Tales to Astonish!

I’m sitting here, alone in my apartment, with a bottle of pills sitting on the desk in front of me.

I don’t know any life other than the life I’ve been living since I was twelve. Chronic severe depression aggravated by family experiences, the doctor told me last night, as if it might be a surprise. Chemical imbalance with relationship and environmental problems, since the sixth grade. This is my life, and has been my life for a long, long time. I’ve survived.

I don’t know what it’s like to be happy. I’m not even sure I’m completely acquainted with being okay. I’ve managed. I’ve stayed alive, even through the times when I was suicidal, and with a lot of help from caring friends I’ve gotten to the point where I am right now; I’m sitting here, in my own New York City apartment, with a bottle of pills in front of me.

When I was in the sixth grade, one of my most important teachers sat me down, privately, and took a piece of torn-off paper and wrote one, single, important word on it.

“Cope.”

Get by. Go along to get along. Survive.

And I did. I managed. I got through high school, and the dark days of college. And believe me, if there was ever a place where depression was heralded as ‘necessary,’ it’s art school. It was normal. It was prized. It was accepted, by me, up until the point where I sat in my friend Chorben’s kitchen and in tears said, “If I don’t get help, I’m going to die.”

And there was a social worker, helping me through it for a few sessions until my coverage ran out. And after that, I coped. I managed, by myself, with my friends making sure that my lows weren’t too low. I started taking St. John’s Wort, and that’s kept me from being suicidal. But now I know that “not suicidal” isn’t any way to live a life.

I’ve tempered every dream I ever had, every goal and every inspiration with the knowledge that I’m impaired. I know that my brain doesn’t work like it should. I know that I get discouraged too easily, and feel pain too deeply. I’ve held myself back.

I’ve even denied help, which is the worst part. Sluggish to move, resistant to get the kind of help that can really change my life. I’ve hurt myself, and the people I love, denying them what they deserve from me, and denying myself what I deserve. I don’t know any life other than the one that I’ve had since I was twelve, and it terrifies me to think that there’s some other way to live. I don’t want to think that I’ve fucked up enough to not find it before, and I don’t want to think that I’m too fucked up to get it now.

For the past fourteen years, I’ve built my life around coping. My affectations became habits, and my habits became addictions. The drinking and smoking and distractions became me, became who I was. They were strategies to me, and were interesting quirks to other people, who became friends based on — at least, in part — my quirks. I have to end them to change my life, and they’re all a large part of my life.

I might wake up one day, four weeks from now, and not need them. I might wake up in a month and not be the same person that’s writing this, and that’s the only person I know how to be. There’s a bottle of pills in front of me, small, tiny pills, only a quarter the size of my pinky nail, and they could change my entire life.

They might not, of course. They might make me gain weight, lose weight, put me to sleep, or wake me up; I could be happy, for the first time in my life, or they could push me further down. But they’re a chance, and one that I know I have to take, even if I’m afraid of losing everything that I’ve relied on, everything that I know. Everyone knows me as I am now, and that’s all I know, too. I’m afraid, but that’s okay.

There’s a bottle of pills in front of me, and I take the first one in the morning.

A while back, I wrote a post about my friend Erica’s mother, who had fallen gravely ill and been hospitalized. Despite my inclinations to the contrary, I asked for those who believe to take a moment and say a prayer or two for her survival and recovery. Since then, she did get better; but in an unfortunate twist, she’s taken a sudden turn for the worse, and the next forty-eight hours are crucial.

Again, I’ve been asked to call for prayers and kind thoughts for her. Regardless of your beliefs or lack thereof, it would mean a great deal to her and her family if you would once again pray to whatever or whoever you believe in on her behalf.

Let pictures speak louder than words:

Pure. Awesome.

Y’hear that, Lady Retropolitan? We’ve received orders.

Extra special thanks to my pals Doug and Mary, who got me the book for Christmas.

One day, everything will end.

