I went to my doctor. I haven’t been feeling well anyway. Dr Dave is an east village staple with blue finger nails. He has tattoos and is very chill. I have strep - so he told me “it’s good you came in, you won’t die.” I laughed.
“Do you have a fever?”
“No.”
“Yes you do.”
I laughed. “I do?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t even realize that, I wasn’t burning up.
“The strep moved, Maria. You die about three weeks after it shows up.”
“Have you been to cemeteries, Maria?”
“Dr. Dave!”
“It’s mother, father, children children children…”
It moved out of my throat, but it was still lingering, which I didn’t understand. What was this? Strep. He didn’t think I got it from the open mics, I did, actually, because none of my roommates are that close to my mouth.
I ended up talking to him about the past decade. He wondered if the plant people had a WhatsApp group. I laughed. “You’d figure no?” I felt that maybe I should see a neurologist because my head feels like a mess, really, and I went through this whole sensational event, my heart, too, and I would have to go through him first.
“No,” Dave said, “no getting clever yet.”
This was the moment to be stupid.
“Take me through your body.”
Amazing, no? No one thought of it. “What exactly did you go through?”
Like a doctor— and I had to shake my head because that’s what a doctor is for— he crossed his arms and listened.
“I got involved with weirdoes who messed with my head, Dave, I became psychic, goddammit, like I needed this shit.” I told him that writing about my childhood turned out to be revelatory, and he asked me, “so this was a real situation you were in? When you were four?”
Taking a breath, I said, “yes Dave.”
I hated this story.
“I started going through weird experiences.” I didn’t know what to say there, so I contacted someone who specializes in sexual trauma, and he told me that people can describe some of what I was saying, so that was it, for the moment. Dave doesn’t care about the word “molested, is that you’re saying?” To him, “before four, maybe no memories, but beginning at four, maybe,” and I couldn’t just because my experience is just trying to talk to — who I thought were— close friends ended up being confusing. I took psychedelics for some years there, and I know nothing about repression, so I’m just trying to assess what it is I went through.
I told him about the pain in my hips, I went through intense pain, and this guru, I told Dave, just to give him a sense of this weird person I got involved with. I called him as I began to go through that leg of it, and I asked him, “what’s happening?”
“And this guru says,” I told Dave, “don’t you think you were scared?”
“Scared?”
The guru didn’t even ask me what I meant!
“Don’t you think you were scared, suddenly living somewhere else?”
“Did you suddenly start living somewhere else?” Dave asked.
“I mean I think so,” but “why is he assuming what you were going through?” he interjected. “But everyone did DAVE!” Jesus, my head. “Everyone assumed.”
“I don’t know,” I continued, “he acted like that. He acted as if he knew what was happening all the time. Like he had psychic gifts.”
“But he didn’t ask you, what do you mean, what’s happening?”
“No.”
“But you went through pain…”
“In my hips.”
“Why didn’t you call a doctor?”
I spoke to my therapist at the time, but I can’t remember what I said, but NO ONE is asking me anything about my body. This guru, this person, had a whole logic of “you create your own reality, you’re doing it, no matter what it is, so you don’t need…” This logic in particular harmed me, so I lost the ability to communicate. “If I deal with it internally it should clear it up.” I mean, I told the guru I went through pain, so “you see? I got into a terrible relationship…” He didn’t say “go to a doctor.” What a mess.
“Have you ever had a gynaecological exam?”
I turned my cheek to meet him. “Yes…” I guess some women don’t ever go.
“Everything’s fine,” I said.
I just couldn’t talk. “I got wrapped up with psychics, Dave, with fucking psychics!”
“This was a therapeutic event, an awakening, a psychosis…”
And the thing is, no one at the hospital said anything to me. Nothing. “Psychosis was just what they put on my exit papers, but not anywhere, just at the top… in the margins.” No one is doing anything in there. “The guru called me Carl Jung…”
“So listen to this, Dave, so in the midst of going through these odd experiences… I went through so much down there…”
“WHERE’S DOWN THERE?”
“In my vagina…” I practically whispered.
“OUTSIDE INSIDE?
“In the TUBE Maria?” He pressed. “The vagina tube?”
“Yes.”
“Have you had sex in the past few years?”
“Meaning, did you experience pain?” He continued.
