companion {32/365}
Originally uploaded by Abstract Magdalene.

I can't handle the diagnosis. I'm going to the sanctuary to lay with Buckley and sleep, read.

I am so tired. Tired of trying, tired of pretending I can do this and be even. I'll never be even.

So much to say, but really.....like someone said to me: what's the point?

Labels: Sylvia Plath

I'm sure in the grand scheme of things, my depression and as of yet undiagnosed neurosis are small potatoes compared to the suffering that is going on in other parts of the world.

But I can't even think past what I will be doing in 15 minutes, let alone the loss of countrymen, civilian lives and other pieces of humanity in general.

My theory is that despite all of our wishes, hopes and dreams....humans are locusts with brains. We consume, build, destroy and paint ourselves into corners. We do this knowingly, if you believe the environmentalists. Or we do it unknowingly, if you believe all those proud Americans for all the wars they actually had no business starting or being involved with.

My theory is finite. We don't have a sustainable future. As a race, humans aren't meant to perservere. This whole earth thing, as in planet earth is a one shot deal. Unlike Sim City, we don't get to start over. We think too much, and we don't think enough. We act too quickly and do not make up for the damage we've done to anything we've touched.

The only thing I can think of that even remotely interests me in life, is art. And trust me when I say that it's only a matter of time before that's soiled with the leaking parts of my radioactive brain. Love? you ask. I don't have any faith in it. I think it's for certain kinds of people, and I just happen to be the other kind. I'm not a girl that gets to have love.

It's with those thoughts, that I ponder the usefullness of my own existence. A friend tells me that we have no other option but to keep slogging through the mess we've made of our lives. But, somewhere inside of me, I know that it's only a matter of time before there are no more words from me, and I am underwater.

The past few days have been bad. I've had worse, but I can feel myself sinking below the water line, and knowing there isn't really anything or anyone that can thrown me a life saver. And really, who cares anyway?

The Fine Art of Falling Apart - The Matthew Good Band

Labels: drama, neurotic, song, Sylvia Plath

weapon
Originally uploaded by Abstract Magdalene.

here by my side, it's heaven
here by my side, you are destruction...

I'm not one of those girls that has a gazillion huge tattoos all over her body. I have 5 small ones, one is a drawing and is about 1.5 inches in size. The other four are choice words or phrases that I like and they are all hidden from view, or can be with bracelets.

For instance, the latest one is Weapon. I put it on my right wrist. We hurt other with our hands We type or write words that sting like nettle. It's also the title of my favourite song by Matthew Good. That song came from a time I believe as having woken up from a suburbia-induced coma. My right hand is connected to my heart.

The only problem with that is, once you're awake, you can't ever get back to sleep. careful...

I wanted to write something more whimsical, but I'm sleepy now. The telephone was ringing off the hook yesterday but I hid from it under the sheets. Today not such a good day, I guess I was crashing from the good days I had earlier this week. I feel as though I can slowly wind myself up in the red curtains Sylvia Plath was making when she killed herself. What a poet.

So...bed time.

Love, Gish

Weapon - Matthew Good

Labels: blue pills, depression, Matthew Good, melancholy, neurotic, photographs, song, Sylvia Plath, tattoos, zopiclone

sanctuary
Originally uploaded by Abstract Magdalene.

I haven't had anywhere that I would particularly like to be. Not for a long while. No place to rest my head and feel that I was ok, normal, loved and most importantly, safe. This past year has meant a lot of changes for me. The first, obviously moving to this new writing space. Which I am still not sure I will maintain, future food for thought.

When I lost it, my mind I mean. I never thought I would have any kind of meaningful support other than an imaginary kindly old nurse that would pat my knee reassuringly while I was being fitted for the straight jacket. I know that in myself, in my speech and some beliefs I have, I perpetuate the old myths of mental health. I know this, it's not intentional, at the same time it's not something I can see changing any time soon.

Given the events of this past week, I now know a few more things. That when you check into emergency by sliding a note stating "I'm going to kill myself" across to the receptionist behind the bullet proof glass partition, they whisk you away only to make you wait in a chair next to a drunk throwing up what seemed like gallons of red wine two seats over.

From then on it was completely "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". You can all cheer and think it was a great thing when the indian guy broke the water fountain and walked away from the institution, but shit like that doesn't really happen. Instead, I was held in a room painted blue, they told me to put on the gown, I declined until further notice. I hadn't yet seen a doctor. The door, I remember, had a round fishbowl-like window in it, and they locked from the outside.

I lay down on the gurney, wrapped a sheet around myself and tried to be as small as possible until the ordeal was over. This is the latest in events that have been my effort to seek help for the severe depression I've been suffering.

I hear things like 'bi-polar', 'crazy', 'she's just one of those that are never happy people'. In ways I can't even explain, moods come over me and I'm helpless to stop or manage the emotions. It feels like I'm crazy, so I often refer to myself as such. It could be a lie, who really knows.

My family is angry and hurt that I didn't reach out to them for help. But even if I had, I wouldn't have had the words to tell them what's wrong.

I still don't.

Until then, I'm floating on a very thin carpet. I eat icy green grapes for dinner and pet Buckley whilst reading old Margaret Atwood books in the hope I make it through another night in my sanctuary.

