It Gets Worse

Last month, professional atheist JT Eberhard gave a much-touted talk at Skepticon IV about mental illness, and called for people with mental disorders to share their stories. This is one of mine.

Since I was a little kid I have wanted to die, but I first understood I could kill myself when I was twelve. That year, an acquaintance of my dad’s shot himself in the head. I realized I did not need to beg imaginary beings to get me out of this life when there was a way out right there in the medicine cabinet (we didn’t have a gun). It seemed so obvious, to do it my damn self. Right in my face the whole time, and I never saw it until Dad’s friend blew his own brains out. I thought it was genius.

22 years later, I still think that guy had the right idea. College is going well enough, and I love my husband and family, but none of it matters to my brain. At least once a day, I seriously consider suicide as an alternative to spending one more conscious minute on this ridiculous piece of shit planet.

Sometimes crazy people neglect hygiene and various ailments. My upper teeth have rotted away so that when I smile, I look like a zombie. This is a little bit cool on Halloween or on a movie set, but not so fantastic at a job interview. The bleeding and pain are never even a little bit cool. I have trouble leaving the house a lot of the time, because I cannot bear people looking at me. It will cost over $4000 to extract the teeth and over $1700 to get dentures put in. I am 34 years old and I have to get dentures because I am batshit.

Two weeks ago, I had a five-day-long panic attack. I could not sleep, I barely ate, and what I did eat I vomited soon after. My husband tried to help by dragging me out of the house, but there was no shutting up the noise in my head. I did not know what to do, and so I considered eating my husband’s entire bottle of Xanax to make it stop. Instead, I took three pills and passed out.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I felt much calmer after I got some sleep.

Living with mental illness sucks, but skepticism saves the day almost every day. I can’t reason myself out of a panic attack, but I can determine that, indeed, the Wendy’s has not disappeared or ceased to exist, that my brain is being a douchebag once again, and that I should pull over until it quits doing that. There is comfort in having a framework to better distinguish reality from delusion. Skepticism does not always alleviate the guilt I feel for being crazy, but it helps me to understand that the guilt is irrational, unhelpful, and perfectly understandable given society’s views on the mentally unstable.

The ability to question my own assumptions has kept me ticking. Maybe on dark days that disappoints me, but what do I know? I’m crazy.

Dead Island Goes On Forever

Seriously. I'm still playing it. The game becomes tiresome because I keep dying and then re-spawning in the middle of a horde of flesh-hungry walkers. Ever since I lost my shock-modded machete--accidentally throwing it at a punk on a roof, and then dying before I retrieved it from his body--it has been difficult to maintain a decent weapon. I do have a super sweet sickle that I've fully upgraded, but it never lasts very long out on the streets. My Death Penalty is only reduced by fifteen percent, so I don't always have money for repairs.

Moresby City is a real shithole. I miss the Resort. Maybe I'll go back there and see if I overlooked any side missions.

Lady Popular's Biggest Crime...

...Is that it is frightfully boring. After reading John Walker's review of Lady Popular, I had to give it a try myself. The game is exactly as Walker described it, down to my sexy new boyfriend Car washer. He's kind of a hottie. Got that greasy blue-collar wage slave thing going for him. But he only gives me $50 per week, and that is not nearly enough money to pay for this cute little $4900 shirt I found at The Mall.

I love playing Avatar Dress-Up. If items of clothing have useful or magical properties in a game, I like to put together special outfits for specific missions. My XBox avatar changes clothes every few months. I dress my Rock Band avatar for every city my band Piss Bat plays. It's just fun, and I think a lot of that fun is having the freedom to make the avatar look any way one chooses. Because my head is lumpy, I probably shouldn't wear a Toxie-green Mohawk, but my Fallout character looks great in a 'hawk.

Lady Popular does not give the player that kind of freedom. The game dictates what kind of hairstyle the player should get in order to level up. So, even though the Hair Stylist has a huge selection of styles from which to choose, to get ahead the player has to conform to the game's idea of how one's avatar should look. Boring, boring, boring.

Now, a case could be made that the game teaches young girls about color and style, much like a more straightforward educational game might tell the player to pick a square or a triangle from a list of shapes. But the game dictates other things that should be the player's choice, like my boyfriend Car washer. Nothing against the guy; like I said, he's adorable, but wouldn't it be more fun to flirt with different people at The Club? (And if the game actually is for girls young enough to need to be taught color, why does the character have to go to a meat market to find a date for the party? I am pretty liberal most of the time, but five-year-old kids just should not be dating.)

Wouldn't it be more interesting to make seducing a date for the party part of the game? All I did was click a button, and BAM! Car washer and I were an item. That's no fun. I don't know anything about him, except for his occupation, and he knows nothing about me, except that I look totally smokin' in these new jeans I got at The Mall.

Which brings me to another reason this game is so boring. Lady Popular is supposed to be a social game--the Lady goes to school to train for a job, she dances and flirts at The Club, etc.--but nowhere is there a character sheet with XP to allocate. A Lady with high Endurance, for example, could dance longer at The Club, and a Lady with high Barter could get better deals on items at The Mall. Instead, every Lady is exactly the same as every other Lady. Dullsville for sure.

So, I played as far as Level 2 and then went back to Dead Island, where there are no wardrobe changes for Xian Mei, but where I can live out my zombie apocalypse fantasies in a safe environment.

The Plan

It's October (Hooray!), and that means this blog is revived as of today. So, welcome to the new doubleplusunruly! I will try to post once a week at least. I'm actually hoping for three times a week, but am making no guarantees since I am prone to flaking right out the moment I make a commitment to anything. If everything works as planned, the average week should go something like this:

Monday: TV round-up. Dexter returns this weekend, and The Walking Dead will be returning later in the month. American Horror Story looks promising, although I see now that it will air on Wednesdays and not Sundays. So maybe I will just devote a post here and there to squee mercilessly over Dylan McDermott and Zachary Quinto being on the same show.

Wednesday: Science! I thought it would be fun/interesting to profile a woman in science every week. I may still do this, but I did not want to limit my Wednesdays. So, for now, expect sciency-type stuff on Wednesdays; possibly profiles of women, possibly a science of the week round-up kind of thing. I'm still working out the details.

Friday: Freestyle. Could be fashion, could be movies or games, could be philosophy, could be zombies, or a rant about something I noticed in a commercial, or political commentary or some other geeky sort of thing. Could be squeeing mercilessly over Dylan McDermott and Zachary Quinto being on the same show (ZOMG SKUH-WEEEEEEE). You'll never know what's coming on Fridays! If anything comes at all. Take it as part of the surprise.

We will try this format for the month of October, and see how it works, tweaking bits as needed. Please enjoy, and thanks for reading.