hmph. that’s neat. i was an intern at the Metropolitan Museum through a high school summer program that they have there. it was cool to really get to know the place (i’m probably the last person to have sat and read on the couches in the roped off Frank Lloyd Wright room) but the work i did was not all that interesting. sometimes, i manned the phones and answered call-in questions for the decorative arts (i.e. furniture) department -i did like that. i am also still in touch with one of the other interns (not bad, considering that that was now… 10 years ago). unfortunately, this was way before the days of facebook and i’ve lost touch with two other interns that i liked.
the death of marat? well that is grim. on the dali side of things: i worked with a guy who used to spend all his money collecting surrealist art. he’d hang them in his home and i always intended to go check them out but i never made the trip. dali was so brilliant, but i feel like his paintings would be more meaningful if i was an unhinged (especially sexually) as he was in the particular way he is.
i think i can imagine your grandmother. my parents are both devoted new yorkers who will even slip back into their old brooklyn accents when they get angry or emotional. i lived in greenwich village until i was nine, and i’m very sorry we moved to NJ after that.
“Today was a better day. But I sort of messed up, in a sense to make it a better day.” How’d that work?
And what was it about Picasso that made you lose interest? I don’t know much about him except that he was incredibly productive.
Wow. I sort of, kind of participated in one of their summer programs. It was interesting.
And yes, my grandmother is a Jewish New Yorker, absolutely. She talks to, or at least hassles, everybody. I remember, on the train out of the city, she was trying to convince a middle-aged man with a wife and two kids not to move to Florida because New York is so magnificent. She refuses to leave. It’s quite funny.
“Today was a better day. But I sort of messed up, in a sense to make it a better day.” That worked out with a blade. Not the best of options, but better than starvation, I suppose.
As to Picasso, I guess I came to realize how much he was in for the money, and that was why he was incredibly productive. His work just falls flat, often. It’s as if I cannot reach the same place of blissful ignorance to view his work again. It’s tainted.
Today was a day of blah, though. Just neutral, but perhaps a bit towards the worse. The medication I’m on is making me feel a bit apathetic. Really too tired to think, right now, but good idea in making a new post.
i do like your grandmother. and hmmm… i had no idea about Picasso. that’s disappointing. incidentally, i’ve always thought dali and picasso had similar talents as far as artists go. there is a style to some of picasso’s earliest work that reminds me very much of dali’s. in my simplistic world, some artists are color artists, some space artists, and some imagination artists. there are probably other dimensions i could add. some are better at capturing emotion, etc. in my view, picasso and dali are heavily talented as space artists. it’s the kind of virtuosity that often seems to show up when people are young.
people often say that about meds making them apathetic. that does sound rough. i’d hate it. and you seem like someone who especially values clarity of feeling. anyway, right now, it’s also important that you stay whole. you might as well also track when you’re cutting, too, if you’re keeping this up. of course, neither you or i can write regularly (and i will write less regularly soon, i’m sure, as other distractions pick up).
in the interest of full disclosure, i have a nasty habit scratching at the cuticles of my fingers until they bleed. i’ve been fighting it off since i was 15 or so, although i’ve been doing better the past couple months than usual. right now, just my thumbs show signs and almost no one notices. it’s interesting that cutting makes you feel better. i can guess the usual explanations for it (if not yours). part self-punishment, part just feeling alive, aware. yeah, i actually think cutting is better than starvation. self-denial seems worse.
scratching/picking at my fingers always makes me more miserable afterward, but I guess it’s mostly an addiction. one effect of this habit is that the nails of fingers i’m working on have very small ripples.
let’s see, today on a (0 = extremely depressed, 10 = euphoric scale) i was about a 6 all day. this week, my low was definitely wednesday when i hit 3 after hearing about my impending financial doom and annoying my advisor.
i just read an interesting journal article by a guy who did something similar, tracking his mood, weight, sleep, and other stuff (along with self-experimentation) for 12 years. he was mostly worried about sleep and diet. anyway, you can read the abstract here http://repositories.cdlib.org/postpri… if you’re interested. the coolest part was that he did some stuff that eliminated colds for 5 years.
looks like i’m traveling to upstate new york for rock climbing with a buddy (and tentative business partner) monday and tuesday. i have soooo much work to do, and i’m not sure i’ll get much done during the trip. very annoying. also, my left knee hurts and i’m worried about climbing on it.
and tomorrow, i’ll be hanging out in NYC with that friend from my internship at the Met. she keeps sending me mixed signals of interest and disinterest for a more serious relationship. usually, i’m good at reading signals, so this is annoying. if i were living in new york, i’d bite the bullet and ask her out.
if i don’t write until wednesday, that’s because i’m traveling about. take care.
