.  And I will never die.

It is with shame and guilt and a nagging sense of absurdity, even in this heavy and desperate despair, that I admit this:

 

I need help.

It’s hitting the fan… on the floor?

You know that figure of speech: “the sh*t is hitting the fan”?

Well I was thinking about how things are right now and I thought that they may qualify as “hitting the fan,” but then I realized also that I have reached an all time low.  That I may even be approaching a rock bottom stage.  How are these things possible?  That my life is sh*t hitting a fan, but that it is also way low down in the rockiest pits in the floor (I’ve never actually seen rocky pits in a floor…).  Perhaps it’s only one or the other?  Or perhaps mine is a box fan.  Those live on the floor.  Perhaps I’m living in a rock pit inlayed in the floor and there is a box fan for the sh*t to hit?  I’m really not sure.  Maybe I’m thinking too much into it?

Nah.

Anyways, things have been rather unpleasant.  But then I guess that’s a lie.  They haven’t actually been much of anything.  Or rather, I feel pretty ambivalent towards the way things have been but I know in my head that technically, these things ought to be unpleasant.  Where to start?

Or should I even start at all?  This “blog” has become, for whatever reason, a source of guilt for me.  I feel self-indulgent and selfish for coming here and writing-or actually whining- about my so called “problems.”  I feel guilty because I want people to read it.  I don’t know why I want people to read it.

Am I allowed to want that?

I haven’t even been in here in ages. Because everything makes me afraid.  Sitting still to read or write or think makes me afraid.  The thought of organizing or handling my classes/books/packing/financial aid makes me afraid.  I get this gnawing, aching, burning, uncomfortable feeling when I think about trying to approach these things.  Even people make me afraid.  Answering phone calls and texts (especially phone calls) and small talk make me very afraid.  Eye contact makes me afraid.

All of these things, of course, lead to procrastination and I get so terribly stressed.  My stomach burns and I have this sense of impending doom all of the time.  I feel ill.

I am too ashamed to admit this to anybody but a mass of practically nonexistent strangers on the internet, but I’m afraid to go back to school.  I’m afraid that I will spend so much time under this black wave of illness that I will not be able to keep up with my school work.  I am afraid that my vomiting will spiral out of control, and I am also afraid that it will not.  I am very afraid that I will finally break and be unable to prevent myself from cutting up my wrists.  And then people will see, and I will be in trouble.  I am afraid that I will make friends, and I am also afraid that I might not make any.

And in a twisted way, I am terrified that this semester, I will die.  Twisted because that is also what I want.

I am scared of this feeling that I have lately.  Like I am lonely.  Like I want so irresistibly to reach out to someone, or for someone to reach out to me.  I’m scared because I want someone to tell me it’s ok.  To care about me.  I hate that I want to be cared about.  I hate myself immensely for wanting that.

I am incorrigible.  I do not want to be given advice.  I do not want to be saved.  I want to be allowed to crash and burn and unzip my arms and die.  But some evil, ugly, disgusting part of me wants an audience.  What else could I possibly want?  What else could it mean that I want to die but that I want someone to care about that fact?  No decent human being would want someone to care about a lost cause.  Especially one determined to be lost.

All of this fear is making me sick.

Going to school will make me ill enough to die.
Or at least, I hope so.

But also, I don’t.

