>>From: Belacqua
>>To: Perdita
>>Subject: Sleepless
>>Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000

Trazodone is an older antidepressant that has a really short effect period, and it tends to make you really drowsy, which makes it crappy for a full-time drug, but really great for a right before bedtime drug. Of course, it didn't work last night for me for the first time. It made me so tired I couldn't keep my eyes open, but I never fell asleep. Well, that's not entirely true. I fell asleep at about 7:30 in the morning, and was up around 8:30. Strangely enough, I don't feel affected by it at all. I’m just as tired and dragged out as usual.

I’ve seen a few different therapists, and none of them seem to help me. Yeah, I’m bitter towards my parents because they brought me here and then were all over my ass for my entire life. I still hardly get to make any decisions for myself. So that certainly influences matters, but it doesn't in any way account for this perpetual feeling of shit that I have. It doesn't explain why I’d rather not exist at all than plug through this mire. I don't know what always stops me. It’s usually out of some sort of consideration for the few people that would care. Sometimes it's some kind of hope that maybe it won't always be this bad (and it always is). One time, I thought maybe I don't want to be dead, maybe I just want the hurt to go away. But that's not true because it won't go away while I’m still alive. There is just something inherently miserable about my life and the only way to make it stop is to come to complete peace: death. I just wish I had someone around I could talk to and be miserable with. I hate spoiling everyone else's time, and I hate not being able to talk. I feel like a corked bottle full of vinegar and baking soda, shivering on the counter about to explode. I need comfort. I believe people can become depressed according to the psychological definition of it, but it's not chronic and totally embedded in them like it is in us. They can take 20mg of Prozac a day and feel wonderful. They can just slip back into the world and move around in it happily. I can't do that. I don't fit in the world and I can't come to terms with it. The world as it exists now is wrong, and I can't accept it.

I was almost Columbine...I used to fantasize about gunning down everybody in the school. I even had a list of the people I would make sure to kill. I backed off when all the shootings got national headlines because I didn't want to get in trouble for it if I hadn't done it yet. Then I left my senior year and went to a local college instead. That has probably kept me alive and out of jail, but I still fantasize about mauling people. I just see certain people and I want to smash their heads like an overripe watermelon. I just want to watch them die and be responsible for it. If it wasn't against the law, I would probably be a maniac shooting people for fun. If I hurt this bad inside, they should hurt just as bad on the outside.

I don't know why I’m taking my meds, either. I guess somewhere buried under the black clouds is a tiny flicker of hope that if they won't totally take it away, it'll at least ease the pain a little bit. If I don't start feeling better very soon, I’m just gonna quit them. Fuck however sick I get. I’m already sick.

I really enjoy communicating with you. It has alleviated some of the isolation and loneliness I was feeling just to know there's another being on the planet who doesn't want to be here. Thank you.

I hope to hear from you soon.
Belacqua

P.S. I read in your journal that you love stuffed animals. I love stuffed animals, too. When I was a kid (that sounds weird...I’m supposed to still be a kid, but instead of feeling 19, I feel 91: old, tired, beaten, and waiting to die), I would get sad if I couldn't sleep with all of mine at the same time because I thought they were sad. Some of them I can't leave in the store. I sleep with a stuffed Eeyore. Ironic, don’t you think?

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>From: Perdita
>To: Belacqua
>Subject: Re: Sleepless
>Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000

Belacqua,

I know just what you mean about the not being able to keep your eyes open, but not being able to sleep either. I was like that all last weekend. I just laid on the futon and watched the TVGuide channel scroll all the shows past in front of me over and over and over. It was awful. That's when you really want to fucking do something to stop it all, but you're so goddamn sedated that you can't even fucking move. I hate it.

Have you ever been to cadaver.org? You should just go check out the opening page. There's a pic on there of someone who fucking shot their brains out with a shotgun. I look at pictures like those, and I feel so comforted that someday I won't have to feel anymore because I KNOW all the pain is coming from my brain. When you don't fucking HAVE a brain, you can't feel the pain, right? I don't know if you have any religious beliefs, and I hope I don't offend you, but I don't understand people who believe in heaven and hell. I don't understand it because I am so certain that what's going on in my head is the worst pain there is, and no matter how many other lives I ruin, it'll all be over with when I'm dead. I don't understand when people don't see why the Columbine kids could do what they did. I don't understand why more people don't do it, either.

I think what keeps me alive right now is the fact that I don't totally hate where I am. I like my job and my apartment, and that's all I need. I'm too bored and disinterested to fucking do anything now. I was just talking with my friend, Braedon, though, about how cool it would be to bring a couple of Uzis to a Superbowl sometime. That would rock. But I'm too bored to care right now. I think that's what my drugs do for me. They don't make me happy and they don't make things better. They just make me not care about anything, and they make me too sedated to kill myself or anyone else. So yay for the rest of the fucking world.

You sleep with a stuffed Eeyore? That's awesome. I sleep with a stuffed Elmo. I swear to god Elmo has saved my life several times. There have been moments where I've been lying in my bed with Elmo and the only thing I could think of that made anything any better was the fact that I was there with Elmo, he couldn't possibly do anything to hurt me, and I didn't have to leave.

You know, I'm sitting here dressed in black, ready to go to Salem, Massachusetts for the evening with a friend so we can celebrate Halloween. It's my favorite holiday and I love Salem, but I have this silver choker on around my neck that's almost cutting off my windpipe and it has already made me gasp a couple times, making me think I should loosen it, but I just don't care that I can't breathe. I don't feel like going anywhere, but I feel like I have to in order to seem like a real person. I'm so annoyed.

I hope you can get some sleep tonight, and I hope to hear from you soon.
Perdita