104
" She had to think fast if she wanted to maintain the illusion that we were still hanging out in the forest on purpose. We didn’t want to find pine cones. We wanted to go home. But we didn’t really have a choice. Our leader wanted us to collect pine cones, so we obeyed, hoping that we could placate her as quickly as possible and move on. We had severely underestimated how difficult the task was going to be. We’d gather a bunch of pine cones, then trot over to our mother and ask her if we had found enough to be able to go home. “No. But maybe there are more on the other side of that hill,” she’d say. So we’d march over the hill to look for more. When we were on the other side of the hill, she’d say, “See where Murphy is on the far side of that meadow? I bet there are bigger pine cones over there. Let’s go find out!” Then she wanted browner pine cones. Then heavier pine cones. Several hours later, we had come no closer to meeting our mother’s ludicrous standards. We were beginning to lose hope. "
― Allie Brosh , Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
106
" We had spent hours combing the forest for the biggest, brownest, heaviest, cleanest pine cones it could offer, hoping that maybe, just maybe, if we found exactly the right ones, our mother would let us go home. We had bled for them. And now she was telling us that we had to abandon them. We were confused and more than a little demoralized, but we dutifully piled our pine cones near some bushes while our mom started playing “who can yell ‘help’ the loudest and the most” by herself. It was a pretty anticlimactic game and we lost interest quickly. We didn’t understand why she had suddenly become so intensely interested in playing these stupid games. Did she not realize it was getting dark? "
― Allie Brosh , Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
108
" I silently assessed our predicament before deciding to implement the only real plan I could come up with. It was a risky plan—a plan that could easily backfire. But it was my only option. I was going to have to scare my mother out of the forest. Normally, I wouldn’t have been able to think of anything frightening enough to breach her grown-up resistance to scary kid stories. But a few nights earlier, she had watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre while she thought I was asleep. Unfortunately, I wasn’t asleep. I was hiding behind the couch. And I had imprinted everything I’d seen that night. I imagine it would be pretty terrifying to be wandering through the forest at night when, out of nowhere, your eight-year-old child begins describing the plot from the horror film you watched the other night, which, as far as you know, she hadn’t seen. But my mother maintained her composure very well—until a twig snapped, at which point she whirled around shrieking, “WE HAVE A DOG!” As if Murphy’s presence were enough to deter a homicidal psychopath with a chainsaw. It was too much. All the helplessness and frustration that she had been trying so hard to hide from us came rushing to the surface. "
― Allie Brosh , Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
109
" It's not really negativity or sadness anymore, it’s more just this detached, meaningless fog where you can’t feel anything about anythingeven the things you love, even fun things—and you’re horribly bored and lonely, but since you’ve lost your ability to connect with any of the things that would normally make you feel less bored and lonely, you’re stuck in the boring, lonely, meaningless void with-out anything to distract you from how boring, lonely, and meaningless it is.
...I noticed myself wishing that nothing loved me so I wouldn’t feel obligated to keep existing.
The absurdity of working so hard to continue doing something you don’t like can be overwhelming. And the longer it takes to feel different, the more it starts to seem like everything might actually be hopeless bullshit.
I don’t like when I can’t control what reality is doing. Which is unfortunate because reality works independently of the things I want, and I have only a limited number of ways to influence it, none of which are guaranteed to work.
I still want to keep tabs on reality, though. Just in case it tries to do anything sneaky. It makes me feel like I’m contributing. The illusion of control makes the helplessness seem more palatable. And when that illusion is taken away, I panic. Because, deep down, I know how pointless and helpless I am, and it scares me. I am an animal trapped in a horrifying, lawless environment, and I have no idea what it’s going to do to me. It just DOES it to me.
I cope with that the best way I know—by being completely unreasonable and trying to force everything else in the world to obey me and do all the nonsensical things I want. "
― Allie Brosh , Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened