Just because I refuse to place my judgment on you, does not mean that I can't make any judgment.

Here is my little rant for today:

I have found a problem that I think is common to people who are libertarians (notice with a little 'l'), or those who prefer to simply say "live and let live".

When I have a political or philosophical discussion, the last phrase is what I hold true. But some people tend to think since I feel this way I agree with what they are saying.

Here is an example: I was having a discussion with a co-worker about homosexuality and gay couples adopting children. I told the person that I agreed with him, and, I don't mind gay people adopting children. But I also mentioned that I think it's better if a child is placed with a heterosexual couple.

(GOOD GOD!)

My co-worker couldn't understand that this wasn't a contradiction. And all of a sudden I became a regressive, hateful bastard.

I think maybe I just won't talk any more, or at least I won't talk with people who can't understand what I thought was not a subtle concept.

I went to an Adobe seminar today. It was something that the whole group was supposed to attend. We were going to meet at Quiznos, a deli in downtown Nashville, at 11:30 and then walk over to Rennaisance Hotel just a few blocks away. The seminar was slated to begin at 1:00 PM and we were required to show up a little early to register at the door. No big deal, right?

Well... I didn't think it'd be that big a problem, really. I worked late, late, late last night and well into this morning on a new site redesign for my personal website. The comps look great and I'm quite happy with the direction I'm headed, but when I saw that I had only an hour and a half to get a power nap before 10 AM, I had to stop and crash for a bit. I set my MP3 alarm clock program to wake me up at 10 with "Roads" (the Sour Times remix) by Portishead, turned up my computer's speakers really loud and hit the sack. I was set to rock and roll.

I was woken up by a dog barking in the distance and someone shouting at the damn thing to shut up. I groggily picked up my cell phone to see how much more time I had before Waker97 erupted from the bowels of my computer system. To my utter shock and horror I saw that it was 12:24 PM, and would you like a breath mint with that, sir?

Apparently, turning my speakers up as loud as I did caused them to short out. I never heard the music. When I came over to the system to see if the damn thing was even set properly, I heard "Nobody loves meeeeeeee, it's true..." coming out of the speakers in a small tinny voice. "Shit!" I think was the only thing I could manage at that point.

I threw on some jeans, yesterday's T-shirt and a thin Hawwaian shirt. My hiking boots went on next. I snatched up my Winston Lights (three nails left, dammit. Will that be enough???) and almost jetted out the door before having the presence of mind to check my email first.

A message from the Art Director at Weberize.Com jumped up. They want to see my portolfio. I was in too much of a rush to be elated. I wanted to work with Weberize last year, applied and was duly ignored. Compared to the company I just got fired from, Weberize is like the Holy Grail to me. I didn't even take the time to reply, but it was at the top of my "to do" list when I got back from the seminar.

I bolted out of my cabin and hopped into my car: destination downtown Nashville. I hadn't even gotten the sleep out of my eyes yet and probably stunk to high-heaven, but I was not going to be late and, besides, it's just the 615 members that I'll be sitting with, right? They're pretty easy-going. They'll understand.

I think I made it to the hotel in record time. This is good. In case I'm late for my cousin's wedding tomorrow, which will be at the same hotel, I now know the fastest route. I found a parking space in the hotel's parking garage ($5 for a full day of parking... good thing I had $7.83 on me). I made it to the end of the quickly-dwindling registration line, just before they closed and locked the doors. 200 or more geeks all locked into one room for four hours. Is this safe? I ask you.

I pre-registered the day before yesterday, so I was pretty sure they'd let me in. I wasn't on the list, though. No big deal. Happens all the time. They asked for my business card (I think that's the first time those things actually came in handy!), took it and stapled it to a form I never got the chance to fill out. They promptly handed me a trial version of Adobe's Web Collection and told me that the seminar was just about to begin.

I went through the big double doors and saw The 615 group immediately. They were all talking to one another and having a generally good time. One of the guys saw me, "Hey, Jay. We missed ya at Quiznos."

"Yeah," I said. "I set my alarm on my computer, but my speakers chose today to fry. I'm going to have a nice, short talk with them over the Cumberland River Bridge as soon as we get out. How was lunch?" Asking this question reminded me of the fact that I hadn't eaten in over 24 hours. I was starved, tired, unshowered, agitated, jonesing for a cigarette and generally pissed at the world.

"Lunch was great. Sorry to hear about your troubles, man. Take a seat!"

I looked around and saw that there was only one seat available in our section. Of course, it would have to be the seat next to one of the prettiest women I'd seen in a long while. She stands about 5'3", has black hair, black eyes, soft skin, a small nose, petite body frame and beautiful lips. She wore a black jacket over her white camisole, a black rose-print mini skirt, black calf-length stockings and black shoes. Inwardly I groaned. The fates were consipiring against me. Here I was, the picture of Oscar the Grouch, and I had to sit by a woman that might as well have walked out of my wet dreams. Life sucked, let me tell you.

I sat down and dutifully kept my head low so that my morning breath wouldn't knock her out. We introduced ourselves. Her name is Michelle. I recognized her name from her profile on The 615 website and mentioned my favorite part. "So... you're the one who want to bring 'whirled peas' to the future of design, eh?" I quipped.

She smiled (!!!). "Oh, that. It's just a little bit of my tongue-in-cheek commentary on beauty pageants. Those profile questions read like something from one of those meat-market cow shows. I just couldn't resist. I saw your profile, too. Starvation as a point of inspiration for design... that was cute."

Yep. I sure as hell wasn't going to let her smell my breath- not after calling me cute. Let the girl have her impressions and keep it that way if at all possible. We chatted a bit more until the seminar speaker took the helm and we quieted down.

He went through a whole presentation on Adobe's top products. LiveMotion, Photoshop 6, ImageReady 3, Illustrator 9, Premiere and GoLive. I've worked with most of those products, especially Photoshop, but I did manage to learn a few nifty tricks that I never knew before. Mostly it was usability stuff. It seemed like the seminar speaker was a big fan of drop shadows and slices. He dogged the shit out of Flash 5 when he got into the LiveMotion presentation.

It was my first seminar ever, and all in all, it was okay. They ended up giving away a free copy of all the software in the presentation to one lucky winner (I think she squealed when she heard her name called) and some other people got some (get this) pocket knives. Adobe must be strapped for cash. A software company that gives away potential weapons to designers has to be suffering somewhere. I think I muttered a node title of mine, "When Web Designers Attack: A New Fox Special." No one got the joke except, of course, Michelle. I asked her, quickly, if she'd seen E2 before. She hadn't, but she thought the title was cute. Why-oh-why did I put on jeans instead of taking a few extra moments to put on what I planned on wearing? Ugh.

When the seminar was finally over, nearly everyone bolted like mad cows on stampede. Graphic designers are notorious for having ADHD and if they're made to sit still for longer than 4 hours, ritual homicide could ensue. We all got out before the killing started.

The sun was bright (it had been raining earlier) and my stomach was growling in a language all too familiar. I hopped back into my car, paid the $5 parking fee and made a bee-line to MacDonald's for a Big Mac (still had $2.83 on me, so I was feeling promising). I passed Michelle on the way out of downtown, who had deigned to park far, far away from the hotel. I wanted to offer her a ride to her car, but thought better of it. Traffic was backing up behind me and I didn't want to be an asshole. So I honked, waited for her to look and when she saw me, I waved goodbye. She waved back. God, I hope I didn't reek while sitting next to her. I have some friend who insist that I reek of pheromones, but apparently they haven't caught a whiff of me in the mornings. Well, one has, but that's a whole other story.

I got back home after throwing the last of my money at Ronald MacDonald, responded to the email from Weberize and slept the sleep of the dead.

What a difference a day makes, eh?

I had an interesting conversation with my mother on the phone this evening. She actually asked me if I was okay, if I was happy and whatnot. Not that I feel that she doesn't care or anything, it's just I can't remember anytime when my parents just asked me if I was doing okay. She said that if I needed to talk to anyone, I could always talk to her, that's what family is for, so am I all right?

"Well mom, if you really want to know, I started making myself throw up when I was 11. I'm 20 now, and I did it two hours ago because I ate dinner at Sonic. You know those scars you've asked me about before? Well yeah...I did that to myself. With razorblades. Oh, but that's all over and done with, I'm not self-destructive anymore."

That conversation popped into my head and I just giggled.

"No mom, I'm all right," was what I really said.

I move out tomorrow, I move onto campus at UNCA.

It's crazy how it doesn't seem like anything will change.

But I know everything will change.


I try to watch what I do, to study every footstep, but my feet tangle, and I'm a mess.
I'm moving to slow to see.

I've been making beats alot (hip-hop beats), since I bought my DR-202 and SP-202, I've been making music almost more than I listen to it (almost, because I don't count the shit radio that I am forced to listen to in the car since my parent's cars tape deck is fucked up).


My computer that I just built ("Alice" a 1.2 Ghz Tunderbird that is my first box that I built myself) is fucking up a little, I'm sure the bugs will work out, but there are a few problems.
  • When I play a game (Unreal Tournament or Black and White), the computer crashes after a little while, and after a few crashes it currupts something in Windows, and I have to re-format and install windows and everything else. Mind you, the curruption and re formatting only happened once (I only let it happen once), but it still crashes now and then, even though I avoid games. I realize this is a fairly minor problem, probably easily remedied (email me @ help_im_a_rock@yahoo.com if you can help me), but I'm fairly unlearned when it comes to trouble shooting and fixing problems like this.

  • The CD burner (an Aopen 12x 10x 32x) isn't burning, and I'm using Nero, and I'm accustomed to Adaptec (although I dislike Adaptec, and I know I'll like Nero when I get the hang of all of it).
    So I need to solve that problem FAST, because I burn alot of CD's on a regular basis.


I can't wait for the E2 gathering coming up on the 17th, I'm so excited about getting out of Asheville, NC for a while.

Wow. I just submitted my first write-up in about six months. Well, second if you consider the my E2 nuke request (which I don't.) I really haven't been noding regularly for about a year.

I think I'm at this point where I'm very ambiguous about E2. In the beginning, I had a lot of fun churning out nodes like crazy. I wanted to vote, so I noded until I was level 2. I wanted to cool, so I noded until I was level 4. Etc. It was even mildly social at times. But eventually, noding started to become something I did because it was something I do. I don't know if that makes any sense. What I mean is that I kept on noding because I was used to noding. There was no real ambition, no real goal.

It's not that noding became like work or a chore, it was just ... less fun.

So I stopped.

If you look at my nodelist, you'll see my first 500 nodes took about two months, last last fifty have taken the last year.

I'm still interested in E2, but it's no longer (for the want of a better word) a passion.

And sadly I've come to the realization that this is a pattern oft-repated in my life. I'll get interested in something (baseball, animation, E2, comic books) and do it almost maniaclly for a bit, and then my interest will quickly wane, and I'll be left feeling spent and empty.

This thought really depresses me.

At some point in my life, shouldn't I be able to find something that will capture my interest and imagination for an extended period of time?

Still waiting for an epiphany.

what i did (or didn't do) on August 9, 2001
  • clear another 20 emails from my inbox, reduce the number to 40 (yes)
  • decide where to go for the weekend (yes)
  • tidy my house (no, Bah)
  • meet catherine for lunch (yes)
  • purchase some outdoor equipment, socks and either a sleeping bag or some walking waterproofs and walking trousers. Some dubbin for my boots. (yes)
  • start writing my e2 poem (yes)

Things to do today

  • Send my cousin my new CV
  • Send a CV and cover letter to Erricsons
  • update the dublin universities node wrt ryanos suggestions
  • email claire,rob,eliana,
  • go to Cork
  • read some papers on the train down, try to do a little writing on the train.

9:46 well again yesterday was quite a good day exept that again I didn't tidy my house, but I did get through some more of the dirty dishes.

I bought a snugpack sleeping bag, the merlin softie three, it's good to 0C and it packs down to the size of a middle sized lunchbox.

I rang my mother yesterday, that was good, hadn't talked to her for a few months, made arrangements to visit my maternal grandmother with her, ahhh shit, I just realised that I have left her work number at home and my uncles number at home with it, he lvies in Cork and I had thought about contacting him and meeting up while I was down there. Oh well, I'll just have to wait until next time.

I talked to my friend Babs in London, it was great I hadn't talked to her for a long time, she gave me advice about my situation and how to deal with my ex gf if something happens with claire.

since I am heading away this weekend my next daylog will be on monday


last,up,next.

0826 hrs: Last night I talked to my friend Joanna again, after having told her a few days ago that I am attracted to her. I asked her why my being attracted to her, and her knowing about it, hasn't changed our friendship at all. It hasn't even affected it a bit. That confused me. We talked about it for a while, and the fact that she is a lesbian, and so on. I told her the reason I expected it to somehow change our friendship was because I had some strange hope inside me that somehow, despite a number of problems, we could be together. This was the fight between my heart and my mind (Heart vs. Mind). I knew that she is a lesbian, but I wanted her anyways.

After all the discussion, I think we're clear on a few points, and thankfully talking about this helped both of us. No matter how much I am attracted to her, she's still a dyke. She says she thinks I'm great, and she had thought that maybe, in some other universe, our relationship might have worked out. She recently met another woman she is really interested in. I told Joanna that I had high hopes for her to have a happy relationship with this new woman, even though I still felt that I wanted her for myself. I don't know how, but those two feelings seem to be able to co-exist.

So after all of this discussion, we actually got to the practical problem-solving frame of mind. She is happy with me liking her. Afterall, it's not exactly an insult. We might not have a romantic relationship, but we can be friends. I get to want her, and she gets to be wanted. Somehow this feels like a happy solution to my confusion. I haven't lost hope that maybe, someday, she'll want a hetrosexual relationship, and I'll be right there for her.

0944 hrs: I've completed one entire project already this morning. Excellent. Shipped out one entire COM/ATL object to a client. Woo, look at the productive Lao-Tzu. Now back to the big project that ships right after my two week vacation which I start after today. Doh.

1135 hrs: I love when things work right. At this rate, I might even get the core functionality of that stupid project done by this afternoon. It might suck, but it would work. This is a good start.

1413 hrs: Core functionality is .. there. It just isn't working. Meh. Stupid bug reports from some co-workers too. Unreproducable bugs. I hate those. Only 2 hours until my two week vacation starts. Yay.

1607 hrs: Well, all my co-workers have left the office for the day to begin what is sure to be a fun stag party. Bowling, then a movie, and then, of course, the strip club. I can't attend, I have to pick up a friend at the airport who is flying into town from Glasgow. If I feel like it, I might join them later tonight. But if I don't join, I'm sure by the time I get back from my vacation in two weeks, they'll have forgotten and I won't be bugged at all. It's all good. Well, except that I have to come in next week to pick up a pay cheque. (mmm, money while not working). Anyways. Almost time to get out of here and get to the airport, before the traffic becomes overwhelmingly deadly.

Recap: Picked up my friend from the airport. We did a lot of talking and planning for what we'll do over the next week of vacation. It should be interesting. Watched The Matrix, which my friend had never seen, and then went and slept. Mmm, sleep.

2 Hours until dinner, I can’t wait, I’m hungry.

You see, I drive back to Rishon Le-Zion every Friday night for Kiddush and a Home cooked meal. Since moving to Tel Aviv alone the amount of home cooked food I eat has declined drastically. Besides now I pay for my food, and I don’t pay for gas… so driving 20 minutes back to my parents place is economically the best option.

I slept 12 hours from 5am to 5pm…. I feel asleep while on the phone with this chick, we knew we were doing it, but did it anyways… it caused some freaky lucid dreams, a few which were VERY scary.

Understand, that when I lucid dream I keep waking up into another lucid dream which usually mimics real life, i.e. I dream that I woke up in my bed, and I still got the ‘lucid’ feel so I am sure it’s real.

And then scary things happen, Last night I got drowned and was choked from behind (both happened while I was dreaming to be in my bed), I never have nightmares and after about 5 or 6 of theses, I truly wasn’t sure if I was asleep or not.

Freaked me out.

Now I’m ok… I just need a cold shower and in 2 hours to go get some dinner.

I am waiting. I don't know what I am waiting for but my life has been on hold this whole summer. I have not accomplished much. I have little responsibilities. I am enjoying myself, a bit. But I simply do not feel like doing anything. Even talking to people. I sleep late because I don't know what to do during the day. Then I surf the web and play counterstrike because I don't know what to do during the day.

