Into the void...
“That night she sat for hours, too numb even to drink, teaching herself to breathe in a vacuum. For this, oh God, was the void. There was nobody who could help her. Nobody in the world. They were all on something, mad, possible enemies, dead.”
-Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
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2003-06-09
4:33 p.m.
The people in my office are reading a magazine article about modern psychiatric drugs. There are about five of them standing up there laughing over the damn thing because of what the drugs supposedly do and what the people in the article have to say about the drugs. Before I get really upset, I feel it important to note that I know for a fact that at least two of the people up there are currently on or have previously been on some of those drugs.
You would think they’d know better.
I went up to them and looked over their shoulders for a moment to feign curiosity (although I can hear every damn word they’re saying from my desk), and I was told from behind a grotesquely wide smile, “We’re reading a really funny article about drugs.” Then, when I asked what the purpose of the article was, I was told, “To amuse us.” And the truly disturbing fact of the matter is that their utter stupidity and their blatant disregard for the possibility that someone could potentially rely on those drugs in order to lead a minimally tolerable life made me so angry that I couldn’t breathe.
So I had to take some drugs.
It never fails to amaze me that people can be so oblivious to the effects their own actions have on others. How can anyone have been on those drugs and still make a mockery out of them? How is it possible for someone to need the drugs, or at least desire the drugs enough to go to a doctor to get some, and then deny the possibility that the drugs are necessary for some people?
How stupid can they be?
And those two people I know to have been on some of those drugs know damn well that I’m on some now. It very much reminds me of a particular time when I was a freshman in college: the first of many periods in my life spent being constantly confronted by nonsmokers about why I felt the need to smoke. I swear to god, at that time in my life, I had been miserably fighting my way through endless drunken stupors and unconquerably sleepless nights because of this very person who’d posed the question to me. He had quite literally ruined my life by the horrifying way that he’d been treating me, and he had the nerve to ask me why I felt the need to smoke.
I wish I could relate the details of that tragic incident to you, but, of course, my brain doesn’t work so well these days and I can’t put my thoughts into words without causing myself serious pain. The only important thing to note, however, is that I could only stand there after he asked me why and think to myself, “How can you not know that I have to smoke because of people like you?”
People ruin my life everyday, and they don’t even know. People cause me more anguish and despair than they’ve ever been capable of experiencing. I can’t believe they’re too dense to recognize the fact that they’re hurting other people, even if they don’t intend to.
And now I feel like I want to cry. I have a knot in my stomach and a lump in my throat, and my muscles are clenched so tightly that I can barely move my fingers enough to type. I don’t want to take medication. I find that medication seriously inhibits the way I want to lead my life. I can’t enjoy things as much as I used to. I can’t relax as much as I used to be able to, either, which is truly amazing since I’m on anti-anxiety drugs. But the drugs have to keep me awake, too, or else they would have failed in their attempt to make me into a useful human being.
Goddamn those people.
You know, I had to go home for my grandmother’s funeral last week. As far as funerals go, I suppose it wasn’t too, too bad. Everything went relatively smoothly, and everyone seems to be coping relatively healthily. It was nice getting to see some people that I haven’t seen in years, but it was still a funeral. It was still stressful. I still came home and had to be nice to a houseguest when I probably could’ve used more time to myself. I still had to run to the drugstore three times yesterday because Rob suddenly came down with a high fever and bad stomach virus of some sort. I have to go to the doctor for two and a half to three hours of allergy testing tomorrow, and I’m probably going to come down with this stomach virus myself at any moment.
I’m a little stressed out.
I’m stressed out, so I’m on drugs that help, and they still can’t help enough. Is it my fault that I have to be on the drugs? Is it my fault that my body finds itself incapable of operating free of medications? Is it my fault that my system naturally sleeps for days at a time for no good reason? Is it my fault that my system naturally likes to self-inflict pain? Is it my fault that the world is such a horrendous place in which to live that I can’t breathe when I think about how many atrocities there are surrounding me at any given moment?
As far as I can tell, I’m just naturally fucked by the world. So they can take the energy they waste on their jokes about the way the smaller fraction of the universe has to live and they can throw those smiles away without realizing that some of us can’t smile without feeling like we’re going to have a mental breakdown. That’s their prerogative. They can do whatever the fuck they want in this world.
But I’m the one who pays.