I have a similar habit, as well. I bite the sides of my thumbs until they are raw and bleeding. It’s quite disgusting. I,too, used to think that no one noticed, but people do. They never say anything, but they do. I mentioned it once to someone, for some odd reason, and he told me that it was already obvious.
It is self harm, for me. When I cannot get a hold of a sharp object daily, my thumbs are massacred. When I am either starving or cutting myself, they heal and callous over. I’ve just noticed that with me. It started as a perfectionistic compulsion, strangely enough.
Today is down. I wished to murder my skin, and I did, to an extent. I am horribly tired, but every time I close my eyes, I subconsciously commit suicide. Crashing a car, drowning, defenestration, hanging, injected various dyes and chemicals… EVERYTHING has decided to bombard my head. I don’t really know why I am here. At this point, I know I should be in a hospital. I found myself thinking earlier, “To hate oneself is to live in a reality truer than any other.”
Last night, I was thinking more along the lines of drowning in a circle conveniently filled with water.
Just out of it.
With medications, for me, they tend to place me tauntingly close to apathy but still influenced by emotion. I can touch neither and be consumed by both.
I would say that Picasso was an expert in composition. Dali was more of an expert in concept. He liked to place himself next to Freud.
Have fun traveling about.
Today was nearly unbearable.
If I do not come off Lithium, suicide is looking like a gorgeous option. I cannot appreciate anything. My art is blah, my head is tired, and I sound like a three year old when I talk. It’s likely that I am failing my classes because my concentration is gone. And of course, the “intrusive” thoughts are eating me alive.
I can’t think straight, so I guess that’s where my little rant ends.
Hope all is well for you.
wow. sara. what a terrible pair of days. i don’t mind the “rants.” you should share this stuff.
my latest tack on cheering you up:
it sounds like you’ve GOT to find a way to quiet your mind. that’s not the whole problem, but it’s a part of it. if i had any control over your life, i’d plunk you - kicking and screaming if necessary - into an intensive 6 month meditation program. the religious side of meditation is silly imho, but the mental side has some pieces that work.
i lucked out and had a teacher who wrote silly, small books on meditation. every once in a while, he’d skip a lesson and just train his students to meditate. his books (the latest was called, “The Zen Commandments”) suck, however his techniques were pretty good. i can see where they might, just might, help you.
my first guess is that the group you’d want to be dealing with is probably the one associated with Jon Kabat-Zinn. his wikipedia entry (which i just checked) has the semi-fanatical tone that followers of these types of folks adopt. but Kabat-Zinn’s early success came from helping medical patients at UMass deal with suffering that couldn’t be treated using normal methods. that is, as far as i can tell, the real deal.
if you’re curious, i’ll look into finding out who you’d work with for some training on ways to control your brain when it goes haywire. the trick is to find people who are actually good. the group they happen to belong to (zen, clinical, etc.) isn’t as important. let me know. it would just take me a few minutes for me to make some phone calls. wow. sara. what a terrible pair of days. i don’t mind the “rants.” you should share this stuff.
my latest tack on cheering you up:
it sounds like you’ve GOT to find a way to quiet your mind. if i had any control over your life, i’d plunk you - kicking and screaming if necessary - into an intensive 6 month meditation program. the religious side of meditation is silly imho, but the mental side and apparently some of the philosophy actually works. have you ever checked that stuff out?
i lucked out and had a teacher in high school who wrote small books on meditation. every once in a while, he’d skip a lesson and just train his students to meditate. his books (the latest was cleverly called, “The Zen Commandments”) suck, but his techniques were pretty good. i can see where they might help you.
the group you’d want to be dealing with is probably the one associated with Jon Kabat-Zinn. even his wikipedia entry (which i just checked) has the usual semi-fanatical tone that followers of these types of folks adopt, but Kabat-Zinn’s early success came from helping medical patients deal with suffering that couldn’t be treated using normal methods. that is, as far as i can tell, the real deal.
if you’re curious, i’ll look into finding out who you’d work with for some serious training on controlling your brain when it goes haywire. honestly, i think there’s only a 25% chance that it will work. but i think anything that might help is worth checking out. it’ll just take five minutes for me to make a few phone calls to try to locate someone in your general region. i don’t care what group they’re in (zen, clinical, etc.) as long as they’re good. i’ll give you their numbers, and you can contact them to find someone close to you.
honestly, i think there’s only a small chance that this will help. but anything that might help seems worth checking out. you’re in a lot of pain. and as should be obvious, i’d be happy to look into it. it’s no trouble.
huh… i did my usual edit, but somehow sent you ver. 1 and ver. 2 of the previous post. anyway, aside from 25% being too high, both versions are ok.
