Dear Therapist,
First of all, I don't think you took anything I said very seriously last week, particularly when your grand advice was to take up a new hobby. Really? That was probably the worst advice anyone has ever given me. Thanks for that. I don't think you or anyone in my life even remotely understands what I'm going through. Maybe it's just too much to ask of another person.
The pain in me is so deep that the only way to make it through a day appearing "normal" or acceptable to everyone else is to suppress absolutely everything inside me. This is what I've been doing the last six or so years, and I can no longer do this, particularly now that I know why it feels so wrong. Sometimes I refer to it as "pretending." The first time I felt like I didn't have to pretend anymore was the day I planned on killing myself. I was so at peace. I feel so broken and alone that I don't see any reason to keep going, if it has to keep going this way.
I'm either catatonic or bursting with anger or sobbing so hard that I can't breathe. Twice within the last few weeks I found myself unable to stop crying at work, the first time for several hours, and if I didn't need the money I would have just went home early. And I hate that I need the money. That my well-being is in the hands of someone else. The ones who have the money and lock up the food.
I don't care about anything I do anymore; it all just feels empty. And every time I look at something I don't just see the object, I see everything about it: how it came to be, how wasteful it is, how we spend so much time and money maintaining it, how unnatural it is, how it affects us, how it's just another distraction in a sea of distractions that keep people believing the lie.
I can't look at a car anymore and just see it as a car. I can't think about my job anymore and just think of it as a job. I can't look at a dog anymore and just see it as a dog. I see years and years of human interference. I see a dog, then the breed of dog, a breed created for greedy humans to be their companion, a breed of dog that is plagued by genetic health problems because of human design. An animal that is made helpless without humans to provide it with its basic needs. I see the damage of the domestication of animals. I see the human need for control over all and greed. I see the larger picture of everything and I can barely breathe anymore without feeling the weight of the entire world on me.
I was at a recital with my octet at a retirement home on Saturday. I sat there looking around at all the fake plastic plants, the ugly seashell artwork, the depressed looks on the residents and workers faces and realized that I don't want to grow old in this society, a society that reveres youth and ignores its elders, leaving strangers to take care of them.
This society imprisons us and keeps us its slave by locking up the food and making us work at jobs we hate for industries that are destructive so that we can keep buying more products we don't need so that we can keep up the very same society that's failing us, killing us and the environment that sustains us all. Everyone is chained; children's spirits are broken by the education system, college grads are strapped with thousands of dollars of student loan debt, adults are forced to spend almost all their waking life working in jobs that they hate for people they hate and companies they hate for things that don't bring them any real happiness. It seems there is no way to get out.
I've realized a few things and I want you to understand them. First of all, I've been feeling that something wasn't quite right for a long time, even though I didn't necessarily understand it all yet. ALL of my writing, poems and stories have had this as the main theme in some form or another. I had no idea until I went back and started re-reading my old writing. It was heart breaking.
Secondly, I was under the impression that my mental illness and attaining some kind of "label" and understanding of it was the key to figuring out what wasn't quite right. And that just isn't the case. It's just a side effect of the wider problem, the problem with our society. It just took a while for me to understand that. And I'm still angry that no one helped me get there sooner. I feel like I've had to do everything on my own. Maybe therapists just don't care as much when you're receiving free treatment or only paying the lowest amount on the sliding scale. Maybe they are often too entrenched in the lies of Mother Culture themselves.
Third, I didn't realize this until now, but the happiest, most content I've felt in my entire young adult life was when I participated in the Urban Plunge for homelessness for Alternative Spring Break in March of 2007. Ok, I realized that for those three days and two nights I was happy, but I just didn't know why. I finally got to escape society:
Sarah's filling out a job application at a Burger King on Florida Ave while Topher is making a panhandling sign, "Will vote Republican for food or cash, please help." People walk by as if we are invisible this morning. Yesterday I felt like a college student dressing up in ratty clothes--today I feel homeless--making friends with homeless people, being a part of their invisible culture, their secret community. Al and the other homeless people we've met are so giving, so selfless. Al gave up his breakfast tray so we could all have more food. They take care of each other with this sincere selflessness that touches me so deeply--to give so much when you have so little. To give when you have nothing in this world but the clothes on your back and love in your heart. My hair is greasy, my jeans have been worn over five days, I have only 75 cents in my pocket--but I'm happy--I have friends, kindness, compassion. I don't really need all these material things to make me happy--they are what keep me down, I need friends and I need to connect to people on the most deepest level of need.
That definitely sounds like somebody who wants out. I'm not sure what else to say to you, but if anyone knows what it's like to need to get out of this culture, it's you. Please help me. I feel so alone.
Last night I deactivated my Facebook account. I wonder how long it will take for someone to notice.
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