I'm going a little bit stir-crazy lately because my life! It has gone completely downhill somehow! The Rent is Too Damn High. I've become completely isolated from my friends because I'm an idiot and have not been taking my meds since forever. Even with my friends, the few times I can bear to be around them because I've showered that day and am not filthy and therefore will at least not be a gross burden on them, I feel completely detached from them and their affection. Although I know, intellectually, that they care about me and don't want me dead, I don't feel it when I'm around them. I always feel like they're just resigning themselves to having me around. I feel like that about everyone. Even when people travel from another city to come see me.

I've been obsessively making art, which is better than the coping mechanisms I've used before. Namely, sex.

I'm not getting down on casual sex. There have been a few times, in my life, where I had casual sex that did not make me feel even slightly down on myself, that only improved my mood. Because I was coming at it from a place where it just was what it was. It wasn't a desperate reach for intimacy because I was so starved for it. I was horny and that was that. And it worked out fine. All of this seems like an absolutely desperate attempt at showing up for all my ethical slut sisters out there, feels like people will perceive my defense of casual sex as me doing it because that's what feminists do. (nb: I've never actually read The Ethical Slut, I'm just using the phrase because I kind of like it.) So listen up, Slut Shamers of the Internet: you're wrong. That's it.

Not getting down on casual sex, it's just that most of the times when I was having it, most not all, it was me trying to find something that I was missing. Stupidly. I went into all of these different situations not really wanting sex, just wanting a kind of companionship, however short-lived it might be.

So obsessively making art is probably healthier. I don't do it if I don't want to. I like to think I've sublimated the need for companionship into this infinitely-healthier endeavor, but I've gone from needing a ridiculous amount of attention and desperately seeking it, to needing a ridiculous amount of attention and denying that part of myself entirely.

This is the place I inhabit when I'm unmedicated, this land of extremes. I go from near-sex addict to celibate in the space of a few months. I go from attention sponge to recluse. I have a hair-trigger temper that's also completely unpredictable, to the point that it alternately terrifies or supremely fucking irritates the people around me, depending on who happens to be on the receiving end of it. There's so much that I want to that it gets overwhelming and I just sit here writing stupid blog posts. I cry in the shower. I cry a lot. I don't know if anyone's ever been so ashamed of themselves as I was this morning when just thinking about Sheryl Crow's cover of "The First Cut is the Deepest" made me start bawling. I ask you, what the fuck is that shit?

The menu for next week is rice and gravy. Rice because the 5 pound bag of it was ridiculously cheap at Food Lion this week, and gravy because god dammit I need something that tastes good, even if it's crappy powdered gravy. Also, waffles. I bought some waffle mix and my roommate has a waffle iron. I've got it better off than some people, I know. My rent and bills are paid for this month. I live in a place where I can get to work easily even if I don't have enough gas in my car. Deep breaths.