Evolution

All about my mental breakdown, honed and formatted for your viewing pleasure.

March 3, 2007
I’d like to say this is for my potential children, but Therapist says that this will help me in addition to meds. He also told me that I would die, but die a metaphysical death, like a butterfly from a cocoon. I just looked at him. He thought it was an agreement smile, because he said, “You see. You’re intrigued!” I said “No. I just think that’s a bit cliché.” He must be a good therapist to take my s**t.

March 6, 2007
Just had four shots of vodka. Am concentrating on spelling bc if you can spell, you’re not an alcoholic (ha!). Thinking of another shot. Drink, cut, drink. Don’t feel that crazy when I’m druk.
I’m waiting for that person to come that will understand and love me, love me in that way I understand. Not good good good but bad good good. Knowing, feeling their beauty when they hurt you. Knowing when they hurt, knowing, feeling.
My eyes are cold from the night and it’s a weird feeling. There’s the air and the broken umbrella and those chairs fallen over and littered all over the patio are my cigarettes.
My sister says I copied all I know from her, all the sarcastic witty jaded jadedness. I know it’s a mantra, one of those ones we hold in our minds to make sense of reality. She thinks I don’t know about it and maybe she doesn’t either.
It’s amazing how hard I’ve looked and tried and tried to find someone to understand, some romantic blah to walk buildings with and see the beauty and horror and love it all (but I think I secretly hate it).
Is the problem movies? Is the problem novels, myths of love? Maybe I should lower my standards.
I am not as smart as my sister (and someone said “why do you always refer to her as ‘my sister’?” I didn’t say bc I don’t want her to be a real person) and I can’t be.

March 8, 2007
        Want to kill myself. Take that, new age therapist.
        I need to feel someone. But deep inside me, like a river font. Deep like a mountain and that saying that says you can’t come back to where you once were. Deep Deep Deep.
        I have no self-control and I can break when I need to. And then maybe the other parts of my soul will grow like distanced flowers. They will always have a home, but not a place.

March 9, 2007
        Last entry, got drunk, cut myself. Pretty deeply, was bleeding on the floor. Kim walked in and yelled at me. Then my sister walked in (we’d been planning to meet earlier) and Kim complained to my sister.
        Then we went to a bar. Felt suicidal, kept getting flashes of dying in my head. Me, flash, pins through my arm, Me, flash, rope, Me, flash flash flash.
        Therapist would say blah chemical imbalance blah. He would also say Cry for Help blah.
        Funny how I don’t want to drink anymore. The FlashDeath experience and of betraying myself by calling people and asking them to tell me not to die kind of sucks in the morning.
        Chemical imbalance. That’s my mantra.

March 10, 2007
        Kim called today. At 10 f*****g pm. I was in the car with my sister and you know, still FlashDeathing a bit.
        Conversation:
        I said, “Hello.” Still kinda out of it.
        “I need to talk to you.” Blunt panicky voice.
        “Can it wait?”
        “No.”
        I said, “Ok, what.”
        “I can’t live with you anymore. I don’t know if you want to sublet or anything—“
        I just felt a shot in my stomach, bloom, pain blossoming and said
        “I can’t deal with this right now.”
        She said words jumbled I can’t remember, so I
        CLICKed (off the phone.)

I got back home and now it’s pain pain pain. I kind of believe her that I’m wrong. And I do feel bad for having her witness that. But then again, we’ve been friends for 3 years and I never told her about my problems. So maybe its my fault, like I should have warned her? But I helped her through her alcoholic parents and anorexic sister.
        Does she really want me to die? Does she not know what suicidal means?

March 11, 2007
        Where to start? Where?
        She’s either 1) insane 2) complete selfish b***h. This all happened today.
1st encounter:
She was making spaghetti. In her frizzy hair and velvet purple tracksuit, which Newsflash have been out for some time. Only platinum white trash and apparently her wear them now.
I said, “Are you living here or not?”
She just sat there with her lips pressed together in that red shiny clumpy lipstick which does not suit her face and makes her look even more like a 7th grade fashion expert. “Well right now I obviously am.”
“Well, I didn’t know because you’ve hardly been here for two days. I just wanted to know to inform Landlord.”
She plopped her spaghetti onto her plate. “Well I’m really busy right now with finals.”
“Well I guess you can’t multitask, cause it looks like you’re making lunch.”
Small cold black eye glance. “Well you can make an appointment with me at 4 if you want.”
“Fine with me. Appointment at 4.”
Twirl of spaghetti, eyes on food. “See you then.”
        
2nd encounter:
I’m at work. I get a call.
“Hello?”
         “We need to talk.”
        “We will talk. At 4.”
        “I really need to talk, I don’t know if I can do this, I’m really busy with work and—“
        “Too Bad.” Click.

