Years of mentally ill saturdays

Isn’t it strange how there’s so many people out there trying to channel pain and emulate a tortured soul but really they are out there connecting with others in the most normal ways and it’s often charged with so much glamorization of mental illness and its relationship with artistic expression and you catch glimpses of these subcultures of people thinking they are entirely subversive because that’s basically their goal in life and they wear really ‘subversive styles’ on their conventionally attractive bodies and you want to be like how many years of Saturdays have you spent in bed?  This isn’t a sexy story and your shitty imitation is distorting everyone’s understanding of what’s going on and what can can be done to help.

I think about this a lot because I work with a team of artists who treat me one of two ways: like I’m an extremely simple child that needs to be talked to slowly; or, like I’m an enigma who is entirely removed from reality but they have no interest in unlocking.  And then I think, you people are artists, you want to build careers out of your ability to do something different!  You tell me to think outside the box every single day.  I’m orbiting beyond your knowledge of the parameters of human thought and behavior.  I am too busy trying to figure out where the box is to dance comfortably at its edges without reaching the territory of total alienation.  And this is the perspective that follows from a lifetime of having no weekend plans and trying not to let anyone find out.  And you have no interest in anything I have to say or the way that I live or why I fashion myself this way.  You want to benefit from the rich legacy of self expression left by the mentally ill. You want to pretend you’re a part of it.  You want the real thing to remain as far away from you as possible.