>>From: Belacqua
>>To: Perdita
>>Subject: peace and alcohol
>>Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000

You know, if I live very much longer I'm going to be a raging alcoholic. I actually drank tonight because the liquor tasted good. Straight liquor out of the bottle tasted good to me. Am I worried about it? Hell fucking no. I didn't really drink a lot. At least I thought I hadn't until I looked at the bottle and realized I drank half of what was in it at one time. That's what I love the most about liquor: I can hit the bottle one time and be so relaxed. I had gone into the kitchen and opened the bottle and when I smelled it, my knees buckled. That usually makes me NOT want to drink, but I could taste it and feel it, and I almost didn't chase it with anything, but it burned the back of my throat a little too much so I had to follow it with a little coke. I didn't drink anything last night, which is kind of dumb since I didn't have a final today and I have two tomorrow from noon until at the latest about six, but if it takes me longer than until 4:30 I will be totally shocked. So, of course I'm not studying. The old hour before the test method hasn't failed me yet.

I went to my therapy appointment today and told the guy I hadn't been coming totally clean with him because I didn't want to go back to the hospital, and he said it really takes a lot for him to commit someone, so I told him a lot of stuff I had been thinking about and doing lately and it was bizarre because when I told him about the cutting, he acted like it was no big deal. He basically said that as long as I wasn't doing it in areas where I could bleed to death, like my wrists or neck, then, while it wasn't healthy, it certainly wasn't anything he'd hospitalize someone for. He was remarkably unconcerned about it, and that threw me a little bit, but hey, if he's not going to get on my ass about it, then who fucking cares? He said he really doesn't put anybody in the hospital unless they have plans and are overly obsessed about those plans. If I cared enough about living, I'd probably commit myself because god knows I have several ideas about how I'd do it, and I really know it's only a matter of time. I know I'm going to die by my own hand and it's really very comforting. Most people have to guess how they're going to die and they never really know when it's coming. I feel like god. I have the power to decide when and how I'm going to die, and that thought makes a lot of days go by easier, just to know that one day I'll be able to make it all go away.

I'm not taking that medication tonight because it made my vision go all wavy right before I fell asleep last night, and that was fucking weird. I'm also afraid I won't be able to get up in time to cram for my Latin final because it made me so fucking zoned out today that it was crazy. When I woke up, I felt like I was hallucinating because everything was swirling around and turning into weird shit. It's what I imagine a weak LSD trip would be like. Those side-effects wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't have two finals tomorrow. I'm going to need my full faculties of bullshit to be able to get through those tests, and I don't want to be in a medicinal haze while I'm taking them.

You know, I just looked at the calendar, and the time I was thinking about coming up is only about three weeks away. That's really comforting. Three weeks is a long time, but right now it seems manageable.

I don't understand why alcohol isn't a treatment for depression. I feel so mellow right now. It can't be as bad for me as taking four different chemicals. What kind of fucking life is it, having my moods, emotions, and personality regulated by medicine? What kind of human does that make me? Am I even human anymore? And what's the difference anyway? I think I'd rather be inhuman than be a human dependent upon six pills a day to retain that humanity. God, it just makes you feel so fucked up to think that everyone else regards you as being so deviant that you need all this stupid shit. It still amazes me that I even take it. Knowing and feeling all that, I still know I'll wake up tomorrow morning and head straight for the fucking pill bottles so I don't lose my mind. God, sometimes I just want to take them all at once and say, "Fuck you, assholes. See where your 'normal' chemicals got me now?" Christ, you throw the nicotine, alcohol and caffeine on top of all that shit, and I really feel like a junkie. But I’m a legal junkie, and for some reason, that makes all the difference. I swear, I sit and think about the world sometimes, and I can't stop laughing between my sobs.

I don't know if you've ever read him, but Eugene Ionesco is fucking brilliant. He's a French theatre of the absurd playwright, and most of his plays are very loose plots connected together with wild non-sequiturs. It's such a contradiction because it's supposed to be a play about the meaninglessness of everything, and yet that meaning is so full and profound that it's impossible to believe the play is about nothing. I have a book by him called Fragments of a Journal, which is (I think) his only prose work, and it's really part of a journal he kept. It's so amazing to read. It's one of those things where I can't pick out a quote because I wouldn't know where to start or where to stop, and I'd end up typing the whole damn book.

Anyway, I think I can feel the fog rolling out of my mind, so I'm going to try and get to sleep before it leaves me shivering in the sharp-cornered world again. I hope you had a nice dinner with your brother.

I love you so much.
Belacqua

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>From: Perdita
>To: Belacqua
>Subject: Re: peace and alcohol
>Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000

Belacqua,

I feel like shit today. It's snowing beautifully here and everyone's in a crappy mood because of the commute in the snow, but I love it (even though I still feel like shit). Snow just makes me feel so cold and calm. It reminds me very much of how I feel inside because it's just no place for a human being to be. It's such a bad environment. I have that "emergency" doctor's appointment today, and because I'm so worried that I'm gonna go in there and tell him I'm fine, I actually sat down and wrote a list of things that suck right now, so maybe that'll help somewhat. Who the fuck knows? And it's not like I REALLY care, anyway.

Not taking a drug that makes you feel weird was definitely a good idea during finals. I get that wavy vision thing all the time for absolutely no reason. It's really weird. They give me these drugs to stop the panic attacks and they just fuck me up in other ways and change the panic attacks to being entirely in my head instead of physical outburst kinds of things. Goddammit, my vision is going nuts right now. I just love that people come talk to me sometimes and I barely know who it is because they look so blurry.

I'm really glad to hear that your therapist didn't give you shit about cutting yourself. If anything would piss me off as a reaction to something like that, it would be for someone to tell me to stop. Fuck you, I'm not gonna stop. Why would I stop for you? I seriously didn't understand how my therapist could possibly expect me to make a promise to her that I wouldn't cut myself. What kind of promise can you really make to someone you just met and don't even particularly like? And she just didn't get why I responded by asking her why I should make that promise to her. Fucking therapists.

It strikes me as quite strange and rather annoying that you can drink so much on your meds and it affects you so totally differently than it affects me. If I were to drink half a bottle of whiskey right now, I'd be waking up every half hour during the night and I'd feel like I just wanted to fucking stay AWAKE forever because of how lousy it feels to be lying down. Isn't that weird? Something about the Paxil mixed with alcohol makes me VERY psychotic. I start seeing lots of very bloody pictures in my head, and I get particularly homicidal. In a way it's kind of cool, but it fucking freaks me out when I see pictures in my head and can't distinguish between them and what's actually going on.

You know, in lots of ways, I actually did feel more like a normal person before I started my meds. I'd collapse on the floor with major panic attacks a lot, but at least I could see straight when I drank. That was always the best. I could self-medicate with alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, or designer drugs, and they'd make me feel whatever I needed at that particular moment. Now I have to really watch what I do because of the interactions with the meds, and it's really fucking annoying. Coffee doesn't even wake me up anymore. Now it just kind of makes me feel woozy because my body and the meds interpret the caffeine as stress and they jump in to act stronger and make me feel more tired.

Well, I suppose I should consider doing something here at work before I have to take off for my doctor's appointment. Good luck with your finals. I have this very intense longing to hold you right now but I can't, and it's fucking pissing me off. All I have to hold onto now is remembering what it feels like to be with you.

I love you more than anything.
Perdita