12:25am April 17, 2015

Frustrated. Not a giant squid.

I can’t make my body do what I need it to do.

I feel trapped a lot of the time.

Worse, the people who take care of me have let me get into the mess I got into with meds.

They put me at the center of my life. Which sounds wonderful in theory.

But imagine you’re sitting at the center of a moving kaleidoscope of sensations. Can’t make sense of more than a little. Can control even less.

They tell you how smart you are. Think they’re complimenting you.

You only have two hands.

You only have two hands.

And your species expects at least fifty if not a hundred hands and a brain multitask enough to work them all at once.

You have ten fingers two hands lucky if you can work them all at once in coordination.

They set you at the center of a life-controlling device designed for fifty to a hundred hands and the brain to match.

Your two hands and mono track brain can barely keep you alive. No matter how “smart” you are.

You see a catastrophe coming months away. But to tell anyone, you’d have to take your two hands off the life support system. So you don’t. They wonder why you cry and get more and more agitated.

I’m not a fucking octopus. I’ll never be able to even simulate being an octopus.

I’m scared though I told everyone during this latest crisis I’m not an octopus I can’t be at the center of the machine any longer. And I doubt very much that any of the ones with real power knew what I meant. It’s only those front line staff who see me struggle day to day who have even half a clue and they have almost as little power as I do.

I want help. I want everyone with lots of arms to lend me their arms instead of saying I’m smart enough to turn two arms into fifty. Which has nothing to do with smart.