i'm sorry, it happens. you just can't do it again

Intervention is a show on A&E about addicts, in which at the end, the friends and family convince the subject of the show to go to treatment.

Some of the show is dedicated to showing what a miserable fuckup the addict is. All the shitty things they do to themselves and the people around them. How ruined their famliy's lives are.

Then they end up at the Intervention. The family and friends read prepared statements, which usually start with, "I remember when you were a beautiful infant and could do nothing wrong," and end with "You are making my life a living hell and if you don't go to treatment I'll never speak to you again."

This idea, that the family somehow has a corner on suffering, bugs the shit out of me. I've seen my own family do it - they think my ex somehow hurt them more than me, that my mental illness is harder for them than it is for me. How much I make them worry.

I don't think they ever really think about how much my life has been destroyed, what a fragment of a person I am. That their constant condemnation just makes it that much harder, and that there isn't enough "It's because we love you" that can hide that. They don't really care what happens, as long as they don't have to hear about it.

There are days when I think about leaving the state, ridding everyone of the misery that seeps into their lives. Find somewhere cheap to live, do clerical work. Maybe take up a drug habit. Because that's how some of these things get started.

There are times to be self centered. When your life is falling apart, it's ok to be self centered. Sorry, God, or whoever else I've offended. I just can't be obligated to give a fuck right now.




(Snow: I am not talking about you.)