The goat is a metaphor?

My therapist calls me out on referring to myself as mentally ill. I might point out that having this conversation with a therapist suggests some level of mental unwellness. It does not seem worth bringing up.

She sees this as a trap I am building. I see it as liberation via labeling. It explains my experiences before treatment. It is akin to saying, "Oh, I'm not easily tired. I have anemia. I need some iron-rich vegetables." I can better understand what I need to function to my potential because I see through a more accurate lens.

"And what do you think is wrong with you?" she challenges.

"Mood imbalance. Disordered thinking, sometimes."

This is how she diagnosed me a year ago. Of course, I remember.

"It's funny," I say, "I love psychology. I've taken six courses in it. I assumed it didn't apply to me."

This, she agrees is funny.

I tell her of college, when I hid in an abandoned staircase before a night class, bawling my eyes out over nothing. Was I depressed? Of course not. I was a psychic empath. When Emily called me to say her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, I felt vindicated.

I don't know that I will ever be wholly mentally well, if anyone is. I may do without a therapist someday. She already wants to see me less, going from biweekly to every three weeks or a month. I don't know when I would do without meds. I did not self-realize or self-actualize this well at any point prior.

Diabetics still need insulin. Likewise, I prefer a low dose of two meds. Maybe if my body made the neurotransmitters it did not provide me before, I could do without any pills. The miracle of a "cure" is unlikely, short of a lightning strike or the medical equivalent. If reading has not led me astray, this involves unforgivable memory loss. It does not seem a trade worth making given how a month of my meds costs less than a cup of gas station coffee.

I no longer find mental illness shameful, now that it is happening to me. I did earlier in my writing, holding psych meds against my lovers. If I didn't stand in judgment of them, I would have accepted help sooner. They were doing what was best for them, no matter what uncomfortable recalibration it required until they found the right cocktail.

Melanie should have been my exemplar. She had ADHD. She finally realized this, getting meds to compensate. Her mind opened to her. Her life improved as she was better in control of it. Then, I took it for a fun anecdote and not as a great suggestion. I thought nothing was wrong with me, just as I had no allergies because I could eat peanuts and strawberries with impunity. I could ignore sneezing in the presence of dogs and having to fight off shock when tasting a shrimp.

Needing a treatment or two isn't ideal, but it isn't inherently pejorative. I am functional and general pleasant to be around. I manage myself and better acknowledge what I do need now, and why I react as I do.

Within me is a river whose dimensions wax and wane. When I am at my best, I direct the current through waterwheels. It carves out new territories yet is placid and easy to swim.

When it rushes, I hold on, trying through will alone to bring myself past its cataracts. Can the water be this fast or threatening if I can make it ebb with focused mindfulness?

It is the same amount of water, only turned lethal in its narrowness, useful in its broadness. It is full of life, rich and colorful, but the life cannot thrive when it is dashed on rocks. Pollution cannot dilute when the whole river is a few feet wide, poisoning the landscape long after it eases.

My mental illness is being of two minds, one lecturing the other about how weird and unrealistic it is being. It observes and notes, which leads to me saying, "Yes, I know that isn't happening, but I still feel it."

My mood and mental health are linked to the seasons. The less sunlight and outdoor comfort I have, the harder is it to rally the energy to be happy. I am babysitting a sullen, taciturn child by February, cajoling him that he can make it to spring. I'm somewhere in there, trying to quiet the racing, improbable thoughts, blanking my mind when I realize I am becoming upset planning out arguments that will never happen, some with people whom I will never see again. Progress can never be as quick as desired, particularly when I must scrape a rime of frost off my windows in the latter half of October.

My mind is strange, in short. One day, I was filled with profound love for the entire universe. I don't know what precipitated it. I knew it was not typical or permanent, but I enjoyed the agapeic sensation and let it linger as long as it cared to.

Another, I was out for a run, listening to a podcast about human empathy extending to robots. The hosts interviewed a man behind the robotic dinosaur Pleo, who discovered people on YouTube torturing one until it no longer functioned. (The roboticists built in distress responses to keep people from treating the toy in a way that would damage the mechanisms, grinding its gears or leaving Pleo anywhere intemperate.) I broke down on a bench in horror and sadness that anyone would be cruel to something innocent and trusting. I comprehended even in the moment that Pleo wasn't an animal and was not sentient. Those responses are subroutines to keep it working. I knew actual animals are abused. I knew from personal experience to what horrors children are subjected. But, no, I wanted to excoriate whoever broke an expensive toy in a video, based on a recounting on a podcast. It is displacement because I cannot react to my felonious youth, what they have done to children, what was done to them as children. A collaboration of rubber and gears is safer but trying to compose myself on a bench is bizarre in its extremity.

Soon in Xenology: A list.

last watched: Angel: the Series
reading: Fast Times at Ridgemont High
listening: Damien Rice