“Maria, I’m asking because it could indicate an illness…”
(Wouldn’t this drive most doctors crazy?)
“No pain.”
“Okay,” he said. “A few years ago,” I said, “but I haven’t been able to get there…”
I’m just starting to be able to reenter that arena.
“I asked a couple of the plant people for my money back,” I continued, “in the midst of all this, because I had invested money in one of their businesses, and nothing was happening, and why would I keep my money there? It went horribly wrong…and that night, I got this random message through my website, about my bank being shut down, and I was under a lot of tension because of these experiences I was going through, and it hit me in the gut…”
“I felt a block of stone move and hit another…that’s part of why I thought, maybe I should see a neurologist…”
“Where was it?” He asked. “My stomach.” He said, “no, point. Where?” I pointed. “That’s not your stomach, that’s your uterus, intestines.”
“Is it your uterus? Intestines? Your stomach is higher up.”
“Is wasn’t there?” He asked. “No,” I said. “It was your belly button?”
“We should do an ultrasound. Ever got one of those?”
“No.”
“Did you have delusions?”
“I mean yes, I think, but I know that they were that, like I felt a series of awakenings, you know, down there, and that produced hallucinations, but I understand they are not real, I just didn’t know what the heck was happening. I just went through a sensational event that made me wonder if I had been abused…and this message. The impact of it. I couldn’t even eat. My stomach was wrought…”
“And I came out of the hospital, right? And I ended up calling this guru who is assuming like he knew what I went through when I hardly spoke to him, but everyone did that! And I’m on the phone with him, ‘was I fed?’” But this guru had been shoving this idea at me. What a mess. “I wasn’t fed,” I ended up saying. But he had kept shoving this in my face, and I didn’t understand why, “they feed you, they feed you, they feed you, during this book draft. And I get out of the hospital, and I’m like, ‘was I fed?’”
“And I suspect,” the guru said— seriously!!!!— “that you weren’t bathed either.”
“That’s what this guy said to me, the guru.”
Horrific.
Can you imagine? You see? This guru was totally nuts, okay? “Yes,” he says, to repeat myself, when I say, “I wasn’t fed…”
“Yes.” He says. “I suspect you weren’t bathed either.”
“Let’s do an ultrasound,” he said, “why don’t we see…if there’s anything going on in your body?” He said that if I had cysts, fibroids, I could have sensations down there. “Yes, in the tube Maria, yes. That’s where you had these sensations?”
He said, with psychedelics, and I have to ask around, to confirm this, “maybe you went through an event related to that…”
“But I had stopped.”
To him, he said, “it might not matter.”
“And I couldn’t eat, I had trouble eating. I’d get panic attacks,” and he said, “but that’s not your stomach. Those are your INTESTINES.” But maybe it was my stomach, I thought, “Okay, I can’t totally tell.” Maybe it was a bit of both. “Okay, so why don’t we run some tests?”
I needed to feel REAL again, Jesus Christ. Mental health is the worst subject. It’s the worst most ethereal subject. People were talking to me as if I went through something that required patty cake baker’s man. “This slytherin, Dave, as I got involved with a slytherin, a plant person, he goes, along with the guru, this is about betrayal…”
“Why?”
“I do not know…”
I couldn’t, “Dave, why would you tell someone who just got out of the hospital that this is about betrayal…does that sound SOOTHING to you, as a doctor, would you RECOMMEND that people tell someone that this is about BETRAYAL?”
No one asked me anything.
“Why don’t we run tests, just to make sure everything is okay?”
I just wanted to kiss him, throw a trash can.
This experience ended up making me lose hope in my life. Like, if my friend said to me what I said, I would have never responded like any of these people.
I hope everything is okay with that area of my body, but nobody thought, “go to a doctor…” no one thought, “what exactly did you go through?” If you HAVE sensations in areas of your body, why don’t you go to a doctor? Was that so hard? I’m telling you, when it comes to the body, do we know that it is real?
Stupid, just stupid. The guru goes, “why not get on social media,” at this time. Truly! Everyone acted like they knew what that was. No one asked a QUESTION. And Dave asked, “they didn’t do an ultrasound at the hospital?” No. Because no one in a mental health hospital asks anything about the body.
