>>From: Belacqua
>>To: Perdita
>>Subject: Re: <No Subject>
>>Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000

I'm having a rather bizarre evening. I'm getting what can only be described as a reverse-drunk. Usually, when I drink, I get all relaxed and tired and shit, but ever since the first beer tonight, I've been getting more and more keyed up and right now I can hardly sit still long enough to type. I feel like I've just had a major shot of caffeine, when the truth is I haven't had any caffeine at all today. It’s fucking weird. God knows what's happening to my brain right now with all the chemicals coming and going. If Effexor withdrawal is just a hyper spell, I can live with that. It beats the shit out of feeling like I have the flu and I'm losing my fucking mind. I notice that it's a lot easier to get down. Little little little things set me off, and they don't just barely set me off, they fucking bury me. And last night when I cut my arm, I was fucking brutal as hell. I was ripping skin, and no matter what, there just wasn't enough blood to satisfy me. That's where the spray pattern on my jeans came from: hitting a pool of blood with a rapidly moving knife. And it hurts like SHIT right now. It's funny sometimes how the smaller cuts that I never really think much about are the ones that bleed the most. I guess it's just dependent on where the veins are. It seems to be more about location than depth.

And I can't stop fucking talking. I'm just sitting here fucking babbling on and on about god knows what to my brother right now. I'm probably driving him up the fucking wall, but tough shit. I have to hear his goddamn music, he has to listen to me babble.

Goddamn. I can't grab onto a single thought.

My joints are aching. I've always had knee and back troubles, but my fucking shoulder is killing me right now. I'm trying to think if I did anything to it, and I don't think I did. At least my mood is better anyway, for right this second. God knows what ten minutes from now holds. This is going to be a fun little roller coaster ride for the next week as I adjust to being antidepressant-free for the first time in a year. Who knows how it'll work out? If I can't take it, I'll just take the damn pills. I have to find a new doctor anyway, so if I crash out, I'll start over from scratch, which is what I would have to do anyway.

This is a pretty boring e-mail. I'm basically trying to arrange shit in my head as it's whizzing past the screen of my consciousness, and I’m failing miserably. I think I'm going to start writing when I get shitfaced. I'm too inhibited when I'm fully sober. I want to unleash whatever is lurking beneath the surface of what I let everyone, including myself, see. I can feel something under there, rippling ominously, and I feel like Ahab chasing his whale across a turbulent ocean, and if mind-altering drugs are my harpoon, so be it. I want to turn and face the fury of whatever is down there head on, and if I crumble at the sight of it, I'm better off. I don't know if that makes any sense at all. Artaud said at some point that he was waging a war against himself, and I feel like that's what I'm heading towards. In some sense, it's what I want to say to everyone when they give me shit: I'm constantly at war with myself. There's the part of me that wants to destroy me, and the part that is trying to preserve me, and no matter which part wins, some part loses and dies. If the part that wants to destroy me wins, then I die. If the preserving part lives, then the other part of me that has constituted who I have been for so long dies. No matter how I emerge from all of this, something is going to be destroyed.

Wow...that took a weird turn. Anyway, I'm glad I got to talk to you tonight. Only a week....
I love you.
Belacqua

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>From: Perdita
>To: Belacqua
>Subject: Re: <No Subject>
>Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000

Belacqua,

I totally get what you're saying as far as feeling like you're constantly at war with yourself. Christ, I'm ALWAYS at war with myself. There's always what the real Perdita wants to say and do, and then there's what's generally acceptable for Perdita to say and do. The two are so VASTLY different that it's really hard to so much as keep track of who I am and whether who everyone else knows is who I am. It's rather confusing, not to mention the intense craving for death versus the struggle to stay alive.

I got an e-mail yesterday from that girl I've mentioned to you before who is as into Columbine as I am. Well, she's just decided to say fuck the meds and go off them. It seems to be the thing to do these days. I've been considering it for an awful long time now, and the only thing keeping me on them is knowing that going off of them would ensure my death. So, I'm not going off them until I'm sure that everything is set and I'm ready to die.

Well, I suppose I must get going soon. I can't WAIT till next week. I hope your trip back goes well. Keep me updated as to where you are so I don't go calling the wrong place. Ugh, there's so much more I want to say to you, but I just never have the time here. I should've written at four in the morning last night when I was fucking sitting wide awake in the kitchen wondering why the fuck I couldn't sleep. Oh well. I hope to hear from you soon.

I love you.
Perdita