3rd encounter:
        30 minutes later. I’m walking around work. I spot her wandering around outside (frizzy hair again) looking dazed and like a nervous squirrel.
        I come outside.
        She’s flitting around. “We need to talk.”
        “I’m at work.”
        Wringing hands. “We need to talk.”
        “No. We are not talking about this right now.” I’m just getting over the FlashDeathing so talking is like swimming in jello.
        Nervous impatience. “Well what are you doing right now?”
        “Working.”
        Her eyes are peering into me and they’re anxious and cold and somehow arrogant and ballsy. “Well I just can’t live with you you have such weird habits and—“
        I’m so angry that my hands are shaking and I feel like an abused housewife who has woken up. One of those that puts arsenic in the chili.
        “I’m not talking about this. Goodbye.”

4th and Final:
        I come home prepared with a yellow writing pad with questions on it because I can’t think and feel so shaky angry and the pad and pen are my only blanket. She’s there at the table and I sit across from her, poised like a reporter and say in my best customer service voice “So why do you feel it’s necessary to move out?”
        She gives me this look of shocked disbelief like a girlfriend that has touched some foreign panties in her bed. “Because I found you cutting open your ankles.”
        Reporter again. “Uh huh,” I take this down. “Anything else?”
        It pours out of her like a wound, “Well you’re unstable, you have depression, you don’t clean, you’re manipulative—“
        Reporter hand goes up. “How am I manip—“
        “Let me finish. You don’t pay bills, you’re irresponsible.”
        I stop a beat. “So why am I manipulative?”
        “Why is this important?” Like she’s weary of it now.
        “I think you owe me an explanation.”
        She’s still for a second. “Ok, you’re right.”
        “So?”
        “You leave your death poetry around when you know I don’t like it, you sleep on the couch, you let strange people have sex in the house.”
        The rest isn’t worth repeating. She’s having someone sublet.
Are you wondering if the accusations are true? Well, I do sleep on the couch. I did (accidentally, once) let two people stay over that did end up having sex. And the death poetry? That’s the worst. You’re looking at it and it’s always closed.

March 13, 2007
        Was recounting all of this to Lisa and found out that Kim thinks I was trying to do all of this to make her depressed and freak her out.
        I totally broke down at that.

March, 15, 2007
        Kim told me yesterday that maybe she didn’t want to move out (I think she can’t find a place). She said that we should put down some ground rules. We have a meeting later.
        I’ve been out of the house a lot. I feel like the house has some bad energy or something, like some weird supernatural thing.

March 17, 2007
        Ok, well, I figured alcohol would help our meeting. Bad idea.
        She told me to stop eating her food, to pay bills on time, and to clean up more.
        My only suggestions were that she stop talking to me for the duration of the stay. I said we could write notes on the whiteboard in the kitchen and avoid each other. It’s really not that hard.
She disagreed, I got pissed off, we (or I) went into all the reasons that she’s a psychotic b***h and a completely worthless person. We also touched into the areas of Why I’m Better Than Her (there were multiple reasons). I was vulnerable at one point and asked her why she hurt me.
        Her response? “I have to look out for myself.”

March 20, 2007
        Kim moved out. She left me a note that says, “I hope you have the best success in life. Here’s something to decorate your apartment with.” Instead of writing love, she drew a picture of a unicorn (her favorite animal), complete with a comma, and signed it.
        She also left me these origami birds.
        I burned them.

March 30, 2007
        I thought that once she moved out, my anger would be gone. But it’s still there.

April 2, 2007
        Had to stop going to Starbucks because she frequents it and I still get these flashes. They not death flashes anymore. They’re Smash Kim’s Head into a Wall flashes.

April 5, 2007
        I feel like I should be getting over this. My meds have been working for a while, depression’s gone. Lisa says that maybe I should try to be friends with Her. I got this disgusting feeling in my stomach, a feeling of pure revulsion like you would feel if you had drunken sex with a fat man. I told Lisa, with barely controlled calm, to never ever talk to me about that again.

April 7, 2007
        Talked to Therapist about my anger. I’m not used to this almost hatred. I only have to go to him for checkups now. He said it’s a natural progression, that I wasn’t able to get angry before. Then he went on about being able to be like the shaman who can go into the underworld for brief periods of time but then also being able to rise from it. I think his new agey comments are kind of endearing. I think I won’t tell him what an a*s he is.
        But at least it’s a natural thing. I was worried that it was unhealthy, but I’m not so worried anymore.”

April 23, 2007
        Have been told by Lisa that Kim asked about how I was, and if I got her card and present. I said, “Oh, well that’s interesting.”
        I’m a billion times prettier and smarter than she is.

April 25, 2007
        Even though I told Lisa to stop telling me things about Kim, she does. I guess it’s too hard. Anyway, Kim wants to be on friendly terms again, she’s “Sorry that we aren’t friends anymore.”
(aka no one else will be friends with her because she’s a socially awkward chipmunk.)

April 26, 2007
        I know this is mean.
        I really really do.
        But, I kind of want to be friends with her, and then destroy her life.
        It would be extremely easy, she’s intensely stupid. I can just call and say “Kim, I was wrong. I really was a horrible roommate. I know now that we just have our differences. Can we still be friends?”
        It would work. I also have naked pictures of her that I haven’t deleted.

