Krista Lester’s Journal
02/13/00 to 03/13/00
02/13/00
Friday, I got to leave work early because the shrink got me so worked up I couldn't breathe. I hate when I can't breathe. I don't know how much more patience I have to deal with this crap. Do you know why I can't breathe? I sure as hell don't. It's not fair. Every time I get upset, my lungs decide they don't remember how to work. And I get upset a lot. Why do so many little things piss me off so very much? It's like someone's constantly pounding my nose in with a hammer. I can try to ignore it or make it go away, but no matter what, I always know it's there. I always know there's a wall of anger about to crumble down inside my brain. Even right now, I can't breathe. I'm having a perfectly fine day. It's Sunday, my roommates are both out, I'm home alone working on a brand new, gorgeous computer that isn't even mine, and I'm comfortable and relatively content. But I'm still angry. I'm angry that I can't breathe. And I'm angry that every time I try to tell the computer to do something, it laughs at me. Computers are going to take over the world one of these days.
Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day means nothing to me. Well, perhaps it means lots of chocolate wrapped in red wrappers, but it sure as hell doesn't mean love. You know what love is to me? Love is what all those people out there who are completely oblivious to the goings-on in life spend all their time doing. All those couples you see on the street that look so happy and perfect together make me sick. I look at them and I know they're just together because their personalities are simple. Simple-minded people are easy to find. Of course lots of people end up thinking they're in love. But what happens when you're someone like me? What happens when no one understands the way my brain works? I don't get it. My shrink doesn't get it. Doctors don't get it. For whatever reason, my brain is fucked up, and there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it. For me to fall in love, I'd have to find someone who also doesn't have any way of figuring out the workings of their brain.
I bet most people don't spend much time thinking about the workings of their brains, huh? I do, though. I spend almost all of my time wondering why I'm thinking what I'm thinking. I can't even sit and watch a TV show without staring blankly at the screen wondering why I can't understand normal people. I can't understand the people on TV. If they're supposed to represent real people, why doesn't anyone represent me? Does anyone else out there feel this way? Does anyone feel lonely no matter how many people are around? Does anyone think people who aren't lonely just aren't lonely because they're simple-minded?
That just makes sense. I have friends who find a new boyfriend or girlfriend every time the last one gets old. And every time, they're just as happy. Every time, they think this time's the real thing. This time, they're in love. Bullshit they're in love. They only think they're in love. People like me know better. People like me know that love can never be real unless it becomes as strong as the all-consuming hate. I don't see that happening anytime soon.
02/15/00
You know, everything in life makes me sad. I just discovered this emotion recently. It used to be that everything made me angry. Due to the recent addition of mind-altering medication in my daily diet, I have begun to experience sadness. Sadness sucks. Instead of actively pursuing the destruction of the source of my anger, I sit at my desk quietly, trying to envision the most uplifting thoughts imaginable. I never come up with anything, though. I feel like I'm screaming out into a black hole, an infinity of nothingness, trying to find someone else who's frustrated and verging on insanity. Hello? Is anyone out there?
02/16/00
If you could put a tape recorder inside my thoughts, this is what you would hear: "death...blood...death...blood...gruesome carnage everywhere...death...death...death...blood..." Do you think that's healthy? I don't know. Why is death constantly on my mind? I don't know. And the funny thing is that I'm just fine with that. I don't mind constantly seeing movies of murders happening in my head. It's just a matter of people constantly telling me it's wrong to think my way. Can you imagine trying to alter the course of your thoughts? That's what got me into this problem in the first place, isn't it? Telling myself that everything was fine when it really wasn't didn't do a whole lotta good. Death...blood...death...blood... It's like I am watching myself from the outside. I can tell that what's going on is not normal. I've known for awhile, but where do you draw the line between eccentric and abnormal? Where do you draw the line between creative energy and insanity? I don't see any of these lines. I'm constantly floating in between them. It's kind of fun at times, but it might be nice to be able to be fully convinced that I am sane.
02/23/00
I met my new shrink yesterday. If I didn't know any better, I'd think that most people think I'm weird. Oh, wait--my shrink actually TOLD me I'm weird. But it's okay. I realize that some people will think I'm weird. That doesn't really change anything as far as how I came about being who I am, though. Everyone has experiences in life that mold them into the product they finally become. Why would you want to change that? Don't you think it's better to just let things run their course? Of course, I don't mean to say that I think people with painful diseases or something of the sort shouldn't be treated; that's just cruel. But when it comes to someone like me who's lived my entire adult life a certain way, doesn't it make sense to just let me be me? What right does anyone have to change me? What right does anyone have to tell me that I should be more like them? What right does anyone have to tell me how to think? And do they think it's an easy task to accomplish? I don't think so! Obviously, they've never had to deal with a similar circumstance themselves. If they knew anything about people like me, they'd understand.
