5-6 June 2014
1048 hrs
(c) Properfessor
Good morning, Patient Reader
Well, here
it is much later than usual for a posting.
I have obtained a tutoring position here at the school and I have had to
alter my hours to better fit my schedule.
Thankfully, there is some downtime, and I am able to peck this out as I
can.
So. To update you on the Bipolar Sitch under
which I find myself, I can leave class early to fill out the necessary
paperwork to get the ball rolling on getting some pshrink time. If I fill it out today, I can be seen as
early as a week from now, which, for a non-self-pay patient, is a pretty fast
follow-up.
I seem to
find this slippery slope upon which I find myself sliding is really lasting far
too long. Usually I cycle every couple
of weeks, but this has been predominantly a free-fall situation for the last
three months. As you may have noticed
from my recent postings, I have ranted less and have become more melancholy and
morose . . . well, more so than usual.
(c) Properfessor
I really
don’t feel suicidal or homicidal, but I find myself in a State of Funk from
under which I cannot seem to climb.
I pride
myself on having the valuable tools necessary to redeem my mind from such a
miasma, but they have thus far been ineffective. A yardstick by which I measure my despair is
the frequency and amplitude of my guitar playing. Unfortunately, instead of seeking the joy it
always provides for me, I stare at it as it sits firmly ensconced within its
case, staring at me through the coating of dust that I have allowed to accumulate
on it.
Shit, huh? I have only dug it out recently because I
wanted to aid my friend, I’ll call her Shmaren, with her final project in her
MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) class. I played Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide on guitar for her, and that was actually refreshing. As I played around in the studio, I was able
to put to hard drive some of my own pieces, which I will render down eventually
and put here on CFF and also on Stefan’s FeedYourId blog. It’s been a long while since I have contributed
anything to that site, but feel free to check it out at
This mental
morass in which I find myself a-mired (yes, The Cunning Fennec Fox’s world
famous neologisms emerge) has also interfered with my schoolwork, but thanks to
the kindness and understanding of my professors, I am able to be with you kids
today, or anytime.
Do you know
that feeling that one gets just prior to releasing the flood of sad tears that
is the catharsis which allows us to emerge from our chrysalis anew? That waterfall from our lacrimal glands
almost exactly as salty as the sea? Well
this is what I feel occupying my chest; that huge and lumpy tumor that sits
upon what is left of my heart as some sort of chronic and terminal mass that
seeks to do nothing but kill. And yet it
does this with as much malice as the virus or bacteria or plasmodium does, id est,
none at all. It does this through no
conscious choice; no ill will is directed at intentional pain, unlike the pain
we humans cause ourselves and each other.
Unfortunately,
however, this is as far as it gets . . .
I cannot take the next step and allow the tears to roll down my
cheeks. I reach this stage of despair
but am unable to release these demons in the form of lacrimosa, if I may borrow from Mozart’s beautiful work.
(c) Properfessor
So what do
I do, then? How do I make myself
feel? How do I release the nightmares
from within my busted heart and make them flow freely away from me? I do not know. All of the other ways and means I used in the
past are no longer options. I don’t drop
LSD anymore. I no longer self-medicate
with single-malt scotch. I no longer
Weedify . . . my clock skippeth 4:20.
Yet my
legalized RX seems inadequate at this point.
My aching limbs and the joints therein no longer allow vigorous
exercise. What passes for spirit, my animus, is no longer viable or youthful
in exuberance. It takes everything I
have to extract myself from the safe womb of my bed every morning, climb into
the shower, stand in front of my razor (which I haven’t done recently-
Greybeard is making a comeback), put on some fucking clothes, for chrissakes,
and get my ass to school to be present in the moment. I only do this so I can keep at bay, for the
time being, the agoraphobia that I know is lurking just beneath the cover of my
mask. Once I let that out, once I find
it revved and running, all bets are off.
The world gets what it gets from me at that point. And it is never a beautiful thing.
I try to
judge a person by how well he treats others when he doesn’t have to be
nice. I try to live my life within these
parameters as best I can. I try to see
some beauty in this all-too-ugly world, reaching for a paradise when my hand
comes back empty.
Some days I eat the
bear; some days the bear eats me; some days I am the bear.
And I fear,
sometimes, what it is I allow the bear to do.
It is the
attachment to destructive desire under which I feel the worst, and though I am not a
Buddhist, I think that the Buddhist theory that this attachment causes
suffering makes perfect sense. It is the
desire for change, for overcoming inertia, for feeling goddam something other
than that which you are feeling, that creates this suffering, simply because we
cannot recognize and differentiate between the things we can rule and those
that we cannot.
Additionally,
we are capable of Compassion, to which you have seen me attest so many times,
and this is the key ingredient, if not the only ingredient, that can ameliorate
suffering.
There are
so many people out there . . . even
learned folks, who simply feel that depression is just “the blues,” and, “Why
the fuck can’t you just get your shit together and pull yourself up by your own
petards you whiny-ass motherfucker?”
It’s funny
. . . I also get shit for not having any
cartilage in my knee. That I use the
fact that I have essentially no knee as an “excuse” to not run or bicycle. This chronic clicking in my knee sometimes
turns into an explosion rivaling a firecracker as epicondyles grind against one
another.
What about
schizophrenics using their mental illness as an excuse to not work? Or the blind using their lack of vision as an
excuse not to drive. They should just
get their fucking shit together and
get behind the fucking wheel, right?
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OK, I
suppose this post is long enough. I have to get ready to start dealing with
motherfuckers and assholes; deal with my fair-share of tweakers who think they
can handle school and sobriety-some of them can, don’t get me wrong, but most
just sort of holler and twitch their way through my trip.
Shall I
leave you to your day, Patient Reader?
Splendid!
(c) Properfessor
The Cunning Fennec Fox
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