the darkest pit in me
(another side note: i have SIX GMAIL invites. let me know if you want one...)
books scare me. especially books that i haphazardly stumble upon, in which the main character mirrors myself in an uncanny way. in this particular book, true life became detached case study. and the outcome, my friends, was not good. there was no happy ending.
moral of the story (of this book, at least): people like me fuck up their own lives, and the lives of those around them, becoming a burden and a bane to their existence. i wish that i was kidding. but that's the jist from the bit that i read. it has been lived, analyzed, and written down BY a psychiatrist for the New York Times Best-Seller List to accept or reject. the reviews/reader comments on amazon.com weren't terribly kind, either. basically, the impression that most readers got from this book was that "michelle" (the main character) is an evil, manipulative bitch. not to mention crazy.
crazy, i can handle. evil and manipulative, i can't. i stood and plowed through the nearby shelves, trying to find more books on this illness. as i looked up the basic criteria, again, i saw similarities. in some ways, this makes me fear that, once again, i have been misdiagnosed. or underdiagnosed. another mismatched piece of the psychological puzzle that is me.
...meredith elaine, STEP AWAY from the webMD! it's the same scenario. i read symptoms, and i'm convinced that i have the disease. (hypochondriac, much?)
except i already know that i'm board-certified mentally fucked. it's just a measure of exactly HOW fucked i am.
my mind swirled around in this fury...wondering if i really do have this? if i really am that nuts? am i manipulative? am i evil? am i destined to have a miserable, unfulfilling, un-happy-ending sort of life?
...please say no...?
i don't want to believe that i'm a bad person. i am self-centered. hell yes, i am. but for every molecule of me that is absorbed in my own meredith-ness, there is another matching molecule that is thinking of YOU (collective). who's sorry ass do i have to need to kick because he broke her heart? what silly hallmark card can i buy, just because, to make you shake your head and laugh? how much money can i put away towards my nephew's future music education?
for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. for every self-centered moment, there is a selfless one. see?
but that book, that damned book, has caused me to question myself. has caused me to start believing (once again) that i am a horrible person. that i'm not who i think i am. that i'm this dark spider of a girl, captivating to watch, but then sucks you dry.
i've been dealing with that notion for AT LEAST 15 years now. i don't need supposed "proof" that my suspicions and fears are, most likely, rooted in truth.
and i speedwalked through the aisles of borders, circling and circling for probably the better part of an hour. cds? books? jamie cullum or jack kerouac? the killers or the biography of edna st. vincent millay? or maybe just another bridget jones chick-lit-clone?
(i chose the killers and jamie cullum cds, by the way)
in those passing minutes, i grew quiet and irritable. as the sunset glared against my eyes, and lit the path away from borders, i cried silently, unnoticeably, to myself.
now you know why.
posted by: less-than3
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