The problem is, though, that they don't know the first thing about people like me. Mental problems are running rampant in a world that's only partially through discovering that they exist. There's no way to prove most of what psychology encompasses. It's a lot of guesswork, but it's being taught as though it's fact. There's entirely too much to the human brain that is still undiscovered. There's no way to explain it so that it will relate to everyone. How can people actually believe that they understand the way I think?
03/02/00
Have you ever considered the possibility that you might be delusional? If you haven't, try it. I've never suspected myself of being delusional, but now, it seems as though I am so convinced in beliefs of mine which differ from those of most other people that I might be delusional. It's not fun trying to decide if you're actually delusional. Do you know what this means? This means that I may have been living the majority of my life thinking I'm living in a reality that doesn't actually exist. This means that I might as well have been living under a rock for twenty-two years. This means that all of those people wandering around me on the streets everyday have been assuming I'm like them, but I'm not. It means that I've been expecting people to instantly understand something that took two decades to develop inside of me.
I'm very much convinced that I see reality more clearly than most of the world. I'm very much convinced that the people who don't believe me or can't understand me are the people who just aren't smart enough to see it. I realize the fact that believing you see something more clearly than everyone else makes you clinically delusional. My question is, what if I'm right? What if everything I see actually is more valid than what most of the world thinks? That makes all of the normal people delusional in respect to me. I don't care how much you think I'm wrong. The possibility EXISTS, regardless of how impractical it sounds, the possibility does exist that I am actually right.
So, what then? What do you do when you finally agree to give delusions a chance? What do you do when you challenge the way you view the world? How do you know that your way is right? Somehow you just know. Just as you accept your world, I accept mine. So, not only does everyone else seem delusional to me, but they also seem to accept things much more easily. A lot of people are considerably more easily duped than I am. A lot of people are less intelligent than I am. A lot of people take their beliefs from what they've been told or from something that has been suggested to them, without ever having considered why. Of course I'm going to think I'm smarter than everyone! Of course I'm going to seem delusional to them! I've considered all of their angles, and mine make more logical sense.
Everyone who doesn't think like me and leads a pleasant, normal life has no way to understand me. They all wander around with their kids in stollers and their heads held high, marvelling at sunsets and playing in the water at the beach, wondering how anyone could ever not love life. Well, I'll tell you how. We see people like you everywhere we turn, and every single time, you're doing something that seems silly. You indulge in things that make you happy, but the same things would not make us happy. Seeing you so easily contented makes you seem simple-minded. It makes you seem less intelligent than us because we can't do, we can only think. You do more; we think more. Thus, the things you do seem insignificant trivialities which steal away some of the precious time you could have spent thinking. Why aren't you bettering yourself as an intelligent human being? Why don't you set aside some time each day to sit quietly and think about the way the world works?
I firmly believe that I have something to say to the world. I truly believe that people will eventually listen to me. I feel as though the things I have to say are of the utmost global importance. Apparently, that makes me delusional. Apparently, if you think everyone around you is wrong and you're innately special, you're delusional. My opinion is that that's bullshit. I'm not delusional. You know why everyone thinks I'm delusional? It's because I'm different, but I'm logical. I think things through, and no one can prove me wrong. So who's to say everyone else is right? Just because the majority of people don't think like me doesn't mean I'm the crazy one. How many people decided that it was a good idea to follow Hitler? Wasn't that the majority of people in Germany at the time? The majority isn't always right. I challenge someone to prove me wrong. Prove to me that your reality has more validity than mine, and I will medicate myself with those conformist drugs that are recommended by money hungry pharmaceutical companies till I'm blue in the face and sedated enough to readily accept your world.
03/06/00
I do not believe that it is morally wrong to kill. That is my opinion. Ultimately, my belief stems from the fact that I wouldn't mind if someone killed me. This comes from the fact that I would really like to commit suicide, but I'm too nice to do such a thing to alter the course of the lives of people I know. If I committed suicide, the probability of someone I know eventually experiencing the depression I have known would be significantly increased. I would never want to be at fault for subjecting them to that kind of torture; I wouldn't even wish that on someone I despise. I understand that most people feel otherwise about killing, and that's fine. I do, however, have a right to my opinion. You can't say I don't have a right to my opinion just because it differs from yours.
Obviously, I do not have a right to break the law, and therefore, I do not intend to act on my opinion, nor have I ever had any such intention to kill. I have never intentionally done anything to hurt anyone. I have never, EVER interfered with anyone else's beliefs. All I ask is the right to share my opinions, and, given my current mental status, that's the healthiest thing I could be doing. Please take this site as the mental release and necessary relief that it is. I'm a very honest person, and I'm willing to share my deepest, darkest beliefs, thoughts, and intentions. That's not a crime. And if it makes you feel any better, I can't even squash a bug.
