I’M SORRY! I’ve been having a really weird week – and I think its time to share. SO …. big hollywood news – Cory Monteith died. I lovedddd glee in the beginning and I am not ashamed to admit that I had a mega crush on Finn, he was just your boy next door, quarterback. Tell me ladies, you haven’t once dreamed about what it would have been like to get down with the quarterback of your high school football team? If you haven’t either he was very ugly, or you are lying. There is just something so American about a teenage boy playing football, but I digress and possibly am being a little disrespectful. Anyway, for some odd reason his death has me shaken up a little, and as I’ve tried to explain to my friends … its not exactly that HE specifically died, but that someone so young, with so much potential was just gone .. poof. If you take his addiction out of the equation, objectively he was living the life – he was the star of a hit television show, he had a beautiful girlfriend… I mean, American Dream much? And that is exactly the point I hope people take away from his death – that addiction has NO preference for who it chooses, it doesn’t only happen to the lowly, impoverished, or sad … it can literally affect ANYONE. It is not racist, sexist, classist, ageist …. in other words – there is no human who is immune to addiction.
As I believe with most mental health issues/disorders), it is a combination of genetics and environment. For example – according to statistics, I, personally, am 7x more likely to have a substance abuse problem because of my father and family. This is the genetics, I have the gene that would make becoming an addict both appetizing and efficient. I, however, do not like to drink, I do not surround myself with a lot of people who drink, and this is the environment factor. Although my body wants to be an alcoholic or addict, the environment I’m has prevented this gene from being expressed, allowing me to continue on as a non-addict. This storm of genes and environment conspired against Monteith, creating an addict. Even though by all measures he had no reason to use, and had sought help for substance abuse … something in him that night, some combination of genes and feelings caused him to use, and ultimately caused him to die.
Bizarrely, I’ve been following this pretty closely on twitter, and I noticed an interesting trend. Prior to the release of the autopsy report, universally this was seen as a tragedy. A young, promising, talented star put out before his time. Once it was revealed that his death was caused by drugs and alcohol, the population seemed to split – have remained convinced this was nothing more than a terrible terrible tragedy, the other half all of a sudden adopted the idea that his death was his own fault because he used drugs. This is the most ignorant idea I’ve come across in a long time, and actually angers me. I believe that until you struggle with addiction, you can’t understand why an addict does what they do. I have been fortunate enough not to struggle, and as much as I want to empathize, I will never know what my father went through, and goes through every day. As much as Cory’s friends and family will want to understand, they won’t be able to know why he needed to use.
Now, hopefully you’re all saying … what the f*ck is this twenty-something writing a novel about a teen show star …. its something I HAD to get off my chest … and my friends just don’t understand. As I travel through what I believe Erikson calls the individuality vs. autonomy stage of psychosocial development, I realize that I have to formulate opinions on important things in my life, specifically, death. I’ve lost two very important people in my life, my grandmother and my god father/uncle. In both circumstances the “end” was fairly drawn out. My uncle had stage four, metastatic Melanoma…. basically meaning he had skin cancer that eventually traveled to every other part of him, it took about 1 1/2 years to kill him. My grandmother (who I’ve yet to introduce to you, BUT WILL) was diagnosed with Alzheimers when I was 15 and she died when I was 22. This provided me with the unique opportunity to mourn and grieve them before they were actually gone. It probably sounds crazy – I’d say my grandmother lost mental acuity about 2 year after the diagnosis … giving me 4 years where her body was there, but her mind, what essentially made her.. her, was long gone. After a blow up with my mother, my uncle stopped talking to me, which allowed me to distance myself from what is what going to be like when he died. I took both deaths hard, but I felt it was easier because I had so much time to prepare. In the case of Monteith, and I specifically remember feeling this way when I watched Selena, it was instant, unexpected and there is no way to prepare for it. It’s a “one second you’re there, one second you’re not” kind of situation and that REALLY freaks me out. I pray that I never have to experience a loss that way, and my heart TRULY goes out to those who have experienced it.
OKAY! Drug/Death rant = OVER.
What’s going on in my life you ask? Well ladies and gentlemen, I am taking one giant leap off of the unemployment line. I have obtained a job with a law firm!!!! I mean, a girl who wants to go into legal/forensic psychology…. working at a law firm!!!!!!!!! The lawyer I will be working for is a BOSS LADY. She can’t be older than 30, she has her own firm… WITH AN OFFICE in a city nearby. I really think that she could be a role model for me, even though she may not know it yet.
I don’t really know, but I feel like begging for comments is the equivalent of fishing for compliments but people – I want to know who you are! I want to speak to you!! The whole reason I started this blog was so that I could hear what other people think of my ramblings, the real stuff – not the censored stuff I give to my friends and family. If you think I’m interesting, or stupid … naive or ignorant, funny or charming … TELL ME ABOUT IT!
BB Twentysomething 