Please exit to your left, and watch your step

Despair has dissipated.

Stillness is beginning to settle in. And with it the inevitable relief, that I didn’t go through with it.

Did you know suicidal people often feel greatly relieved when it turns out we didn’t off ourselves? It’s true.

The Hollywood version usually has people being mad they didn’t die.

But the reality for the millions with mental illness is that we don’t just struggle once. Suicidal ideation is a constant looming threat at the bad end of our worst days.

Every nut I know is tickled pink when it burns itself out.

Turns out none of us wants to die. Who knew?

I’m not nearly as merrily glib as that sentence implies. But getting there. I am filled with the possibilities in life that have suddenly opened up to me.

I can see myself sitting at a sushi bar where the chef is rude and keeps insisting I try things that look progressively slimier.

I can see myself dancing in a gray satin dress at a garden party with twinkling lights in the trees.

I can see a bonfire, and me in a wool cap with red cheeks.

These visions are vivid, almost tangible. They are full of life, and possibilities.

Yesterday all I saw was the dark, closing in. 

I still can’t see tomorrow, or even feel it.

But I’ve been reminded: It will be different. Always is.

Thank you to those who rode along with me. I imagine it was some Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Sorry about that. 

Then again, god I always LOVED Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride!

No Tiger Woods news

I started to write about Tiger Woods and his wife and Windermeregate.

And then I thought, oh good gravy, who gives a flying golf ball?

You’re welcome.

Yes, I’m still pissed at you, Mr. President

I haven’t forgotten how you joined forces with the Oppressors of Women recently.

Still not pleased. Still trying to figure out what I will do to demonstrate that.

Probably not vote for you next time. Truly. I think you’re an awesome guy and smart and I have tremendous respect for you.

But you don’t have respect for me. If you did, you wouldn’t bend to the Catholic Church and screw me just to get your tepid, do-nothing health reform bill passed by the House.

I stopped paying attention to health care reform after that, Mr. President.

If you are going to take away a woman’s right to make choices about her own health care, you don’t care about me.

Why should I care about you anymore?

I have stopped caring. Surge the troops. Give away all the money to the bankers. Screw the women.

You’ve lost someone who loved you well.

My dogs don’t itch but my brain does

And now it’s morning.

I took six Ambien last night and still only managed two hours’ sleep.

Normally, one Ambien knocks me out for 8 hours.

But the little chemicals in that submarine-shaped pill are no match for my brain, which diverts them, sends them off to Mexico or something.

The first thing I did when I woke up was take the puppies in the bathtub, one at a time of course. They were scratching all night long.

Now they’ve stopped scratching and are frisky. Their favorite grudge match locale is the bed, specifically the perimeter of my laptop. Little dickenses.

Poozer could use a bath too, but she’s 102 pounds of pure muscle and hatred of baths. I need to recover a lot more strength before I can give Poozer a bath.

I thought about bringing her down the street, to this place called Soapy’s Do-It YourSelf Dog Wash. But a peek in the windows revealed no dogs larger than my purse. I don’t think Soapy’s could handle Poozer, either.

Poozer and me. Two peas in a pod.

The kids are all at school. Will just dropped Tony off to get dressed and then, unbeknownst to me, was waiting in the driveway the whole time and took him to school. I guess Will is now my Disney Monorail, whisking the kids to and fro and all I have to do is wave.

Uh oh. I’m going to get another “don’t write about me in the blog” lecture.

All I ever get from my ex is lectures, though. He’s like the Stern Father I never had. Probably why I married him.

I’m sick of the lectures. I’d like to succeed or screw up on my own, with no advice from my father figure anymore.

Until I can get a job and support myself, however, I won’t be afforded that pleasure.

At least I feel better. Being left alone is an amazing restorative.

Popping some pills now. Let’s hope they work.

Guess I’ll call my shrink, too. He always loves to hear from me, she says sarcastically.

My shrink is tricky. I can’t tell whether he likes me or not. I suppose it doesn’t matter. Still, one would like to think that if one pours one’s deepest darkest secrets out to someone, all one’s fears and sadnesses, that they would come to understand and like one. 

But I can’t tell with this one. He’s cryptic. Probably the reason I stay with him. 

I don’t think his office is open yet. So I’ll have to wait.

Shrinks probably make a small fortune, don’t they? And all they have to do is sit in an ugly office and look at you over their clipboard and scribble things down and say “Umm hmm” every so often.

My shrink has windows in his office that are foggy on the edges. Every time I go, those windows draw me. I want to get a roll of paper towels and some Windex and try to take care of that once and for all. But I don’t. If I tried he’d just start scribbling furiously on his clipboard.

He won’t tell me what he writes. Once I said, “So, what’s wrong with me? You’ve been seeing me for a few years now, what’s my damage?”

