Deja vu

Back in Boston, trying to pick up the pieces that used to pass for my life. I've missed 2 weeks of classes and have no idea if you can or if you are even allowed to un-do the beginnings of a sabbatical. I will have one hell of a time trying to explain what the fuck I was doing to my adviser.

What the fuck WAS I doing?

My Stanford psychiatrist was a complete hack. He told me I had three DSM disorders, and recommended that I seek "in-patient therapy", as in, he wanted me to check in to an asylum! That sparked something innately fearful inside me, and I believed I was two steps away from being locked up in a bare white room with my hands tied behind my back. I was too close to it. Thank god I didn't get around to telling him how many times I wanted to kill myself and how I fantasize about dying every day. I was losing all semblance of control and I felt my life spiraling into something irrevocable. I had to get away.

That's neither here or there, though. My collection of illnesses-- academic psychiatrists have been pinning labels on me for years. The fact is, no matter what the fuck is wrong with me, I am able to lead a fairly normal life(from outside looking in), even though my inner thoughts torment me on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. I'm not homeless and I'm in fucking grad school! I'm like the Sylvia Plath of crazies, only I'm not married to a guy who will punch me in my mouth.

I have no idea what is wrong with me. All I know is that I subsist on 3 hours of sleep per night, I exercise 2 hours a day, and my thoughts race like crazy, from euphoria to suicide. That sounds like BPD, no? But then I have days like today when all I want to do is burn down entire buildings with myself in it. Yet I somehow managed to talk to my dept head and I even trekked to the Registrar to un-do the mess I have made. How do I function like this? How do I live like this?

Ben raised hell, of course, because he didn't want me to leave. But fuck him! I don't care about him. He should know that by now.

It's a good thing I never got acclimated to West Coast time. I got off my flight and ran 10 miles, and walked to the Registrar in flip-flops. My toes were numb but I didn't give a shit, because all I wanted to do was make sure I could still be classified as full-time this term. I left all my shit at Mark's apt, and he's graciously letting me crash on his couch until I can find the next sucker from which to mooch.

I'm still not even tired. Anger and disappointment in where you are at life will keep you up.

My sense of time is now, not-now. Not-now is looking darker and becomes increasingly out of my reach. Now is excruciating, every second ticking slower and faster inside my head. I'm all wound up.