My Friend Robin/Fear of Abandonment

Robin Williams had a great deal of wisdom to share and he worked hard to make sure that people didn't feel as lonely and broken as he often did even though many people loved him. He gave us wonderful characters to love and treasure. As an unhappy youngster in my early teens, Mork was one of my best friends. I would dream of having adventures with Mork when things were going as awfully as the often did.

I tend to think that the people who feel that Robin made an improper choice by taking his own life are people who do not understand the way that dementia destroys the mind. The autopsy done after Robin's death confirmed that he had Lewy Body Dementia. People who worked with him on Happy Feet say that he was already starting to have trouble remembering things at that point. 

When your mind is everything, knowing that it is failing you is devastating. Robin knew that something was terribly wrong, and he knew that it wasn't going to get better. I don't feel that he made an erroneous decision at all. This is not to say in any way that suicide isn't a tragedy or that he isn't loved and missed. Suicide is a tragedy, and Robin Williams is missed and will always be loved. However, I will say quite frankly that if I develop dementia, I will make the same decision as Robin did, and I do not apologize for saying this.

Now, on to my fear of abandonment.

Today I had a flashback to an incident which happened some 43 years ago.

My family moved to Colorado from New Mexico when I was ten. We were living in faculty housing. I thought I had made some really good friends. 

There was a disused gravel quarry behind the faculty housing, and we used to go up there to play. One day as I was out walking, I saw my "friends" heading up there without me, not having bothered to call me to join them. I took a shortcut that I knew to beat them there. I could run really fast in those days.

When they arrived, they saw me sitting down in one of the small pits.

"What are you doing here, Cie?" Jason asked.

"Just playing by myself," I said.

"Well, why don't you play with us?" said Marty.

"I don't want to," I replied, huffing away.

They could see that they'd fucked up and they hurried after me. I realized that their parents had told them that they needed to be nice and include me, and they didn't want to get in trouble.

"Cie, wait, we're sorry," said Amy.

"I don't care," I retorted. "I'm going home.

"Come on, please, let's go play at my house," Jason begged.

Stupid desperate child that I was, I convinced myself that they'd just made a mistake, that they hadn't thought about calling me, that they really liked me. However, after perhaps a half hour, they were giving each other looks.

"We have to go inside now," said Jason. "We're going to watch a show."

"Well, can I come watch too?" I asked. "We always watch Star Trek together."

"No, you wouldn't like this show. It's called Mentally Retarded."

"Well, maybe I would like it."

"No, I don't think you would. See you later."

Jason and Amy were brother and sister. However, they also invited Marty in, and he wasn't a relative.

I was desperate, but I wasn't that stupid. My so-called "friends" didn't like me very much. I was just the stupid outcast kid that their parents forced them to play with.

I blocked this incident out of my mind for years because it was so painful. However, even to this day I feel desperate and worthless when people haven't communicated with me in a while. I feel that just like Amy and Jason and Marty, nobody really likes me, they only talk to me because they feel sorry for me.

Years later when another friend, Lee Ann, drowned, Amy was at her funeral. She tried to talk to me and I pretended I didn't remember who she was. I was still hurt over the way I'd been kissed off by her and my other supposed friends in childhood.

Lee Ann hadn't been along with the others on the day at the quarry. She was a couple years younger than I was and seemed to genuinely like me. She was only 22 years old when she died. It was a terrible loss.

I hate myself when I feel and act stupid and desperate. I know it pushes people away.

I wish I hadn't been made to believe that "imaginary" friends like Mork weren't as important as 3D friends.

In many ways, such friends were much better than the ones I had in life. They never abandoned or betrayed me.

~Cie~

Get To Know The Netherworld Crew: The Real Cie

The theme for Silver Threading's Writer's Quote Wednesday Writing Challenge is Comedy. What does the above picture have to do with comedy? It doesn't, it has to do with me, The Real Cie, the butt of the Universe's cruel jokes. We'll get to that.
I created the above picture to be included in a mass email for the birthday of Jared Padalecki, the actor who plays Sam Winchester on Supernatural. Jared lives with depression, and he created the Always Keep Fighting charity to raise awareness. There's something about Jared. More on people with "something about them" later in the post.
Yes, the tattoo is the permanent kind.