I suppose it’s worth looking into, but I’m really quite skeptical of the whole thing. I was required to participate in various meditations, but really, in the end, I tend to focus on “negative” thoughts purposely. It may not exactly make sense, but on some level, I WANT to be miserable. I want to encourage myself to cut, to plan, to die. In an odd way, it’s sort of like challenging my thoughts. For example, I know I can focus on the “good,” but what exactly constitutes these notions to be “good.” In other words, what is traditionally thought of as “good” can be inherently “bad.” To pull that even further, I guess, it is all neutral. Death is a neutral concept. People are trained to believe death to be daunting and suicide to be “bad.” It is neither.
Basically, when I try to meditate, my mind goes off on tangents that it apparently should not. Especially those which contradict one another (which I might’ve done above), resulting in headaches. Or trying to justify my actions.
So, you don’t need to look into it, but thanks. If I ever decide otherwise, my mother has many connections in that sort of spiritual circle here.
Lately, though, I’ve been thinking about a few promises I made myself. When I was twelve, I remember learning of a girl who was cutting herself; I swore to never cut myself. It was just plain disgusting. Last December, my sixteenth birthday, I swore to myself that I would not allow myself to see my seventeenth birthday. My New Year’s resolution was to kill myself. And there are numerous others in between them all. They scare me.
They scare me like the guidance counselor scares me, giving me nightmares. The power that they hold, the power that he holds. They have the power to end my life, just as he does. I want to somehow, I think that if I can somehow, transfer that potential power from them to me, this will end. In my head, this manifestation of “depression” is really more of a power struggle more than anything. And so, I can see why meditation may help, but my **** pride would rather settle it myself.
Bleh, my head is falling off my shoulders right now. I don’t believe this reply makes any sense whatsoever. If it doesn’t, just ignore it.
To answer your last line: Your reply makes sense. Very intelligent, as usual.
—
Today was dreadful. I got NOTHING done all day. Total waste. I was planning to walk over to this restaurant to arrange a “happy hour” for the PhD students in my school, and I didn’t even get around to that.
I need to finish my dissertation proposal by Monday or I’ll be really really upset with myself. Another weekend spent working all weekend. Ugh.
I was inspired by that article I mentioned to start tracking my mood, sleeping hours, and work habits. So I have my own daily log. Typically nerdy on my part. We’ll see if I keep it up.
Tomorrow night, I’m going to a salon article discussion / Friday night dinner - so I’m looking forward to that. I like the folks, mostly graduate students in various divisions of the school, who show up. There are some good arguers, and we really go at each other. No interesting single women so far, though.
–
I won’t belabor the meditation idea. But I should point out that the whole point is not to focus on “good” thoughts but just to end the painful cycle of thoughts. Keep it in mind.
–
You’re basically right, I think: Death can be considered a neutral concept. But from my perspective, that doesn’t make any resolution to kill yourself sensible. Death isn’t “bad” in some grand scheme of things, but it isn’t “good” either. And for some reason that I can’t figure out, you seem to feel like recognizing it for its neutrality frees you from its outcome. You can’t kill yourself just because death is neutral. That’s a bit short-sighted. Painting isn’t good or bad either, but that doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate it. Really, this just leaves you back at square one, making decision without preconceptions. I think you know that.
I’m glad these things scare you. It’s good that they scare you, because that means you’re still rational and okay. Of course, it also means that this stuff is serious. You’ve just got a long way to go.
As long as you want to be miserable, by the way, planning suicide is fine but doing it isn’t. That would end the misery, defeating your purpose. I want to make sure you don’t get confused on some foggy day and forget the difference between planning and acting.
For what it’s worth, none of the events from my high school years matter much to me now. All the emotions involved, the pain (which was incredible, though not as bad as yours - I did the rounds with various shrinks) and loneliness and happy moments, the power struggles, are sooo long past. I can remember them, but they just aren’t that important. Even this situation with your guidance counselor just won’t matter that much in 10 years.