I find myself still missing Katie, but I know it is not her I miss - I just miss being with someone. Oh well. And now I am kicking myself for not taking the relationship as far as she wanted. I didn't want casual sex then, but now I'd take it over nothing. All this happened 6-9 months ago.. I don't know where the months went. I am still waiting for something.

Two days ago, or is it three? Day-before the day-before yesterday, anyhow... The world was as dull and hurtful as I've ever seen it. Trebly worse because my life was going well - I have a beautiful apartment, a girlfriend and a boyfriend who love me, and I'm going to be a sophomore next year at a college I love. I would rather be here than anywhere else, situationally. The only problem is money - I became "disabled" in the legal sense in July, and am still waiting (of course) for my SSI application to go through. I should be applying for food stamps and Medi-cal as well, but I have this little problem with agoraphobia - in the past couple of weeks, I've left the house only for therapy, and to go to the hospital.

So the depression isn't situational, it's probably chemical, and I should keep a stiff upper lip and wait for the Paxil to start working. It will start working soon, right? So why is the world so cruel, so not worth living with? Why do I want to die so badly? Well, reasons seem bald. The depression is something that I find myself unable to easily explain - when I'm asked why I want to die, I find myself struggling for words. "I am depressed" is the easiest thing to say, and why I am depressed is a mystery to me as much as anyone else. It could be the time of year, seeing as how I've failed every summer. It's partly that the memories are painful when they come, that I feel numb and stupid when they don't, and I know that I have so many years of painful processing to do before they stop plaguing me. My abysmal self-esteem could have something to do with it, although that's another question that begs the reason why. I feel like a failure, but then again, why couldn't I work in the first place? Is having MPD and panic attacks, and depression, and PTSD and whatever else I've been charged with, a good enough reason to fail utterly in my responsibilities? Doubts plague me constantly, although I've found that therapy actually helps a little bit with the self-esteem. I don't know if it's GOOD for me to be told it's not my fault, that I would get better and be stronger if I could, but the logic seems indeniable.

So for whatever reason, I was lonely and sad and desperate. I had tried to distract myself, but I couldn't concentrate on anything, and five hours of Tetris was getting to be a bit much. My girlfriend was away for a few days. I couldn't reach anyone on the phone. (Warning: the next few paragraphs are graphic, skip them if you're squeamish.) So I sat in my bathtub, naked, and contemplated my wrists, damning my poor circulation that hides the veins so far from the surface. I got a new, clean razor blade. I gathered up the little courage and all of the desperation that I had. I tried not to psych myself out. I took a breath... and cut. It bled right away, gratifyingly, but it was clear I hadn't hit a vein. I tried again, with a neighboring thin blue line I saw, forcing myself to push a little harder. No luck, although the blood is beautiful. I made a few more cuts, and one of them was clearly superior - I hadn't hit a vein, but it gaped open. I gritted my teeth and sliced the razor a few more times in the same cut - it didn't bleed much more. The bathwater was tinged only very very slightly with a rusty brown. I decided to give up and see if Tetris was interesting again. Or maybe I could go to bed - it was only 9, and I had insomnia, but I was tired as hell from not enough sleep previous nights.

The next day (that would be day-before-yesterday), more of the same. Afraid to leave the house, wanting to die, etc etc. I gave it the good fight, or I thought I did. Tried calling a crisis line. Tried calling everyone I knew. But it was no good. A phone conversation can't last forever, and I was losing Tetris by level 5, I was so out of it. So once again, I returned to my bathtub.

I picked the scab painstakingly out of my cut, the one that was deep-ish. I registered pain, but I hurt too badly emotionally to even pay attention. Gingerly I cut away, bit by tiny bit, at the hole in my wrist. It probably wasn't the best way to do it - a single deep cut might hurt more for a second, but it would be less in the long run, and there's less danger of courage failing. I was getting deep into my wrist, though, slowly. Each new cut would bleed slightly and I'd shake it into billowing pools under the water until it stopped. Then I'd try again. After a while I grew impatient, and stopped waiting for it to stop bleeding before I cut again. I cut through a thin layer of yellowish fat, and I could see the vein, purple-red now; it was so close. The cut that got me there was the tiniest thing - I'd picked my way down less than a milimeter at a time. And suddenly the bloodflow was thick and dark and running fast down my arm; what triumph! I've been cutting for five years and never once, anywhere, have I hit a vein. I know I sound morbid, but I'm trying to give a detailed account of my headspace. It's worth it. Experiences like these need to be remembered, both the positive and the negative.