Labels: cry, depression, how not to be an idiot, insomnia, layers, lockdown, lorazepam, Matthew Good, melancholy, neurotic, pharmacology, Sylvia Plath, writing, zopiclone

my new writing machine
Originally uploaded by Abstract Magdalene.
If I were the classier sort of girl, that typewriter up there would be an Underwood. I have to find some ribbons for it. It will be a bit like being a detective to find the right ones. I really have no idea how to start.

I've eaten about 5 chocolate Popsicles tonight. Something about the texture is really appealing to me every time I pass by the fridge. And now that I want to go to sleep, the guy who lives upstairs is testing out his bass equipment. I wonder if I have enough moxy to knock on the ceiling with the broom handle, as though I live in prewar New York City.

I've rediscovered the song Black by Pearl Jam. So, I've been falling asleep to the sad story every night.

I really am going to die alone and Buckley will chew my knuckles and wrists for food while he waits for family to realise it's been a couple of week since anyone has heard from me and come calling.

yup.
Whatever.

Labels: Gish, habits, home improvement, how not to be an idiot, insomnia, neurotic, opinions, Sylvia Plath, zopiclone

I have this picture in my head. I have a new(to me) chair that I can picture myself falling asleep in. But wearing support socks, and curlers in my hair, an old slip covering my gaunt body, and the light playing off my tissue-paper thin, shiny skin. I would have fell asleep reading the paper. I have that in my head. That's how I imagined Plath should have died. In old age. It's amazing how quickly it takes to put a decision into action, once it's made. One, 2, three, go.

If I can just get back to that level of unawareness, I could be happy again. If I was just willing to settle....

Labels: drama, neurotic, Sylvia Plath, witness

We
Originally uploaded by Abstract Magdalene.

I can change, I swear...
I smoked too many cigarettes today. One call from a job in Philly. I didn't take it, it wasn't what I wanted. I wish I could forget the days that hurt and easily remember the ones that heal. I took this a few months ago before my art show. I'm really not quite sure what to do with it now. I guess it can go into someone else's private collection. It doesn't seem to strike a chord, the way it used to. Sometimes, I hang on to things forever. Other times, I barely realise they are gone before I turn out the lights for the night.

I'm in full lockdown mode now. It's my own fault. A specific blend of pharmaceuticals to help get me through the night, a couple of novels and some photographs. I don't know when I'll resurface. Maybe sometime next week.

These little 'slow downs' happen once in awhile, and from experience I've just got to keep taking breath, and hoping that it will be over soon.

I want something that won't let me dream anymore. My dreams (they say are wishes) hurt me, big barbs lodged into the sides of my arms, little thorns in my side, the nicks and scrapes that my life has brought me. Sometimes....they just keep coming back.

Ok, I lied. I posted a photo of that painting because I know the next time I log on, I'll see it. And maybe it will make me feel better. Silence those stupid ghosts from the past, the whispers that eat away at my self esteem and self worth (Oprah talk). Maybe I'll remember the orange glow of love and then my world will turn upright again.
Maybe.

But now, it's Black Cherry soda pop and another chapter of the sad book I'm reading. Climbing under my covers, tinfoil on the windows, drugs in my system and the prayer that I don't dream of you anything, tonight.

Don't bother calling me, I won't pick up the phone. aloha.


You're a Big Girl Now - Bob Dylan

Labels: Blach cherry pop, Bob Dylan, how not to be an idiot, insomnia, lockdown, painting, pharmacology, Sylvia Plath, underwater, witness

It's rare, but it happens. Who can remember the month or two (three, four, five) ago when I was contemplating Plath's ingenius ideas and the guts (or enough drugs) to punch her own ticket. It feels like this morning ago, or ten years ago. Maybe tomorrow it will come back in some kind of wave, overcoming and squashing any of the good I've felt the past month, day or week. Or maybe not. Maybe it never was.

Who knows.

There is never any real point to anything. It's just the joy or the good you can feel afterwards. That's what I think, sometimes, in my more cynical moments. You think I like you, when I just like the idea of how I can possibly feel with you. That's all. Harsh, real cold, reality. It's just the kind of thing that Ophelia would have said if she lived in my time (and wasn't a fictional character), she'd be some beaten down whore working the streets of gritty, dirty Toronto, not shaking anyone's hand and always always...always sizing you up for your last dollar. But her words would have been about money, not feeling.

Sometimes, I think Hamlet really knew the score. Down to simple animalistic urges. Then, the end.

But I'm not in that wave. I'm not depressed. I'm just thinking. Thinking about Plath again, and thinking of ones. Ones. Thinking of Thalo Blue paint spreading itself over rough canvas from my sweet brushes. Is that it? The tools are more important than the end result?

Something to think about.
I pulled this off Good's journal which you can find at the link provided way below. Sometimes, it feels like the man has his fingers in my brain.

"...Sylvia: depression, romanticism. Think what you will, but it’s the same deck of cards in the end. And still we smile and swim like beleaguered salmon against the current, hopeful of never ending spring. Winter, solitude’s bedfellow, is the smartest of all the seasons, simply because it knows that it doesn’t have to produce any heat."

It was the last line that caught me. Winter is the most honest of all seasons, it can hide all of your secrets underneath the perfect, truthful blanket of white.

read the rest at:
http://www.matthewgood.org/

tiny oval shaped blue pills, sometimes pink ones that make you gain weight. But always the ones that help me sink underwater. Do you get me?

Labels: drama, Matthew Good, Sylvia Plath