And he goes, “Weeeeeelllll…….you’re depressed…..” 

I should have become a shrink. Talk about a recession-proof profession.

Of course, the downside of being a shrink has got to be that sometimes, out of the blue, your patients just kill themselves, and there goes that revenue stream.

I googled my shrink and it looks like he’s had at least two patients off themselves. Probably more. 

Survivors sued. They didn’t get anything. Even I could tell after reading the case file that those patients were looney as toons.

I want to ask the shrink “How did that make you feel?”

But he wouldn’t be straight with me. My shrink is the most non-compliant reverse-patient you’d ever have the exasperation of dealing with.

Gonna be a long night

Well, it’s an hour before midnight and I’m still alive. I suppose that’s good, given the state I’m in. Which isn’t some raving lunatic running around the house state, by the way. 

It’s more of a I just don’t want to be here with every fiber of my being sort of feeling.

Slept for a couple hours. But now I’m wide awake. Damn sleeping pills wore off so quickly. 

Everything wears off quickly. Somebody once said it’s because I’m a redhead, and redheads are known for being very difficult to fully anesthesize.

Whatever the cause, it’s my brain that’s the enemy right now, thoughts racing around and around in it like NASCAR.

My ex came and got my kids. That’s his pattern, too. Do something that sets me off into a fullblown anxiety attack and downward suicidal spiral, and then take my kids away because he “don’t want the kids around that.” 

The “that” being me sleeping in the next room.

I often wonder what it would have been like to be married to someone who a) didn’t do things to make me crazy; and b) didn’t make them worse after he did. But I didn’t so I don’t.

The only thing I do know is that he won’t keep the kids forever, because he likes work long hours and go on business trips, and taking care of kids just isn’t something you can do at the same time. So I get the kids at his pleasure. Which is most of the time.

How my kids feel about all this? They hate it. They hate me when I’m sick. They hate him when he yells.

Don’t ask how I feel because the answer in just about any area right now would be crappy.

The puppies are being cute. Dogs. I think dogs, and pets, are keeping so many hopeless people alive right now. Just having the dogs to care for and love is a great reason to stick around.

You’d think having kids would have the same effect. But I’ve had it hammered home to me once too often that I’m a shitty mother and the kids would do better with a blow-up doll. When your ex comes in the middle of the night and steals your kids away, it’s not a ringing endorsement for Mother of the Year.

I won’t say anything to defend myself on this. I won’t make a list of every Good Mother thing I’ve done. Because that’s what he tries to make me do. Give him lists. Prove my worth based on facts and figures.

Nobody makes me do that with the dogs.

Why go on?

Ever feel that way?
Why go on?

I do. I feel that way right now.

Everything has turned to ashes, all around me. I feel surrounded by death and entropy.

And I try to get out and I just get pushed farther in. By other people. Nobody will let me come out.

After a while you stop trying.

Except for this. I just took a sleeping pill, and stopped. I didn’t swallow the whole bottle, like I wanted to.

That’s something, anyway.

Now I’ll probably fall asleep soon, and the pain with it.

And that’s as close to writing a suicide note as I’ve ever come on the blog.

Late breaking news: I still can’t sleep. So I swallowed two more.

Three Ambiens does not count as a suicide attempt. It is my desperate way to try to make my suicidal brain shut it down, now.

I am trying very hard to deal with this responsibly.

I know nobody will say they want me to kill myself. Except maybe a couple of real shitheads who aren’t around anymore, anyway.

But the thing is, when you’re feeling that way, what everybody says is just white noise.

And it’s mean, I know, but I want to shout back.

You don’t want me to off myself? Well then why the hell did you say that to me that time or do that thing you did to me? That what I always want to yell back.

Other people put you in hell and then get exasperated when you find yourself there and just want to end it to get out.

Maybe if people would stop PUTTING me in hell….but oh, I know, that’s a fool’s game. Nobody can do anything to do without your consent, and all the rest of that psychobabble nonsense I’m supposed to buy into.

I know this makes no sense. When we get into this territory, cryptic is the only language I can use. 

It’s just that I feel pain. A lot of it. Tons. The pain is so intense, if you can believe it, that it’s making my eye sockets ache. 

It’s an old pain. The pain that reminds me I’m useless and have no use here. It’s always waiting for something in life to prove it right so it can weasel into my brain and say “Seeeeee? What did I tell you? You’ve always sucked, and someone new has found out. They always do.”

That voice is my enemy. And it lives in me.

I want to go to sleep. Please kick in, sleeping pills.

Oh look!

It’s snowing on my blog for the rest of the month.

Thanks, WordPress!!

Sam Zell ain’t the only Evil Tribune Dick

 

My old hell away from home.

 

Sam fucking Zell. Every time I turn around there’s some story about how Sam Zell is evil and he has led the Tribune Company to ruin.

