The fog. Is someone out there? Silly play in the grass is somehow nothing. Was I supposed to notice? We crawled in the sewer vomiting yet we wanted to trust in the cider of crawling hides.
Oblivigation
3
Author Archives: illimitron
All right dammit.
Hey look it’s old me at Borders…a company where customers would come in and say WOW I’D LOVE TO WORK HERE and I’d want to yell YOU DON’T HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MOTHERFUCKING CORPORATE BULLSHIT IT IS HERE!
I’m an hour away from being 3 days sober. This is fine. I’m not in danger of losing this streak tonight.
However, I have nothing positive to say. Yes I know that’s not true because I just wrote something that was.
I’m in the middle of a post-trigger jagged silence. Fought with my best friend tonight and wound up feeling like I’m 8 years old trying to figure out how to appease my sister……what does she want? What can I say to get her to stop? Nothing worked. Nothing.
So I had the bright idea of opening this blog up and writing, since I haven’t written in a bit, and most of the recent blog entries have been when I was drunk anyway.
I had a feeling tonight was going to be hard, but not this hard.
I’m not ready to go another year or more of having online-only friends (read: 90% acquaintances) due to delta and COVID and fucking anti-maskers and -vaxxers and bullshit social media lies and disinformation. I had a glimmer of hope where me and my brother and family (but not my fucking sister) went to mom n dad’s house and played cards; we did this in June I think. The days just run together now. It’s not likely that will happen again anytime soon.
People have been seeking therapy like mad. I have a therapist; she had to cancel today because sadly she had an urgent family matter. Therapy will be Friday instead.
I feel like I could remain silent the rest of the night, or scream in my own private moshpit in the parking lot. And yes WordPress “moshpit” is one word you amoebic throatsack.
I hope reading Brandon Sanderson will be good tonight if I can do it without falling asleep first. It’s going to take some time for my body and mind to fully expunge the alcohol.
Social media is a disease yet it’s all I have at the moment.
Honestly. Hold me. But it ain’t gonna happen. So I’ll keep drinking water and hugging my plush bear and crying. And fuck you there’s no such thing as “ugly crying”. I don’t do dainty fucking photo-op tears. I do full wracking sobs and there’s nothing you can do about it.
I am toxic when I drink.
I think I might have written this before, but it’s almost 3am (22 hours sober) and I need to quit. And not just because I turn into an asshole.
Yesterday when I was hung over I tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t because, due to throat swelling (and how the throat settles when snoring starts), I’d stay asleep for a couple seconds and then wake up having to breathe. Later on the swelling abated and I was able to sleep.
But this scares me. I quit beer because it doesn’t agree with me, whiskey because of throat swelling…and now wine is doing the same thing.
So I must quit. But the habit is so strong that I’m scared I won’t quit.
Murmur
Robin Williams in “Dead Poets Society” told me that I need to produce a poem before Monday.
My mind sinks through my neck
murderous linkage
my right hand at my side
limp
but ready
to destroy sanity
Squeeze
the eyes would be scanning every move
if they were alive
Somehow nothing
nowhere
Not
I’m trying
What?
Stop.
Stop trying to love me.
It is a fantasy
What do you know
I’m still trying
Would my heart explode if you didn’t tell me about it first?
Something else has to come out tonight.
I’m listening to calming meditation-style music before I get in the bed once I’m doing writing this. I had a depersonalization episode and some panic earlier, and I want to give myself a calming experience before bed. I’m still not as emotionally regulated as I want to be, but I’m working on it.
It will probably get better the more non-alcoholic sleep I get. I drank for the 3rd night since I last saw my therapist, and that night was last night. I don’t usually drink 3 times in a week anymore, and my mind and body are dysregulated largely because of this. And also because my brother is going into a virtual outpatient hospitalization beginning Friday morning, and I’ve experienced a lot of what he’s experiencing emotionally…this means that I’m taking on some of his emotional state, and I’m trying to moderate that. I told him earlier tonight that I really couldn’t listen anymore this evening to the stuff going on in his head because of this, and he was very receptive. We both know that we need to take care of ourselves, and we’d already talked for hours about how compromised and scared he feels (and I feel), so I think we were heaping stuff upon ourselves.
