Monday, June 12, 2006

how exactly do we get to the zest?


zest of lemon
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.
so i feel the need to write about this because i've realized that 4 years have passed by. yeah, other amounts of time have also passed by. but i have an event that is very specific in mind.

i had to make a choice. live or die. it was that simple and it was that complex all at once. after hardly eating for weeks, not being able to leave the house, hardly being able to get out of bed...i had to take a gamble one way or another. either end everything right now or pick up the phone.

i wish that i could say that that was it. just call the health center, come in somehow, leave it up to them, and then i'd be fixed up and ready to go. i was ready to leave the sad girl behind, slap a sticker on my ass that said "sponsored by eli lilly," and join in the stepford brigade (that term was soooo much better before the latest remake of the movie). i was at the end, after all...did it matter any more if the meds made me some altogether different person, destroyed the sad girl that was a part of who i was? because let's not deny it...if she were gone, there'd go my empathy, my feelings of outrage when the world sucks ass, my late night crazy philosophical wanderings.

but i didn't care anymore. for years and years i'd been telling myself that taking meds would mean killing off who i am and that i'd be changed forever. and what if i didn't like that other "new" person. they kept saying that it would be "you, only better" and wtf did that mean? but when you you smack yourself out of catatonic depression enough to realize that you could, indeed, just die or you could try to live as someone else...when you've finally found rock bottom...what would it hurt to try and take something that will at least make you go through some kind of instant reincarnation?

yeah right. instant reincarnation. the truth is that it takes weeks and months and different types of meds and dosages and it makes you wish that thorazine was over the counter because it's all not working fast enough...but the thing was that i wasn't really all that changed after all was said and done. fuck yeah, even now i have days where my brain only wants to sit around and point out my flaws, i have days where i can't get out of bed, i have days where (at least in my mind) it seems that it would be easier for everyone if i wasn't around.

but it's not. i guess after her boyfriend committed suicide last month and she said "he was my everything" it started to dawn on me that it's not really an act that no really notices. maybe it seems better to unburden the world of you, maybe it's altruistic? maybe you are somehow saving the world by pulling yourself out of the running...nature...nurture...whose side are you on?

so i'm telling you this because i do get it. i get that the sad girl comes with the package deal. but the sad girl makes you notice when she's left the room, even if it's only for a moment. the sad girl makes you see the things others miss, forces you to confront it. the sad girl covers the angry girl and vice versa and, yeah, i'm still trying to pull them apart but without them...i don't really know who i'd be. i guess all i'm trying to say is that you aren't really alone...in fact, you are another member of our club. i wish that wasn't the case but since it is, i'm glad you are here too. because you know what it's like, because you DO get it, because now we're all a little less alone in the dark wood.

No comments: