>>From: Belacqua
>>To: Perdita
>>Subject: Re: saturday
>>Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2000

I’m going to see my doctor on Tuesday. I’m really sick of not being listened to by my doctors. I have a pretty clear idea of what's going on in my head, and this person has known me for maybe a grand total of three hours and she's playing god with the chemicals in my brain. They say they're here to help us, but they’re more concerned with just spouting off the shit they studied in college. It's not personal enough to do any good, especially since they have absolutely no idea what we feel like. All they've read is a few paragraphs in some books that generalize what people feel. I've read the DSM, and the description they have is accurate, but the severity of it is totally missing. You can read those words and not see what it feels like to live with those words stamped all over you, affecting everything you do.

Despite all that, I've noticed that I've become almost hooked on going to the therapist. If I'm having a rough day, I keep wondering how long it is until I go back. To me, he's the guy with all the answers, even though all he does is listen to me and tell me that I'm not doing anything wrong. To change the depression, he initially gave me this sheet to help me think positively. That really didn't fucking work. First I felt like a moron for even reading it, then I forgot it because it was cheesy, hokey bullshit. I don't know why I'm so antagonistic tonight. I just feel mad at everything. I want to go into the streets and randomly assault people. I just feel shafted.

The media coverage of the Columbine thing just struck me as completely absurd as soon as it happened. They made those kids out to be total maniacs who went on this spree out of sheer meanness and madness. That never jived with me and I never believed it, and the more I heard about it, the more I felt that they were completely justified in what they did. I was fairly open about that at school, and I was halfway worried I'd be reported to some guidance counselor and kicked out of school, but it takes a hell of a lot to push someone to that. I know because I've been really close to doing it myself and I’ve never gone through with it. So, I know a large degree of what they felt, and I understand why they did what they did. I wish the bombs had gone off and I wish they had killed more people, and I wish people would stop regarding them as devil-spawned maniacs because it was everybody else at that fucking school who drove them to do what they did. It's not their fault. It's everyone else's fault: everybody who shut them out because they weren't "ordinary" or blindly "normal." I want to grab some people by the shoulders and scream in their face to make them understand because the ordinary world is so blind about the whole thing.

Anyway, I've gotten myself all wound up now, and I need to take my tranquilizers. Write soon and have a good second half of your weekend.

I love you.
Belacqua

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>From: Perdita
>To: Belacqua
>Subject: Re: saturday
>Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2000

Belacqua,

As for shrinks not being personal enough and playing god with the chemicals in our brains, you're right. I was talking with a friend of mine who studied psychology in school, and she essentially gave up at becoming a shrink because she said they teach you to lose any sort of empathy you may feel because it'll just end up hurting you. So they TEACH these people not to feel for their patients. They don't care about us as people. They don't know what the fuck it feels like. We're like goddamn puzzle pieces to them, and it's their goal in life to just pick us up and try different ways of putting us back together. They don't even get to use any emotion or imagination in their jobs, they're just there to fucking give us drugs and pat themselves on the back when they think they've done the right thing.

The media coverage of Columbine was all blown out of proportion. It was so obviously just a bunch of random bullshit thrown out at the nation's parents so they'd feel like they KNEW how they could keep their precious children safe. If you give them something to believe, they'll believe it, so if the media tells parents that goth subculture was to blame for the shootings, that's what the parents will believe. Very little of what was said was actually true. It was journalists spouting out their personal conclusions, and they just sat around hoping they were right so they'd look like the national hero. Loads of material that was given to the public was flat-out lies. The Columbine students at the anniversary were extremely vocal about how much the media just decided to make up.

When I first heard about Columbine, it was when I was trying desperately to avoid watching any media coverage, so I really didn't watch any of the live footage or anything until several months after the fact. However, I DID hear about it through word of mouth at school, and all I could think was, "These people are SURPRISED that this happened?" I was surprised that it hadn't happened sooner, and I'm surprised that it hasn't happened more since. But whatever. I kind of latched onto Columbine because the more I read about it, the more I realized that everyone was alienating Eric and Dylan for the very things that I've always held sacred to my own personality. The things that make me ME are the things that everyone wants to condemn, and I think my ever-present need to defend Eric and Dylan is really just my own way of defending the way I think and who I am. I'm just shifting the attention to someone else so I don't feel like I'm justifying who I am all the time. It's all the same thing, though.

I can go on and on forever about Columbine, but I won't. I love how you said you just wanted to grab some people by the shoulders and scream at them to make them understand. I've been trying to get people to understand for a long time, and I've pretty much given up on that. Now, I want to grab people by the shoulders and shake them while asking them what the hell is inside of them. It's like they're completely empty. How can they NOT get it? The intensity of their emotions seems so pathetic to me because it's so much less than what I feel. Primarily, I know my biggest issue with normal people is that they always put themselves first in everything. What the fuck is that? I don't understand it. I've missed work, lost sleep, and skipped classes for people without thinking twice about it, but no one has ever done the same for me. Normal people suck.

I hope you're having a good Sunday.
I love you.
Perdita