I got this message in my inbox today:

"i mean no offense….really….but are you a graduate student doing a sociological thesis on depression and drug abuse? your capacity for communication is amazing. "

WTF??!!

You got me.  I am actually a forty year old professor named Mortimer Schmidt, and this whole thing’s been a rouse (I just have nothing better to do).  And, all you guys who thought I was hot, you can all go puke, now.  Hahahaha….

Of course I’m for real.  I am a real, live, 28 year old girl, who happens to be a writer, bipolar, and a junkie.  Would anyone cop to adultery, heroin addiction ,and bipolar disorder, if they didn’t actually live these things?

My first response was simply amusement.  It is sort of flattering, I guess, that someone thinks  that my communication skills are so impressive that they would jump to the conclusion that I manufactured my entire existence.  But, it is a little hurtful, the more i think about it.  It’s not simply being accused of lying that troubles me.  It’s more that I don’t think anyone would doubt the voracity of my story if I were merely bipolar.  Intelligence doesn’t clash with anyone’s preconceived notions about manic depression. 

I’m just not what most people have in mind when they think about heroin. 

I never finished my undergrad (yet), so I cannot be a grad student.  I have been in and out of rehab/psych care (Lakeshore Hospital, three times, Reed hospital once).  I have been picked up by police, done the court bit, and I actually have a couple misdemeanors I need to get expunged off my record at this point.  I’ve thrown life away with both hands, time and again, because I was too sick too care (even after laying in a jail cell, waiting for Charlie to come get me, using a roll toilet paper as a pillow), and I wish to God this was all just some project, or a story, but that doesn’t even really make sense when you think about it.  For one, no professor would ever sanction such a research project – all my subjects would be unwitting and unwilling, and my own page would be valueless as a research tool (if it were manufactured, all it could serve to do is influence the people I would supposedly be studying), and I’m not really sure what kind of research would even be aided by telling such elaborate lies.  In any case, I don’t spend enough time on other people’s pages to "study" them. 

I am smart, and articulate, and I can write.  As I have mentioned, I was one of the top two writers, in my dept. at Loyola University, at one time.  I’d like to just take the wild idea this person cooked up as a strange compliment, but it’s such a bizarre leap in logic.  History is full of brilliant, and talented addicts – artists, musicians, and writers (some of our best minds).  The fact that someone would sooner doubt my reality than accept the possiblity of an articulate, intelligent, and artistic heroin addict – that’s just sad.

And, of course, it makes me sad, being doubted by others in this way when I have done my best to be a good friend in this community.