(no subject)
my neighbor is schizophrenic.
when we first were looking at this place, the owner warned us about it (the guy is genuinely schizophrenic, i guess he lives with his father who takes care of him, it's not some armchair diagnosis), and i didn't really know how to take it. my gut reaction was to be "wtf do we all give out our dsm classifications in this neighborhood?" but i guess it turns out the previous tenants found the guy to be unsettling and our landlord decided it was bad enough to warn future tenants. i, having just come from living 2 blocks from skid row figured this would be nothing in comparison. this just shows that i never lean any lessons ever about the fact i am not remotely as worldly as i assume i am.
during the winter when we all had our windows closed all the time because it was "cold" (i'm putting it in parenthesizes for my east coast friends) i never heard the guy and was started to wonder if he'd moved. now that spring is creeping up on us and windows are starting to be kept open, oh god it's so awful. my sleep schedule is all fucked up right now (really this isn't new but it's worse than usual) so i'm up at all weird hours which seem to be in sync with the neighbor. It's not that it's annoying, it's heartbreaking to listen to him converse and scream at himself, sometimes all night. the voices are just so...well honestly they are sort of consistent with other schizophrenics i've known when they're having episodes...but it's so anguished and so almost not-human on some level. it sounds almost like listening to a recording vs listening to a human being because it's all so twisted and erratic. there are times where he legitimately sounds like the joker (from the cartoons) and times where he just sounds like an animal in pain. it sucks because i feel like a total asshole when it bothers me because obviously his illness bothers him and his loved ones a lot more than the minor inconvenience it causes me...but then i also feel like i should have a right to my feelings i guess. it's dumb but there have been many times where i've jokingly said to ethan that i hope i go out senile or something since my fear of my own mortality is pretty epic, but after the past few weeks i'm starting to reevaluate that stance.
it's just been frustrating because lately mornings have alternated between him conversing loudly enough to wake the dog, the dog is unnerved by the noise and starts barking, and at some point i just have to give up on the idea of a full night's rest.
it's trivial, i know. overall bones is very good about it, it's only when the guy really screams that he gets riled up in response. overall bones is a really good watchdog, though his greatest hatred (and something that amuses ethan to no end) is that of robots. if it's some sort of fakey AI thing or mechanized toy, bones loses his shit and tries to attack it. people, dogs, skateboards, cats, he loves and tries to play with, but anything that is remotely robotic and it's a deathmatch. it's adorable, though really anything bones does is adorable. it's also adorable that my parents have started referring to him as their grandchild.
it's weird, the dog situation. i feel like luna was my last big thing that was solely mine. she was a living remnant of my past. obviously this makes sense since i got her when i was living in Central and she was with me through a lot of ups and downs. she was pre-ethan. i had other roommates who had other pets, but we generally kept our pet maintenance to ourselves. When ethan and i moved in together and got wingnut, even though we were "together", wingnut was so solely and obviously his that it wasn't even up for debate. kiera was just sort of there until she didn't want to be there any more. she wanted to belong to wingnut, but he seems unfazed by her absence. but the dog, he is firmly "ours". he behaves differently depending on who he is hanging out with, he knows that i'm more cuddly and low key and he knows that ethan will wrestle with him. it's just such a fascinating dynamic. but i find it interesting how my parents have started referring to him as their grandkid. it's not like we ever had some epic "i am never having children" conversation after i got married...it never came up at all (though it was a statement i frequently made as a teenager) but it seems to be an unspoken understanding. i'm glad they are supportive of this decision.
it's weird now that so many of my friends have or are planning to have kids. i honestly cannot ever remember it being in the cards for me. when i was younger it was never something i wanted, i mean i didn't even like baby dolls and in high school i abandoned my flour baby more often than not, then the PCOS would've made conception exponentially more complicated, then the masto made everything even MORE exponentially complicated (though for most people symptoms disappear during pregnancy. damnit). but i don't feel like it's a loss for me. i do worry sometimes about being left behind by friends who are embarking on these awesome journeys that i will never take part in, but i am more psyched for them than anything. but it's still something that is being driven home more and more, and it seems sort of greater or more vast than the general continental divide going on. i think i just wonder sometimes if this was so hardwired into me because of all the health stuff.