While that may be true, let us clear one thing up.

Sam Zell isn’t the first evil person to run Tribune Company.

Evil has permeated the blue cubicle walls of Tribune for generations.

And all the evil things that have been done by the Tribune Company have not all been done by Sam Zell.

Especially here in Orlando.

In fact, the evil things done at the Orlando Sentinel have by and large been done by people who used to or still work there.

I dare even say that the people in charge of the Orlando Sentinel right now, with no exceptions that I can think of, are douches.

Yes. Douches. All. Douches are in charge of the Orlando Sentinel.

And Sam Zell is just the evil kingpin.

I hope that clears up any confusion anybody in the world might have about Tribune Company, Sam Zell, the Orlando Sentinel and douches.

Thanks for listening. Have a non-douchey day.

Oh. P.S. Yes, I know my old employers won’t like this post. And prospective employers will say “Oh, she talks shit about employers. Can’t hire her.”

But because I was abused for so long, as were so many others, I feel it is my moral imperative to offer some counterbalance to those who would sweep all abuse under the rug except for that doled out by Sam Zell. So many, many Sentinel apparatchiks, when given the chance, did the wrong thing. How could I allow that to be ignored? Well, I suppose I could. But I don’t. Sue me. That would be fun!

On killing and being killed

I was raised Catholic. Killing is a sin. Period, paragraph, The End.

Except.

It can’t be helped. We kill things every day. 

Cockroaches. Frogs on a wet road. Ants. Suicidal chameleons, squirrels and even deer.

The chicken in that egg roll.

The bacon fat in those Wheat Thins.

The living grass under your sandals.

Oh you can carry the killing to infinitesimal levels.

So a while back I ditched Catholicism for a more pragmatic Secular Vegetarianism. I feel it’s a less radical approach to life, which allows one to turn a blind eye to what’s in the spring roll or why those suckers still living in my car must die, cretins, die!!!!

Along with less regard for lower life forms, I have less fear of my own mortality.

I used to expect to die at any moment. I felt perpetually like King Lear, standing out there in the storm, stark raving mad and daring the lightning to strike him.

Only just like Lear, it never has.

So I’ve come in out of the rain. It’s so much easier to rave in cyberspace, where you can’t catch pneumonia.

Meanwhile, every day, more people I know die. But I meet new people too.

I suppose one day it will be my turn. Stands to reason.

I hope it’s peaceful, whether it’s close or far away.

I don’t think much about the funeral. I don’t plan to be there. Don’t like funerals much, I’ve come to decide. Used to not mind them, or even think they were beautiful. Maybe there have been too, too many.

What will happen afterwards? Will I be judged? Is there a special club and are there really God’s Children and do I get in? 

What about the soldier, who killed because it was his duty and his job and we made him. Does he get in?

If not, I don’t want in, either. I’ve eagerly killed thousands of bugs.

WTF Catholicism? How can you say God demands we beg forgiveness for something we had to do?

And we have to beg forgiveness through some pasty, shifty-looking priest and call him Father?

Really?, Catholicism, as Kelly Bensimon would say to Bettheny Frankel to put her down, reallly???

Really, Catholicism? I beg a pedophile to forgive me on behalf of God Almighty for killing a cockroach. Say four Hail Marys and put your check in the mail.

That slays me.

Pleasing the reader, pleasing the lover … How about MY needs?

Before he left for good (hopefully), the douchebag who has no more use in my life, he weighed in on my blog.

Said “I’d like to see you write more opinionated stuff, about current events.”

Yeah, maybe I could be Gawker. Or TMZ. Or Daily Kos. Or the HuffPo.

But then it wouldn’t be Nancy Imperiale Blog.

I don’t like the thought of his eyes on my blog. Destroys my writerly zen. I am not writing to him, or for him, or to please him. 

Yet he insinuated himself in here, unbidden. He who said he never wanted to be written about. Yeah, another one of those.

Of course, most people in your personal life don’t want to be written about. I wouldn’t, either.

Nobody likes somebody else to interpret them for others.

I always wondered why anybody in their right minds would ever let me in, to profile them for the newspaper. I saw people at their most vulnerable, intimate moments, and I’m sitting there scribbling away on a pad or holding an audio recorder in their face. 

But most were delighted to have someone listen, and try to understand. Most liked my stories.

Then there were those who hated something I wrote, or something someone said about the story, or a word that was used or a quote or a photograph. In fact, it was the rare subject who didn’t find something to gripe about when all was done. If they didn’t it was often cuz they were dingy and way too invested in the whole fame thing. 

Anyhow, while I appreciate readers, because without them the prose doesn’t get to live and breathe, there’s no pleasing em. 

That goes double for ex-lovers. Who won’t be written about in this blog in my lifetime because honey, you didn’t earn the ink.