Out of nowhere, the skies will open up, and the light of Heaven will shine down as Jesus sweeps up the faithful to their eternal reward in a moment that will stand remembered for all eternity. The true believers of the world will be carried away from their mortality in an instant, leaving behind an earth full suddenly-ended lives. Their kettles will scream unabated, the coffee in their mugs will go cold; also, their blogs will stop being updated. I have a feeling that the rapture has already come to the blogosphere, because I’ve been trolling through a lot of lapsed blogs.

Last Post from Harsh Reality:

November 23, 2004, “A Rock and a Hard Place”

Drinking wine…way too much wine…listening to tunes…knowing I’m about to go where I shouldn’t…where I said I wouldn’t…into unchartered territory that is so dangerous, yet so intoxicating and irresistable.

It’s been so long…but not at all.

It’s been so strange, but also comfortable.

Anxiety, curiosity, dread, hope, confidence, fear…so many things words can’t describe.

Ohhhh, what to do. Caught between a rock and a hard place…

This one sounds like he’s actually watching Jesus come down. He’s even drinking Jesus’ own blood, although it sounds like he’s had too much of the magic plasma. So, it’s really a toss-up: taken home by divine will, or had too much to drink and hit his head on the table, to have his body found weeks later after the rent went unpaid for the standard 45 days of unresponsiveness? Or, for the long shot, stolen by Satan for abusing the ellipsis?

Last post from Confessions of a Coffeeholic:
September 5, 2004, Untitled

It’s been awhile, but I’m back and ready to post. With the elections, Hurricane Frances, NYC protests, and such, there’s much to write about….

Poor woman never knew what hit her. She was so, so excited to get back to blogging, to fill her online journal with amusing stories about recent life changes — but all she saw was a flash of lightning, and the roar of God’s hand tearing open the sky to pull her towards His ever-loving embrace. Also possible: actually was a coffeeholic, and was the center of an intervention that led her into a rehab clinic. Unfortunately, the rehab clinic offered free coffee and she never fully recovered. It could really go either way.

Last post from Amethyst Muse:

September 5, 2005, “Test”

Test of the blogger for word capabilities.

Sometimes, the Lord takes them way, waaaay before their prime. Maybe He was getting a little jumpy. At any rate, Amethyst Muse knew one thing before she was whisked off to her new kingdom: yes, Blogger for Word did, in fact, work. It’s good to go out on a high note.

Last post from the Atheist Historian:

From August 5, 2004, “Get smart: boost your brain through machines”

AI is Artificial Intelligence. Or, as in this case, Amplified Intelligence. Sign in to see full entry.

This one’s kind of a shocker, because of the out-and-out rejection of God and all, but it just goes to show you that you never can tell what Jesus is up to. Who says the Christ doesn’t like to mix it up a little bit? Perhaps they just needed a pool boy. I happened to sign in to read the full post, and it went something like this:

OMG so I totally put on the brain-probe’s suction cups, and suddenly liek I can do all this math. I’m tearing through algebra now guyz!!!!!!!!! Although, on the other hand, it’s starting to tingle… as if the cosmos were creating a swirling vortex of unimaginable, nigh-unperceivable rifts floating along the edges of my synaptic pathways. There seems to be something beyond this world; this device has given me a sight beyond vision, beyond what any mortal has ever experienced! My pulse is racing! I have become

—

Hey, look, the Pope.

Weird, huh? Well, mysterious ways and all that. Maybe there IS something to all this “god chatter” I keep hearing. For the time being, though, it looks like I’m stuck here on earth with you guys.

At least I have my blog to keep me occup

A brief post to think about this morning before I finish my other post:

Wang Chung used to be called “Huang Chung,” until they signed with Geffen Records in 1982.

A little later on, they released “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” and “Let’s Go,” earning them a permanent place in my heart. Also: the guy from Wang Chung looks a lot like a pissed-off Sting.

This post was sponsored by the Creative Labs Jukebox Zen Xtra MP3 player’s “Shuffle” button.