#of you see me standing awkwardly outside a strawberry stand dont approach me

[iamthescalesofjustice]

so like i had to be in public and some lady that i guess knew me from the library approached me and started talking to me and she was like 'oh why did you stop coming i never really found out' and i was like, i mean ive had a pretty crazy week already and its not even wednesday so im kinda not the most emotionally stable right now and i so i was straight up like 'yeah i had a suicide scare so work wasnt really....top priority' and she was just kinda. bc what do you say to that which fair i guess but i was really just fucking tired of having to pretend to be okay and also the like. attitude people suddenly develop when the subject is breached where they Look At You Like That is fucking annoying and i hate it so i just Kept Talking like 'honestly everyone knew it was probably coming anyway, i was coerced into working and spent a good chunk of the time quietly crying in empty rows anyway' and shes looking very concerned and confused and i plow on like 'like the options were do something my parents considered to be productive or else get kicked out i guess, so it was the library for me fuck if i was going back to college, what, less than a year after having to be pulled out for the same problem?' and she was like 'oh this is - this is a recurring problem?' with that So Youre A Mentally Ill huh face and i was like fuck it while im saying things to this fucking stranger outside the fucking parksdale stand i may as well clarify so i was like 'i mean they called it a major depressive episode but episode kind of implies that it ends rather than being months and months of it and finally that and the unchecked eating disorder ran me down and they were kind of forced to take notice that just telling me to apply myself more wasnt exactly working yknow?' and she just looks The Most Uncomfortable which is finally approaching how uncomfortable i was when a random woman approached me in public, deadnamed me, and fucking touched me without asking so like, yeah good actually, dont fucking touch me, i know for a fact my name on the sheet was something else so she probably knows me or knows of me from some other context as well but fucked if ill ever fucking figure it out, who knows, maybe its church, maybe shes going to go back to the shitty church my family doesnt go to anymore and gossip about how The Smith Child Is Mentally Ill, newsflash karen or whatever your fucking name is eveyone my age in town already knows that, ive had, a fucking day, i will regret it later but it was goddamn liberating to stand there having trapped her by social convention and say out loud 'yeah im not sure if or when ill ever get back to working at the library. oh im more or less okay right now, thanks, but its honestly anybodys guess whether thats because im genuinely in a better state or because ive like, become emotionally numb to the horrifying collapse of the american state thats happening around us. yknow? no i havent actually tried the shortcakes, i hear theyre good though, yeah uh huh you have a nice day too'