Breaking Point...
...is getting nearer. I can feel it.
In a book I flicked through it had quotes from someone who had been schizophrenic. He said that he was bored and stressed with life and so pretended that he was a secret agent to make things more interesting. And then after a while of more stress and pretending he couldn't stop and became schizophrenic.
It is odd, because saying it like that makes it sound as if he chose to become mad, which he didn't. I still believe Dr Mercatante was right: there are two types of madness. The first is (for lack of a better description) genetic. It appears without warning or reason and is very hard to control, let alone shift. The second is circumstantial; with a definite cause and an easier cure. The circumstantial state of madness can be brought on by the individual themselves as an act of will rather than happenstance.
When I was at school I could convince the nurse to send me home when I was in perfect health. I would mope and think myself into pain and illness. She would take my temperature and discover I had one. My pulse would be strange, my eyes behave oddly. She would send me home, despite the fact I was in perfect health - but the catch was this - until I got home I had to believe it. That is a garbled way of saying really good acting is indistinguishable from the truth and that the body can be forced to react psychosomatically.
It's the same sometimes with madness and depression. You need a slight kick to get started and a mild pre-disposition towards the mental illness in question. After that it's distressingly easy... Until one day you wake up and the fiction has become fact and you need professional help.
There is documented evidence of actors doing long runs of plays or gruelling film shoots and ending up nearly as mad as the character they portray. Bob Hoskins hallucinating Roger Rabbit comes to mind.
Perhaps in times long past there were more 'mundane' reasons for the shaman's trick of 'don the clothes become the man' - not magic, just someone better at 'let's pretend' than everyone else. Someone fluid who was able to deform reality just a little...
At the time I met Reagan and Matt I had no reason to be depressed - other than they were. I knew nothing makes a depressive sit up and take note more than another depressive who's ten times worse. You see I know the secret game we all play the 'only I am allowed to be a basket case' game. And I can play that to the hilt. So I threw myself off the spiral with abandon in the hope of distracting the both of them long enough to forget their own neurosies. I succeeded in a way, and failed in various others.
That is not to say that every depressive episode I've weathered has been my own fault. If memory serves that was the only one that I truly brought upon myself.
I'm sure there was a reason to me writing all this.
Oh yes. Breaking point.
Having a good imagination, I can often satisfy the wish to self destruct with a daydream to that effect. If my depression at the time is either minor or short-burn, all is well. If however my depression is major or long-burn, imaginings will only make it more likely that I actually act one of them out in the very near future.
....I'm not sure that was my point actually. Fuck knows what my point is.
I change but I stay the same - that could be my point. My hair is growing longer, it's not been this length since I was 11. But I still look like shit.... I really cannot put into words how much my looks and my body disgust me. You wouldn't believe me anyway. You would think, 'You're not deformed for fuck's sake!' or possibly, 'but you're pretty and thin and shiny!'... and those statement's prove that you do not understand and cannot.
Whenever I'm with wolf and he asks, 'what are you thinking?' I say, 'Nothing'. That is both true and very deliberate. The idea of kissing and being biologically intimate with my body make s me want to run away and hide. By extension, the idea of someone else wanting to be is verging on the perverted. At the same time I know my views are unreasonable (although this doesn't stop me thinking them more's pity). So I have to keep my mind somewhat disconnected during sex or anything significantly physical lest I spoil it all by screaming at myself.
Yesterday at lunchtime while returning to work a van drove slowly past me and the occupants whistled and murmured their appreciation. I didn't feel complimented, I didn't feel enraged. I just had to bite my tongue not to stare at them and shake my head saying 'No. No, I'm really not.' Because they would understand as much as anyone else - which is not at all.
I'm very tired.
So. Do I send a text asking Matt if he wants his jumper back? Or with that make things worse? (But if neurons are really sold on this 'he is tired of me' kick, then how could i possibly make it worse?) ... Or do I hunt out my scalpel? ... Or do I go downstairs and ransack the alcohol cupboard? ... Or do I just go to bed?
