[bexter]

I had a couple of e-mail exchanges with my friend in PA about what I wrote in my first "new low" post. I try not to subject her to my various misanthropic rantings and don't always succeed. This time, focusing on myself rather than the ills of the world, I probably did strike more of an introspective, analytical chord, but this was hardly more encouraging to her given what I was writing.

My friend, who is as brilliant as she is kind, has tried very hard to understand the ups and downs and thoughts of people like us who go through life in an unyielding battle with their own minds, so she doesn't treat what I say about my mindset as pathetic or hapless. And I'm sure she appreciates why I feel these feelings even if she becomes frustrated by my recurrent refusal or inability to perceive any light on the horizon, to advocate for myself. It's unreal that she sees any good in me. I know that's a cliche, but she's a successful attorney for a big corporation and I'm an aimless and irresponsible turd who drank his way out of med school and has done nothing but screw up every few months since that time (about 10 years ago). But the "I'm not good enough," though true, is for another discussion.

Mostly, I am just venting, so forgive me if I repeat myself or unintentionally lapse into hubris.

Given events of recent days, I don't know that I have ever felt quite as despondent and out of control as I do right now. Probably not. It's one thing to be broke, another to know I'd still be broke even if I dumped a couple grand into my bank account. Then there are my medical problems and (believe it or not) social dysfunction and isolation.

But more excoriating is the greater picture -- this latest is just one more turd on the shitheap. I have led such a futile and error-packed existence that even aside from ongoing alcohol issues--which have continued to trip me up in recent weeks--I feel like I'm never going to outrun or manage the consequences. Even in less dire periods, I'm gripped by a mixture of dread and fatigue and resentment, overlaid by the sense--which should be terrifying but isn't--that I'm simply not going to make it, with only the timing and the details of the outcome to be determined. I'm no victim; I've invited the fallout over and over and can scarcely complain about reaping what I sow. I am a master of putting negative momentum to use, and might honestly welcome a significant degree of retrograde amnesia. Preferable to have to start fresh than fixate and then act like an infant because I can't handle the memories, including the missed opportunities as well as the bad things I've done and caused.

As far as discussing this stuff with others who do not qualify for inclusion in this community...I wish I could convey the sheer, I don't know, bafflement about being "this way"; acting like a damned lunatic for so long, and in an increasingly erratic manner. Continuing to lose things, abandoning my already middling goals, just feeling walloped by life. No structure, no discipline, no drive. And a frequent perverse certainty that I could toss myself off a bridge and imagine myself laughing at the clowns who are misguided enough to call this "selfish" when their braying about how the weak should be forced to keep living for the sake of their emotional comfort is the epitome of selfish.

It seems like I would have reached some token level of normalcy or achievement by now, and instead the walls keep closing in; I believe that even if my front-and-center problems were magically solved today, I'd remain devoid of self-respect for a long time. The details of what I put myself through no longer matter--it's the growing certainty that I'll never quit doing it that has me thinking of just checking the hell out of this huge, rock-and-mud spherical hotel.

[bizi]

Dear Bexter,
You are quite a writer and put your feelings down very well.
I am wondering if/how medications have helped, not helped you and what your pdoc/tdoc are doing to help you thru this.
I will write more later...have to get ready for work.
bizi

[conigogo]

Bexter, except for the troubles with alcohol, I am feeling very much the same as you describe. This journey never seems to provide a resting point. My life seems to be an excercise in frustration and disappointment.

[bexter]

Originally Posted by bizi

Dear Bexter,
You are quite a writer and put your feelings down very well.
I am wondering if/how medications have helped, not helped you and what your pdoc/tdoc are doing to help you thru this.
I will write more later...have to get ready for work.
bizi

Thanks, bizi.

I believe the Depakote has helped me avoid the "all-nighters" that have been characteristic of the manicky phases of my existence--periods when I'd stay up all night writing (which is sort of my job) or for no good reason at all. I haven't found it sedating in the classical sense, but it's made me more prone to seek out sleep rather than dodge it in a stobborn effort to use the evenings to make up for all of the time I wasted on drinking and non-productivity over the years. But as recent history shows it's no panacea, and I hadn't been taking it for a couple of weeks before re-starting over the weekend (at inadvisable doses).

conigogo, I hear you. All it takes is a few short moments of ruminating over my past and its frivolity, and in a flash I'm holding myself in utter contempt. I waver between rage and apathy at such times, with the overriding theme being "I'd kill myself but I'm too damn gutless and bored. Maybe I'll get cancer instead." I'm shame-driven and just don't have the natural self-preservation or resilience that "normal" people do. They yammer about putting the past behind you and you have to keep trying and I either want to punch them or remind them we're all going to be dead, so why not sooner rather than later for those of us whose lives objectively lack value?

Yet I can go from that kind of attitude to generating a note like the following, which I spat out today in a matter of minutes and sent to my would-be girlfriend:

I do, in no uncertain terms, love you like I've never loved anything. There's no desperation or self-delusion in that; you are not a vision I have latched onto in order to escape the difficulties I have faced ever since we "met," and I am 100 percent confident that if I had my act together, I'd be standing at your side in complete adoration and devotion for as many hours out of the day as I could.

You're the most beautiful woman I have ever known. Mere JPEGs send me into swoon-spirals. I can see not only the physical component of that beauty but the brilliance within--it's in the eyes, the smile, and the awesome messages and words of wisdom you've dispatched my way.

Save for the fact that I'm mentally crippled and thoroughly jaded and nonfunctional as a result, I will never stop believing that we are as made for each other to the greatest extent any two people can be. I have wondered so often what your hair smells like, what your touch would feel like, what your legs would feel like wrapped around mine. I'd love to watch you cook and tend to your cats and plants. I'd get a kick out of watching you open your forChrist'ssake mail.

I've come pretty close during my comparatively collected periods to renting a car and simply showing up there.

You've made me feel very loved, and not just in your unwavering devotion to helping me keep my life in some semblance of forward motion when I've flailed and flailed some more. It's a terrible thing that I've taken that generosity and pissed all over it, but you have not once either nailed me to the wall or run for cover. You've put up with a colossal amount of ****. I hate myself for a lot of reasons, but as for my not being a better friend, there's no self-hatred, because I can't think of You and Hate at the same time. I simply consider it a human tragedy because I don't know what we could have done for one another.

I would have loved to have had the chance to keep you happy. In a universe very much like this one, I'd be doing that right now.

Between rants, I hope I have taken the time to remind you of how I feel about you and how you touch every part of my mind and spirit. I mean that and I don't even know what a "spirit" is. Offering sweet somethings is obviously unworkable when I am bottoming out, and right now I'm as low as I've ever gotten because I believe I have honestly given up for good, and that this is just.

So I don't know how much good it does to say all of this given the reality, but if I'm going to spout off with every other thought, feeling, and opinion, I'm not going to omit the magic that is You.

So. Damn. Special. I was in tears this morning over it.

I love you, P--------. I love you.

Except for the fact that you keep forcing me to reconsider my moves.

So obviously, with the capacity to feel and express such warm feelings, I'm pretty clueless about even the most basic of questions: Do I want to live, and if so (or not), why (or why not)?