I couldn’t talk about that area, could I? I went through the most terrible experience. Physical. Real. Like I said previously? I would have appreciated a get well card. Like, it was maddening, no one acted real. Like, “you were in a hospital, if you’re okay, I mean, you’re not okay,” there’s reality. “You should probably rest.” My heart was going to explode — literally, I said to Dave. I didn’t understand what people thought was happening. I had one friend say, “I saw you on River Styx,” like, “so you saw that I was practically dead?” What do you think that’s a cakewalk? And my other friend goes, “oh so proud of you, you made it out of Hades.” Like airy-fairy.
And the guru, wow, this guy, he says, “what you went through,” without ANY information, none, “must be what it’s like on the other side…” when I’m struggling sensationally with my guts. On the other side, there are no guts. This wasn’t some psychedelic dream. “I hate that man…”
“Okay, so take your antibiotic for your strep, and in a week, we’ll run some tests, because if you have cysts or anything going on in your intestines, you might be experiencing sensations in your vaginal tube…”
I went to see my old manager today about a job, and I have it, so at least, I’m onto the next step. We caught up, and he said, “I always remember how you stood,” and he smiled, as he put his hands on his hips. We saw each other last before the plant people, before this fucking guru from Hollywood, came into the play. I just wished that I could take it all back. He remembered how lovely I was, how bright I was, and he was so excited to hear I was back. I almost cried. I didn’t need this shit. This trauma obsessive bullshit. I didn’t need this fucking guru getting up into my business, waving his dick around, trying to get into the subject of MY PAIN? I’m telling you, I did not need his fucking manifestation bullshit because I wanted to write a stupid book. He was a lunatic. I hated the whole decade, it bruised me so deeply, and no, to the stupid slytherin, this piece of shit, he farted on the phone at me, literally, so did he send me that message at 5 AM? I got the message regardless.
Everyone acted like they knew what that was. Everyone acted as if they didn’t even need to ask a question. Like they knew what was going on based on WHAT? Based on WHAT? There’s a reason why doctors get up in people’s faces when they’re trying to assess what’s going on? “I’m sorry? You feel things where?????” Because that’s reality. YEAH it’s CONNECTED. That was a nightmare. That was a sensational nightmare. I even told Dave that “ayahuasca reactivate itself in my gut, Dave, during all this…” I didn’t need this shit. I didn’t need a field of people ACTING like they KNEW. Dave does not know. He thinks, ultrasound, and he thinks, psychedelics? He knows nothing about repression, like that. He’s only trying to make sure nothing’s going on in my body. That’s it. “Neurology? Heavy arms? Sensations in legs? Let’s chill.”
Imagine? The guru? Suggesting I was not fed as a baby? “I suspect you weren’t bathed either.” I’m grabbing onto… oh my god! “Jason Soares, he told me I smelled in the church closet once…” can I ask, why was this necessary? My manager was like, “remember when?” And I thought, yeah. I was a vulnerable person? Yup, according to the guru, I was Lady Gaga during her more vulnerable moments. And there’s a reason why people are GUARDED. I need to put up some walls. I couldn’t stand the “nothing’s happening, nothing happened” routine. “Go to a doctor.”
My cousins, I was in the hospital, I was 93 pounds, I couldn’t eat. And their asking me why I’m so skinny. I was appalled by my cousins. These assholes couldn’t STOP asking me questions about my stupid story, and then, they vanished. It’s tough, it is, because when you’re treated like you’re not real, why should I give a shit? About you? Why should I give a shit?
I hope I’m alright, that all that will pan out, but I feel better because someone spoke to me, really.
“You were born to parents who were not there,” the guru said, “sounds divine to me.”
I wasn’t IN a movie.
Can’t you picture the… sort of ambiant, mid-movie, score, me on the phone. “You were born to parents who were not there, that sounds divine to me…” the waves of music, the look on the actor’s face, the recognition, the mystery, “but we all are—divine.”
Imagine? She hasn’t YET discovered she is the ONE, but she is.
“But first you must become the extraordinary man,” he said, over a book. Unreal. That was so clearly off the rails, guru. That was really sick.
And then, she, me, I unlock the gun — as Terminator — because I gotta get the BOY, as a robot, firing like mad, and everyone knows where the rage is coming from — an entity who actually didn’t have parents, you see? It’s time to get the BOY — the BOY who will save us all. In a tank top and jeans— I’m probably chewing bubble gum, garish PINK, and they will say, “it’s all about that bubble gum,” remember Keanu Reeves’ leg in The Matrix? “Watermelon,” I will say, no expression. Pop. Boom—fire. I’m flipping sideways, running across walls, flying like a squirrel on top of this mother fucker, “THE BOY! WHERE’S THE BOY?!!”
