Earlier today I grumped about crazy stalkers, because I got an email from one. See, late last year a dude called me and asked if I had represented him and said I was posting tweets about him. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about. I said the same when he emailed me. Today, he emails me and a dozen other people ranting about an internship he had a year ago. Fuck, I thought. Why do I attract these people? I told him to stop goddam emailing me.

/1

/2 So a little while ago his father emails the same string, miserable, contrite. Apologizing for his bright, curious, son who sunk into depression psychosis after a death in the family and a bad experience. Talking about going to his apartment and clean it out and finding the ruins of a manic life interspersed with volumes of Spinoza and physics. Asking for mercy.

/3 I’m known for quite a while that fighting mental illness doesn’t make me more sympathetic, more compassionate, to others fighting it — at least not at a gut level, at least not where I live unguarded. If anything I think it makes me less patient, more mad. Why can’t you be fucking normal for a minute, I want to demand, nominally at them.