2004-01-07/10:45 a.m.

good news, bad news.

my mysterious rash has disappeared, but my insanity has not.

im officially off the roll at school. when my therapist asked me if i feel im ready to go back at the end of the month for the next semester, i asked her what ready feels like. i asked her to explain how i know when im ready. she said that only i will know and if i have to ask, then its a clear indication that im not ready just yet.

i agree with her.

now, explaining that to my parents and friends will be a different matter entirely. how do you tell people that youre mentally unwell, that you lack the emotional strength and skills to deal with daily life? how do you tell people that while youre perfectly able quit school and your job to sit at home and read or photograph for days on end, while youre unable to get out of bed some days because you cant decide which shirt to wear? how do you tell people that everything you have been working towards in life for 18 years has actually been harming you and making you sick, making you into this amorphous personification of sorrow, dread, guilt, fear, and disgust? how do you tell people that you cant continue as you are because you hate everything you become? how do you tell people that you must start anew and re/define, re/discover all of your pleasures, passions, goals, skills, abilities, and, most importantly, yourself?

and how do you tell your parents that spending 8 months doing what you enjoy; reading, writing, composing, photographing, watching the kitten grow; doesnt seem like so long considering you spent 18 months going to school and living their way while wanting to die?

how do you tell them, using only one hand, how many times you have been a swallow or a pound of pressure away from ending it all? how, because it takes two whole hands?

the kitten is pulling my sweater zipper down, which is his way of saying that its time to stop being so worried and to watch him bat a walnut across the hardwood floor instead.

my, the good news was rather short in this entry. i meant to only write two lines. i guess this is what ill be doing next semester - updating my diary. hah. yeah right. my parents will make me go to school and make me collapse again in a suffocating sense of deja vu. just you wait. just you wait and see my spirit be crushed.

im coming, kitten.