i was talking to my friend in chicago, who is one of two people i know who suffers from the same godawful it’s-never-going-to-get-better 50%-suicide-rate malady as me . . . we were talking about how we feel as though we occupy a pocket in reality which exists outside of the one we are always looking at or trying to interact with, one foot in each dimension, our minds split between two worlds, both bad. we decided it’s like being that kid from the sixth sense. we can’t make anyone see what we see.

and please know that i do not think my perception is superior, or that i think i am better than anyone else. are you kidding me? next to schizophrenia this is the absolute worst sort of mind window to see through, mostly because you are not seeing things that aren’t there, and are not hearing voices, and so on, but are trapped in the same world as everyone else except you SEE and FEEL everything and the things you see and feel are so bad you feel like there’s no way you can go on living like that forever. i know why my brothers and sisters drink themselves to death, or take a shortcut to get there quicker. your body is a haunted house. your eyes see a world full of malicious spirits! and your brain traps them inside.

and no one can join you there, and no one can really understand. and even when my friend and i talk, and we understand each other completely, we see the same ghosts—it’s not like that makes life any more bearable. all you know is that you’re both in total agony every waking moment of every single day we are still here.

people try to reconcile the person with the sickness. without the person there is no sickness. without the sickness there is no person.

please don’t tell anyone but i’m about to quote kierkegaard only because it is the quickest and cleanest way to wrap all this up:

“since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. as long as it stays i am ironic—if it is pulled out i shall die.”