I put my arm under the water, and watched blood, freed of gravity, make curling fountains, like smoke, red and beautiful. They were hypnotising to watch, and the flow seemed to be so fast! I hoped I'd pass out, although I doubted the lethality of one tiny hole in my vein. Maybe, though. It was going awfully fast, and it seemed like only five minutes before the bathwater was a beautiful shade of ruby. The water was getting cold, but I barely felt it. I leaned back and watched, dissociated, zoned out. I felt suddenly happy. I was going to be okay. Maybe I'd die, and I wouldn't have to worry about that toothache or the bladder infection that seemed to have developed only that day. Maybe I wouldn't, but for a while longer I could have this bliss and freedom. It was the high point of my day.

After a while the blood slowed dramatically, and I was concerned. I nudged it with the razor, and whatever tiny clot had formed moved out of the way and the blood started afresh. I did this several more times, but the water was getting cold and I realized that I wasn't in the headspace to make a similar cut on another vein. It would take too long, and I was so happy and floaty. So I got out of the tub, applied pressure with a washcloth, applied pressure again with some toilet paper until it stopped, and dried off.

The pain in my bladder was agonizing and played a key role in this story, but seeing as how that's just kind of gross, I'll shy away from that bit of it. Suffice to say that even apart from my insomnia, I was in too much pain to sleep.

So I went back into the bedroom, called a friend, tried to pass the time. I watched TV for an hour, but TV was depressing. I tried calling other friends, but could reach no one. I tried the crisis line again, because I was lonely and couldn't sleep and depressed and I knew that if I couldn't get away from myself, I would have to try some more, and I didn't have the energy anymore. I had only talked for about two minutes before call waiting beeped; I figured it must be my boyfriend, so I said goodbye to the hotline worker. It wasn't, though, it was my friend who we'll call DarkSouls (their internet name), and I latched onto them. I told them everything, and they asked me about how I was feeling, and told me I might be in shock. I explained about the insomnia and they offered to talk to me as long as I needed. I am so grateful for everyone I talked to that night, everyone who helped me. I am so indebted especially to DarkSouls and my boyfriend. I am lucky. I'm not the unlikeable person I was years ago; people care about me. Mind-boggling.

This story is long, and I haven't even gotten to the hospital yet. But I want it to be there. I want to remember.

DarkSouls were with my girlfriend, and they were at my boyfriend's house (big happy poly family, we are). So I kept talking to them until my boyfriend got home, and I talked to my boyfriend then, and everyone loved me. Again, record my gratefulness. I was getting really groggy and dizzy and DarkSouls wasn't sure how much shock I was in, and they wanted me to go to the hospital. I couldn't go alone. I just couldn't. I thought I would be fine. After a while DarkSouls and my boyfriend decided that they would come down here and take me to the hospital. It was 2 in the morning by this time, and I live an hour and a half away. I tried to refuse, but I was pretty out of it, and they were all worried. Besides, I was afraid of hanging up the phone. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep.

So I talked to my girlfriend while the other two drove down here, and then we dawdled a bit, deciding if I really needed to go. (I probably didn't, and they were awful there, but I didn't know. At least I got a prescription for the infection.) So it was about five in the morning before we got in the car, five fifteen when we got to the ER. There wasn't much waiting, only one person ahead of us. Of course there was lots of waiting between nurse and doctor and nurse again, but that's to be expected. The nurse told me I'd get stitches, and gave me a tetanus shot. The doctor decided the cut was too old for stitches. All this took two hours, and they sent me over to the psych ward. I thought I was just going over there to get evaluated as to whether they were going to make me stay, but apparently the doctor had already put me on a 5150.

Now begins my nightmare, and what I would do well to remember when I feel like killing myself again. My friends couldn't come with me, and they took my wallet and keys and told me to wait for someone to do the admit. The waiting was awful; I had nothing to do. It was about two before I left, and I talked with people for maybe an hour of that, so that's overall six hours of waiting. With nothing to do. (Later I had a book, but it was one I had already read very recently.) The nurse who did the admit wasn't so bad, at first. She asked me the usual questions, and when I explained how I made the bruises she asked me how I'd learned that, and I told her the truth, from my girlfriend. She made some nasty comment about how we shouldn't be living together and how bad we were for each other. But I was honest and shaken and unsure. I didn't want to stay there, but I wondered if I should. I'm glad I didn't.