when we first were looking at this place, the owner warned us about it (the guy is genuinely schizophrenic, i guess he lives with his father who takes care of him, it's not some armchair diagnosis), and i didn't really know how to take it. my gut reaction was to be "wtf do we all give out our dsm classifications in this neighborhood?" but i guess it turns out the previous tenants found the guy to be unsettling and our landlord decided it was bad enough to warn future tenants. i, having just come from living 2 blocks from skid row figured this would be nothing in comparison. this just shows that i never lean any lessons ever about the fact i am not remotely as worldly as i assume i am.
during the winter when we all had our windows closed all the time because it was "cold" (i'm putting it in parenthesizes for my east coast friends) i never heard the guy and was started to wonder if he'd moved. now that spring is creeping up on us and windows are starting to be kept open, oh god it's so awful. my sleep schedule is all fucked up right now (really this isn't new but it's worse than usual) so i'm up at all weird hours which seem to be in sync with the neighbor. It's not that it's annoying, it's heartbreaking to listen to him converse and scream at himself, sometimes all night. the voices are just so...well honestly they are sort of consistent with other schizophrenics i've known when they're having episodes...but it's so anguished and so almost not-human on some level. it sounds almost like listening to a recording vs listening to a human being because it's all so twisted and erratic. there are times where he legitimately sounds like the joker (from the cartoons) and times where he just sounds like an animal in pain. it sucks because i feel like a total asshole when it bothers me because obviously his illness bothers him and his loved ones a lot more than the minor inconvenience it causes me...but then i also feel like i should have a right to my feelings i guess. it's dumb but there have been many times where i've jokingly said to ethan that i hope i go out senile or something since my fear of my own mortality is pretty epic, but after the past few weeks i'm starting to reevaluate that stance.
it's just been frustrating because lately mornings have alternated between him conversing loudly enough to wake the dog, the dog is unnerved by the noise and starts barking, and at some point i just have to give up on the idea of a full night's rest.
it's trivial, i know. overall bones is very good about it, it's only when the guy really screams that he gets riled up in response. overall bones is a really good watchdog, though his greatest hatred (and something that amuses ethan to no end) is that of robots. if it's some sort of fakey AI thing or mechanized toy, bones loses his shit and tries to attack it. people, dogs, skateboards, cats, he loves and tries to play with, but anything that is remotely robotic and it's a deathmatch. it's adorable, though really anything bones does is adorable. it's also adorable that my parents have started referring to him as their grandchild.
it's weird, the dog situation. i feel like luna was my last big thing that was solely mine. she was a living remnant of my past. obviously this makes sense since i got her when i was living in Central and she was with me through a lot of ups and downs. she was pre-ethan. i had other roommates who had other pets, but we generally kept our pet maintenance to ourselves. When ethan and i moved in together and got wingnut, even though we were "together", wingnut was so solely and obviously his that it wasn't even up for debate. kiera was just sort of there until she didn't want to be there any more. she wanted to belong to wingnut, but he seems unfazed by her absence. but the dog, he is firmly "ours". he behaves differently depending on who he is hanging out with, he knows that i'm more cuddly and low key and he knows that ethan will wrestle with him. it's just such a fascinating dynamic. but i find it interesting how my parents have started referring to him as their grandkid. it's not like we ever had some epic "i am never having children" conversation after i got married...it never came up at all (though it was a statement i frequently made as a teenager) but it seems to be an unspoken understanding. i'm glad they are supportive of this decision.
it's weird now that so many of my friends have or are planning to have kids. i honestly cannot ever remember it being in the cards for me. when i was younger it was never something i wanted, i mean i didn't even like baby dolls and in high school i abandoned my flour baby more often than not, then the PCOS would've made conception exponentially more complicated, then the masto made everything even MORE exponentially complicated (though for most people symptoms disappear during pregnancy. damnit). but i don't feel like it's a loss for me. i do worry sometimes about being left behind by friends who are embarking on these awesome journeys that i will never take part in, but i am more psyched for them than anything. but it's still something that is being driven home more and more, and it seems sort of greater or more vast than the general continental divide going on. i think i just wonder sometimes if this was so hardwired into me because of all the health stuff.