I finished Emilie Autumn’s The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls, her story of her days in a mental institution and the alternate reality she developed to cope with life in that asylum, this afternoon. It was a thoroughly enjoyable book; I did prefer the journal entries of her actual experiences in the hospital over the letters from her alternate persona in the Victorian insane asylum appropriately named the Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls, but even those were worth the read. My preference is probably due to my own days in a mental hospital; I could easily sympathize with her frustration with an institution that advertises itself as a refuge to help those in need but is in actually a maximum-security prison maintained by hardened hearts who have no interest in rehabilitating patients but only in concealing them from society’s sensitive eyes.
I don’t remember much of my experience–it was over a decade ago and it was only three days–but I remember the important details: one fateful night when I was very depressed and suicidal–or perhaps it was only a cry for help–I asked my parents to admit me to the hospital–I thought it would help; the second day, I realized what a terrible mistake I made; I spent the third day of my “asylum” more suicidal than I had ever been. Even though my condition was far worse than it had ever been outside the hospital–and in only three days too–the staff of the hospital wanted to prolong my stay. Why? Because I wore nail polish; according to the noble and caring hospital faculty, that deems me too loony to participate in society. I also showed frustration over a valid concern one day; apparently, only crazy people are ever angry or frustrated over real issues; I’d like to see somebody smash the windows of the house of that bitch who threatened me with a prolonged sentence; if she shows any anger whatsoever, lock her in a hospital for a few years until she realizes that anger is only appropriate when directed at strangers at restaurants over unintentionally incorrect orders, like a sane person. Thankfully, I have very loving parents who took my pleas for escape seriously; have I ever thanked you both enough for delivering me from Hell? The entire experience was a waste of my time. Sure, there are those who probably belong in such prisons just as there are children who belong in juvenile halls, but for the unfortunate victims who only need help, it will only destroy them. Fortunately, I only suffered three days of that prison, so I left unscathed.
I’m not entirely comfortable admitting that I’ve been in a legitimate insane asylum, but why should I be afraid? I know I’m sane. I’m not even manic-depressive as my doctor led me to believe; doctors are not as intelligent as they appear. Too often I question my sanity; I have so many “off-the-wall” ideas: I believe animals should be treated with some dignity; I believe that prostitution should be decriminalized for the sake of the prostitutes forced into that life. In fact, I presented a speech about the decriminalization of prostitution in a public speaking college course many years ago; it naturally resulted in a heated debate. The memory of it still causes me to wince, but the truth is I was right: the abuse prostitutes suffer would lessen if they could report such abuse to the police without being arrested for being in a “profession” they might be in involuntarily. I was right; they were wrong. Why should I wince then?
Too often I allow others to make me believe I was crazy, sinful, and unworthy, but now I know they are all wrong. At worst, I am eccentric; I admit it is queer for a man to prefer the company of women, but considering that men seem to spend all their time discussing sex in the most vulgar terms or, if they are churched, jesting about cruelty to animals, why the fuck would I want to suffer their presence longer than necessary? That’d be insane! I also don’t care much for their homoerotic behaviors; I know it makes me gay to admit it, but I don’t enjoy showering with a group of men and slapping each other’s asses.
I’m different, but I’m not crazy. I was crazy when I tried to mold myself in images I knew to be false and wicked simply because they appeared more agreeable, but now I realize society does not need more plastic brown-nosing ass-kissers who turn their face from the ugliness of the world and console themselves with the heresy that, as long as they pray, they are fulfilling the role of the Good Samaritan. No, I was wrong to try so hard to be agreeable last year. The greatest saints are rarely agreeable or rarely appreciated in their time; St. Francis of Assisi and William Wilberforce were the enemies of the world; John the Baptist was beheaded because he vocalized the obviousness that others were too cowardly to say aloud. If I present myself as a dove, then they will shoot me, eat me, and shit me out. I will be as innocent as dove, but I will be as loud as a rattlesnake.
Lady GaGa and Emilie Autumn have the right idea: don’t cower to the left or to the right, but walk in the middle of the street as you are. People will criticize you, insult you, disregard you, attack you, flog you, but as I learned from the Internet and its pedants, critics, misogynists: they are fucking attention-whoring idiots trying to appear profound, intelligent, valuable. It’s easier to pretend to be something than it is to actually try to be that.
Tags: Christianity, Emilie Autumn, Journal, Saints, Sanity, Society
January 7, 2010 at 5:31 pm
Do you have any idea how fully you just expressed so many of my ideas without ever coming in contact with me? (Rhetorical question. Of course you don’t.) God, it’s like I wrote this while my conscious mind was out to lunch.
With the bare exceptions that I’ve never seen a mental hospital from the inside (I escaped institutionalization by excluding mention of my suicidal tendencies and claiming that I’d never practice self-destruction again [PROTIP: I lied.], though I did undergo some therapy for spilling on the aforementioned self-mutilation. Amazing how profusely psychiatrists can profess to care about you, and so obviously not.), and the fact that I never had the balls to actually go through with a suicide attempt, though I did hold the gun to my temple a couple times (cutting, for me and most practitioners, was [is?] a coping mechanism, not an actual attempt), our stories are remarkably similar.
Bad experiences with judgmental Christians, yet still retaining a love for the actual precepts of Christ, just maybe not the corollary hypocrisy with which we and others are treated. Severe, probably clinical depression (though recently, my depression seems to be changing radically in form). Not standard males, often thought to be gay, but really heterosexual, with a distaste for the obsession with their own masculinity and traditional expressions of it (i.e., butt slaps and athleticism) that most guys seem to exhibit. Though, here’s another exception, no nail polish for me. Though I love the aesthetic(s) and have respect for people who can rock it, I simply cannot pull off any variant of Goth, emo, or even EA’s personal Victioriandustrial. But we both clearly like it (you with the nail polish, and both of us with the liking Emilie Autumn). Which isn’t really a perspective we share with most Christians. “Off-the-wall,” as you aptly put it, political ideas we also hold in common.
The fact is, it’s reasonably common for me to find females on the Internet with the same feelings about the world. (At first, I assumed you were a girl. That’s probably because male EA fans are few and far between.) Much less common to find such sentiments expressed intelligently, with a brain to back them up. And I’ve never seen another guy have both traits.
So, what I really want to say is, thank you. For confirming that I am not alone in this world.
January 9, 2010 at 5:03 pm
Thank you so much for your comment! When I posted that blog, I had second thoughts about being so raw, but knowing that somebody else in the world empathized with me made it worth it. Thank you!