{"id":6221,"date":"2019-07-25T11:24:59","date_gmt":"2019-07-25T15:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=6221"},"modified":"2019-07-25T11:24:59","modified_gmt":"2019-07-25T15:24:59","slug":"two-whole-weeks-of-terror-february-1971","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=6221","title":{"rendered":"Two Whole Weeks of Terror, February 1971"},"content":{"rendered":"

from my journal. \u00a0entries are undated. \u00a0A lot of this is in a post from January 2016<\/a><\/p>\n

how calmly does the olive branch
\n<\/span>observe the sky begin to blanch
\n<\/span>without a cry, without a prayer
\n<\/span>with no betrayal of despair…\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This poem is from a Tennessee Williams play: Night of the Iguana<\/a><\/p>\n

wow. two whole weeks of terror \u2014 standing at the edge of the Abyss and looking down.\u00a0 <\/span>utter lack of meaning \u2014 that is hell \u2014 that is the sin against the holy ghost\u00a0 <\/span>(the vulgar devil under michael’s foot<\/a>)\u00a0 <\/span>seeing myself weak, shabby, ineffectual, a typical ‘old maid’\u00a0 <\/span>(but not a maid!)\u00a0 <\/span>a pitiable creature, without even a job to redeem her.\u00a0 <\/span>I even came to a final cold place where suicide seemed the only alternative to terror\u00a0 <\/span>(a betrayal of despair, though)\u00a0 <\/span>and my fantasies were of how to get the sleeping pills, not how I would be rescued.\u00a0 <\/span>walking through a long dark tunnel \u2014 no sign of light ahead, no memory of light or warmth behind\u00a0 <\/span>(the cold, the cold is so appalling)\u00a0 <\/span>and I keep walking because the pain is so great and worse when i stop.\u00a0 <\/span>praying the plane will crash.\u00a0 <\/span>ogod.\u00a0 <\/span>wishing i could still believe in god.\u00a0 <\/span>praying to apollo and knowing it won’t work because i don’t believe \u2014 I have plunged into weaving as an antidote.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I have achieved limbo \u2014 no hope yet, but suicide no longer a reality \u2014 have decided to stick with despair.<\/p>\n

Tell my sister Jo if she comes home someday and finds me dead it is because the pain became too great.\u00a0 <\/span>a mercy-killing?\u00a0 <\/span>I would gladly trade my crippled mind for a crippled body if I could have a sound mind with it.\u00a0 <\/span>(my god what guilt is that supposed to expiate)<\/p>\n

bad day today \u2014 confusion
\n<\/span>what i so desperately need is a place to rest my mind.<\/p>\n

i think i will go back to collecting sleeping pills
\n<\/span>the pain is so great and the rewards are so small
\n<\/span>what is the point of endurance?
\n<\/span>‘i am a rock, i am an island’<\/a>
\n<\/span>to be like the rock and endure…my life is only a flash in the life of the rock after all.
\n<\/span>‘nobody ever loved me and nobody ever will’
\n<\/span>i feel so paranoid and ugly and lost, and i know that i do it in my own mind, but i can’t change it.\u00a0 <\/span>could there be a worse hell?
\n<\/span>stumbling across the frozen waste, the sun glints off a piece of ice, fresh and cold here and i have left the company of thirteen<\/a> far behind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“sleeping pills” \u00a0I actually didn’t have any way to get them.<\/p>\n

‘Nobody ever loved me and nobody ever will’ \u00a0is a belief that I wrote and thought many times.<\/p>\n

another night of the iguana to be faced & feared through
\n<\/span>i am afraid to go to sleep.
\nyea though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death
\n<\/span>what do i do wrong?\u00a0 <\/span>why has no one ever loved me \u2014 why do they all leave so quickly?\u00a0 <\/span>am i too involved or too cold?\u00a0 <\/span>i don’t know!\u00a0 <\/span>i don’t know!\u00a0 <\/span>i must be an incredibly awful person that no one has ever loved me.
\n<\/span>yeah, even david.\u00a0 <\/span>two screws and he’s done.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“am i too involved or too cold?” \u00a0Erica was able to explain this by telling me that I had in inaccurate mirror in my mother.<\/p>\n

whatever im going through is so strange.\u00a0 <\/span>first the terror and now the numbness and confusion.\u00a0 <\/span>i can’t seem to bring my mind to bear on anything.\u00a0 <\/span>it chatters on and on, i can’t even find a place of silence to rest it, and yet i can’t make it work for me either.\u00a0 <\/span>can’t make it focus and grasp and follow one current of thought out to its conclusion.\u00a0 <\/span>a strange blankness \u2014 not the emptiness of silence for which i would be grateful, but the blankness of immovable conflict. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

i keep going through the same sets of images.\u00a0 <\/span>what can be done to break the ice jam and get things flowing again?<\/p>\n

life in one hand, death in the other;\u00a0 <\/span>black stone and white pills.\u00a0 <\/span>all i want to do is sleep forever, but i am afraid if i take the pills all ill do is sleep for a few days and wake up miserable.\u00a0 <\/span>when i was in the hospital there was a boy who took 100 valium and all it did was tranquillize him, it didn’t kill him.\u00a0 <\/span>im afraid if i take the mellaril ill just wake up again and nobody will know or care what happened.
\n<\/span>theyll all just say im stupid and silly.
\n<\/span>im so tired, so tired and cold.
\n<\/span>just a warm place to fall asleep<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a good thing I didn’t know that too much mellaril can be fatal. \u00a0I had saved some from when I was hospitalized<\/a> in California.<\/p>\n

the fear is back \u2014 the numbing deadly terror.\u00a0 <\/span>how long can this go on.\u00a0 <\/span>i feel so horribly isolated \u2014 no one i can run to and held and comforted.
\n<\/span>people = mirages, all snatched away,
\n\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>help! help! help!
\n<\/span>so cold.\u00a0 <\/span>to wait through the night
\n<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>with no betrayal of despair<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from my journal. \u00a0entries are undated. \u00a0A lot of this is in a post from January 2016 how calmly does the olive branch observe the sky begin to blanch without a cry, without a prayer with no betrayal of despair…\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,9,11,18,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breakdown","category-journal","category-present-day","category-ritual-year","category-trauma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}