In a book I flicked through it had quotes from someone who had been schizophrenic. He said that he was bored and stressed with life and so pretended that he was a secret agent to make things more interesting. And then after a while of more stress and pretending he couldn't stop and became schizophrenic.
It is odd, because saying it like that makes it sound as if he chose to become mad, which he didn't. I still believe Dr Mercatante was right: there are two types of madness. The first is (for lack of a better description) genetic. It appears without warning or reason and is very hard to control, let alone shift. The second is circumstantial; with a definite cause and an easier cure. The circumstantial state of madness can be brought on by the individual themselves as an act of will rather than happenstance.
When I was at school I could convince the nurse to send me home when I was in perfect health. I would mope and think myself into pain and illness. She would take my temperature and discover I had one. My pulse would be strange, my eyes behave oddly. She would send me home, despite the fact I was in perfect health - but the catch was this - until I got home I had to believe it. That is a garbled way of saying really good acting is indistinguishable from the truth and that the body can be forced to react psychosomatically.
It's the same sometimes with madness and depression. You need a slight kick to get started and a mild pre-disposition towards the mental illness in question. After that it's distressingly easy... Until one day you wake up and the fiction has become fact and you need professional help.
There is documented evidence of actors doing long runs of plays or gruelling film shoots and ending up nearly as mad as the character they portray. Bob Hoskins hallucinating Roger Rabbit comes to mind.
Perhaps in times long past there were more 'mundane' reasons for the shaman's trick of 'don the clothes become the man' - not magic, just someone better at 'let's pretend' than everyone else. Someone fluid who was able to deform reality just a little...
At the time I met Reagan and Matt I had no reason to be depressed - other than they were. I knew nothing makes a depressive sit up and take note more than another depressive who's ten times worse. You see I know the secret game we all play the 'only I am allowed to be a basket case' game. And I can play that to the hilt. So I threw myself off the spiral with abandon in the hope of distracting the both of them long enough to forget their own neurosies. I succeeded in a way, and failed in various others.
That is not to say that every depressive episode I've weathered has been my own fault. If memory serves that was the only one that I truly brought upon myself.
I'm sure there was a reason to me writing all this.
Oh yes. Breaking point.
Having a good imagination, I can often satisfy the wish to self destruct with a daydream to that effect. If my depression at the time is either minor or short-burn, all is well. If however my depression is major or long-burn, imaginings will only make it more likely that I actually act one of them out in the very near future.
....I'm not sure that was my point actually. Fuck knows what my point is.
I change but I stay the same - that could be my point. My hair is growing longer, it's not been this length since I was 11. But I still look like shit.... I really cannot put into words how much my looks and my body disgust me. You wouldn't believe me anyway. You would think, 'You're not deformed for fuck's sake!' or possibly, 'but you're pretty and thin and shiny!'... and those statement's prove that you do not understand and cannot.
Whenever I'm with wolf and he asks, 'what are you thinking?' I say, 'Nothing'. That is both true and very deliberate. The idea of kissing and being biologically intimate with my body make s me want to run away and hide. By extension, the idea of someone else wanting to be is verging on the perverted. At the same time I know my views are unreasonable (although this doesn't stop me thinking them more's pity). So I have to keep my mind somewhat disconnected during sex or anything significantly physical lest I spoil it all by screaming at myself.
Yesterday at lunchtime while returning to work a van drove slowly past me and the occupants whistled and murmured their appreciation. I didn't feel complimented, I didn't feel enraged. I just had to bite my tongue not to stare at them and shake my head saying 'No. No, I'm really not.' Because they would understand as much as anyone else - which is not at all.
I'm very tired.
So. Do I send a text asking Matt if he wants his jumper back? Or with that make things worse? (But if neurons are really sold on this 'he is tired of me' kick, then how could i possibly make it worse?) ... Or do I hunt out my scalpel? ... Or do I go downstairs and ransack the alcohol cupboard? ... Or do I just go to bed?