[Originally posted here, on the UserFriendly.org web forum.]
(In Which The Author Laments The Dichotomy Of Virtual And Physical Life.)
It’s obvious that I don’t get along well in the Real World. If all you know of me is what you see here, it may be hard to understand why.
I finally went to the local mental health institution for what I thought would be an appointment with a psychiatrist.
First of all, the place is damn near impossible to find. I had to call and ask for directions.
The entire building is decorated in that ever-so-wonderful ‘government chic’ style; cinderblock walls, plain white everything, nasty plastic chairs… think of the worst DMV you’ve ever had to visit, and you’ll know what this place was like. (It’s odd, since this is a private clinic.) And the noise was unbearable. Some part of their climate control was rumbling, with the rumble pulsating every few seconds, just enough to make sure you can’t tune it out.
My appointment was at 2PM. I arrived at 2:05 or so, because I got lost on the way there. After waiting in line for ten minutes, I was given a checklist of symptoms and had to give them my ‘insurance’ card and ID. There were approximately 50 symptoms listed, and I have about half. (I could even recognize which problems they were looking for: one group was for depression, one was for mania, one was for anxiety, one was for addiction, etc.)
They finally called my name at 2:45 or so. I was taken into a back room and the ‘counselor’ asked me a few questions. At some point, I happened to mention that I was an atheist. This led to a fifteen minute long religious browbeating. I just did what I always do and zoned out; it’s not worth arguing, because nobody listens to reason.
Anyway, what really pissed me off was when I told that not only would I not be seeing a psychiatrist today, I wouldn’t even get to see one on my next visit. Apparently, they can’t just listen to the other counselors (and psychiatrists) I’ve dealt with; they have to do their own ‘diagnosis’. (You know, when they hear “I’ve tried to commit suicide”, how the fuck do they come up with a ‘diagnosis’ other than depression?)
My next appointment is in two weeks, at 10:30 AM (when my work doesn’t start until 5:30 PM). So, it’ll be at least a month before I actually get to talk to somebody who can actually help me. Until then I have to deal with the idiots and the religious freaks.
Some time ago, one of the myriad antidepressants advertised on television—I don’t remember which—had an ad that stuck in my head. The part that stuck was an actress saying, “I used to be happy. I remember being happy.”
It struck me that I didn’t. I knew I was depressed, but I honestly didn’t remember ever being truly happy. Every depression questionnaire I’ve ever read asked if the symptoms had lasted at least a month: “Does since the day I was born count?”
Since, I’ve had a few times when I thought I was happy. I doubt I really was, but I had fooled myself into thinking I was. I’m not even sure what it feels like.
I’ve seen ‘counselors’ about this, who referred me to psychiatrists, who put me on drugs. They didn’t help much. About the only real effect of the antidepressant I was most recently prescribed (Lexapro) was a side effect that I shouldn’t discuss in polite company. (Oh, who the fuck am I kidding? The side effect was that I was practically unable to orgasm. It sounds like a good thing, but believe you me, going for three hours without a happy ending is a recipe for eternal frustration.)
Thursday I see yet another psychiatrist. (I could have gone back to the USF psychiatrist I had been seeing, but I really don’t like her; she basically didn’t listen to me at all.) I’m going to ask to be put on a different antidepressant. I need a massive dose of Lexapro to see any effect—while side effects set in at much lower doses—and Wellbutrin didn’t do much at all. Maybe this time I’ll find something that works.
I came across this passage while reading Homegrown Democrat, by Garrison Keillor. I think it sums up everything that’s wrong with the South:
Redneck used to refer to farmers like my uncle Jim who did indeed have a red neck and forearms and face right up to the cap line on his forehead, but he was a generous sweet-tempered Christian man who lived out his faith. Now redneck just means someone who’d happily spend $40,000 on a new pickup for himself and rise up in rage if someone asked him to pay $200 more for his kids’ education. They’re not farmers, they’re selfish bastards with shit for brains who only pay attention to education when they get pissed off. The school board, a dedicated bunch of hard-working underappreciated individuals, decides to change the school nickname from the Redskins to the Hornets, and word goes out to the tavern dwellers and for the next school board meeting, the gymnasium is packed with furious large men venting their lifelong frustrations and in the fall the school board is thrown out of office and replaced with angry large people. That’s redneck politics. The new school board sets about restoring Redskins honor, and trimming the budget, cutting out French and Spanish, establishing creationism as the prevailing science, cleansing the library of impurities, teaching faith-based social studies and history. High school becomes a forced hike down a long corridor of locked doors. You earmark your children for a career as drones—no need for them to learn a second language or write poetry or study physics: in a good redneck school, they only need to learn to sit quietly and recite the official patriotic liturgy and become angry rednecks like their daddies.
The few children who won’t become drones become exiles. I grew up in a redneck community (in the modern sense—almost no farmers, just ignorant bigots) and had to flee to civilization.
