idol worship, and heavy, depressing, near death stuff

I am one of about ten people in this country who have no interest in or use for American Idol.  I saw this show when I was a kid and it was called Star Search.  It sucked then too.

I have fundamental problems with our country’s sense of cultural accomplishment when we reward people for winning this show.  And I find the audience reactions to the judges critiques, with their oohs, ahhs, and wooos, wrecthedly nauseating.  The only one I even have the most remote use for is the grouchy old limey who humiliates them and refuses to pander to the audience’s need for constant happy times. 

When idiots ask me if watched American Idol last night, and I politely say no, they look at me as if I just announced I was Joan of Arc.  Why is everyone so determined it is our American obligation to fill our minds with this garbage?

I think one of the biggest basic differences between Aspergers and neurotypicals is that Aspergers generally don’t find mindless bubblegum entertainment nearly as appealing as the NT’s do.  Even when I watch a Yankee game, I find myself going over players’ stats in my head, questioning the manager’s batting order and use of the bench, predicting what might happen.  Yeah, sure, it would be nice to not have that constant need to analyze, recite, predict.  It might even be nice to vapidly stare at the tv screen while a dumb hick with a standard cop-issue mustache asks if I am smarter than a fifth grader.  I doubt it, but it might be. 

The big thing that bugs me as that as long as NT’s keep watching crap like AI and Fifth Grader, the network pinheads will keep cranking it out.  It’s like the American viewing public is saying “More crap, please!!”

All right, enough fun.

Do you know what it feels like to almost die?  I do, and it isn’t as cool or surreal as tv makes it look like. 

When I was in my freshman year of college, during summer semester, I was at a bad place in my life.   I was being treated for the wrong disorder, and my Asperger problems that were undiagnosed and untreated were causing static with my loved ones and putting me heavy depressions.  I was prescribed an antidepressant called Paxil by a local quack.  Paxil has worked wonders for many, many people, but for whatever reason, I reacted badly to it.  Sweat rained off me in horrifying amounts, and my mind begin to fill with suicidal urges.  I would close my eyes and try to picture what my funeral would look like.  I thought that at least everyone would be wearing black, my favorite color, so that might be cool.  Mostly I thought death would be nice so I wouldn’t have to see my father any more, wouldn’t have to listen to my mom’s nagging that I do things her way, wouldn’t have to mop sweat off my head or talk to psychatrists about how it felt when my father was knocking me from room to room.  There would either be nothingness, or there would be an afterlife.  After about a week of my Paxil-heightened suicidal ideations, I decided that either possibility sounded better than my certainties in this world.

One morning, after my mother had gone to work, I took every Tegretol pill in my prescription and then emptied a large bottle of Tylenol.  My sister was home, as school was out for summer, and she was downstairs watching tv.  I dressed myself and got ready as though I was heading down to the junior college I attended for my summer classes.  I staggered through the house, and grabbed my keys as my sister pleaded with me to not drive because I didn’t seem to be walking straight.  I drove over to my best friend’s house, and only the grace of God kept me from killing someone on the drive there.  I sat talking to him, the medicine taking more and more effect, the edges of my vision turning gray.  I must have admitted to him what I had done, and his grandmother overheard me.  She called my mother at work.

My grandfather and mother arrived in the driveway moments later.  The first thing my grandfather did was to incorrectly assume I was high on illicit street drugs and threaten me. My mother informed me I was going to the hospital. 

The rest of the day is a patchwork memory.  I remember they put me in a bed, while I kept saying I wanted to die.  They hooked several things up to me.  I faintly heard someone say I was in bad shape and my heart might not be able to stand up to the strain being placed on it.  Then they performed one of the most uncomfortable procedures that a human being can experience- they pumped my stomach, and when they finished, they then refilled me with charcoal to soak up the excessive medicine and induce vomiting.

I remember various family members coming in one at a time and patting my hand, saying things I just don’t remember.  I could hardly see, so blurry was my vision.  That’s when the vomiting started.  It didn’t stop for hours.  My mother, grandfather, and best friend informed me that they had finally stabilized me and I would be moved to the psychiatric facility in Macon, GA.  I would have rather died than gone back to that place, having been there a year and a half before, but I knew I had no right to argue.  I had frightened a lot of people.

Like most of this day, the ride to Macon is a collection of bits and pieces in my memory.  I remeber throwing up a few more times on the ride, and how much my abdominal muscles were beginning to cry out in agony because they had been forced to put in such a violent afternoon’s work. 

I don’t remember anything about getting to the hospital except the sensation of being laid down on a bed.  I slept for a very long time.

When I came to, I wasn’t sure if I was alive.  The room was bathed in sunlight, the bed linens clean and white.  I saw in the corner of the room a short, stocky black man who looked to be about 30.

“Am I dead, and God let Kirby Puckett be my guardian angel?” I asked in a voice that sounded very weak and far away.

The man smiled, put down what he was writing, and said “You think I look like Kirby, huh?”

“Aren’t you?”

“No, my man, you’re very much alive.  Gave us all a hell of a scare though.”

Yeah, I know this story doesn’t have much of a climactic element, but that’s kind of the point.  There was no light, no voice, no flashing memories.  Just cold and fear and confusion.  It made me realize that there’s nothing noble or spectacular about death.  It’s just the sad period at the end of whatever sentence you write.

Tags: american idol sucks, asperger, asperger's, i hate american idol, kirby puckett, near death experience, overdose, suicide