Am I doing this right? I don't know. Will they like me? Probably not. A few people do, but most people don't understand where I'm coming from at all. Nor do they get my sense of humor.
In this post, I refer to myself in both first and third person. Referring to me as I am now, I always use first person. Referring to my past self or the fictionalized version of myself, I will use either first or third person. I tend not to edit posts of this nature too much, because I want to preserve the emotional rawness.

I've never fit in. I was badly bullied. I had a serious mental illness (I have three diagnoses, actually: Bipolar disorder type 2, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Obsessive-compulsive disorder) that was improperly diagnosed until I was nearly 40. There was always something different about me. People saw that and wanted to destroy it. I wasn't pretty, I was socially awkward. I tried to make people like me, but they didn't. I started self-injuring when I was in my early teens. I made my first suicide attempt at age 13 by swallowing a bottle of aspirin.

Because I was raised Catholic, I believed that committing suicide was a sin that would get you sent to hell. Because sending a person who was already suffering to hell makes a lot of sense, right? Not here to argue theology, but that idea is a crock of shit, as is the idea that people who commit suicide are "selfish" or "stupid." Suicide may be "a permanent end to a temporary problem," or it may in fact be not a permanent end to a lifelong problem. Pithy sayings don't work on serious issues.
"This is really fucking depressing, Real Cie," you're saying. "When are you going to get to the comedy part?"
The prompt mentions Robin Williams.

Mork is one of the friends I turned to when real life was too painful.
I was a writer from the time I was very young. I was precocious and learned to read at a first grade level when I was four years old. I'm not saying this to brag about how smart I was, because I don't really think I'm that smart overall. I was in the top percentile for the English category when I took my SAT's. I have some sort of gift in the English comprehension and writing areas, but I've never learned to use it in a way that appeals to most people. I'd like to thank my bipolar disorder for that.
I always had a real sense for the absurd as well. I could find bits of humor in the oddest places. Other people didn't get it. I used it to survive.
Young Me used her literary and metaphysical gifts to escape to an alternate world. Unlike the world I was living in, this world was filled with fun and friends.
I didn't know it then, but I was an empath who could pick up on other people's emotions. I wish I could have known Robin Williams in life. I think that Real Cie and Robin would have been friends, just like Cie in my stories and Mork were friends. That's what I like to think.

This became Mork and Cie's favorite band after one of Cie's few friends' older brothers played their music and Cie said "wow, who's that?"
Keep in mind that in the 1970's, there was no public Internet. Young Cie had to go into record shops and look for imported magazines to find out more about her new favorite band. She liked doing research anyway, and liked pretending to be a detective.
If you see evil rather than humor when looking at the above picture, you need to adjust your perspective. I'm still gobsmacked that anyone could have thought of these men as "evil."
Cie liked AC/DC not only for the music, but because, like her, they were outcasts and freaks who used their sense of humor both to cope and to entertain others. They didn't like people who bullied other people. There was also "something about them."
I didn't know it yet, but "something about them" means "walking wounded."

Even at ten years old, when I was watching Star Trek reruns I really resonated with the Empath character, Gem. I didn't know it yet, but it was because, like her, I take on other people's pain. I don't get physical manifestations, and, unfortunately, I can't do psychic healing on a physical level.
This plane is purgatory, and this world is in a lot of pain. I used and still use my sense of the Ridiculous to cope, and most people don't get it. I've suffered a lot of derision because of it.
I still do it because the Pissed Off Crusader for Justice in me doesn't want me to destroy who I am to please other people. I've tried it several times. I almost didn't survive. I won't do it again.
I think that many people who express themselves through comedy use comedy as a coping mechanism. Like me, they have been bullied, or they suffer with a mood disorder such as depression or bipolar disorder. Seeing the ridiculous helps us survive. Often we try to make the world a better place. Sadly, it doesn't really seem to work.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't try, though. If we make the world a somewhat better place for a few people, it's worth it.
I've got more to say, much more. But the foam mat on my bed has slipped sideways and it's really irritating me, so I need to fix it.
Did I mention that I have OCD?
I have to joke about my mental illnesses, because otherwise I'd go crazy!
I'll be here all week. Also, for the rest of my life.

~Cie~

Cross-posted to:

Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Camp

Encyclopedia Netherworld

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