Wow. I had no idea he even had an opinion about it. I suddenly feel a lot better, and also a lot worse. He really cares about me. Maybe I'm actually hurting him by deliberately slacking off and wasting my life. I always thought it was just some masochistic thing I was doing to myself for reasons not fully explored, but maybe there's more to it. Maybe, just maybe, I owe it to other people as well to make something of myself.

I want to say screw 'em. I want to say I spent the first 18 years of my life being what I thought everyone else wanted me to be (A-student, editor of school paper, good daughter who was never in any trouble, etc. etc. etc), and now it's time to find out what I want. But maybe they're right. My current life can't possibly be what I want. Fuck.

***

I've been reading The Eden Express by Mark Vonnegut. It's all about his schizophrenic breakdown, and what he was thinking about while it was happening.

It was actually kind of scary. When he was just starting to go, I recognized some of his thought patterns. Yeah, I said to myself. I've thought things like that.

Of course, I had only thought them under the influence of a lot of drugs, but once I was in that mindset, it became very easy for me to imagine myself going all the way under. He heard voices. Jeez, when I'm really really tired, I hear voices sometimes. His voices started out as just mumbling, but then they got clearer. Mine mostly just mumble. So far. Oh, SHIT!

This is really hard to write about. I've never told anyone about the voices, because I know that hearing voices is just clear cut proof that you're nuts. There just is no more obvious sign. Once you admit to voices, it's all over. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. You. Are. Insane.

But really. Mine aren't like that. First of all, they only show up when I'm way overtired, in bed, and drifting off to sleep. I have never ever heard them under any other condition. They don't tell me to kill people, or to watch out for CIA agents in my breakfast cereal, or anything like that. They just mumble, and sometimes one particular voice will say something total gibberish.

When I was younger, I could sometimes get them to sing a particular song for me, and it was actually kind of neat. Background music and harmonies and everything. I thought I just had a really cool imagination, and this was just some sort of transit stage to my dreams.

When I was 16 or so, I learned that Schizophrenics Hear Voices, and it was only then that they started to worry me.

You've gotta understand, I can go months, or years sometimes without hearing them. And again, they only show up when I'm way overtired, and in bed. Usually I've forgotten all about it by the next morning. Unless I've just finished reading a book about schizophrenia.

I think my mind is just fucking with me. I think that somehow, reading the Vonnegut book opened up some of my old subconscious fears about these voices I sometimes hear, blew them way out of proportion, and now I've got psychosomatic schizophrenia.

Psychsomatic Schizophrenia? You know, that's somehow not entirely reassuring. Isn't thinking I'm nuts and actually being nuts pretty much the same thing?

Well, no. I'm pretty sure that truly insane people don't realize it. The main difference between me and Vonnegut is that when I catch myself thinking something fucked up, I take a step back and say, "Wow. That's pretty fucked up right there."

Or...at least I think I catch them all...psst hey Ana it's time to hit your liver with the baseball bat bouncing blue grapes grapes grapes grapes its the only way.

Um, yeah.

See, most of the time, I can joke about being crazy. But every so often I have to wonder if by thinking about it so much, I'm actually pushing myself over the edge.

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