The fix

[beldarzfixon]

How do you handle it?

What do you do?
When the
inner voice says:
Just slam your head
into a wall.
Just because.
It’s what you
deserve.
It’s all you’re worth.

Or when you
lie in bed
thinking
how the bullet
would pass through the skull,
how bone
and brains
would spray
out the back or the top.
Would it be oddly beautiful?
Or maybe aim
so it just passes
through the front lobes
-- a lobotomy.
Is there
a procedure,
stick the knife in,
cut the stupid out?

You also
have these thoughts,
right?
I’m often told
everyone experiences
what everyone else goes through,
the same thoughts
and feelings.
I’m not alone.
I’m not unique.

But if I am
a special snowflake,
I’m singularly wrong
and inferior.
Not that it matters.

Do you have these thoughts?
Do you sweep them aside?
I don’t know.
Guess that’s part
of being stupid.

You can’t fix stupid;
if it were
a condition,
something that could
be fixed
or medicated
or cured,
that would be different.
But it can’t be that.
I’m not crazy.
Maybe hypochondriac.
Making something
out of nothing.
I am nothing.

Therapists,
that’s for people
with real problems.
People who can afford it.
But then I notice
my insurance card
includes
“mental health”
office visit co-pay.

The thoughts
continue,
- strengthen -
the inner anger
- hate -
hard to function,
pretend
to be normal.

I make the call.
Just need help
coming to terms
with my own
inferiority.
Not going to pretend
there’s anything
really wrong
with me.
I promise myself
to be honest
with the therapist,
with myself.
I am.

Then one day
she tells me
my diagnosis.
I have a diagnosis.
It has a name,
with symptoms
and treatment.
I’m glad
to actually
be mentally ill.

How crazy is that?

- - -
This is my entry for LJ Idol Exhibit A, Week 1, Topic: “Am I Crazy?”
Please excuse my indulging in nonfiction again. And poetry.