Gun in his face.
Preview shot.
It’s the desperation, it’s the maternal emergence coming from my face. She’s learning to care through this experience, because that’s what it means to be human, real, what’s missing from the equation.
I cry for the first time, “wow, how she did that…” they will say. I experience “tears?” Wow, the critics will speak of the LOGIC in the storytelling, not so much the emotion. It’s really, they will say, about becoming human, that’s what that means.
It’s just, that was particularly hard because people weren’t that real with me, but that’s mental health, like, strep? That made me feel nuts. My head was all messed up. I took my antibiotic, and I’ll be on them for ten days, and I’ll be fine.
What’s tough? If my friend went through anything like I did, I wouldn’t have responded like any of these people. But of course, none of these people understand. And these plant people totally abandoned me. I mean, I look back at the messages I sent to my ex, before the other friends came into play, and these people did nothing. I contacted like three people.
Me? I’m saying, “let’s take this step by step.”
“You’ve been strong long enough, sit down.”
“I don’t give a shit what you’re saying.”
“Are you feeling things down there?”
“You’re family story was a fucking wreck.”
“No one knows what the hell happened.”
“So let’s take it slow.”
God if anything, I need a hug. To be held. That’s reality.
The psychic period was useless, pointless, self-indulgent.
This stupid guru, oh my God, right? “Don’t you think you were scared?” Like I needed that. He’s telling me “this is about betrayal,” I mean, was he trying to kill me? No talk of, “everything is okay.” Never crossed his mind. But I have the problem. “I suspect you weren’t bathed either.” I want to throw something in this man’s face.
I’m thinking about contacting his sister — I really am.
Let me just tell you a list of what your brothers told me, okay?
Just a list.
If THEY lie, then the point HAS BEEN MADE.
That guru should not be introduced to young women, especially if they are VULNERABLE, in his words. And like, this man plagued my heart. He got a weird hard on over my stupid story.
No more psychics — no more manifestation — I ended up on the other side — different. Dave said, on his computer, putting in my prescription order at reception. “You can come in here,” he brought me closer. “You know, you think, why did I do that? Why did I make those decisions? Because you can’t actually project your mind, like that, so you made decisions that you wish you didn’t make…” Except now, I’ve got a rapier. But I’m not 29, am I? These dudes sniffing around.
At least, this evening, tomorrow, I can read or watch movies that deal with this topic. I’m just going to use it. So I looked up monologues about women who just got out of a cult… something like that. That’s what Dave asked, “were you in a cult?”
I laugh, picturing the movie about this — five stars.
“Maria is AMAZING, thrilling.”
“Her raw yet tender performance.
“BOLD BRAVE SUPERB.”
“A STAR IS BORN.”
“An electrifying portrait of a mental health in America.”
“Stunningly real, stunningly unreal.”
I’m screaming at people to hear me, that I went through a physical experience, and they throw crumpled up pieces of paper at me. Experimental.
“THE DREAM SEQUENCES were unforgettable. A must!!!”
No one asks a question.
Everyone just SAYS what happened.
No one asks ONE question.
Dave can’t STOP asking questions. “Sharp? Were the sensations sharp?”
He’s speaking INTO my face. “Gotta bring her to real…SHARP, Maria? DULL?”
“IN THE VAGINAL TUBE, MARIA?”
Everyone else is breaking out into a musical where they’re talking amongst themselves about what happened. “I THINK YOUR CONFUSING YOUR MOTHER’S STORIES…”
“WAS THE PAIN SHARP,” DAVE IS TRYING “MARIA?”
“This is about BETRAYAL…”
DAVE IS — “are you EXPERIENCING SENSATIONS?”
“This was an awakening…”
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% approval ratings.
“Did the RED BOOK taint Carl Jung’s reputation?”
There’s a soundtrack of voices singing “ahhh” but this time sort of jazzy, vintage as five stars appear in succession: “EXCEEDINGLY GOOD.”
We see Maria texting her friends who do not think to call. They do not call.
