I feel so agitated all the time, like a hamster in search of a wheel. I’m consumed with panic that everyone will find out about this and hate me, or laugh at me, or worst of all, feel sorry for me. Pity me for taking my Everything-That-a-Human-Can-Possibly-Be-Offered and turning it into scallops and Percodan on the emergency room floor.

I can see where people would think that my life is great, so why can’t I feel it? It’s almost like I’ve been bad and I’m being punished by rewards—this self-indulgent white chick whose inner voice says, “Look how spoiled you are. Go on, have another great thing. What are you gonna do about it, huh? What are you gonna do about it?”

The thing about having it all is, it should include having the ability to have it all. Maybe there are some people who know how to have it all. They’re probably off in a group somewhere, laughing at those of us who have it all but don’t know how to.

The positive way to look at this is that from here things can only go up. But I’ve been up, and I always felt like a trespasser. A transient at the top. It’s like I’ve got a visa for happiness, but for sadness I’ve got a lifetime pass. I shot through my twenties like a luminous thread through a dark needle, blazing toward my destination: Nowhere.

DAY SIX

This is hard—I feel like I’ve got bugs flying around inside of me. I called my friend Wallis today, and I tried to get the operator to say, “Collect call from hell, will you accept the charges?”

After not feeling anything for years, I’m having this Feeling Festival. The medication wears off and the feelings just fall on you. And they’re not your basic fun feelings, either. These are the feelings you’ve been specifically avoiding—the ones you almost killed yourself to avoid. The ones that tell you you’re something on the bottom of someone’s shoe, and not even someone interesting.

I talked to my agent and ended up in tears, which is not my favorite presentation of myself. Crying to my agent. I tried very hard not to, but I didn’t have a chance. I’ve used up all the Not Cry I was issued at birth. Now, it appears, it’s crying time.

I talked to my mom briefly. I was afraid that she’d be mad at me for messing up the life she’d given me, but she was very nice. She said a great thing. I told her I was miserable here, and she said, “Well, you were happy as a child. I can prove it. I have films.”

What went wrong between what she gave me and how I took it?

DAY SEVEN

How old do you have to be to get past caring?