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Daily Deviation
Daily Deviation
March 21, 2012
Riding Bikes is a short, honest piece of nonfiction by ~estallidos.
Featured by ikazon
Suggested by starlight879
Literature Text
Going off medication is like riding a bike.
The doctor holds tight to my handlebars and lowers my dosage. The training wheels are off, and oh hey, look at me go! It's like flying but not, and I'm doing so well but then there's a horrible accident and I'm somehow upside down at the bottom of the sea with both wheels still spinning.
"Help," I say, and my doctor pats my head, puts a band-aid on my knee, and writes a note on my chart.
I've balanced by myself for months at a time, but I always end up hitting a fucking tree or falling off a cliff or something equally catastrophic because I am a catastrophic person. Except that is an exaggeration. I am an exaggeration.
I like to compare mental illnesses to mundane physical activities. Also you should know that I am sick but trying to get better.
Sometimes I relapse and then write poems about it.
It's not even the kind of sick where people bring you soup in bed and soothe your fevered brow. It's the kind of sick where I'm late to work because I have to unplug every appliance, double check that they are unplugged, and then push against the locked door twenty-one times while the cat next door gives me the side eye. It's the kind of sick that doesn't go away after some orange juice and ibuprofen.
Mostly it's the kind of sick where my brain is drunk and high and lost a fight at some bar and is maybe suicidal and likes to count things.
Okay, see, the other day I cut off my car and then restarted it for three minutes and thirteen seconds. Some man walked past and craned his neck to see what I was doing, and I waved my hand at him like hello, don't mind me, this is perfectly normal except for the part where it isn't normal at all, and I'm very sorry, also please don't crane your neck like that because it looks very uncomfortable.
So then I waited until he was out of sight and restarted my car again for good measure, because fuck everything.
It's not that I am forgetful. I know I locked the door. I know I put the car in park. I know my house won't catch fire and burn down if I leave my laptop on the bed. So why do I always feel like I am going to throw up if I don't check and count, count and check?
Secretly I wish I were a tree, because trees can't get obsessive compulsive disorder.
The other day I was babysitting (again) because I relate to children better than I do people my own age. I drew a picture of a tree for the little girl. Then she showed me her picture, which was a page full of neon scribbles.
"Can you tell me about your drawing?" I asked. She looked me in the eye and said that she was pretending that she had a mental disorder when she drew it, which is why it looked crazy.
"Having a mental disorder doesn't necessarily mean you're crazy," I said.
"Yes it does," she said. "Also could you please not use up my blue marker?"
After we finished drawing she asked if we could ride bikes, and I said no because I was writing these words in my head and couldn't tell if I was going crazy or not, like maybe my life had just become one giant joke. We baked muffins instead, and even after she fell asleep I kept going into the kitchen to make sure that I really had cut the oven off.
I had, I knew I had. It didn't matter, though.
I think it's time to go back on medication, because even though they say that once you learn to ride a bike you'll never forget, I've forgotten. Or maybe I never learned in the first place, because I was too busy locking and unlocking my door and drawing pictures of trees.
I just feel like I should be able to ride the bike by now.
The doctor holds tight to my handlebars and lowers my dosage. The training wheels are off, and oh hey, look at me go! It's like flying but not, and I'm doing so well but then there's a horrible accident and I'm somehow upside down at the bottom of the sea with both wheels still spinning.
"Help," I say, and my doctor pats my head, puts a band-aid on my knee, and writes a note on my chart.
I've balanced by myself for months at a time, but I always end up hitting a fucking tree or falling off a cliff or something equally catastrophic because I am a catastrophic person. Except that is an exaggeration. I am an exaggeration.
I like to compare mental illnesses to mundane physical activities. Also you should know that I am sick but trying to get better.
Sometimes I relapse and then write poems about it.
It's not even the kind of sick where people bring you soup in bed and soothe your fevered brow. It's the kind of sick where I'm late to work because I have to unplug every appliance, double check that they are unplugged, and then push against the locked door twenty-one times while the cat next door gives me the side eye. It's the kind of sick that doesn't go away after some orange juice and ibuprofen.
Mostly it's the kind of sick where my brain is drunk and high and lost a fight at some bar and is maybe suicidal and likes to count things.
Okay, see, the other day I cut off my car and then restarted it for three minutes and thirteen seconds. Some man walked past and craned his neck to see what I was doing, and I waved my hand at him like hello, don't mind me, this is perfectly normal except for the part where it isn't normal at all, and I'm very sorry, also please don't crane your neck like that because it looks very uncomfortable.
So then I waited until he was out of sight and restarted my car again for good measure, because fuck everything.
It's not that I am forgetful. I know I locked the door. I know I put the car in park. I know my house won't catch fire and burn down if I leave my laptop on the bed. So why do I always feel like I am going to throw up if I don't check and count, count and check?
Secretly I wish I were a tree, because trees can't get obsessive compulsive disorder.
The other day I was babysitting (again) because I relate to children better than I do people my own age. I drew a picture of a tree for the little girl. Then she showed me her picture, which was a page full of neon scribbles.
"Can you tell me about your drawing?" I asked. She looked me in the eye and said that she was pretending that she had a mental disorder when she drew it, which is why it looked crazy.
"Having a mental disorder doesn't necessarily mean you're crazy," I said.
"Yes it does," she said. "Also could you please not use up my blue marker?"
After we finished drawing she asked if we could ride bikes, and I said no because I was writing these words in my head and couldn't tell if I was going crazy or not, like maybe my life had just become one giant joke. We baked muffins instead, and even after she fell asleep I kept going into the kitchen to make sure that I really had cut the oven off.
I had, I knew I had. It didn't matter, though.
I think it's time to go back on medication, because even though they say that once you learn to ride a bike you'll never forget, I've forgotten. Or maybe I never learned in the first place, because I was too busy locking and unlocking my door and drawing pictures of trees.
I just feel like I should be able to ride the bike by now.
Literature
Advertisements
She was only six when the funeral homes started sending us advertisements, all competing with each other to be the best, to win her business. To win our business, more like; six is hardly old enough to understand what's going on. It's not old enough to understand why everyone is covering their mouths with their hands and failing to hold back tears when you walk into the room, or old enough to understand why people begin to outright sob when you start talking about what you want to be when you grow up. Once it was a doctor, before that it was a fairy princess, but right now it's a policewoman.
And of course all the children have heard about t
Literature
A girl I used to know
There used to be a girl
Who I'd talk to everyday
We always had a laugh
And had so much to say
But one day she dissapeared
Just vanished into mid-air
I don't know where she went
It's as if she was never there
A long time later she came back
But she was a subject of change
She was like a different person
Even her touch felt strange
Everytime I see her now
I think back to how it used to be
Now she has returned however
She barely even remembers me
There is a girl I know
Who I see everyday
But we no longer talk
As we have nothing to say
Literature
Obsession
It takes 14 minutes and twelve seconds to walk to your home from mine every day. Your mother never fails to smile at me when she opens the door. I never fail to notice that it doesn't reach her eyes anymore.
You leave your door open an exact two point three centimeters. I don't think you do it on purpose. There is something wrong with the wood that has left it that way. I pause one foot outside the door and listen to you cough, trying to determine how sick you feel today. I hate that every time I think you are particularly ill, I am always right.
Six months, seventeen days and fourteen hours. That is how long its been since the d
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Cool deviation.
You're not the only one! ever notice that super bright lights on a star trek ship's viewscreen always causes the crew to squint as though looking through a window?
You're not the only one! ever notice that super bright lights on a star trek ship's viewscreen always causes the crew to squint as though looking through a window?