The physician is SCREAMING through a crowd of people who are in a musical in some flourescent nothingness vaguely industrial — not understanding what GENRE they are in. They DON’T GET where they are — MARIA is disappearing, they do not care, let her die, “how’s the upper west side treating you?” The physician is reaching for her through this strange psychedelic journey, “oh no, MARIA,” he’s looking around, a FILM NOIR, like— JESUS, MARIA. She’s descending and drowning in water to a piano solo. People are even pushing her down, “WAS I RAPED?” Someone PUNCHES HER IN THE FACE.
THE PHYSICIAN — “ARE YOU EXPERIENCING SENSATIONS? IN YOUR VAGINAL TUBE?” He will hold her — “It’s okay, I have you.” He will be breathless, Ed Norton, with his warm sparkly eyes. “It’s going to be okay.”
Everyone in the theater will be speechless. OMG, that’s all she needed. OH MY GOD.
“Will you just tell me what you went through?”
That’s it.
NEXT CRITIQUE: “IT’S DOGVILLE MEETS THE MATRIX: ONE WOMAN’S JOURNEY TO BECOME REAL.”
“IT’S THE ULTIMATE TEXTING MOVIE.”
“EMMA STONE IS: THIRTEEN ADJECTIVES: RIVETING, TERRIFYING, SUPERNATURAL — THE PERFORMANCE OF HER CAREER. THIS IS THE MOVIE THAT EVERYONE MUST SEE, THAT WE WISH HAD BEEN MADE AT THE DAWN OF THE INTERNET ERA.”
The Oscars are obliterated. OSCARS — 14.
“JOHN MALKOVICH IS ASTONISHING AS THE GURU.”
“ED NORTON SPARKLES AS THE DOCTOR.”
“DANTE IS BACK.”
Just the shit I went through. Like, imagine this from my perspective a minute. I told a close friend of mine, “I do not know if I was abused.” “Okay,” airy fairy, good luck with that. Not one follow up. And the question, what we discuss in some Robert Altman-esque sports commentary room, Norton still there, where we will discuss this in a play by play, of what one should expect, in an age where nothing really matters anymore. “Is she asking for too much?” Norton is shaking his hand, “no? A bit?”
“Back in the action.”
So that left me feeling quite lost.
Where I just am in another world, and I just let go. I’ll talk to Dave, we’ll check my insides, and I’ll say, “see ya…” as I let go of a bunch of balloons — how’s the Upper Westside treating you?” Meanwhile, I can’t even look at a photo of my father. So I’m just trying to get over the excuriating experience I went through. You know?
And then, my friend, former friend.
“Yeah,” she said, psychic, “I was thinking about Barbara Harris,” her mental health conundrum, “uh huh,” I was sitting right in front of her. “I think she might have been abused when she was young…”
Nodding, uh huh.
FIVE STARS AGAIN.
“YEAH,” Marc says, “but that doesn’t MEAN anything, your memory of being forced into the master bed with your father…”
Nothing but stars. “THE MOVIE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT FOR YEARS.”
Months later: “You know, I was thinking about it,” Marc says, “what if your mother did this to save you from your father, what if it was TRUE, actually…”
“IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT REALITY IS, THIS IS THE MOVIE.”
“SEARING, INTENSE, NECESSARY.”
Ambiant “ooooo” everyone has A FEELING —A FEELING — EMPATH, EMPATH — people turn with EMPATH on their t-shirts — feeling into they are gathering and basically eliminating all need for questions. This is not the dawn of interrogation, of connection. This is a solo journey on treadmills. Nobody’s going NOWHERE.
OUT OF HELL—starring Emma Stone, the experimentalist.
This is how she does it.
“THIS IS WHY PEOPLE GO TO THE MOVIES.”
There is no body. There is no sense. There is no throughline. I went to a doctor. I’ll take that step by step. I just hope that I’m healthy and good, but that was really something right?
“What about an ultrasound?”
“Are you still experiencing discomfort down there, Maria?”
It was so basic.
