I blame Descartes...
Aug. 31st, 2003 01:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mousmeDepressed 1am rambling
Mentioned I was on a downswing a few days ago. Funny how so many of them have coincided with the day before Hilary's big events: bridal shower, engagement party, stag party, and now wedding. Big lows followed by massive hyperness. Expect I'll be manic as all get-out tomorrow. That's the pattern.
Stupid Descartes. It's all his fault my brain is trying to kill me. All his fault that he launched modernity as we know it, all his fault that today we have that stupid mind/body dichotomy that's supposed to divorce our thinking selves from our feeling selves, so that my brain has come to so revile the body in which it dwells that it tries to destroy it at every single turn.
God dammit, I'm tired of living in this bloody solepsism where all that's supposed to matter is my rational, unfeeling self!
The rest of me wants attention too, dammit, and all it gets is abuse. You're not pretty enough. You're not happy enough. You're not elegant enough. Not polished enough. Not thin enough. Not clever enough. Oh, yeah: my brain doesn't like itself, either, but pop psychology could've told you that (you can't love anything if you don't love yourself first). Not educated enough. Not well-rounded enough. Not athletic enough.
Not anything enough.
In short, if you asked my brain it's educated opinion of me, it would reply: "Phnee sucks."
On a random note: I'm craving Diet Pepsi. It's a very weird thing to crave, and I don't have any handy and I'm not going out at 1am to buy some. But I really, really want some.
Hilary's getting married in nine hours and forty minutes.
I don't know what I want. I don't even know what I don't want half the time. Maybe more than half the time. What I want is to leave it all behind —the apartment, the cats, the car, everything. I'm not equipped to handle myself, let alone be responsible for all that. There's a part of me that doesn't want that, of course. The part of me that's forcing me to stay, forcing me to be accountable for all the shit I've pulled.
I mean, if I killed myself, who would take care of my cats? They'd probably get shipped to the SPCA, which is what I wanted to avoid in the first place. Maybe my parents would get saddled with my debts. I don't want that either, even though my debts aren't all that steep (a few hundred dollars at worst). I have a car that's on lease for another 36 months (it's one year almost to the day that I got it), a lease on my apartment until next June. What happens when the person commits suicide?
I just don't want to leave behind a mess for other people to clean up.
In other news, I saw Ordinary People on television tonight. Directed by Robert Redford, I was surprised to see, in 1980, with surprising finesse. I never figured Redford as a particularly good director, especially since he tends to cast himself in his own movies.
Wonderful performance by Donald Sutherland. At first I thought it wasn't too great, because there seemed to be no emotion at all, but suddenly it dawned on me that I was seeing a performance of remarkable subtlety.
Same for Mary Tyler Moore, whom I'd always dismissed as a two-bit TV actress. Turns out my preconceptions were wrong. Preconceptions often are. I wouldn't say she deserved an Oscar or anything, but it was wonderfully controlled, wonderfully understated.
Timothy Hutton, whose name rings a bell... also solid stuff. Can't think what I saw him in, although he appears to have worked regularly since then. All films I haven't seen.
The story: an upper-middle-class couple and their youngest son try to adjust after the accidental death of the eldest son in a boating accident involving both boys. The movie starts when Conrad, the younger son, is back from the hospital, having tried to take his own life four months before.
It was an accurate and sensitive portrayal of depression and survivor's guilt, especially for over twenty years ago when there were still so many misconceptions about depression and mental illness in general. It showed a boy who couldn't come to grips with himself, let alone his brother's death, and how his parents each failed to deal with it in their own way: the father trying to overcompensate, floundering in an attempt to help his remaining child, the mother withdrawing into her world of dinner parties and country clubs and shutting herself off emotionally from anything that might cause her further pain.
Also good was that the movie avoided an easy ending. It wasn't happy, it wasn't sad, but it didn't deliver The Answer à la Hollywood. The mother didn't suddenly realise that she was hurting her son by withholding her love and rush in and hug him, and the father didn't suddenly grow a spine or reach perfect understanding of why his world had crumbled around him without his noticing. The son didn't suddenly realise his brother's death wasn't his fault and live happily ever after with that knowledge.
Because it's never that simple.
Mentioned I was on a downswing a few days ago. Funny how so many of them have coincided with the day before Hilary's big events: bridal shower, engagement party, stag party, and now wedding. Big lows followed by massive hyperness. Expect I'll be manic as all get-out tomorrow. That's the pattern.
Stupid Descartes. It's all his fault my brain is trying to kill me. All his fault that he launched modernity as we know it, all his fault that today we have that stupid mind/body dichotomy that's supposed to divorce our thinking selves from our feeling selves, so that my brain has come to so revile the body in which it dwells that it tries to destroy it at every single turn.
God dammit, I'm tired of living in this bloody solepsism where all that's supposed to matter is my rational, unfeeling self!
