A Forum for the New World Order

After a failed attempt to import the RSS feed from the Frankensteinian code that is my MySpace blog, I’m having to piece-meal the effort, and in so doing, I’m realizing not only that less is more (i.e., it appears that no one reads this blog anyways, so no need to import ANYTHING, let alone EVERYTHING), but that I’m getting the opportunity to target my memoirs more acutely; getting at the heart of what’s shaped my experience, for whatever it’s worth to cyberspace.

I found this entry, from May 13, 2008:

“depression

I’m learning that my depression was never and will never be treated. I will always attempt to patch up the holes. I’ll always be chasing a train to normal-ville. But I can only visit. It’s not my home.

I’ve tasted fearlessness, boundless self-esteem, pure bliss, all of it. I know, from what I’ve seen and experienced with drugs, both street and legal varieties, that I can only look forward to higher and higher doses to get me even remotely close to that first taste again. I can try other drugs. I can play with other fires. This one seemed so perfectly lit. It seemed like my holy grail. But the cup is running dry. I’m filling it with tears of late.

No reason, really. I have so much. This feeling is selfish. I should be ashamed of myself, and so goes the circle of my emotions.

I turn to the external things I know that give me happiness in times of happiness (how cruel, these things that work best when you need them least): sex, beer, smoking, shopping, gallivanting. And I see only negative effects: insecurity, exhaustion, emptiness. And, since I’m medicated, I shouldn’t be feeling those things, right? So it can’t be me… I think I’ll just go ahead and blame the people around me. That’s TOTALLY fair.

Self-fulfilling, I complain that I’m not attractive anymore. I look in the mirror and see wrinkles, sags, and frumpy-ness…I see what my own mental illness has done to me over the years…the wrinkles between my eyes, the frown marks, the re-appearing nest on the left side of my hair that comes from fidgeting with it like a maniac. Oh, woe: I’m such a lame-ass for all of this. I shouldn’t feel this way, but I do. I think if my boobs sag, I’ll lose everything. I put so much of my self-worth into my appearance. Where does that insanity come from??

And if I lose my physical attributes, no one will want to be with me, right? I’m just a body after all…no brains in this here head. Totally irrational. And the very fact that I’m feeling this way makes me THAT MUCH more unattractive! It’s never-ending!

Never mind all the things I’ve done to hurt the ones I love…my absurd conclusion has me relieving everyone of the pain I’ve caused them…I realized today that I’ve contemplated suicide. And when I do, it’s such a casual thought. It’s like I could just leave…and that’s it. I’m clearly not thinking this all through.

So, I called some random shrink today…one that’s covered by my managed care health plan. Maybe I’ll get in to see him. Maybe they’ll tell me they’re not taking new patients. Maybe I’ll have to go back to my general practitioner to see whether I should try increasing my dosage…where does that end? Should I try a new flavor?

It creeps up on you. Maybe that’s bipolar: you think you’re doing great. You don’t realize you’re not until you’re doing something stupid like crying as an excuse to get drunk, or freaking out at loved ones, subconsciously needing the adrenaline rush it provides.

I don’t write to whine. I write now to document&183; I wonder if it will teach me something when I look back…once they’ve got me “stable” on a new drug cocktail. I never wanted to admit it, but I knew this day would come…the day where I realize I’m Dependant on Glaxo Smith Kline for my sanity… a corporation that makes pills that curb my thriftiness and keep me from throwing over the government…but, hey: I’m happier that way.”

I’m glad the last line provides a segway into my ongoing revelation regarding drug dependency: I’m done with drugs that enslave me. That is to say, ones that suppress my ability to see the world the way it really is. I’m hoping I’ll prevail over the one that continues to hold sway over some of the receptors in my brain: nicotine. I won’t give my anti-smoking friends the pleasure of an anti-nicotine diatribe for the reason that I believe that my heart-and-lung health, though important, still holds no sway over my mental capacity.

I may have “needed” Cymbalta at one point. But I’m realizing quickly that my depression was the logical part of my brain signaling just how wrong things were around me. It served as a failed warning of the perils of ambivalence. Instead of heeding it, I bandaged it. I put on the proverbial blinders and shut up about politics, treachery, injustice, war. And I wasn’t the only one.

Now, as history proves us lefties right, it’s no coincidence that I suddenly concluded the end of Cymbalta’s reign on my brain during an interview on MSNBC with someone who was actually speaking in non-parsed English. I don’t even remember who it was, except that this human being spoke in human-being-ese, or the “truth”, as I believe it was once known in human history. Again, I don’t recall. I literally had the revelation that this political dialect was not just some presentational style that politicians take on when in the public realm; it is at best tip-toeing, at worst treason. It’s lying.