I keep telling myself, that there’s gotta be people out there who went through this kind of hell. With people stirring risotto, telling me I went through hell, and it’s hell, if you know what I mean…
I said to my cousins, as I got the impression that I’m not invited anymore, but they are acting insincere about it, which is maddening, that I had no idea how to interact with them… but weeeee it’s all fine, isn’t it? My cousin goes, “I mean I got your message at 4 AM.” I asked them if they remembered? It was 8 AM for me, so I don’t know when that was, but they didn’t even think of asking how I was doing, for real. I could hardly eat. That was — and I really wasn’t expecting that I would ever say this in my entire life — a level of pain and confusion and loneliness — aloneness where I thought, why carry on living? I was not expecting to have my life blown to pieces. But it happens. We all grow old, if we’re lucky, so we go through a life.
I could not believe this guru. Unreal.
THAT really hit me in the face.
My cousins picked on how skinny I was. They are asking me why I’m skinny. I was in the hospital, and these people literally HARPED on my body to an uncomfortable point. I was blown away. I’m struggling, idiots. But who gives a shit, right? Who gives a shit? Now they’re sort of coming back round again, and it’s like, I might not be there. That’s where I’m at with them. I have no interest. The DISBELIEF alone they put me through, I mean, now, I would rip their heads off. I don’t care. But the disbelief I went through alone — it’s a game over, type deal.
It was, okay, I returned after fifteen years, or something, we disappeared. Why? They ask. Well, my father was Alzheimer’s — no no no no no no — no no no no no — do you speak to your mother? No. Why why why why why why why? She gave me away when I was four—not the correct debut, but you gotta start somewhere, and now, I wouldn’t even be here. No that didn’t happen, no that didn’t happen, then I careen through this adopted family narrative, where my parents don’t exist, though I SAID IT DAY ONE. I go through this MINI SERIES over this stupid story with these people, to hear, many years later, I’m BARELY out of the hospital. What do you mean he had Alzheimers? Oh my God, I walked through the door with that info. No no no no, that’s not true. Look, man, I don’t know if you ever felt like your head would SPLIT — should I zoom in on my face, crying? Should I zoom in on this stupid psychological device? (I hate this guru. I just thought, okay I’ll just write some scenes with it, since I don’t know what that means. Please, help me find an end to this despair. ) This stupid hypnotherapist telling me “there can be change without rupture?” What about a giant fuck you? All of you. I almost lost my mind. I don’t know what to say, have you ever been a touch too disrespected?
I’m not the type of person who does well with “not talking about things.” I don’t understand what that means. When these PEOPLE ALL THEY WANTED TO DO WAS TALK TALK TALK TALK. And these hypocrites? OH? ARE YOUR FEELINGS INVOLVED? Hard for YOU? Like hell I want to speak to these people. So, BYE. That’s a wave. Like hell I needed MORE bullshit parents, bullshit. Strange attachments over WHAT? I’m so angry. I hate these people, even. My childhood story was a fucking nightmare. The guru was THE STAR. THE APEX.
I’m eager to run tests, no?
The thing is I went through a medical emergency.
Throw in a political assassin, into the mix, a wannabee.
I just hope everything checks out, I hope I keep healing, and you know, I hope that my life will turn around. I hope I settled what I needed to. I just felt, these men were truly unfair. They played unfair. I came from where I did, so I didn’t see the guru, and he would never have acted that way with… anyone publicly.
Luckily, there’s ART — even BART — Simpson. It’s not what happens to you but what you do with it. So I hope to pick fun monologues, bring a stunning truth and rawness to the acting of the words, “wow,” right, “look at her get upset, twisted up, she was manipulated, wow, and she got out of a cult, she has no clue, but in the tremor of her eye, she will, she’s going to… realize, flip out, something.” I love acting for that reason, right? “Riveting, raw, she went there.” You can go there, “get ugly, absolutely,” so I’ll be hovering in that place, trying for big emotion, high stakes. Might as well. I’ll try and turn this into a comedy routine, specifically the psychic period, Dr. J, the witch of the century, a real witch, she lives, that’s what she looks like, a witch! Chomping on raw garlic cloves, calling them her candy… in the Middle Ages, Dr. J would have been targeted real fast. If you start calling raw garlic cloves your candy? The authorities are coming after you.