The Library

Listless meandering brings me, in the thick excess of unoccupied time, to double doors demanding silence on scotch tape signs.  I silence my cell phone and step inside where the blue glow of computer screens reflected in enraptured eyes casts eery incandescent shadows on dusty countertops and cheap geometric carpet designs.  The silence roars, breaking only briefly for the occasional cough or the printer’s restless readjustment.  Further exploration and I find myself confronted by another set of heavy double doors accessing a staircase winding round and out of sight in depths perfectly suited for diversion.  Cool, thick air rises to meet me on my descent, breathing heavily over my shoulder as I weave through seemingly endless shelves, one after the other, each cradling an unfathomable quantity of information.  Eager looking leads me forward through streams of seeping knowledge.  Puddles have gathered at the edge of every precipice, a strand of swollen pearls adorning sagging shelves.  The breeze of readers perusing aisles breathes relief on surface tension.  From afar I watch the frenzied breaking free of thick divergent streams.  I quietly follow, taking care where I place my feet, crouching low to see.  No one seems to notice as it passes beneath tables, weaves through chair legs, slips beneath plush cushions, settling in amongst bits of notebook paper, crumbs, and copper-colored pennies.  If I hold my breath now, I can hear it, barely audible: the titles belonging to books whose authors have long since died.  They call to me, feeble and sweet, in foreign tongues.  Tickling whispers rise, clouded mist from creeping streams.  The din of whispers presses itself tightly into corners, expanding porous yellowed walls. Deafening static signals the disintegration of cellophane packaging.  I can open my eyes now, and the shelves have grown infinite.  I watch them growing longer still through oily fingerprints and the fog my breath makes on the now transparent glass of possibility. I choose a tantalizing aisle and sit cross-legged, dwarfed by vast potential.  There are no distractions here, to rob me of a lifetime of delicious diversion.  There are other students still, but still it’s only me. Even so, this boundless space is warm and crowded.  I sit surrounded by the authors of each volume.  They stand by their work, or crouch, or lie.  Not ghosts; they are theories, hypothesis, plots, citations, revolutionary change, and prose so beautiful it’s heart breaking.  They occupy the empty spaces between dust particles, binding thread, and musty pages, gently urging me to unfold covers who’s spines have settles into the deep crevices of repetitive use.  Thousands of authors sit and keep me company.  Humbly, and with great wisdom offering up their pages to me.  Warping, yellowed pages, millions of them, stained with all the things that I could be.  I skim the rows with fingertips,  tactile exchanges with the worn leather and canvas skins of volumes I may never read.  Being is enough, though.  Sitting in the nowness of it all is enough, greedily breathing musty, word weighted air until it saturates my lungs and settles in my mind where it will expand, unfurling my ignorance.  I’ll stretch out, lay down and let the knowledge soak into my clothes.  Before I leave I’ll fold the universe into myself, curl up and never let it go.  I will sit quietly and breathe until my corners are stacked high, floors cluttered, surfaces consumed.  Then I’ll start to read.  I’ll hide beneath the covers in flashlight illumination and carefully unfold the universe that I’d tucked away.  One piece at a time.  I’ll complete myself with all the words I’ve never read, the characters I’ve never met and the books I’ll never open.  I’ll replace the broken parts with hard back bits and patch the tears with times new roman pages.   And then I’ll be. But for now I’ll browse the aisles with fingertips, admire neatly scripted titles, shuffle loudly ’round, and breathe.  I’ve got no time to waste though, there’s too much ground to cover in the space beyond this basement space.  After all, this is a library.  There’s never been a bigger place.

It’s all very regular

If I could change things…

No, a bad beginning.

 

If my life were just the way I wanted to be, it would look like…

No.  Too many if’s.

 

Were I to be my ideal self, I would be…

No. Not that either.

 

I want…

No. Too selfish.

 

There is nothing to write about.  There are not things to think about.  There are no things.

There is nothing.

There is.

There.

 

The.

 

T.

 

So it’s down to this: T.

 

T is for Time.  Time of which there is far too much, and never enough.  Zoom out, and there is an endless eternity.  An overabundance which overwhelms and nauseates.

Zoom out is far too much.  TOO MUCH.

 

MUCH MUCH MUCH.

 

ZOOM IN.

 

There is less and all the less adds up to much too much as well.

How can there always be too much, even when I only allow myself a little?

 

I zoom in and there a thousand things to do.  To think.  To see. To think. To think think think. To Cognize and consider.  Too many little tasks and too many aspirations.  To pan is to dive with my eyes wide shut into a gelatinous vat of existential crisis.

 

I can’t breath.

 

But out or in, there is one motif.  One recurring thought.

Sometimes a desire.

 

Sometimes a fear.

 

Always there.

 

DEATH.

 

No, more specific katie. You HAVE to be specific.

 

They simply MUST know.

 

You’ve got to tell them.

And know yourself.

 

Not death, but… SUICIDE.

 

Suicide.

 

The final slice.

A shattered window whose bits I will not be sweeping up.

An “accidental” vehicular incident.

A bullet.

A bottle once full of pills.

 

No.

