Whoever said the drugs don't work was taking the wrong drugs

So eventually being a whiny bitch just wears you out, because you've created a vicious circle for yourself to run round like a deranged hamster. Misfortune -- often something so mild that let's face it, you could shrug off if you have the least measure of fortitude -- strikes, you start to whine it up (and the whining gets you down even more than the small misfortune does) and being a whiny bitch just brings more misfortune onto your head.

Do you know, I've been too insane even to realise that, and I feel like I have just woken up and seen myself in the mirror. And I realise that I am not in fact a 12yo schoolgirl -- I mean no offence to 12yo schoolgirls, few of whom are as whiny and annoying as I can be -- but a grown man. You know, I could defend you in a fistfight, fix your roof in a storm, cook food that would make you weep with pleasure, leap tall buildings in a single b-- okay, let's not get carried away, but I'm not truly a miserable worm.

So I've been trying something new. Instead of wallowing in whinge, I have started doing something about it. The big thing is that I have been taking tryptophan supplements, and they work. I don't know whether they work because I really was lacking tryptophan or because I'm crazy enough to believe it and the placebo effect is strong, but I feel at least fairly close to an even keel. Not perfectly adjusted (Zen laughs softly to himself) and maybe you wouldn't notice, but I feel more like me and I like it.

Now the misfortune arrives and yeah, my first impulse is to give in to misery and whine about it, but my second impulse is arriving with the fuck-that cavalry. People snub me, and I reach for my hankie but before I've managed even to start sniveling, the cavalry arrives. Fuck that, I say to myself, their loss. My future looks bleak, and I start thinking I could have a good mizz over that, but the cavalry storms in. Fuck that, I say to myself, at least find some small ways to love it or you are going to be found hanging over the back steps, and that would suck. I cannot begin to fix loneliness if I curl up in a ball and wish it all away. I'm going to have to saddle up with the fuck-that brigade, say fuck that to mopery and suffer some blows. I'm man enough, right?

posted by Dr Zen @ 7:18 pm