Morrowind Haze

XBrood Live: Morrowind Haze

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Morrowind Haze

I woke up groggy Saturday morning. Dizzy as though I’d been drinking heavily the night before. I did drink mind you, but not enough the feel the effects in the morning. Not even three stiff drinks will affect me that way. And I’m not an angry drunk either. I’ve got to be one of the happiest drunks you’ll ever meet. Everyone is my friend when I’m drinking and I wasn’t exactly friends with the entire bar like I usually would be. Even when I do get drunk I’ll always wake up the next day feeling refreshed and ready for whatever comes my way. That day I woke up feeling lethargic. I didn’t even want to get up. Usually on a drinking night I can sleep for four hours and spring out of bed the next morning, but this day was different. Thisday even eight full hours wasn’t enough. My body ached all over though signaling that it was time to get up whether I liked it or not.

It’s no fun being grown up anymore. I yearn for those teenybopper pimple filled days in which I could sleep for 14 hrs at a time. No more. No. Now my bones creek, my back groans…my arms moan after they fall asleep under my head. Whatever. I brushed my teeth after rolling out of bed. ‘Did Rigid kiss me goodbye this morning?’ The vision of a nose and lips coming at my face flashed through my skull as I spit out my toothpaste. ‘Yeah. We’re okay, but I’m not okay.’ Unwilling to face yesterdays ordeal I shuffled around the house to see what I could do.

What a mess. The coffee table all skewed, my vase missing the last handle it had and my poor book on the floor. What a night. Thought raced through my head, but I kept forcing them back. ‘there’s something wrong with me. It’s not his fault. There’s something wrong with me.’

I continued ambling through the house putting things back in their place but not actually cleaning much. I was just too tired. So so very tired. I decided to sit down and play a little to try and keep my mind of things. No one would really be on Halo2 right then and I didn’t feel like whining about my wrist. I also didn’t feel like sitting at the edge of my seat pissing my pants every time a monster rolled out onto the screen on Area 51. Morrowing then. I had given up playing that game for awhile in lieu of Area 51. Something about mindless shooters that have had me captivated since I discovered Halo. I haven’t been able to concentrate on an RPG fully every since. I really want to get my hands on Oblivion when I’m finally able to afford the 360 so I though I’d bone up on my RPG skills again with that game. I bought it used for less than 10 bucks. How sweet is that?

Well, I spent the next two hours running around going absolutely no where. I stayed in one city and tried to increase my personality skills and only ended up pissing off most of the merchants there. I felt really strange too… I wanted to kill them all. I kept it under control of course. I could never be evil, not even in a video game… well, not for long that is. I decided to go on a quick little side quest to increase my skill. This woman had rats in her house and it was my job to exterminate them with my giant fucking sword. Well, I was up for it. Only rats right? Cool. So after fumbling around a few stupid times with the stupid fucking controls I finally made it to her house. Luckily I was pretty familiar with the save function so after I killed the first rat that nearly killed me I saved. I though maybe it was just my imagination that I was so weak I could barely kill a rat. Granted this was a big fucking rat, but… it’s a rat.

I went upstairs and prepared to rid this woman’s home of vermin. I swear to got I think I died like 14 times trying to kill those FUCKING rats. There were two of them in the room and every time I went through the door they attacked my feeble body mercilessly. Clawing at me with their yucky rat claws and biting me with their giant buck rat toofas! Horrible things. My chest started hurting and I started getting pissed off. The load times are horrible on this game and every time you die you have to wait nearly four minutes to load the game back up. Now I know why it’s only 10 buckaroos. ‘Patience.’ I thought to myself. ‘Where’s my fucking patience?’ Forget it, I gave up on the dame and took off on another quest. I looked back at the clock and two hours had gone by. WTF?

I went to the kitchen and made myself a nice breakfast. After reinvigorating myself with some eggy grub I continued on my quest. Actually all I did was run back and forth between traders and join guilds. I paid so many fines for steeling that all the money I’d made with the traders was gone. So I gave that up and went on one of the original quests. By this time most of my day had passed. I hopped and hopped my character (He walks so slow I end up hopping him all over the map to increase his acrobatics. Makes him move faster.) all over that freakin’ map. I hopped and walked and hopped and walked. I picked up a slave who refuses to talk to me but I refuse to sell her so I’m hopping and stopping and walking and hopping and stopping because she doesn’t go very fast yet. I decide that this is a very strange game, but I keep on playing.

My sister called me at some point that day. I decided to tell her everything that happened the night before. She told me exactly what I told her when her son was diagnosed with Autism. “Well honey,” she said in one of her smartest voices “you remember what you told me right? ‘You have options. You’re not alone. You know what your problem is and there’s no shame in it.’ You know what he’s saying isn’t the problem. It’s the way you’re reacting that’s the problem.”

“I know” I said, “ I’m having trouble controlling myself. I was never like this before. Not like this.” Well, that’s a bit of a lie isn’t it. I’ve actually always been like this, but as I grew older I was better able to control my emotions. That and getting absolutely everything I wanted whenever I wanted helped. Thanks Pumpo! *grumble grumble* Okay, so I continued with my heart to heart with my little sister. The little sister I’ve helped support throughout all her emotional ordeals for the past 10 years. The little sister who’s ass I used to kick for the previous 17. the little sister who for all that time told me how much she hated me every chance she’d get and pummel me on the back when I was turned around on her. Who I’d trick and scare and beat half to death for whatever reason we thought was important at the time. Mom tried to take us to a psychiatrist before… When they wanted to put my little sister on medication my mom said she never went back.

