Got restless again, stretched a little on the floor, went to bed around 9:20—read for about twenty minutes—hoped and prayed this morning that I wouldn’t be restless again, tonight—considered going to bed around 9:30 anyhow, and setting my alarm for 6:30 instead of 7:30. Felt a little unsettled in my stomach and my guts, a tiny bit nauseous after taking my medication—hoping with all my heart that this medication won’t continue to make me nauseous, to any degree, as risperidone, the sexual dysfunction, the teeth grinding, the need to skip lunch, the constipation—was out of the question, and I was under the impression that Abilify could make you even more restless. Maybe it would have been nice to live a little further in the future, when there were better drugs for schizophrenia, but this is my lot—for now, and I must accept it. I considered, too, that schizophrenia was, in part, about being an old soul forced to live in a time period that was so entirely different from previous generations, that the conditions of this fast paced world, all of a sudden, over the past four generations, made me ill—so maybe things, in the present, balanced out a little—although I didn’t think our lives, from here on out, were really going to change that much—at least when it came to technology—we’d have our phones and our computers and the internet, and so on, and so forth.
I am here, and she is there, Craig said. Yeah, so, frankly, normal people usually don’t have sex more than about three times a week, right? My anxiety, and my libido, which seemed to feed off each other and yet, somehow, be the exact same thing, in that sense, went beyond what was normal. I considered, too: I quit showering at night, for now, but I was still washing up, as if I was going to have sex, and the conundrum was: washing up can wake up my libido, and make me anxious, making me think I’m about to have sex—so maybe I shouldn’t, for now; but I immediately disagreed with that statement, as, well, just because I live to myself doesn’t mean I don’t light a match and spray air freshener when I poop, and, likewise, living alone, for me, didn’t mean I wasn’t going to wash up—as if I had a partner. For whatever reasons I felt that it was essential to look after myself as if I had a partner, so that, if I secured one, not a whole lot would change, and, if I didn’t, then, in looking after myself as if I did, improved my quality of life—including the sex life I had with myself. I may have wanted to turn it down a little, not to be that anxious, to think of it, a little less, but who’s to say when you will be in the mood, and, when you are, you want to be clean—and at your best, even if it’s just you.
I don’t want to complain—as the risperidone and the Lexapro and the Tamsulosin shut me down completely—but, yes, to be fair, a little more inner peace, and a little less sex, would be nice. I’m not talking about going back to the way things were—just a little bit of a compromise. Now, can you have a lot of sex and also be at peace at the same time? I would think so, but, in cases like that, wouldn’t the sex stem from your partner, and external stimuli, instead of anxiety, day in and day out, that necessarily has to be dealt with—anxiety that is forced upon us? In such cases, does sex become a means to an end—a way of dumping your back—as opposed to an expression of love, or self-love? Now, if your back is loaded, you have to dump it, however you can, but why is your back loaded in the first place? Why are you so anxious? Now, I’ve tried to answer those questions, especially over the past several weeks, questioning my sexuality, or whatever, but I have no clear cut answers—and my sexuality doesn’t seem to play as big a role as I might’ve thought, as, it seems to me, I already do accept it, and I’m just overthinking it because I’m temporarily unhappy. So I might hope, going forward, that all this anxiety, wherever its coming from, will absolve itself, and, when that happens, I’ll be having sex, then, a little more like a normal person, a little more like my partner would want to, if I had a partner—that is to say, I imagine, then, about three times a week, depending on my partner, and our particular relationship—the point being that my anxiety wouldn’t be driving me to relieve myself; instead, my sex life would be driven, and determined, by the relationship, the give and take, I had with my partner—and what we she wanted, and when she wanted it.
So yeah, I guess I wanted to be thinking about, and relying on, sex about a third as much as I was—and before you say that this is because of the pornography, well, the anxiety I’m feeling, and the amount of sex I’m having, is about the same as it was before I quit relying, exclusively, on my imagination. Normal people aren’t as anxious as you, Anna said. So, again, even though, living in the future might jar me out of my traditional way of life, my generational comfort zone, even more than this future already has, I wished, a little, that there were drugs I could take for my schizophrenia, anxiety, and sleep, that worked better. Such drugs would come, in the future, I was sure of it—but, again, thinking such thoughts did me no good. I had to adapt however I could, right here, right now, and, unfortunately, that also meant I might have to tolerate some things, at least for a while, possibly indefinitely, I don’t know, as a function of who, and what—an artist living in an imperfect world—I am.