May 1, 2007
        Ok, so I decided to do the whole Destroy Life thing. I opted for the Othello plan, not really killing her but making her life a complete hell.
        I’m writing late because I already have one thing accomplished. She’s really obsessed with this one guy. He’s cute in a sort of Gap dumb jock sort of way. I definitely fucked him, multiple times. I had to because he was really really bad, not very wide and the sessions were extremely short. Ick ick ick. Thank god he left.
        I also fucked her ex boyfriend. He was actually pretty good. I felt kinda bad leaving, I think he wanted to cuddle. (He’s been calling me since. I’d date him [or continue f*****g], but his judgement with women is obviously impaired.)

May 3, 2007
        I’m in a dry spell. I can’t think of anything else that would emotionally damage her. We are friends again, did I mention that? Now instead of actually helping her with her asinine self-deprecating comments, I say things like “Well, it’s ok if people don’t like you. They don’t really matter. I mean, people have to like you sometime.”
        I’ve also decided to f**k her art teacher. She idolizes him.

May 5, 2007
        Mission accomplished! He cancelled a lesson with her because he was “too tired.”

May 6, 2007
        I encouraged her to have sex with that guy in her Biology class. It’s not like he looks skeevy or anything.
        I also told her about the pull out method, which I use. Did you know that it’s 90% effective?

July 2, 2007
        D****t d****t. I feel like a horrible person.
        She came to me today. She was crying. I was sitting on our s****y black futon and she was crying.
        At first a triumphant marching band was playing in my head. But I was like “ok, Kim, what’s wrong?”
        “I have this weird rash and the doctor says its an std.” And holy s**t, there came the parade.
        “What std?”
        “Herpes.” And there was the Little Mermaid on a float. And Princess Jasmine, hello.
        “That’s not the worst part.”
        I gave my most sympathetic nod. It’s accompanied by a wrinkling of concern on the brow and wide eyes.
        “I’m pregnant.”

        So somehow I managed to comfort her. I actually gave her my true feelings for once. I said it was her own decision. But I pretty much all but told her to put a coathanger up there.
        She ignored me. Can you imagine? That thing is going to be walking around with a child! It’s going to be dead for sure! She’s the kind of person who would see her child dying, call 911, and go to work. Honestly, I know I’d be an unfit mother so abortion it’d be.
        So that sucks. I slept with a billion people to get her back and now I don’t even get to tell her. It totally failed. Blah.
        I have forgiven her though. Though I might joke about how she’s going to die in childbirth, sometimes. To people that understand, it’s really funny.

Reviews

[t.stone]

Hell yes! (I'm commenting strictly on Voice, Delivery, and Wit. Just the nuts and bolts of the machine.)

Some wonderful turns of phrase here. Your dry, matter-of-fact style provides an evenly coated canvas for the well-placed, selective distribution of quips.

Vulnerable and fierce at the same time. And the journal structure works well here.

A few minor type-o's, but nothing a quick proofread couldn't fix with ease.

Really, really good. Thanks for posting.
- t.s.

[[untitled]]

Truly inspiring. This captures well the pathetic humor of depression (and I say that as someone who has been in-patient, uh, more than once). I especially like the term "DeathFlashing." I had never thought of it that way. The only nit I can pick is what I think might be an unintentionally typo. Under "April 2, 2007," there's a sentence that reads: "They not death flashes anymore."

[Chad Halle]

just read a litle bit an must say; brilliant. will read more one day when my eyes are better

[THE BLACK SEAL]

i am glad you saved this one it is very tumultous for sure. the inner plights are very vivid for me as i know they are still for you. this was bold to post

[shel]

ok, way back a million years ago i read this, tried to review it, and my review disappeared mid-send. so glad you were able to save this one & repost it, because i find it endlessly entertaining, in a voyeuristic, humorous, disturbing as hell sort of way. there's a lot out there like this, subject-wise, but you pull it off in a way that the reader *can't* stop reading. so much i like about this-- the way you reduce characters to their labels, 'Therapist' and 'Landlord'...how the sentences just tumble out, but there's so much detail and wit in them, that it just drags us inside the narrator's world. the snarky attitude, puncuated by these moments of absolute vulnerabilty. the dialogue is fantastic, and some of the lines-- i esp. liked the lines about the housewife waking up, and the girlfriend finding foreign panties in the bed...and how talking feeling like 'swimming in jello'. the whole FlashDeath thing...i don't even know what to say about that, other than i get it. i was really struck by the 5-1 entry, about the guy's judgement with women being 'obviously impaired', and how this alone deters you from seeing him again. it sounds a lot like 'i don't want anyone who would want the likes of me'. ouch. the coathanger business freaked me out a bit, but honest is honest, and that's how this piece feels. you have a really strong sharp-witted voice, and you really hit so many aspects of depression...in an unusually lively manner. great read.

[Hedra Helix]

Wow I second mark.

Hey hAVE YOU READ aMY hEMPEL? I THINK YOUD LIKE HER..OOPS caps.

[Mark]

Lee, one thing I know. You can write. Like you said, sometimes it's the only blanket we have to keep us warm.

FAK