I’ll work on these characters, especially the guru, see if I can —brows raised — bring him to life. Hands behind his back, “what’s the FEEEEELING?” I’ll give it my best shot. I’ll keep working on my book about these years. I’ll work on the material on Barbara Harris too, and hopefully I’ll move into a new world. I just felt like I got knocked down a lot this past decade. And it was unreal, 100% — but in order to get better, I had to treat it as real — completely alone. But I’m supposed to want to talk to my friends who acted like it wasn’t. One of my friends answered my calls, a couple, thanks. In general, I just thought, alright, I sold myself short, a bit, and I should reach for more. But as I said, it’s more that, I didn’t create a life…
Like all these people — they have their own lives, friends, a circle of friends, you see, and that’s what I don’t have right now, or just people they are close to, like, if Adrienne, thinking about my one friend, were in the hospital? How would she react? THEY are intimate friends. If JO were in the hospital, what would you do? If Courtney were in the hospital? Now, I’m thinking about their close friends, and wondering what they would do?
It’s funny, because no one thinks of sending someone who was in a mental hospital with a GET WELL CARD. Flowers. Shit, she needs CARE. Here’s a pillow. You know? She’s having panic attacks, do you need anything?
You know what I mean?
“ASTOUNDING.”
“THIS IS THE MENTAL HEALTH MOVIE OF THE CENTURY.”
Tough time. I understand you, and I can’t help but understand myself. I’m ripping through boxes, checking pictures, looking for these instances I was home, during this scandal, going, “where did I sleep? Was this true?” Totally alone. You could say that changes you. How would you feel if you heard that your mother handled you inappropriately, sexually, suggestively? You know? This isn’t a emotional sentence—haha, that’s funny to me. This is drily delivered. How would you feel? If you went through a total shitshow, where ayahausca is also reactivating itself in your gut? I mean, just please. I’m just trying to get to the doctor, and I can’t, because I have to go through disbelief, too, so I can’t even think of it, lol. That took years. And there was a “get well” path, let’s say, and I had to walk that.
It’s less my friends, or that I’m criticizing them, it was more… I looked around at MY LIFE and went, I think these people have people who would — be solidly at their side, you see. But then, the “nothing happened” routine, I didn’t understand how this is supposed to help anyone. “Go to a doctor, no?” Is that groundbreaking?
Regardless.
Shouldn’t you get checked out?
This body worker is looking at me with “appropriate wide eyes,” nodding, one of these “this is yours, this is mine” people, I swear, “uh huh,” and if someone is having sensations in their body, why not send them to a physician first? That’s what Dave said. There’s, uh, a body, body worker. Just this physician going, “in your vaginal TUBE Maria?”
“You’re experiencing sensations?”
“Here,” I touched it, it was amazing, because whatever this sensation was in my gut, I don’t even know what to say about it. A message hit me in the night. It was intense. It affected my ability to eat, and when I admitted to myself, in agony, that maybe someone sent this to me? That helped, actually, which was funny. I don’t know what to say. I suppose I felt like I could speak from that place, like there was hate in it, but I get what Dave is saying, “if you’re experiencing pain in an area of your body, why wouldn’t you go to a doctor first?”
“There are organs there.”
It’s not like they’re that DEEPLY out of reach?
But in any case, I didn’t make a group of friends. In France, I sort of did, I still have friends there, but I moved. I lived abroad, not like I didn’t make friends, but I moved around, and I guess there was no foundation. I haven’t been back to France in YEARS, but sure, I lived there, but I can’t even afford to go, right now. Right? Okay…so I didn’t even sustain that relationship, even I’ll go back soon, or something, but these dreams ended up being paper thin, in fact, but I was an heiress to this professor, like, I was going to meet a count… but again… I had a basic operational problem with strong issues with marriage and hierarachy, so I’m not so sure if that was going to work out. I wasn’t a character in a novel, I didn’t come from a fucking trust fund, looking at Dave Chappelle, do not even begin, truly, 500k, to this man? Cool, he’d say, nice, actually, not the money to spend. No? DC with all the money he has, is not LOOKING at me, acting like all I have to do is MEDITATE money into existence, please. “It doesn’t MATTER how much the rent is…”
I was a cool lady, sure, but Maria Mocerino the mother in aviators Dave Chappelle my husband, lol, you see, we’re flying to PARIS stat, we’re questioning some of the articles of clothing I’m wearing, we’re wondering about WHERE this is going????? We might score a little weed, sure, but in the end, we’re having a very serious conversation here about direction girl. You know? Just because FRANCE ain’t going anywhere. Like, go in the summers? Plan a vacation. I had to LIVE there, so deeply, but what was I going to do? If you’re thinking about life, as something you’re building, not to say I didn’t have a nice time, but Dave Chappelle knows, already, that I couldn’t have had a better time. Now, if I didn’t touch that money, I could have probably bought a place in Paris, right? Right now. We build over time.
