Of An Empty Not Shattered

A great deal was on my mind today, and I had a lot of ideas for the blog, but I just took six milligrams of lorazepam and it's probably a good idea that I wait until tomorrow before writing too much, given that I'll probably be flat on my back pretty soon. Especially considering that I also took some lithium, as well. Into the arms of Morpheus.

A need and an inclination towards self-isolation, and what that means for the people whom I love...I could write about that. Certainly has been on my mind. My fractured memory is also causing me grief, as I forget birthdays and time I spent with friends who have moved on. I'm fond of my memories, and when I chose electro-convulsive therapy I knew that I would have to lose some of my remembered past in order to help move into the future. ECT caused immediate amnesia about my life at the moment, but it also randomly causes deep memories, there for years, to whither and sometimes just disappear. Sometimes I hear stories of something that happened years ago that I no longer remember, like it was another person. It could be an old girlfriend, or a treasured conversation with a professor, comrade, friend, whomever. My entire friendship with an African-American Harvard student named Eve Mbugua (I at least remember her name) is pretty much lost. Some parts of our time together are still there, fondly remembered from back when I had tricked myself into believing that I was going to get a graduate degree in evolutionary biology and amount to something. I remember that she was a beautiful, small girl with an incredible mind. She would be that anyway, without me remembering.

I didn't know I was going to lose that. I didn't want to lose that. I have a small circle of friends, and I need them all. I have Melanie, Linda, Fiona, Clare, Adam, Mikhail, Donna, Jen and, of course, my girlfriend Linda. I need them. I need them now and I need my precious memories of them. I didn't always hate myself, and wasn't always so limited by illness, and the memories of those times are precious to me. Like gold in my hand. But a lot of it is gone forever. A little taste of the void before actual death.

But it was necessary because I had tried every fucking pill and I was still profoundly suicidal and suffering badly. I stank, cut myself, poured muriatic acid on an open wound, which gave me a scar I still have. I drank, drugged, or just curled up in my closet and slept. Sometimes I would go out late at night and lie in the street near my flat, hoping a car would smash me. Once I did that on the Green line tracks at the Copley Station. The train that would have ended all my problems never came. The list of wild-eyed, self-destructive behavior is a long one. A great deal kept from loved ones. So I needed to do something drastic. Am I better now? I do think it worked, otherwise how can I explain my current habit of walking and talking. But what a price to pay.

It's late, and I'm going to go to bed now. If I'm lucky there will be no dreams. I don't want any more. I want the peace of an empty, not shattered, mind.