#i just dont care. i think ssris fucked up my brain can i be real

[somefisher]

Im gonna throw up im sick of feeling awful all the time

[swampgallows]

i was writin it in the tags before i maxed em out but it had me thinking about how much more shit i did in college because i actually had access to shit. for one, there was a viable public transit system there. there was a bus stop literally outside my dorm, and i used to take the bus all kinds of places and just walk around the city and shit. i did tons of things i previously would not have accessible to me because i didnt drive. back when disney passes were cheap as fuck i had days where id swing by disneyland after class just to hop on a ride or two and then go home. i went to parks, beaches, the aquarium, the movies, clubs, raves, morris dancing, restaurants, the mall, and all kinds of shit on my own because i could actually physically fucking get there. the only real challenge a lot of the time was if i bought anything to get it home (i remember walking half a mile with a full length mirror back to my dorm because i kept missing the bus). but the point is that i DID SHIT. i wasnt constantly being micromanaged by people in my environment about what food i bought or what i ate, where i went and when, etc. and i had the resources to actually go fucking do things.

it all came crashing down, i think, when i got into that series of bad relationships. i dont think i was aware of it at the time, but that was about the time that things were ramping up toward something great and then i was betrayed by people close to me and continuously shot down. i didnt know how to process those toxic relationships, and part of me still doesn’t. almost ten years later im still trying to recover from the damage of them. yes, it was the same time that i was having heightened anxiety and the worst period of panic attacks in my life, which were and are awful and shitty, but i also had very understanding and supportive friends who were there for me during that time. it would be no different than if i got very sick and had friends who took care of me. i was having a human experience and because i had a good support network, i was able to cope.

so like. of course i got depressed when my boyfriend would hate-fuck me and embarrass me on purpose in public or in front of his friends. of course i felt too scared and sad to go to class when i was constantly being told my art wasn’t good enough and was a waste of time and “useless to society”. of course i hid in my room playing video games with rude assholes because at least they couldnt touch me. of course i didnt want to open up to people when they told me it was “fascinating the way your mind mistreats you”. 

of course i got suicidal when i got zero weekend days off for three straight years. not even easter sunday, even though greek easter usually falls on a completely separate sunday. of course i didnt want to live anymore when i couldnt see or be with my friends or express myself naturally. of course i would be depressed about waking up at 7am every day to stand in a cold room alone for 8 hours and not even be paid enough to live.

friends and family and past teachers on facebook can encourage me to go on medication, but for what? will a SSRI pay me a living wage? is celexa going to make men treat me better? will prozac install a public transit system in my area, or help me move to a place where a better one already exists? xanax didnt sit in the car with me to teach me to drive and offer support, but it did help me recuperate from the dozens of screaming crying fits and panic attacks i had while orchestrating my own exposure therapy. it took years for me to get acclimated to just sitting in the driver’s seat of my car while it was off without having a complete meltdown and slamming it full speed into the garage to kill myself. because i am still so mad that i learned so late, that nobody gave a shit about me enough to teach me, that i had to shell out hundreds if not thousands of dollars on lessons with complete strangers to learn this skill that has become mandatory for survival in the place i live. i had to use money to replace the love and support normally given by family or my community.

i am trying to condition myself to see my car as an emblem of freedom, but it feels like a cage. it costs so much money, it is so scary and exhausting to operate it, and everything in this world and society is forcing me to use it. and honestly it feels like, because i have it, i have run out of “excuses” for not being employed. that if i have a car, i should be able to go to any job whatsoever and sit in my car in traffic for four hours a day like every other average person in l.a. even at the trader joes i interviewed at THREE TIMES before they eventually didnt bring me on, i would have to drive anywhere from 30-45 minutes to work every fucking day just to work at a fucking grocery store. i know people see those numbers and go ‘psh that’s nothing! my commute is so much longer!’ and that just feels like hustle propaganda. like why are you proud that you have to sit in your car in fucking traffic every day to do a job that you probably could (and now probably do) work at from home?

the shitty case worker i had, tonya, could not offer a suggestion to me when i brougth this up to her. how is medication going to make me more employable? how am i not supposed to blow my brains out when my life is going to be sitting in a car that i struggle to operate to go to a job that doesnt pay me enough to live and then doing that forever until i die? why dont i skip all that and just die right now? why live through that? all she could say was “well, that’s just how it is.” 

The much more obvious answer is that mental disorders, while influenced by genetic factors, are largely caused by trauma and context, and that oppressed groups of people experience way more trauma under capitalism, and are way less able to navigate the context of American society because it was built without them in mind, and in many cases to intentionally harm them.

this is why im going to be mentally ill forever, man. because i can’t fucking adapt to a society that doesn’t care about me. why would i do that? is it not inherently harmful and mentally ill to perpetuate an unhealthy environment? why belong to a society if we don’t care about the people in it? who is society for? if these circumstances were due to a partner, they’d tell me to leave them. if these circumstances were due to my living situation with my family or roommates, they’d tell me to move out. so must i leave society? do i have to live off the grid? do i have to hunt game and skin animals for fur and build my own shelter? even if i wanted to, like many natural peoples, capitalism is taking those things away too. look at first nations and indigenous people. look at the multitudes of the people experiencing homelessness and mental illness simultaneously. 

it is all so obvious when you’re on the outside. no one expects, or wants, people like me to survive. the whole point is that we do not belong to society. the whole point is that capitalism wants me dead. my suicidality means capitalism is working as intended.