There is a pervasive malady that strikes virtually all who are striken with some form of mental illness, be it Borderline Personality Disorder, Bi-Polar Affective Disorder, as in the case of the sad and unfortunate Kurt Cobain, shown here hiding behind grungy hair, schizophrenia, clinical depression, Multiple Pesonality Disorder, or a whole host of illnesses that can and usually are, emotionally crippling to the sufferer.Nothing feels worse than loneliness.It eats away more voraciously than hunger, thirst, sexual desire or need to succeed.Connecting with another human being who truly UNDERSTANDS us is so difficult when you are locked in a world of your own making: A virtual mental prison.I suppose I am using Kurt for an example because, although he had the adoration of millions of fans, a loving wife and a beautiful little girl, he felt alienated and set apart from a world he knew would never be his to claim.So he took that final step that so many desperately and lonely people do, when they feel NOBODY can reach them.

They opt out of life as we know it.This has been my planned alternative on more than one occasion, but one miracle or another kept occurring to keep me alive for some reason, unbeknownst to me at the time.

Each time I was revived or "brought back from the precipice, I railed out against my unwanted saviours and spat in their faces.Alienation is a major topic for my favourite, life-saving and enormously influential band, R.E.M. Peter Buck one said quite pointedly, "We're a band for alienated kids".

Well, although at forty-two I am hardly a kid, although I was asked for ID when I was thirty-five while attempting to purchase a bottle of Chardonnay, I am where they are, emotionally and situationally. All my yuppie contemporaries, including my brother whom I love dearly, have moved on from university to profession, to marriage and now, in my sibling's case, a planned family. (I'm going to be an aunt!!! Whoopie!!) I, on the other hand, suffered a psychotic break halfway through my junior year of York University in Toronto, Canada, in January of 1977 at the age of twenty-one, and spent the next twenty years in emotional isolation.The psychiatric hospital can help the creeping alienation, for there you meet people who are where you are and bonds are formed.

But my bonds were severed when I was placed on a concentration camp-like ward, "The Behaviour Modification Unit, given massive doses of Haldol,a potent, dangerous drug by injection every few hours, which tramsformed my formerly tranquil and subservient self into a mad, whirling dervish who even came runing nude into the dayroom one evening and sat on a middle-aged man's lap. Well, maybe HE didn't mind, but when the effects of the drug began to wear off, I was mortified. I won't even wear short shorts, a halter top or a bikini, though everyone says I have the figure for it. ( I don't, because nearly every square inch of my skin is scarred with self-inflicted injuries.

So here I am, alienated and living at home with my mom, which works out fine because we have worked very hard on our relationship, but the Inernet is practically the only social interaction, if you can call it that, which I have.

Kurt Cobain was alone in a crowd. When I venture downtown, which hasn't been lately because of a sprained ankle, I am "alone in a mass of humanity", as the saying goes.

I would like to be more of a social being, but then I freeze and look to the Inernet to comfort and keep me company.

Like Kurt Cobain, I have a talent but it is not enough. Whatever success I achieve with my book, if I feel I don't belong anywhere, that I fear success as he did, then God only knows what will happen.

How many fans of Kurt and R.E.M. are out there who feel alienated and disenfranchised? I may be a latter-day Boomer, one of those who seem to represent what is wrong in the world, but they neither know me or realize I exist. As far as I am concerned, I am like Michael Stipe's close friend, Jane Pratt, in that (and forgive the lame cliche) I think I have my "finger on the pulse of Generation X". You are my legacy, as I am yours. We are not of the yuppie, Boomer world. I have been called a "slacker" and a "grunger" by many of my contemporaries. I did not attend my twentieth high school re-union in 1994, not just because I wasn't formerly invited ( I was voted "Most Likely To Commit Suicide By Age Thirty", as I was severely anorexic and into street drugs),so as far as I am concerned, they can go to their executive jobs, slave away at thier money-making jobs and tool around in their BMWs with their cell phones cleched in their upight fingers. I'm going to end this section with a haiku for Kurt:

Wild, grungy blond wraith,
Shattered body, powdered throat
.....music breathing on.

jane wanklin,
1997
May he find his niche in, as far as I am concerned, is the "poster boy for the alienated.
"All in all is all we are"---Nirvana