The rest of me wants attention too, dammit, and all it gets is abuse. You're not pretty enough. You're not happy enough. You're not elegant enough. Not polished enough. Not thin enough. Not clever enough. Oh, yeah: my brain doesn't like itself, either, but pop psychology could've told you that (you can't love anything if you don't love yourself first). Not educated enough. Not well-rounded enough. Not athletic enough.
Not anything enough.
In short, if you asked my brain it's educated opinion of me, it would reply: "Phnee sucks."
On a random note: I'm craving Diet Pepsi. It's a very weird thing to crave, and I don't have any handy and I'm not going out at 1am to buy some. But I really, really want some.
Hilary's getting married in nine hours and forty minutes.
I don't know what I want. I don't even know what I don't want half the time. Maybe more than half the time. What I want is to leave it all behind —the apartment, the cats, the car, everything. I'm not equipped to handle myself, let alone be responsible for all that. There's a part of me that doesn't want that, of course. The part of me that's forcing me to stay, forcing me to be accountable for all the shit I've pulled.
I mean, if I killed myself, who would take care of my cats? They'd probably get shipped to the SPCA, which is what I wanted to avoid in the first place. Maybe my parents would get saddled with my debts. I don't want that either, even though my debts aren't all that steep (a few hundred dollars at worst). I have a car that's on lease for another 36 months (it's one year almost to the day that I got it), a lease on my apartment until next June. What happens when the person commits suicide?
I just don't want to leave behind a mess for other people to clean up.
In other news, I saw Ordinary People on television tonight. Directed by Robert Redford, I was surprised to see, in 1980, with surprising finesse. I never figured Redford as a particularly good director, especially since he tends to cast himself in his own movies.
Wonderful performance by Donald Sutherland. At first I thought it wasn't too great, because there seemed to be no emotion at all, but suddenly it dawned on me that I was seeing a performance of remarkable subtlety.
Same for Mary Tyler Moore, whom I'd always dismissed as a two-bit TV actress. Turns out my preconceptions were wrong. Preconceptions often are. I wouldn't say she deserved an Oscar or anything, but it was wonderfully controlled, wonderfully understated.
Timothy Hutton, whose name rings a bell... also solid stuff. Can't think what I saw him in, although he appears to have worked regularly since then. All films I haven't seen.
The story: an upper-middle-class couple and their youngest son try to adjust after the accidental death of the eldest son in a boating accident involving both boys. The movie starts when Conrad, the younger son, is back from the hospital, having tried to take his own life four months before.
It was an accurate and sensitive portrayal of depression and survivor's guilt, especially for over twenty years ago when there were still so many misconceptions about depression and mental illness in general. It showed a boy who couldn't come to grips with himself, let alone his brother's death, and how his parents each failed to deal with it in their own way: the father trying to overcompensate, floundering in an attempt to help his remaining child, the mother withdrawing into her world of dinner parties and country clubs and shutting herself off emotionally from anything that might cause her further pain.
Also good was that the movie avoided an easy ending. It wasn't happy, it wasn't sad, but it didn't deliver The Answer à la Hollywood. The mother didn't suddenly realise that she was hurting her son by withholding her love and rush in and hug him, and the father didn't suddenly grow a spine or reach perfect understanding of why his world had crumbled around him without his noticing. The son didn't suddenly realise his brother's death wasn't his fault and live happily ever after with that knowledge.
Because it's never that simple.
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no subject
Date: 2003-08-31 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-31 03:03 am (UTC)I know how you feel hon. But to quote what's been told to me many times - you've just gotta keep plodding along and doing the best you can for yourself and those around you, in that order. Look out for yourself before you look out for everyone else.
I wish I could say something more profound than that, but I'm not exactly feeling all that profound. But you know where I am if you want a shoulder to cry on.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-31 04:49 pm (UTC)In other thoughts, if you're not making the kind of difference and impact on the world that you want to, how can you change that? What else do you want to do while you're here? And please know you have people that love you and would miss you terribly. I would miss you even from my livejournal community, too!
no subject
Date: 2003-08-31 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-31 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-31 09:02 pm (UTC)Remind me to disable comments when I pose rhetorical questions. :P
Think I don't know all that? Think that's not the only reason I haven't quit? Like I need the extra guilt.
Thanks all the same.
I'm sorry about Kyle, whoever he was for you, for what it's worth.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-31 10:58 pm (UTC)Or maybe it does. I'm not a good person, and I'm not at my best. I'm sorry if I'm lecturing or whatever. I don't mean pain.
The mere fact that you are still here means you do care about others. Heck, you haven't burdened anyone with your death. And you are checking out other options, including talking about it, which is good.
Kyle shot himself a few weeks ago.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-01 07:18 am (UTC)I'm sorry it came to that. I've been there, done that (not with a gun, which is why it didn't work), and I know that there's a way out besides death.
I'm sorry that Kyle became so convinced that nothing else would make his feelings of hopelessness go away.
If there's only one lesson I've learned in all this, it's that depression is a curable disease, in all cases. Sometimes it takes more time than others, but it can always be cured.
*hugs again*
no subject
Date: 2003-09-01 09:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-01 09:10 am (UTC)There are always options. It's good to remember that.