I am a patriot. When I put on my Rotary International blazer and gave presentations to the all-white, all-male Rotary “frat” in Germering, Germany in 1995, I did so with something of a chip on my shoulder, the least of which being the superiority I felt in representing a Salt Lake Rotary that allowed women in its club. I knew then what really made America great is what continues to make it great now, despite what some privileged white men have tried to shove down our throats in the way of capitalism and a military industrial complex; It’s diversity, stupid. I knew this even as a privileged white girl from a predominantly white city. I feel more related now to that wide-eyed 16-year-old than the mentally neutered woman I subsequently became and that I thought was indicative of a “grown-up”.

And to alcohol I say: you just make me stupid. I’m done being stupid. In a world in shift, I need all my mental facilities. I need to be present. I need to be loud.

Pot, on the other hand, it turns out, is kind of nice. I’ve had a few of these recent revelations, gleefully, under the influence of cannabis. You should try it if you haven’t. That goes for you Mormons, too.

Take a moment in your day to read and parse the words in the following:

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

-John The Lennon

My sister, a Mormon, called us, Atheist polyamorous Communists, to invite us to dinner Sunday evening. We told her, jokingly, that we wouldn’t be joining them because we’re boycotting everything Mormon. We’re, I reiterate, just kidding her–mostly. Some families in this climate, however, are not. Does the LDS church realize that it’s support of Prop. 8 divides the very families it claims to be saving?

BTW. I write on other subjects as well. See my other notes.

Today we find out whether or not we can build our house. The Land Use Appeals Board is hearing our case tonight.

What if we can’t build, you ask? We sell the lot for a tidy profit. Then we move to Moab or something. I don’t know. That is where I am right now. WTF am I doing/have I done? I have this web of circumstances surrounding what may appear to be a string of brash decisions: to buy a lot on Capitol Hill, to sell a cozy condominium in Holladay, to make lifestyle changes, to buy a floundering business and quit my job. I can see why some people find comfort in fate, and I’ve found myself looking for meaning in chaos. Where I felt totally in control of my surroundings, my brain was in turmoil; now I’ve flipped that, and I’m letting the universe deal with me however I put myself out there. Christian and I are operating on the same page, thankfully; with plenty of supportive friends and family at our side. It is this collective faith that keeps us going–the collective unconscious. But it’s these non-believers, like our neighbors, etc., that throw our beliefs into sharp contrast. Maybe they bring us back to earth. Maybe we’ve got our heads in the clouds, but I like to think that going against the grain is the catalyst for change and progression.

I can see why the Mormons send missionaries to my door. I’ve felt that convicted about what we’re doing/feeling. I’ve looked around at unhappy people and wondered if they might benefit from what we’ve found. We have literature they could read: we have books about love and sex, pamphlets about honesty and jealousy, magazines about design and architecture, websites about music and trends. We make the rules for this new religion of ours, so we recognize it’s not for everyone. The bottom line is that we’re inventing our fate together–we trust each others’ intuitions about right or wrong and not those of some long-deceased prophet from another time. It’s right for us to stand up against the injustice of the Historic Landmarks Commission, and not dilute the purity of our home’s modern design in anticipation of the city’s vanilla status quo.

The Mormons’ initial message was radical: of community and utopia. What has become of it? The ideals have been spread thin and have folded in on themselves: republicans where there were communists, suburban isolation where there was community. Now I have visions of my own micro-utopia in this city, and I don’t need to build a house on a hill downtown to realize it. It takes good friends. It takes honesty. It takes standing up for beliefs and believing in loved ones. No one I love should feel isolated or alone, and if I take that stand, maybe someone else will respond in kind. At that rate, I envision love spreading like a plague.

I’ve realized I’m glad that this city has turned the act of building our house into a bureaucratic nightmare. Because now it’s about more than just a house: my eyes are opened to the treachery of falling into group-think. I can see hypocrisy in beating the drum of garden-variety liberalism while opposing progressive, radical ideas. Our “liberal” neighbors are no better than the Bush-era republicans I so despise; so convinced of their mandates and closed to new ideas. No amount of shouting or protesting will change their minds. I’ve had to learn to do what I can to change things, to vote, to conserve, to love and to live, and to leave the rest to self-destruct on its own and not affect me. Realizing what I can’t change has been the hard part in all of my recent struggles. But we have to try–selectively, but always happily.