How does this guidance counselor have so much power over you? I don’t like the sound of that one bit.
Hey - sorry - that last note was not nice. I shouldn’t lectured that way.
Friday was good. Today, not as much. I struggled to write, gave up, and went for a swim. That was about it.
My half-sister asked me to write for her my vision for my life. She just got back from one of these week-long programs that supposedly revolutionize people’s lives by changing how they view the world. Not my kind of thing. But also, that’s dangerous question to ask - what is she doesn’t approve? I promised to send her something though.
Today was blah. Apparently, all week, I was hypomanic. Didn’t exactly catch that, except in my toddler-like behavior, I guess. Right now, I’m sort of anticipating a “down” period. Which I know I shouldn’t do, but I do not possess the energy to fight the anticipation. My brain is all over the place, somehow leading to me being lazy, watching the obscene home shopping networks. There is something so very fascinating about them… or maybe I’m just off.
I totally realize that death being neutral does not justify suicide, by any means, but rather, it seems to offer a bit of leeway. I think that must’ve been somewhere along the lines of what I was thinking. Maybe just questioning the importance of death to society. There is one line from a poem, that is on repeat in my mind, when I think of this. The entire poem is revolving around this idea of death not being death and it’s relationship to others, and the final line something like, “Moving towards my last breath.” And it has such a positive connotation, laced throughout. It was just interesting.
I’m not a person who would commit suicide, I try to think. But, I, too, do sometimes feel that on some “foggy day,” I’ll just do it.
It’s fine, your last note. It wasn’t terribly lecture-like. My guidance counselor is the one who essentially arranged for my little vacation in a treatment center. If he notices anything suspicious, that is my destination. He has the power to kick me out of school. Not to mention, he’s incredibly creepy. He literally gives me nightmares, I fear and despise him so much.
On a separate note, with your half-sister, I think, in a sense, she’s daring you, with a dangerous question. Danger usually leads to drastic change, I suppose.
Wow. I was up until 4:30 am saturday night watching all of the episodes of lipstick jungle. That’ll screw up your sunday. Been making some good progress today on work, though. We’ll see how much writing I can finish between now and 11 (two more hours) but I have high hopes.
One of the other students in my program finds the home shopping networks fascinating.
Yeah, my sister might be daring me a bit. The thing is, I’m pretty confortable with my vision for myself. It’s not such a dangerous question since I think about it a lot of the time.
Hmmm… that power the guidance counselor has and the creepiness sound really awful. I can sort of sympathize. There are these professors in my department who who could just kick me out of this program if they wanted to w/o any reason. It makes me tense and nervous a lot of the time.
Poetry about death reminded me of this one. The author actually did die before this was published in 2005.
In View of the Fact
A.R. Ammons
The people of my time are passing away: my
wife is baking for a funeral, a 60-year-old who
died suddenly, when the phone rings, and it’s
Ruth we care so much about in intensive care:
it was once weddings that came so thick and
fast, and then, first babies, such a hullabaloo:
now, it’s this that and the other and somebody
else gone or on the brink: well, we never
thought we would live forever (although we did)
and now it looks like we won’t: some of us
are losing a leg to diabetes, some don’t know
what they went downstairs for, some know that
a hired watchful person is around, some like
to touch the cane tip into something steady,
so nice: we have already lost so many,
brushed the loss of ourselves ourselves: our
address books for so long a slow scramble now
are palimpsests, scribbles and scratches: our
index cards for Christmases, birthdays,
Halloweens drop clean away into sympathies:
at the same time we are getting used to so
many leaving, we are hanging on with a grip
to the ones left: we are not giving up on the
congestive heart failure or brain tumors, on
the nice old men left in empty houses or on
the widows who decide to travel a lot: we
think the sun may shine someday when we’ll
drink wine together and think of what used to
be: until we die we will remember every
single thing, recall every word, love every
loss: then we will, as we must, leave it to
others to love, love that can grow brighter
and deeper till the very end, gaining strength
and getting more precious all the way. . . .
Interesting poem. I don’t believe I currently have the full capacity to appreciate it, but it definitely raises some questions, on a personal level.
