ADDADHDDIDPTSD

Mene...Mene... Tekel...Upharsin...

There’s no doubt that I am a fuck up.

A cursory look at my curriculum vitae reveals a pathological pattern typically displayed by a chemically dependent borderline personality. Elements of bipolar behaviors are also evidenced in the chaotic and maladaptive coping skills that become apparent by the legal, social, and psychological consequences documented therein. Documented consequences of such self-destructive and sociopathic tendencies are both numerous and telling. Professionals in the field of mental health, in their frequent annotations point variously to Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder, ADD, ADHD, Chronic Depression marked by Manic Grandiosity, and the Adlerian Therapists believe I may be an alien baby.

Basically, I was raised by my parents, a salesman and a narcissistic she-wolf, in the suburbs. I went to a Catholic Seminary, a Jesuit University, Law School for six weeks, prison for two years, and the Burning Man Festival for one long lost weekend. That’s the skeleton of my story, from black robes to drug addled nudity in the desert in ten short years. There’s also a note on my resume about a stint in a mental hospital. No big deal, I responded well to medication.

Maybe I should write a book. I thought about doing that once, but then I decided that only people who win wars, cure diseases, or sleep with celebrities should be allowed to publish memoirs. People like me, who break into cars, should keep their misery to themselves. I’m not a fan of public catharsis.

Yes, by most yardsticks, I end up about two feet, eleven inches short of “happiness.” I’ve made this little life of mine work by making everything a joke. Fact is, I’m really not unhappy. So long as I can laugh.

All stories are by definition “retrospective,” it’s natural, even necessary, for me to slap a fresh coat of Dutch Boy sarcasm on the wall of circumstance.

The disembodied hand doodles, then moves on -- that’s a Biblical reference.