I requested that we focus on baseball or other things, so we did.
Then I used a DBT TIPP skill: Temperature–I filled my bathroom sink full of cold water and immersed my face in it while holding my breath. It seems to have helped a lot. The TIPP skills are meant for basically emotional emergencies where you need to stop panic or heart racing immediately. I think it worked ok. I’m also glad for my bedtime meds.
So ok, I think I’m done for the night. Gonna listen to the soothing music a bit more.
I hope this helped someone.
Crying.
None of this bullshit picturesque photo-op-worthy “one tear going down the side of my face” crap.
Sobbing. People say it’s “ugly crying” and I say fuck off. I’ve always hated that phrase. Because it’s the “ugly” crying that gets the deepest from inside of me and brings it out. Anything less seems useless to me.
Especially when talking about why I’m writing this today: I have an alcohol craving. My body doesn’t want it. I don’t even like wine (and I don’t like beer much anymore and I can’t drink hard alcohol unless I want to REALLY mess my throat up among other things). Going to the store to get alcohol increases my potential exposure to COVID, though I am vaccinated and always wear at least two masks (recently with the outer mask being the KN95 variety).
I keep thinking of the line from Emperor’s “Empty”, taken from Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire and Demise (I’m not sure what Ihsahn ultimately meant by the lyrics, but each person brings their own interpretation to things):
“The constant struggle for a moment of quiet indulgence
Eventually stirred and quaked the earth so hard
It swallowed him in a dark and heavy cloud
Slowly and gently starving him into insanity”
(I was going to put Emperor’s logo here, but then realized it’s a trademark and I don’t want to run afoul of things.)
It’s all one big habit. I drink less than I used to, but it affects me more since I’m not so young anymore.
So, will I go get wine? Will I fight it by playing guitar and doing online work? (I’ve already done some of the latter).
We’ll see. Until then, vulneratus.
I could be inspired by a twig.
Here’s a little peek into my thought processes when coming across something. I think of or experience stimuli and ask questions about it.
A twig.
Where is the twig? What color is it? How old is it? Is it on the ground or on the tree? Has anyone touched it? Did they harm it? Did a person get hurt touching it? Did someone view it and get inspired, or depressed, or angry at the innocence of the twig?
I could write thousands of other questions.
This is where my poetry comes from. It is almost always a stream of consciousness thing that allows me to express myself in the purest way possible.
How about a tomb? A sidewalk? The possibilities are limitless. And with this limitless energy I might be saved from alcohol if I choose.
Because the war inside my head is energy. Anxiety is energy. We can do things with these things that aren’t destructive if we choose. Habits are of course very hard to break (as I know well for myself). But this possibility is always there. The beauty of expression though everyday objects.
I could write a poem about a candy wrapper.
A bit confused. Maybe you can help me.
We won’t talk about that.
Convenient forgetful spiders
fleshly displeasures
I won’t measure my knuckles
I won’t measure my fingers
I won’t measure up.
capricious comparisons
what do we want?
Do I talk to me or us?
Let’s take a stand against
Void. Would this help?
Does that encapsulate you?
There would be
no one
who understands
Until maybe one day just maybe someone help you fucking people isn’t there someone whom I can trust no of course not but why please I’m hurting every single day and it doesn’t matter to anyone except me so god dammit stop the war in my head stop stop stop stop stop STOP
Oh boy, buckle up.
Here is a slightly altered (for clarity and removal of personal details) bunch of texts I sent my best non-family friend a short while ago. The people reading this who are or have been in the psychiatric system may relate:
(My brother’s) panic has gotten worse since he was prescribed a supplemental med for anxiety; what he was taking was discontinued, and he’s been having a hard time existing. He’s doing a lot of self care but he can’t do things like field questions about his situation without getting physically afraid.
