We will carry each other and we will carry on.

I am home after a mere four and a half days. I was in a mixed state (specifically, a dysphoric mania), which was broken after a few days using medication. Not to keep going on about this too much on this Tumblr, where I normally try to keep it to media stuff, but going into the hospital in the wee hours of Sunday saved my life. The desire to kill myself grew rapidly from a tiny seed to a terrifying, inescapable thing that clouded and colored my every thought. The only reason I went in was because I had people in my life kicking my ass into treatment; they relentlessly intruded, called, texted, and emailed me. 

If you are in the same place, I beg you to tell someone. I won’t tell you that things are looking up or offer any trite advice because really, what the fuck do I know? This is what I do know: if you want to or have ever wanted to kill yourself, if you know what it’s like to know in your bones that things will never get better, if you feel trapped and just don’t want to be here anymore, you are part of my tribe. Every time one of us gives up the ghost, the world gets a little bit darker. You matter. 

In other news, somehow I had Mad Men spoiled for me while I was in a psych ward. Jesus.

Girl, Interrupted

Was super misleading because apparently checking into a psych ward is a long ass process. Didn’t Winona just roll up and plop down in that movie?

Posting will be infrequent to nothing until my head gets screwed back on straight. Straighter. Let’s not shoot for the moon, here.

I’m off for now, lovelies. Be kind to one another and yourselves, breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, and if you find yourself slipping away tell somebody. Tell anybody.

Kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight. Above all, I beg of you, do not go see The Chernobyl Diaries. It is dreadful. I want better for you.

I’m miserable. I’m not sleeping, I’m not eating, and I find it hard to move beyond the world inside my head in order to connect with other human beings. The memoir is clicking right along, though! I am most eloquent while navel gazing and hey, no, I don’t feel good about that, but we work with what has been given to us. Like a massive sense of self importance and a moderate ability to create prose that doesn’t automatically make people bleed from their ear holes.
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I’m miserable. I’m not sleeping, I’m not eating, and I find it hard to move beyond the world inside my head in order to connect with other human beings. The memoir is clicking right along, though! I am most eloquent while navel gazing and hey, no, I don’t feel good about that, but we work with what has been given to us. Like a massive sense of self importance and a moderate ability to create prose that doesn’t automatically make people bleed from their ear holes.
Zoom Info

I’m miserable. I’m not sleeping, I’m not eating, and I find it hard to move beyond the world inside my head in order to connect with other human beings. The memoir is clicking right along, though! I am most eloquent while navel gazing and hey, no, I don’t feel good about that, but we work with what has been given to us. Like a massive sense of self importance and a moderate ability to create prose that doesn’t automatically make people bleed from their ear holes.

Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl

There’s going to be a show on TV called Deadwood. You might think that you don’t like “all that western-y type shit” but you need to watch Deadwood. Grey’s Anatomy is a red herring; do not start watching it. Stop having a crush on Richard Ruccolo in Two Guys A Girl and A Pizza Place; have you even seen Ryan Reynolds with your eyeballs?

Don’t read so much Heinlein because he’s a misogynistic asshole. (Read Stranger In A Strange Land, though, because grok is an essential vocabulary word.) Consume every single thing Octavia Butler has written and write her a fan letter before her tragic early death in 2006.

You don’t have to listen to Christian music just because your mom says you do. You are at college, how will she know? Put down the Stacie Orrico CD. Just put it down. Your dad has all those old records and turntable in the attic; get a jump on being a hipster.

Don’t see anything, but certainly not Avatar because it’s the longest movie in the goddamn world, in 3-D because you will hurl at the end from the migraine. Actually, just don’t see Avatar at all. Trust.

Also: getting married at eighteen is a stupid idea; do it anyway because you will not regret it for even a single second. Take every opportunity to love people. Don’t hold onto them so tight that you can’t let go when it is time to. A lot of crappy things will happen to you — people will die, your heart will swell and break a hundred times, and you are going to go crazy — but it will be okay.

Finally, and this is probably the most important one: remember to close the fucking moon roof in your car because the upholstery in a 1986 Volvo is not improved by being rained on repeatedly. Also a raccoon got in that one time and freaked you out pretty bad.

I Must Be Fine ‘Cause My Heart’s Still Beating: A Guide To Going Crazy

A random tragic event that was the proverbial straw on the camel’s back of my mental health has prompted what can charitably be called a bender. If you ever find yourself in a similar situation — awash in a sea of booze, pills, and overwhelming sadness — here are a few pro tips for entertainment. Now, there are two paths you can take: choose wisely.

Avoidance:

  • Netflix currently offers The Cutting Edge for instant viewing. Watch it on a loop, feel a reassurance in your heart that they will conquer both the Pamchenko and their interpersonal difficulties, repeat.
  • Play a lot of Call of Duty as it is physically impossible to contemplate your own mortality while a total stranger screams at you to gargle his balls, you fucking fat ass bitch.
  • Alternate between watching Mean Girls and Easy A for an entire day.
  • Tiny Furniture. Because hey, at least you aren’t having fast, unprotected sex in a pipe with a guy who horked into his own hand for lube.
  • Any version of The Sims. Light your friends and enemies alike on fire! After you trap them in a doorless room with nothing but a phone they can use to call for pizza, that is.
  • Watch every single episode of Parks & Recreation for the third time while eating waffles and whipped cream.

Leaning into it/Going deeper into the crevasse/The only way out is through:

  • Girls on HBO. What ARE you doing with your life? Where IS all this going? How do all your conversations go so wrong?
  • Create an actual playlist called “Songs That Make Me Cry” and listen to it in the bathtub in the dark. Wonder why things are getting worse.
  • Watch the episode of Buffy where Joyce dies and the episode of Angel where Fred turns into Illyria. Send Joss a bill for your therapy co-pay.
  • Instead of actually reading anything — god knows you are too tired for that — uncontrollably reflect on the saddest parts of every book you’ve ever read. The Road, Never Let Me Go, Atonement, The Virgin Suicides, that point in any Jane Austen novel where you think maybe the rich bachelor doesn’t love the wry heroine.
  • Play the part of Mass Effect 3 where Mordin sings.

Above all, bathe — even if you do it while drinking gin — and leave your house daily. Nobody will notice if you cry in the theater. Make a single impulse purchase. Food tastes like ash, but order extra bacon anyway. For god’s sake, brush your hair; you look like you slept in a bush.