Don\’t read this if you prefer not to know about the inner workings of an emotionally imbalanced, exhibitionist mind.

It used to be that when I would get like this, I would write in my journal, be it this one, or any other that I had. Some point this past spring, I decided I had reached a point where putting it for display publicly was a bad idea, and so I took to writing only positive public entries and privatizing the rest. Soon after doing that, I stopped cathartically writing.

For me, journaling as catharasis started when I was 12. I would write in my black and white composition book the obligatory bad twelve year old depressed girl poetry, alluding to how badly I wanted to kill myself, in the hopes that someone would find it and engage me in conversation about it. All I ever wanted was for someone to listen.

That is something that few people have ever understood. When my head is churning and my body is on fire with feelings that I cannot contain, I want to let it out, and I want someone to hear it or read it, because if no one does, was it really there? What good is letting it out without acknowledgement. I was rarely looking for advice, help or words of wisdom, just someone to receive. Problem is, receivers tend to feel obliged to give in return, and when they have nothing to give, they say aggravating things like \”I don\’t know what to tell you.\” \”I Don\’t Know What To Tell You\” could be the story of my life, if someone else were to write it.

That is something I have been thinking about: handing over what remains of my journals from 1999 through the present and having someone edit them into something publishable. Make sure all the names are changed to pseudonyms, and in the instances where I had already attempted to use pseudonyms, make sure that they are all changed to the same one. Put in some sort of consistency.

I look at it and think about doing it myself, but I just cannot. Rereading my past leads me to relive it, and I become overly emotional and depressed. I feel, though, that I have led a somewhat interesting life over the years, and while not always being very eloquent about it, have occasionally managed to portray it with a natural, rather than educated, grace. Then again, maybe I am just stroking my own ego.

Over the past year I have made several false starts at putting together perzines. There has been \”The Twelve Days of Christmas\” which was written entirely privately last year and was simply a day to day run through of all that went on. I had no idea those twelve documented days were going to contain so much drama when I set out to do the zine, but it ended up being so. My entire life, exposed, for twelve days.

Then there was the idea of putting together all the posts about my health and releasing a \”gimp the girl\” series. Problem is, I would not know where to begin with that. Do I go all the way back to the beginning where I am obviously mentally over the edge and consistently physically ill without knowing why, or do I start with the physical deterioration in January 2002 which led to my diagnosis that May? Do the mental and sexual health entries count, or would they be disqualified on the basis of not being \”gimp,\” and simply just \”ill.\” But is being ill ever really just simple?

The past few days I have been approaching Halloween with apprehension. I did not want a repeat of last year, and yet things have been so rocky for me of late. I managed to stay with friends all last night, and while each and every aspect of the night was a disaster, I didn\’t end up in the hospital. Instead, I ended up having a huge fight with my boyfriend tonight, which led me to go back over last year\’s entries and resulted in me contemplating putting those into a zine.

Will is at the party we were fighting about, and I am here at home. I started to tackle the flagging of appropriate entries for various zines, but the more I read about last fall-spring, the more depressed I became. Tying all those posts into what I have been thinking about lately, and all the arguments with Will, the arguments with myself, and just my general anxiety in general, and I found myself contemplating finishing off last year\’s actions.

The correlations between last year and this year are unmistakable. I am again starving myself and am consummed with thoughts of my BMI. Last year I went off my meds directly after Halloween. This year I have already been off them for more then a month, which some might say is why I am so pissy lately, but I honestly feel that all the meds do is give me a false sense of hope, as well as making me fat. Last year I went around randomly seducing people, impulse buying, drinking until I was passing out, and fixating upon my friendship with Mark. I am doing none of that now, but I have to say, if I could trade in my relationship with Will for the tightness and frequency of the friendship I once had with Mark, I think I would. Mark has never judged me, argued with me, nor told me over and over again how exasperating I am. He was also always completely understanding and accepting of my health and how that effects my life. All of which is directly the reverse of what I now have with Will.

While Will was out of town, I was on cloud nine, accomplishing things and moving forward. Being creative again, feeling alive again. As soon as he got back, it all stopped. I tried to carry on, and he just did not understand why it was I was so passionate about nine different things and would rather work on those or discuss those online with a huge group of people, instead of sitting on the couch watching tv, or going around the corner to the bar and not talking about anything with a group of people who still cannot remember my name after a year.

When I was in Pittsburgh, I felt that amazing feeling of the possibility of my actually doing something positive with myself. I had all the motions, all the moves, all the words, and all the resources to make it happen. I came home excited and ready to keep the ball rolling. A bit here, a bit there, but for the most part, the ball has once again stopped. Will makes me feel like none of what I want to do matters because it isn\’t \”a career\” and most people have to worry about their careers, and when the hell am I going to get my life together?

And when the hell is he going to realize that I am only 22, incapable of physically living an average life, and that I am trying to figure what I can physically do, as well as actually want to do, as well as what I would actually be good at.

Trying to talk to Will about any of my passions and within a few minutes I am back to feeling like a worthless piece of handicapped shit, a little talentless baby with no direction, a burden and a pain in the ass.

The self preservation instinct in me says that it must follow, then, that to move forward, I must get rid of Will or somehow eliminate how his presence and comments effect my productivity and self esteem…. which essentially means I must get rid of Will. And that makes me feel like one of those typical women who say \”He\’s so bad, I love him,\” which just makes me sick. He does not abuse me, he just does not understand me, and as much as I love him and he loves me, that does nothing for how are lives are plummeting in the wrong directions the longer we are together.

Yet, I feel that even if I did get rid of Will, I would still be +broke, +talentless, +uneducated, +unemployed, +handicapped, and then also once again, homeless. So does that mean I am using him to have a place to live? Yes, no, I don\’t know. I would say no. I love him, and we have good times, usually more often than bad.

I keep writing things and deleting them. I\’m so confused, and I\’m so angry, frustrated, anxious, and incredibly sad. I have Tom Waits on, and the song is saying more and definitely more eloquently than I feel I can. I am all fucked up right now, and it\’s not just about Will. I want to stop going to therapy because I feel like I pay him to have the only intellectually stimulating conversation that I generally have every week, and I thrive on those. If I went back to talking about my problems, I would go back to constantly feeling like my life sucks and that I have no future, and that I will have to keep coming to therapy for the rest of my life. Quite frankly, though, I have not spoken of \”my life and problems\” in three months, and generally speaking I feel better than I have in ages. But can you fire your therapist and still get medical assistance? I am so confused. Scared. Fucked up. And Will is at that damn party that I did not want to go to, and on one hand, I wish he would never come back, and on the other, I wish he was here now.

The evening fell just like a star
Left a trail behind
You spit as you slammed out the door
If this is love we\’re crazy
As we fight like cats and dogs
But I just know there\’s got to be more

So please call me, baby
Wherever you are
It\’s too cold to be out walking in the streets
We do crazy things when we\’re wounded
Everyone\’s a bit insane
I don\’t want you catching your death of cold
Out walking in the rain

I admit that I ain\’t no angel
I admit that I ain\’t no saint
I\’m selfish and I\’m cruel and I\’m blind
If I exorcise my devils
Well my angels may leave too
When they leave they\’re so hard to find

We\’re always at each other\’s throats
It drives me up the wall
Most of the time I\’m just blowing off steam
And I wish to God you\’d leave me
And I wish to God you\’d stay
Life\’s so different than it is in your dreams

The Early Years, Vol. 2, is, embarassingly, saying it all right now. I wish I had a voice. I wish I had a good way of saying things that I think and feel. I wish wish wish.