“Find a Duke,” I mean, you could? That’s just funny. I wasn’t like that, but it was more the mystique around me, I didn’t understand with this man. I don’t know WHO that was, I mean, me.
I’m mostly just tying up some loose ends with my thinking.
I’m starting over… so whatever I was doing didn’t work. The direction I went in, did not work. I got out of the hospital, and I was looking around this apartment, right? An apartment that people went, “this is so you,” and I thought, “really?” It was bizarre to me, like, this wasn’t really me. That’s the experience I had. I was even thinking about Justin, a former administrator at school — what the hell was that?
I had no idea what I was doing. And sometimes, MARIA MOCERINO IN AVIATORS is looking at some of these guys like, “dude, my man, this is not the way.” That’s the inner shaman talking. “This is not the way.”
“Look at this girl,” for real, “and wink at Hellen…” does this look like a good idea? Picturing Dave Chappelle — watching me, at this time. But we can get caught up in strange entanglements.
In any case, I got here, whatever that means. So I’m trying to move as fast as I can, I’m trying to evidently… leave my former life behind… I mean, even waking up, like “I’m in a Mexican family? What?” Once gears that deep and significant disappear, even, like they didn’t have to be there? That takes a second.
And I did it, you see, I’m introducing her as my mother, we’re getting closer over time, but now, I would say, “this is a very dear friend, family friend.” You know what I mean? I just had this wonky stupid gear. My second surrogate mother, too, just — whoopee cushion. FART. The other family thing was a maladaptive pattern.
I don’t know what to say, right? Because people hate their families, have problems with this parent, that parent, blah blah blah. For better or worse, this person considers me to be someone close to her. For real. You see, I know what a parent is, a parent is going to lend you 1k okay, so you can move into the apartment, a parent is going to accept your things if you just send it to their house. Wink, sure sure sure, I’m like your kid, but this woman is accepting my shit without warning. I’m sending her bags, boxes, doesn’t matter, three trucks, and she’s going to accept it, she might get annoyed, but she’s accepting it. That’s a parent. Okay? So unless I can send shit to your house, don’t try to play like we’re related in that way.
Anyway, I don’t have a support system. That made some of this grueling, I mean, the utter lunacy, of just the doctor saying “Are you experiencing sensations?” Okay. I hate mental health with a passion. I was so angry with my family, majorly, because they act retarded, sometimes. I’m basically over it, so there you go. I didn’t have anyone who was caring, if that makes sense, like, you were in the hospital, so you should not travel, you should stay close, to me. Support system. You see?
I don’t know how people operate, how they interact with one another, but I have a sense of what I’d like create in my life, basically, the rest, that’s fine, so I’m approaching that step by step. So that’s that, and the past decade, I’ll put on funny music and enact some scenes I participated in. Strangely…low tones… funny suspenseful. The guru takes a big breath, outting one, “KNOOWWWWW what do you wanna KNOOOOWWW…”
“Life is not about what you wanna do, it’s about what you wanna knooooowww.”
Now, I’m laughing, I’m laughing really hard. And if this mother fucker has a problem with it, okay? Guess what? I don’t give a shit. That was a ridiculous move.
“What do I wanna know?”
He did not know, he could not know. He knew what HE wanted to know.
Just this conversation. “My advice?” Since I heard so much from you two?
“Don’t do that.”
I had to make peace with the inner mechanisms, what was unconsciously turning, and think about what I’d like now. I’m 39, I’m not 29, but there’s no reason why I can’t be on a comedy stage, dance around, sex scandal, and come up with a nice routine.
So I’m going to see what I can do, and just rebuild. I’ll make new friends, I’ll make a life, and hopefully this decade will work a little better. A lot better, I hope. I’m telling you, if anything, this decade turned me off completely to drugs. It’s like, hmmmmmmm. Yeah, I’ll pass. I’m going to bed.
I’m just glad I went to a doctor, so I can make sure I’m fine physically, because — if that was psychedelics related, at all, this event I went through, that was horrific. Regardless, it was terrible.