It would be my wrists.

Not for the theatrics.  I fancy I’d be able to somehow contain the mess and clean it up before I finally died.

Two tidy slices.  Straight, that satisfy.

 

I picture it.  I fantasize.  I see the tender, pale, white skin of my inner arms and I picture it yawning open.

 

Like a zipper.

 

I picture my wincing.  I would wince. I know. And clench my teeth.

 

But I will not be closing my eyes.

 

I will watch.

 

And I will pour out.

seep out.

ooze out.

coagulate a minute too late.

 

And I will sleep.

 

Somehow, I always also imagine an exit strategy.  I imagine being found and waking up in a hospital.  I panic as I create a scenario in which I am exposed.  All my secrets hung out.  I am naked, de-robed of all my secrets.  Rocking back and forth in a starch white jumper on a window sill in some asylum.

This is wrong.  This is wrong because I know that in REALITY, nobody would find me.  I don’t want them to.  That defeats the purpose, right?  RIGHT?

 

In reality, it would be nothing after. After I leaked out, bad right down to the last drop, that would be IT.

 

be IT.

IT.

T.

 

Back where I started.

 

What was I saying?

I don’t know.

I never stray into my head.  That’s why I am constantly eating vicodin like candy.  And Adderall.  And whatever else I can find.  Because I can’t be in my head.  I can’t go there.

 

But no matter where I am, my wrists go with me.  There is always traffic. Or several stories up.  There is always an exit strategy. Even in church.  In prayer.  In bed. In my sleep.

 

IN MY HEAD.

 

Am I allowed to say these things?  Am I ALLOWED to tell even the anonymous shadowy figures of the internet about these things?  About the zippers in my arms?  About the “suicidal ideations”?

 

I bought a movie today. And a t-shirt.  I hung out with old friends. We went to the mall.

 

It was all very regular.

_____ New Year

I believe “HAPPY” is the appropriate term for that blank in the title.  But then, I suppose that’s supposed to be up to me to decide, now isn’t it?  After all, it is MY new year.  No offense though.  That’s not to say that it isn’t your new year as well.  By all means, make 2012 your year as well.  We don’t even have to share.  (especially since there isn’t really any we.)

But seriously.  I was thinking about that today.  A little late on the uptake, I know.  But I the only ringing-in of this new years was in my ears, while I was passing out in a pool of ginger ale on the kitchen floor.  Suffice it to say, I was NOT a jolly good fellow.  Or whatever song they sing on new years.  I’ve had some sort of terrible flu for the past week.  The kind where my eyes go dark and my ears ring and I’m down for the count every time I try to go to the bathroom, or to the kitchen for a glass of ginger ale, for that matter.  But no matter.  Today I am starting to feel better, and I began to think about the “new” year.  But what’s new about it?  Aside from the fact that, according to man’s construct of “time” it’s the beginning of a “new” calendar year.  I can’t even think about the past year.  Today I realized that last year, this year, next year… it all means nothing to me.  It’s just… a blank.  Or a blur, or a smudge, or a bottomless pit.  Whatever.  The way I’m living isn’t even properly miserable.  If I’m going to be the cynic, aren’t I at least supposed to have some sort of perspective?  If I’m going to be the problem child, don’t I have to TELL someone about my problems?  And even if I were going to be the lonely, pathetic, miserable oaf,  aren’t I at least supposed to be wallowing in some sort of misery?

I am not miserable.

I am not anything at all.

That’s not ok with me.

My only resolutions for this “new year”  were to drink more water and floss my teeth (I know, I’m a big over-achiever.)  But when I realize how blank and empty and devoid of meaning that my existence is, it doesn’t fuel my suicidal ideation.  It makes me afraid of death.  I realize that even if I kill myself, I’ll still be nothing.  Nothing more than a question mark, at least.  Can you believe it, I even try to lie to myself about being afraid of death.  In my mind, I don’t want to be the kind of person who is afraid of death, so I work hard to convince myself that no, I am NOT afraid of death.  But now, I think I am.  Because I think I HAVE hit rock bottom.  Because what can be more rock bottom than the point where your life is even more pointless than death?

On the other hand, at least I’d feel something in Hell.

Happy 2012, everybody.