He took the supplementary med for 3 days, felt worse, stopped, and still feels worse. After doing an in-person consult with a resident psychiatrist (he doesn’t have his own dedicated psychiatrist, but is going to try to get one…now that everyone wants one…during COVID….fuck.), the resident told him to do a virtual partial program, the length of which I’m not sure about yet.
Personally I think the resident doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I went through something very similar 10 years ago and the hospital put me in a partial program and I felt worse because I was hearing others’ stories and was in no way emotionally prepared to cope with them.
I’m worried this is going to happen to him. But apparently he’s supposed to do the partial program and then (or at the same time?) they’ll prescribe something.
It starts in 8 days, on a Friday (presumably for intake purposes on the first day, and then perhaps 5 days M-F the following week?).
The only thing that helped me was new medications (and the introduction of an SSRI that is very very similar to what I was taking; more on that in a bit); I compiled a list of for him.
He’s currently looking for a provider who takes his insurance. But dammit he’s emotionally and mentally compromised–he’s having trouble parsing out sentences, and just now–literally just now, not during the sending of the original emails–he asked me something that I know we’ve talked about at least once, and that I’ve sent him an email on…but HE DOESN’T REMEMBER BECAUSE HIS PSYCHIATRIC SELF IS ALL MESSED UP AND THE GODDAMN “PROFESSIONALS” AREN’T LISTENING.
He’s my best friend and I feel afraid and alone because he isn’t the same. I want him back. He wants him back I want what’s best for him and I have no control over it. So this is very hard territory for both of us, but more for him.
I know EXACTLY what he’s feeling like. I wish I had never started taking meds. I know I probably need them. But if they change or go away, THIS SHIT CAN HAPPEN. I spent 2 months of my life wanting to kill myself every morning but not doing it because I was afraid to do it and have a very low pain tolerance. And this is the 10 year anniversary of me going through that. I WANT MY BROTHER BACK.
But for now, all I can do is be a support, and sob, and get by as best I can.
It’s so hard not to think that he’ll never get better. I truly believe I felt better 10 years ago because, after I’d completely withdrawn from Lexapro, I started Celexa (which at the time was generic and Lexapro was not, and which is extremely molecularly similar to Lexapro), and inside THREE DAYS it was like a light switch went off and I felt MUCH better.
I believe a deficit was created in my brain that was corrected by Celexa, though I can’t prove that. I do know that Xanax and prazosin helped me immensely with sleep and nightmares, and I’m just like CAN’T THIS FUCKFACE OF A RESIDENT SHRINK PUT HIM ON THOSE AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS? WE’RE TWINS FOR FUCK’S SAKE!
(and it’s also very likely he has no recollection of exactly what he said to the resident today. Sob.)
Part of the issue is that he isn’t withdrawing from Lexapro; he was forced to stop taking buspirone at night due to discontinuation. So our situations aren’t exactly the same, but the symptoms seem to be.
Psychiatrists introduce this stuff to people, and they have no idea what the long-term effects might be or how severe the withdrawal can be. Hell, most of them haven’t even had to TAKE THE FRICKING DRUGS and haven’t gone through CPTSD AND HELL AND CHILDHOOD TRAUMA AND AVOIDANT PERSONALITY DISORDER ET FUCKING CETERA.
So there you have it. The dangers of psychiatric drug withdrawal and medication changes.
Suffice it to say, black metal and Slayer have been my friends
Crease
The forehead.
Terrified
Expectant
I look around waiting
helpless
how was it supposed to be
I was supposed to be.
Instead of the twinges
telling me I need to stop
Fuck your love
Fuck your hate
Do I have your attention
Of course not
Whatever
Nothing I say
Can make you love me
Or hate me
But indifference
Ignorance
Doubt
Cut me off
Cut me from the block
Cut everything
The invisible blood you have no idea exists.
No.
sabatimus 