I love you just the way you are, Ursula said. But I didn’t love myself just the way I was—I didn’t like being forced to tolerate anxiety and discomfort, to live a life as if I’m constantly running from something, i.e., myself, without actually being afraid of anything—without actually being able to do anything about it—something that was based solely on my brain chemistry. Of course I love myself as an artist, as who and what I am, and I know that this, in part, comes with the territory, but maybe I don’t really know that enough. Maybe I don’t really accept that being an artist is, to some degree, a function of discomfort. But how can I accept that? It won’t be that way in heaven—so why should I have to accept it, now? You don’t have to be miserable to be a great artist in heaven—and I believe that living your life as if heaven on earth is approaching, as if we’re going to that, as if we’ll eventually arrive there, is important, and, as such, I want to be there, I want to be a great artist minus the anxiety and discomfort, the constant need to be in motion, moving away from myself.
But maybe this need to be in motion is a function of being an artist, even in heaven. The difference, being, then, that you’re not uncomfortable in heaven—that you’re happy, shifting about, constantly becoming one thing, and then another, as if you must escape from yourself, save that, in heaven, it just doesn’t feel that way. So how do I apply that to life on earth? I guess a great source of my suffering comes from comparing myself to other people—and thinking that I should be more like them; but when it comes to sex, for example, I’m not always in a state of desire, at first. I’m anxious, and I find a state of desire, and I backchannel as best I can, but, often enough, it gets too difficult—and I can’t connect, or, if I do, I’m not ready for what that particular transaction, that particular message, entails. Because it was forced. So, in some ways, I want to be more like other people, and, in others, I don’t. As it stands, then—it seems that I’ve been going about this all a little wrong; that I’ve been looking for reasons, psychological reasons, that I’m uncomfortable, when, for the most part, there is nothing necessarily coming to the surface, there is no reason—that, instead, it is just my nature, and peace, for me, the only kind of peace that would make sense, to me, comes from tolerating that which makes me uncomfortable, tolerating discomfort as a function of my life, as an artist, until, gradually, I no longer feel that I am tolerating something—that, instead, I enjoy the excitement and the adventure that comes with a constant state of becoming, of becoming other people, of engaging different styles, of constantly doing something different, instead of lamenting the fact that, when I wake up, in the morning, for example, I’m anxious to get my day started, and, when I go to bed at night, I don’t always know, exactly, what I’ll dream of, or what the next day could, and will, be like. It’s the uncertainty that I have to tolerate—and, once tolerated, it’s the adventure, then, that I’m free to enjoy. So what can I do, to bring myself peace, to make myself happier, and less anxious, right here, and right now? Stop comparing myself to other people? Not necessarily—I think, sometimes, I should—that is a part of being an artist, of becoming someone else. So, maybe nothing—maybe knowing that is how you get there—or maybe I can do something, a little something, in addition to knowing how little there is, that, immediately, I can really do—maybe I can let all this go to my head a little, and identify myself, even more so, as an artist, someone that is special, someone that marches to the beat of a different drummer, and, because of that, is a valuable addition to society. In short, maybe I can change, a little, the way I think about myself. Instead of hating the fact that I depend on other people, that I can’t take care of myself, perhaps I can focus on what artists mean to me, and what I, as an artist, do, and will, mean to others—perhaps I can allow myself to think, just a little bit more, that people do, and, as time goes on, will continue, to a greater degree, look up to me. To be proud of myself, and, as such, satisfied with the work I have done that day—a satisfaction that should carry over, as a form of internal peace, at the end of the day, when I’m winding down, when I’m forced to be with myself, a variable person, that, as an artist, is always changing, and as such, is not like other people, and yet, because of that, brings something essential to the table, just as the people that look after me bring something essential to me—love, and a way of life—gifts that, as an artist, through my art, I can transform—sharing a little bit of the excitement that comes with constantly becoming someone else with others, so that they, too, can feel a certain excitement, a shared experience that brings us together, an experience that leaves everybody a little more connected, and entertained.