I bought Straight Outta Lynwood today. Like a number of other recent releases, it’s only available as a DualDisc within the US. Of course, the first thing I did was try to load it into my Powerbook so I could view the bonus DVD content; when I tried, I got a nasty surprise: the disc will not fit into the drive.
The packaging says absolutely nothing about this being an issue. Some other manufacturers have included warnings regarding slot-loading CD drives, but Sony did not. All they included was a vacuous warning about the disc not conforming to the Red Book standard, which would have nothing to do with this problem as it claims to be perfectly compatible with the DVD standard and the drive is a DVD drive.
While this by itself would be annoying, the problems don’t stop there. When I tried the disc in my Wintendo (which has a tray-loading DVD drive), the audio suffered from skips and noise, but this could be explained by scratches on the disc. However, the scratches weren’t that bad; I’ve had DVDs that had taken much more abuse and still played flawlessly. The subtitles don’t work, either: it’s supposed to have a “karaoke” mode, where the lyrics are displayed on screen, but the subtitle track is completely blank. Flipping the disc to the CD side doesn’t work either; the drive refuses to acknowledge that a disc is loaded. (To be honest, this is something included as a warning on the package.)
First thing I’m going to do is try to return the disc to Wal-Mart; hopefully the DVD issues are limited to this particular disc. If Wal-Mart refuses to take it back, or if the replacement disc fails, I’m going to contact Sony/BMG directly and attempt to get a refund. (Wal-Mart will not give refunds for opened CDs or DVDs.)
(Note: this entry is being written under the influence of a great deal of whisky and emo.)
So, a couple of days ago, Bonnie emailed me asking if I wanted to visit MOSI. As we had been planning to go for some time, I readily agreed. Frankly, I was looking forward to it.
I drove there today (it’s about 75 miles from my house, in Tampa) and we met up. As soon as we stepped inside, into the welcome center, we sat down and she started giving me the Friends Speech: I’m just not in love with you, but I hope we can be friends, blah blah fucking blah. I don’t remember much of what happened after that; I literally didn’t move for about ten or fifteen minutes, as I was still trying to come to terms with what I was hearing. She left early on.
Eventually I walked back to my car, by myself, and drove home.
I don’t really know how to feel. The usual suspects are all there—pain, anger, sadness—but, if I had to describe what I feel right now… it’d be emptiness. There’s a gaping hole. I really don’t feel anything very strongly. (That’s only partially due to the whisky.)
I still don’t know what to think, either. It came as quite a shock—I thought things were going fine—but in retrospect, I think I understand how she behaved at some points. She never seemed as ‘into’ anything we did as I was, and most of the times we went out, we went out with her friends and I felt like a fifth wheel.
In my more assholish moments, I’ve wondered whether she was merely keeping me around as an academic tutor, and now that she doesn’t need my help, she lets me go… though I doubt that. My guess is that she was in the same situation I was: lonely, desperate, searching for someone who would look past the physical attributes to see what’s inside, trying to find someone willing to accept us for who we were instead of who society wanted us to be. The difference is that I genuinely wanted to be with her. In a sense, I still do.
Despite this, I don’t think I could trust her enough to go back. She broke my heart already, and even if she did come back, I couldn’t imagine myself putting myself in that position again. I’m willing to be friends, and we’ll see what happens.
Today, millions of Americans are grilling steaks and watching firework displays in celebration of a principle that hasn’t existed in America for about five years now: freedom. In the name of tracking down ‘terrorists’, the US government has done precisely what the terrorists wanted them to do; by creating an invisible threat to chase, they have caused the government to clamp down on its citizens’ liberty and squander money and lives invading countries that have nothing to do with them. In contrast to the Republican message of low government interference in private life, the Bush administration has fostered a national atmosphere of dependence upon the government.
Here’s something that everyone either knows or refuses to accept: The rest of the world does not like the United States anymore. Even most Americans don’t like the US government anymore. It’s fairly clear that the Bush administration has lost the respect of the entire world, and his poll numbers here in the US are a hair’s breadth above where Nixon’s were when he resigned.
If you glance over to the “Recent Comments” segment of the sidebar, you may notice a few unusual comments. I’ve had a jackass (or maybe multiple jackasses) attempting to disturb or malign me. It’s one thing to insult me, but it’s quite another to attempt to impersonate me.
Not that anyone can successfully impersonate me here. I have full control. I had already set up Author Highlight that determines whether a comment is actually by me and highlights the comment, and I’ve just finished setting up “Impostercide!” 1.2, which makes sure that nobody else can impersonate me. (Right now, the “highlight” is a green line, but that’s subject to change once I get around to redesigning the theme.) If the information doesn’t match, the green line doesn’t appear—and neither does my Gravatar—so don’t be fooled by imposters.
Someone explain to me why the word “cunt” is so offensive. Please.