03/08/00
You know why I hate so many people? I hate so many people because someone in my life was killed, and the killer was never found. I am very bitter. There is a murderer out there who ruined my life and the lives of many other people I know. This person is contentedly wandering the streets everyday, probably completely having forgotten about the fact that he or she has KILLED, however many years ago it may have been.
Killing wasn't always okay in my world. Killing used to be morally wrong. Then someone had to go and kill. Maybe it was an accident, and maybe it wasn't; either way, they should have been punished, and they weren't. I refuse to be the victim. I will befriend killers. I will befriend death. Life has proven to me that a significant number of people believe killing is not morally wrong, and I have learned to accept that. I have learned to find comfort in that. Don't you wish you were comfortable in the company of killers? Or are you happier being unaware? Whether or not you admit to the fact that you live in the company of killers, they're still there. I prefer to recognize it, accept it, and move on.
03/10/00
Most people have no idea what it means to truly consider a thought. Consideration, in my opinion, means completely abandoning yourself within an idea. If you completely give yourself up to an idea, it will lead you somewhere. It may eventually end up taking you to the truth. Most people don't know what truth feels like. Most people just accept things. They don't bother to search for the truth.
So, what does truth feel like? Truth feels like complete satisfaction. It's also somewhat unsettling, though. At some point, you realize that the foundation upon which you built your entire life actually extends far beneath a basement of lies. If you dig and dig for the truth, eventually you will find it. You'll be exhausted and disillusioned, but you'll finally know what truth feels like.
Truth is like a blanket you can wrap around yourself for protection from stupidity, nonsense, and all those irrational fuckheads out there who don't so much as care where their beliefs came from. Truth feels like a good friend and a good enemy all rolled up into one. And it's a good thing, too, considering how lonely you become when you can finally see how many people will never understand. How can they be fulfilled when they know nothing about truth? How can they be fulfilled when all they think about are human needs and human desires and an elaborately woven lie of a religion? How can they not be intrigued by the idea that there are thoughts that have never occurred in the mind of any other being on earth? And why is it that these simple people have more comfortable lives than someone like me who tries to solve all of the world's problems?
03/13/00
Depression sucks. That's really all I have to say right now. Even on a good day, I'm only slightly less miserable than usual. Even when you're trying your best to ignore depression, you always know it's there. It's not something you can get over. I think that, more than anything else, is the single most commonly misunderstood concept about depression. People seem to think of it by relating it to their own experiences with sadness, but sadness really isn't comparable to depression. That's like comparing what a pedestrian might feel from the breeze of a passing car to the feeling of a different pedestrian getting hit head on by a semi going seventy miles an hour. Depression is dealing with the devastation of a horrible loss every single day, even if you don't know what you've lost. Depression is like having the feeling of knowing that the semi is going to hit you head on in less than a second, and there's nothing you can do. It's the sinking feeling in your stomach that makes you feel like you're going to puke. It's the feeling you might imagine getting as you jump out of an airplane, but it doesn't go away! It just stays there forever. I can't think of any words that can even begin to do justice to the actual feeling.
I can actually recognize the physical sensation of chemical changes in my brain. I can feel them. Can you feel your brain tingle when you get sad? Can you feel your soul escaping from your body and lingering somewhere in a distant purgatory for days at a time just because you're sad about something? In the downward side of my eternally spinning cycle through life, all I can feel is my brain tearing itself into halves, falling apart with me powerless to do anything but sit back for the ride, like I've just been strapped into a roller coaster ride that I really didn't want to experience.
I've recently gone through the whole ordeal of sharing who I really am with virtually everyone I know. For way too long, I've had to hide myself from all the people who I knew would react negatively to what's always been going on inside of me. I thought letting everything out into the open might allow the pain to escape. I thought maybe the weight of having a secret life would be miraculously lifted from my shoulders forever. I must say things are infinitely better, but they're still not good enough for me to feel as though it's better to be alive than dead.
So why do I keep on living? I suppose it's the hope that someday I'll figure things out to a point where I'm completely satisfied with what I've discovered about the meaning of life. That's what I want. I want to define the meaning of life. I want to express it in such a way that no one can deny that I've discovered a truth. I want to do for the study of reality what Einstein did for science. I'm sure Einstein knew what he wanted to explain to the world for a long time before he actually figured out a way to simplify it into terms that everyone else could understand. Who knows? Perhaps I'm fighting a losing battle. Perhaps I'm deluding myself into thinking I'm smarter than I really am. Perhaps, but who cares? If that's what gives me the strength to live until tomorrow, are you really going to deny it to me? Please don't.