Slowly Going Sane

The poorly edited journal of recovery

Friday, July 25, 2008

For those of our audience keeping score at home

I had another clearing episode.

Its been more than a year since I have one so I hardly recognized it for what it was. Even after it passed. But here we are again faced with that substantial increase in clarity of reality, if I can be so unspecific, that always accompanied clearing and healing episodes. undeniably, crystalline clear.

It beuaitful.

Looking back now, it followed the old pattern: Migranes, followed by headache days, the return of old symtoms, the constant threat of panic attack, and general malaise. Swelling, lethergy, and that odd tin taste in my mouth. Then clearing quickly, in a few hours, or half a day, followed by the evacuation of, er, bodily compounds. Nose, ears, other places unfit for a family blog.

Thats it all. I just wanted to share. So, if you are scoring at home, rachet up one more exponent level of improvement.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Its been a while

Its been a while since I have been in the grips of one of the depressions that used ot be so common. Black and crushing. It makes for better prose, but offers little else.

I dont know where it came from. I woke up with it this morning. In some ways, it woke me up. A dull ache at the back of my head. I checked, and could tell immediately, that my thoughts were muddied, packed tight with cotton, or fog, or whatever it is that chokes off the light from my thoughts. It got worse. A lot worse.

The pain came. Niumbness in the face, left side, the old poker driven into my gut. My hand gripped tightly into a fist. Thats always a give away. The vision blurred, but not as much as usual. I know a bad one, when I cannot read anymore. But I could read. Just not well. I even talked on the phone twice. The naseua is particularly hard to work with. It gives you the impression that you could vomit out volumes of villainous blackness, and be done with it. But there is no done with it.

If there is a silver lining... Compassion maybe. Sorrow for the broken and the twisted. For the suicides: J's father, A's father. For the inmate who gouged his own guts with a pen waiting for sentencing to try and destroy the ants he felt in there. For the inpatients, with their wrists taped and cuts lining their elbows that I shared the elevator with in Boston. For the fat man with the beard that begged from me in Palo Alto last week, for the girl in the coffee shop who was yelling in terror at the clouds coming down on her. For the young men, losing their fights, and retiring to early graves. For the potential being spent following the internet, instead of following dreams. For E, who would not go out in the daylight for years, and hid behind masks when she did. For Daniel Johnson, whose cannon became increasingly more aware of his brokeness. For Nijinski, who never danced again, for Vicky Vale, who never again acted.

You need to turn away from it. Popular psych tells you to confront it. I tell you to ignore it as best as possible. Just get through until tomorrow. When its your life at stake, its no time to be a hero.

Going to bed.

Bleh.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Hello J

We will have a new reader soon. I always get nervous when I know someone is about to read this. Oscar Wilde said "give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth." Well, this is my mask. Its been my hole in the ground to which I tell my secrets.

But sometimes there is someone you want to hear the truth, all of it, the ugliness and fear and for that reason, we have a new reader. What the reaction will be, I dont know. I dont know how I would react to this blog having stumbled upon it. I have lost all perspective and furthermore, I am vain enough to think it matters.

So, welcome J. If you run screaming, I dont blame you. Its a dark thing. But its mine, and I am proud of it and us and the journey we are all traveling alone together.

an artist growing old

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_RbSAwMa3U

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Daniel Johnson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46HEC4brycA

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Too much

Does anyone in this world feel sane? I know I dont. Most of the time I feel less sane now as I am well than I did when I was sick. Wait. No. Thats not it exactly. Its just that I still wonder if I am nuts. Maybe everyone feels this way. But sometimes, like today, I just sit in a room full of people, and it feels so unreal, and they ask me questions and I know what I am supposed to say, and sometimes I go through the motions, but sometimes I want to reply with an accurate reflection of what is coming up in response and its just..crazy, you know? I mean, I dont know what to say to people. I cannot tell what is real.


Thats it really. Its late. And I am nuts. But arent we all?

For the record: I still take my pills. In CR, I lost my niacinamide for like 10 days, or so. I started regressing in every way. The day I realized this I wept for a long time. I was terrified that it was all going to go back to the way it was. Flowers for Algernon. This still terrifies me. The wellness seems so fragile, so impermanent. I hear that people who get knee surgery say that it takes years to trust your knee again. maybe thats it. It takes years to trust your head again. But there i was, looking up at the sky and it was all rolling backwards to illness and disease again: twitching, pain, the voices, the disperceptions, the weird feeling of stuffed all the time, the lack of effect, the slurring, the speechlessness, the deadness inside. Crawling back, one by one, bit by bit my sanity receeding like a tide. Every hour I felt like that was terrifying. I got my niacinmide, and I take it like a good boy. I take the folate still, the zinc, the C, the b-3, the P5P, the E, the B complex...god, I loathe even thinking about all of them.

Anyway.

I moved back to somewhere I once lived. It has not been entirely pleasant. I see people I knew preillness. Some of them I hurt, some of them I scared. I dont want to see them. Not really. It makes me feel alone and empty. It reminds me of the lost years. W accused me several times of feeling that I needed to make up lost time. I dont know if that is accurate, but I sure feel screwed up. I feel like I am regressing in maturity, maybe I am going back and reliving 20s. Maybe I am just a selfish asshole. probably both. I am done making apologies though. I lost almost 10 years. That makes me abnormal. And I dont mind that. I need to honor that. I am doing that and trying not to hurt anyone. I am not mad, but I am...well oddly numb about those years. I..they are kinda too hard to recall. maybe thats just because it was a long time ago. Maybe my psyche has cordoned them off. If so, good riddance. There are a lot of painful memories there that if forever open and bleeding, they might consume me.

I am really feeling off it right now. everything is spinning so fast. I just want to calmness. That still. Just for a little while. Until I catch up with the other kids. I hang out with young people a lot these days. People my age sometimes dont make sense. They are all so intent on things I just dont care about. Career, mortgages, prestige, retirement. I have all of those things, but they are so thin for me. So thin. And I get so bored talking about them. They say youth is wasted on the young. I dont feel like it is wasted on my. I have a good Gad damn idea what it is worth. But I do feel ashamed for not making better use of it.

And again, I do feel lonely. I wish I had a friend who had gone through illness here in CA. Any major illness really. I just feel...well...alone without someone who gets this. I met someone who did. She is really young, and has never been ill, but when I told her about it, she just looked at me and that was it adn I got that she got it and I cried. Or would have. if I could make tears.

I do sweat a bit now. not a lot. but a 2 mile run in the heat will cause me to make some skin dampness. Thats an improvement. I still dont sneeze. I can on occasion make a tear, but its not enough to fall. My mind is generally slower than it was. Thats a good thing.

Ok, I am blathering.

C- buddy, I hear you are doing better. Well done man. Its going to be a hike for you, and I dont know what life you are going to make for yourself, but its not going to be like the other kids. That doesnt mean it will not be special and good and satisfying. I think of you.

And you X---I think about you by the Lake. I dont know how you are doing, but I think of you.

Well. Good night. Happy 4th.

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