Darkness Through a Black Hole

I am a happy camper sometimes.

Especially when the WELLBUTRIN kicks in good. And things sometimes go my way. Yeah, you can be this low on the totem pole of life and things can still go your way. Hey, you get used to enormous disappointments when nothing is promised and little is given. I wonder what will be taken from me next. Lord knows, I've grown used to the idea of things going South on me. And you wonder why I catastrophize.

But there's no reason for it today. No reason for the darkness. No reason for the gray on gray days that are so long that they feel interminable. Deep depression, deeper than the deepest well. A fall that lasts until you crawl into a bed, pull the blankets over your head, curl up into the fetus position and go to sleep. There, in dreams, you are the happiest. The skies are never so blue, the city never so perfect.

But then in this manic life of mine, there are the better days, and they come upon you suddenly. Something kicks in, be it the drugs in the system, some joyful thought, some song on the Internet, some joke or humorous illustration. Then everything turns around on a dime. A loud, screeching turn like nails on a blackboard and then suddenly, miraculously your day is made new. You are present, and can face a new day. The four walls aren't so close, the open window lets in air and the chirping of birds, and not the shouts of strife and curses from your neighbors.

Even food tastes better, different. I was a battery of these emotions today. I awoke depressed, therefore I was pissed that I awoke. Ever had that happen to you? Ever wake up from a prefect dream, where you are with your loved ones, or enjoying the pleasures of a rich life and suddenly you open your eyes and find yourself back in your life? Shit, if anything doesn't send you running to a bottle of WELBUTRIN, I don't know what will. And before your happy pills kick in, you run to the next best distraction from your life. The Internet. And in it you find all the graces that God has given you. You escape your world.

And that's what the state knows. That you are just a hair's breadth from doing something drastic. That's why whenever you see a social worker they have the same questions in your intake interview. "Do you hear voices? Do you ever have thoughts of hurting yourself or others?" The same fucking questions, because they know that you will. Sooner or later, these things will creep into your life and then there is trouble.

I personally think that there are people who are susceptible to such things, but I don't think I'm one of them. I think the greatest test of my sanity is depression. Depression sucks. It really does. Have you ever drank so much that you became chemically depressed? The de-inhibitor in alcohol bringing down the system to such a point that it doesn't lift you up anymore. Kind of like when you drink too much and then expect to fuck. The de-inhibitor brings down your sexual responses, ergo, your dick. No erection for you.

Well the same with drinking too much over a period of time, it can make you chemically depressed, and then all the WELLBUTRIN in the world can't help your ass out. Depression so black that it's like a black hole in space, bending light and energy and all matter to it's event horizon. It's so deep that it's a soundless vacuum. Just a dark hole that you fit into completely. It's fucked up.

But like I said. Sometimes I'm a very happy camper. I wake up to a morning, like today, happy to be alive. So much so, I could even skip the drugs. But no. Common sense dictates otherwise. I pop my fourteen pills. Yes, fourteen, drink plenty of water, take two Tylenol for a dizzying headache and then get on the Internet. I do my thing. I blog. I write and I prepare for everything.

Today I have a day off. I don't have therapy with Dr. L. I have nothing to do today, so I'll spend it here in my room. I leave for lunch and dinner. I buy a knish and a bagel and lox spread from a deli across the street, and this shit is the worst shit that I ever ate. The knish tastes like it was made with sugar, and the lox spread tastes like paste. BAD CALL. I'll never go back there for anything.

You can forget that shit.

I spend the day home. Thinking about going to the vampires early tomorrow morning and then meeting my brother at Madison Starbucks and then heading over to the Borough of Manhattan Community College for our poetry reading. All this sounds like a plan.

The night falls and it grows late. I find myself blogging again, writing about depression, exhila- ration, blood tests and poetry. A strange assortment of ideas in my mind.

Even nasty lox and bagels, and knishes.

Enough to make you depressed.

Hobobob