This Is Your Captain Speaking

Not to be a Mr McBraggypants or anything, but I have to say: I am quite pleased with my brain. For one thing, it's durable as hell. You wouldn't believe the wear and tear I've put on this baby, yet it still performs like a champ.

For example, I once did acid almost continuously for an entire month - and sure, ok - I did go a little schizo for a while. I won't deny that. But you know what? After a couple of months, my serotonin and melatonin levels worked themselves out, and it was smooth sailing once again. And as a bonus, now I know what it's like to be crazy, which I'm sure will come in handy at some point.

And then there's all that Ecstasy. People say E screws your brain up, right? Puts holes in it and all that. Well, for me, those holes are just ventilation. I figure that whatever brain matter the MDMA ate up was probably just dead weight anyway. Kind of like pruning a bush. Now my brain is lighter, faster, and has a little wiggle-room. Noice.

As for depression and mental illness, I seem to have rolled sevens on those as well. I've had enough friends who suffered from depression to know it sucks balls. Hell, sometimes it seems like half the people walking around have a problem with it. But for me? Not an issue.

Oh, sure – I get sad sometimes... but that's just because life on this planet is a nightmarish whirlpool of mind-blowing horror. So it's only natural to pick up on the world's misery from time to time. Agree? And it's not like I don't have a dark side or anything. Oh, baby... I gots me a dark side. I can't exactly show you my dark side here on the internet... but if I could, it might look something like this:

But as for actual "clinical” depression, that's not one of my features. But here's the good part, one of the features I do have: Mania. Every so often, I get on these kicks where I'm just electrified, bursting with ideas. My mind races, and I run around like a mad scientist, creating this and that, channeling all of this energy into one project or another. It's a highly productive period (especially now that I've learned how to not get arrested). And then, when the spring stops gushing, I come in for a landing. But there's no crash-and-burn. I'm like a Manic Depressive, but without the Depressive part. So I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

I will say this, however: it hasn't always been strawberries and cream. I did get panic attacks for awhile. Bad ones, too. The first time I got one, I truly thought I was going insane. I didn't know what was happening, and never even considered that it was just a panic attack. I'd heard of anxiety attacks, but I always thought they just made you anxious or frightened. I had no idea how fucking psychotic they were. It was as if my entire reality had suddenly turned against me, and everything I thought I knew or believed in suddenly disintegrated into dust, leaving me naked to some purely evil force of nature, a force much bigger than me.

Seriously. That shit was demonic.

Eventually I found out that lots of people experience this, and that I wasn't actually going to die, or end up in a psyche ward, or spontaneously combust or anything. I was even offered drugs, but refused them (believe it or not, I'm actually very picky about drugs. Recreational purposes only, that's my motto.) After a couple of years, the panic attacks went away. Kind of like my dyslexia.

So here's to you, brain. Keep up the good work. I know I put you through a lot, but we make a great team, and I just want you to know how much I appreciate you.

In fact, I think I'll run up to the store and get you some of that vitamin B you like so much. As soon as I can remember how to operate that "knobby" looking thing on the front door.

What the hell is that thing?