Saturday through today has been a dissent into despair. I know I’m reaching the point of cracking. I decided to skip school today, I was so out of it. My character is breaking into bite-sized bits. I have not showered, I have moped all day, my skin will be forever scarred… and soon, my neck will be, as well. Whether or not it goes through, entirely, I will see to it that a cut appears across that delicate flesh soon.
I’ll be kicked out of school, but I don’t care. I am violently ready to consume myself. I’m done toying with that fine line between their rules and my own, and I will be solely self-destructive.
And now I realize that I am in the same position as I was in last year, same ******* day.
sarah,
that’s too bad. it sounded like you were doing much better (although never great) for a while.
please don’t cut your neck. obviously, it’s dangerous. and second of all, it’s just a mistake. one of your comments above suggested that cutting does make you feel better. but i have a feeling that cutting your neck isn’t going to help more than cutting anywhere else, in addition to leaving visible scars and being dangerous.
in the end, it’s okay if you’re kicked out of school, and clearly, the scars don’t matter in a major way beyond the fact that you’re causing yourself pain.
-alex
i can hear from your tone that you’re really on edge this time. i’m sorry. i know that awful shattered-into-pieces feeling.
I already did. But nothing lethal, obviously. I actually do think that cutting my neck is more effective. I believe that my issues with self-injury stem from control problems. My mind is simply reeling, completely ready to pick at every part of my body. I want my back to be drenched in blood. I want to slit my eyelids… man, it is so vivid.
On that note, my parents contacted the shrink, meds are changed. WOO.
At this rate, it seems that I am soon to be pushed into homicide. Why not? I don’t give a crap. I actually want to screw up my life. With great fervor, I want this. If they do not let me kill myself physically, then I will in every other way possible. Maybe I’m just hormonal, maybe I’m just crazy… but I just want to be as miserable as I can be.
I don’t even know what to say anymore. I think I’m done.
hmmm… yeah - we’re pretty much running in circles. i won’t blame you if you stop writing. if you want to stop, don’t write back and go with no regrets. i’ll be wishing you the best.
one last thought. you’re SUCH a good writer. you could be incredible
i know you don’t have any spare time because school basically sucks it all up, but maybe this is something to purse. so here’s a challenge: by next sunday (oct. 4), write a 3 - 4 page double-spaced piece for me about someone who gets lost. one of my email addresses is lexfedera at gmail dot com. and no, that address has no relationship to my name. use an anonymous email, so i don’t get in trouble for preying on “defenseless” teenage women.
if you do this, take risks with your writing and play around. i’m not looking for and the kind of thing that gets an “A” in school. i want you to experiment with that crazy mind of yours and see what comes out. this isn’t supposed to take a lot of time. just sit down and write.
i’ll read and correct whatever you produce. then, if you like my comments, we’ll take it from there.
I think I can hold myself together for another week. We found what was causing the problem; it’s being addressed.
I’ll think about your idea, but I’m not sure if I’ll get around to it. I have a draft for a 15-20 page paper due on the 6th. But, then again, it does seem like a wonderful way to procrastinate.
I can’t exactly type for a bit, though, because somewhere in my head, it was decidedly a good a idea to cut myself on the inside of my hand. Night.
I’m relieved that you figured out what was wrong. I was worried.
Mmm… yeah. The inside of your hand is not convenient. Too easy to re-open.
Well, I’d be terrifically interested to see what you write if you decide to go ahead and do it. I’m in favor of finding new ways for you to procrastinate :)
saturday night, cleaning my apartment. bleh.
Yes, it’s just a mess of medications, maybe. Things are just bad, right now.
I can barely hold myself together right now. It feels like a medication-triggered depression, like Wellbutrin. But, supposedly, it’s not. I’m crying all over the place. My voice can barely reach an audible decibel. And then, just to spite me, my body gains about five pounds in a few days. Which is lovely, and quite triggering for an eating disorder. Oh, and then some sort of bug bit my face, so I now look like a chipmunk, on one side. (A slightly vain thing to be upset about, I know, but at the moment, every little thing is pushing me.)
A couple weeks ago, I don’t know what happened. I was happy, genuinely happy. Now I throw up at the thought. I really wouldn’t be surprised if sometime this week I disappear from this planet. Words do no justice to the state of mind I am in.
I really do think, now, I would do it. And that thought, as well, is about to induce some vomiting. I started praying, again. I’m so desperate.
If I can, I will write.
Things have improved, I can say at this point in time.
It’s irritating how taboo most of the thoughts circulating in my head are. Really quite irritating.
sarah63