Well, I talked my sister into getting medication when her son was diagnosed with Autism. Not because he was Autistic and she wouldn’t be able to handle it… okay maybe a little, but the reason really was for a disorder I already knew she had. She was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. When she was diagnosed my entire world made sense. No wonder I’m so careful with the things I say. No wonder I jump to my sisters defense when people try to joke with her. I just tell them she’s just sensitive don’t tell her that, don’t do that… don’t don’t don’t. Who cares. The point is my little baby sister is helping me keep my brain from melting out of my skull. She’s been doing this for me ever since I left my husband. I was going to say ever since I got together with Rigid, but that’s not true either. Rigid is just an innocent bystander really.

So I talked to her and blubbered on the phone. I’ve wrestled with this for a very long time. These “anxiety” problems I’ve always had. I don’t know what else to call it. I even remember telling my ex-husband that I’ll gladly go to a dr. if he thinks I should. If it’s bothersome to him, well he would never in a million years have told me that so I never went. The way we handled an attack was Pumpo would talk to me in a very soothing voice. Sit me down, hand me a cigarette and a stiff drink and quite possibly some dr. prescribed medication not actually prescribed to me but guaranteed to relax my muscles and probably put me to sleep. His mother is a terminal care nurse so she always gave us stuff. You know… just in case. Either that or he’d give me an Ibuprofen, which pretty much had the same effect. See the “it’s all in your head” thing?

After I hung up the phone I called Rigid and told him what I was planning to do on Monday. I was going to see a dr. he told me I didn’t need to see a dr. all he needed to do was stop being such and asshole. Be more sensitive to my needs and just bite his tongue more often. It was very important to me that he understands that it had nothing to do with him being insensitive. And this is the one thing that I think quite a few people misunderstood. It’s not him. It really is actually me. Yeah, he’s insensitive. Yeah, he says the wrong things at the wrong time, sticks his foot in his mouth, is rude, is cruel is horrible to everyone around him sometimes, but he’s only human. The only thing I could do is teach him to be a better person. If his mommy didn’t do it he’ll just have to learn from me. Well, it’s a monumental fucking task I know and I don’t have to undertake it if I don’t want to but ultimately that has nothing to do with the fact that when we fight I DO not feel better until I do something to hurt myself. Eventually I’m going to make him hurt me. That, my friends, is something that is completely unacceptable. And so is the verbal abuse. Oh yes, I’m horrible. I wish I could remember the things I say. I wish I could record myself so I could hear myself… shame myself. When we fight like that, I hate him. I hate him so much I could probably run him over with my car and back up on him twice.

When the calm comes back. After I’ve hit him with a borage of evil words after I’ve threatedned to leave him 50 thousand times and he finally starts to listen all the love in my heart just washes over me and I feel so much pain at what I’ve done. Well, this is what I told him I’m going for. And I’m just going to talk nothing more. We got off the phone and I continued to play. I tried to ignore the panicked feel I felt at the thought of seeing mental health professional. I’ve tried not to see it as being weak. How many times have I said it? “Your not weak if you see a dr. for your emotional problems. In fact you’re courageous. You should be proud that you understand you have a problem and know you need help. You can’t do everything by yourself.” Well now it’s my turn and it’s time I follow my advice.

That night Rigid came home and saw me stuggling on Morrowind. He’s never played an RPG before, but we worked together on it and advanced my character more in the little time we played than I had all day long. It was so cool. Granted, I yanked the controller out of his hands when he decided to try and kill a merchant for all his loot, but all in all we worked really well together. We even picked up a neekid man on the side of an empty road. Something about an evil witch I’m sure we’ll find later. We played together all night long and had a great time.

Sunday we played some more, watched a movie and headed over to my sisters house for Easter. Well we were running a little late. I mean Clint Eastwood man! Need I say more? We ran out of the house pretty late… it was Clint’s fault I tell you! So we’re driving down the street and I’m fumbling with my phone. It’s not turning on and I don’t know what’s wrong. I take out the battery and put it back in. At this point Rigid’s driven out of the driveway and is fumbling himself with his CD case. I saw what he was doing out of the corner of my eye and shoved a Franz Ferdinand CD without batting an eye and went back to messing with my phone. Rigid started complaining that he didn’t want to listen to that and I got a big smile on my face but never moved. He suggested John Mayer instead so I nodded my head, but he didn’t see me. I finished with the battery on my phone and went to grab the case on his lap. Just as I went for it he got a really smug look on his face and said, “Fuck it then.” The CD case went hurling into the back seat.

We had just gotten over that fight. Why would he do that? It didn’t’ matter. It didn’t matter. Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe. Didn’t matter. I lost it I started blubbering in the car shaking with rage. He pulled the car over into a market. Asked me over and over why him throwing the CD in the back enraged me so when he didn’t do it being nasty. I thought otherwise, but asked him to please take me to my sister’s house. We kept on going and I kept on crying and shaking until eventually it subsided to a whimper. He apologized to me and said he wouldn’t have done that if he knew I would have reacted that way. Think we’re still getting to know one another?

Doesn’t matter because on Monday I was making the call. I made an appointment for Wednesday. Today is the day I’ll be going to see a psychiatrist for the first time in my adult life. I’m afraid of what the dr. will say to me. Will he be mean like some people were so many times to my sister. Are they going to tell me I’m just there for the drugs. Will they look at me funny? See right through me? Right through what? I don’t know and I don’t know what it’s going to be like or If I’ll need my sister to hold my hand but you know what? I feel pretty great today. Still emotional, but great because yesterday Morrigan and Salem came home.

Posted by Maharet at 2:13 PM