Learned Hopelessness [Psycho-Surreal Memoirs]

97

No matter what happens, I belong to her and her pain.

98

I built myself a feral nest underneath the kitchen sink, a nest of scraps of cloth and bird feathers and moist dirt, so that whenever I wanted I could pretend to be an animal. Whenever I’m feeling too constrained by society - say, five people message me online in a row, I have a bill to pay, or someone tells me to comb hair, I can climb underneath the cupboard, close the door, and sink into my nest.

As a child I always wanted to be a wolf. I read all the books I could find on feral children, fiction and nonfiction, always disappointed at the end when the children were often “rescued” by humans, taught language, and socialized.

That was not my happy ending.

I saw the treeline and I wanted to tear off my clothes and lose the extension in my legs and run to my new home. I wanted to drink new milk and sleep in caves with my nose pressed against my brother’s soft, downy fur.

But I had nothing but a studio apartment and a nest of scraps.

“Come on out of there,” my girlfriend said, poking me with a stick.
I snapped and growled.
“You can’t live your whole life in a feral nest.”
I pressed my face down into the dusty blankets and breathed. In and out.
“I can’t pay the rent by myself,” she said.
“I’m hungry,” I said, whining. “Bring me a grilled cheese sandwich.”
“Wolves don’t eat grilled cheese sandwiches,” she said, trying to appeal to logic.
Classic rookie mistake.
“Can I have some coffee then?” I asked.
She sighed.
“Give me a minute,” she said, and shut the cupboard door.
She came back a few minutes later, knocking softly on the door. I opened it with a paw.
“Here’s some coffee,” she said. “Will you come out now?”
I sipped on the coffee, burning my mouth. I shook my head.
‘She slammed doors and let me know she was angry in the adjacent room.

But I did come out - I came out and I went to work and I paid the rent. I went to happy hour and drank that last margarita that pushed me over the edge and ran down the street laughing until the laughter became sobbing. I opened the window and I listened to the man playing saxophone, inexplicably, on a street corner at four in the morning.
That’s the problem. I keep thinking there’s always an option to hide forever, to curl up and go into the forest, and there isn’t. Not for people like me.

99

Q. Autumn, you’ve mentioned this several times. What is learned hopelessness?

A. Learned hopelessness is a coping mechanism for dealing with the necessary drudgery of living in society. Instead of rejecting the bad feelings that result from these necessary interactions, one embraces them as a part of the whole self.

In context:

August 8, 2011

My boss left for Canada. Jesse left for the Philippines. My ex-boyfriend and one of my best friends in Austin decided to buy a house and have a child together. I’ve become infatuated with someone whom I’m convinced is a demon from hell, and today marks the first day of my homelessness.
I think I should probably write. I remembered being a writer once. I remembered - well - I remembered being at Jesse’s going away party at The Parlor in south Austin and someone asked me what I did.
“She’s a writer,” he said.
“No!” I said, “No, I’m a video game tester! If someone says they’re a writer, everyone thinks they’re a complete asshole.”
“But you are a writer.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean anyone has to know.”
Of course, I’d have about five beers at this point which is enough to make me a complete wreck of a human being. I got a message from my co-worker that we were about to hit beta at two in the morning, I woke up and found the demon left a note on my windshield. I drove to the demon’s apartment and knocked on the door. The demon’s roommate answered, and I crept inside the room and climbed into bed.
Every day I’m more used to feeling alone. And it’s this hopeless, ecstatic feeling that pushes past the boundaries of my head and my limbs. It stretches out until I can’t feel my fingers. I’m cutting every umbilical cord that I can find. I want to write. I want to burn. I want to learn what’s going to happen if I keep opening your door and climbing inside.

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Note: This is part of my Psycho-Surreal Memoirs Series. You can find more by looking through my feed. They're designed to be able to be read in any order.