I got to see my friends briefly and give them my keys, so they could wait at my apartment, and got a book my boyfriend had with him (one I'd just read, but it was a book.) When I complained to them about how no one told me I was getting admitted, that I was on a hold, and they got suitably indignant on my behalf, the nurse got very annoyed. She told them basically that anyone who did what I did was not a reasonable person with rights anymore, and said, "Are you going to get the keys or not?" They left, and the next person to see me was the crisis worker. When I told her about having MPD, she said "Are you yourself right now?" What a ridiculous question. All of us are *ourselves*. She was not unfriendly, although she was reluctant to recommend my release until I told her that my friend would stay with me. Everyone that I talked to had such a little understanding. There was no way to explain things as they really were to them. She asked me if I had cut within the past week and I said I didn't know, and so I had to explain about the MPD. I called it Dissociative Identity Disorder, its "proper" name, but no one had even heard of it. She called DarkSouls and she called my therapist, and told me that my therapist wanted to come see me. The other person I'm extremely grateful to is my therapist. I can't belive she took time out of her day to come to the hospital and talk to me. It was such a relief to talk to her, to be called by my real (not legal) name. To be able to tell the whole truth, because I knew I would be understood. My therapist told me she'd recommend also that I be released, and now I only had to get the same recommendation from the doctor on call before I could go. The doctor was the worst of all.

After about another hour of waiting, she came over to me and said "Why did you do this?" When I tried to explain, and tried to explain what I did to try to not do it (distract myself), she told me I should have a job. That not having a job would only make me more depressed. Does your job make you happier? I won't go into the story of why and how I quit, but everyone I talked to agreed that I was not in a condition to work. This doctor obviously saw me as a total low-life... just because I tried to kill myself doesn't mean you should reinforce my bad self-esteem. She told me I might not have had the right job, that I should try working at a fast-food place. I really cannot see how working for a fast-food place would be better than for an answering service, which is where I was before. I cannot see how I'd be any more able to do that sort of a job; I think that'd be worse. I am trying not to dwell on her words. I am trying not to hate myself. There are so many reasons to hate myself. But I'm supposed to try to live, now.

So finally, FINALLY, I was released to my friends (I think DarkSouls is charged with my safety in some sort of semi-legal way), and we had food and came home. I was able to fall asleep - thank you, antibiotics! - and I slept from about three in the afternoon until about five this morning. Wow.

Do I still want to die? I'm not sure. There's something so negative about a suicide attempt that makes me not want to try it again. I made a contract with my therapist to try to prevent this from happening again; being multiple, I can't promise for everyone, but I have to try. For two weeks. Nothing's better, except that all this love was showered on me and I have this deep sense of gratefulness. And Darksouls is staying with me. I don't have to be alone.

I want to find the hope that will redeem this story, and save me from teen angst softlinks. I want to wake up in the morning and be able to play my guitar, to node, to write. I want to be able to see the positivity. I want to be able to know that I am strong and I will get through this. I want to recover. Even that's an improvement. But this road is not as simple as that. I can't snap out of it. What I'm going through is real. There's no magical way to force energy and hope to return. I don't know how to try to feel better. But I have a therapist (a good one, who cares) and four friends in the world, and I've never had such a good support network before. They believe I'm worth it, that I'm strong. I don't want to disappoint them.

I'm lucky.

This whole entry has been uil, Using I Loosely. I thought it would be more comprehensible that way, although I wasn't able to entirely avoid mentioning multiple personalities.

I'm a web developer for the summer.

During the rest of the year, I masquerade as a computer science student at a university while secretly playing rpgs and other games.

I live in New York City, but work for a company in Greenwich, CT. I commute two times a week.

Yesterday, I went in to the office for the third time of the week. I did not want to, but I was asked politely by one of my coworkers, who I like (in contrast to my bosses, who I dislike).

The purpose, you may ask, of me being in the office?

to answer the phones

</rant>

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