Pride

Oh, the Internist is gonna be so proud. I love to make my doctors PROUD. 

Now it's brain fog. But hey, lost a lot of weight and stopped ADHD medication. Plus flashbacks of hospitals and of multiple near death experiences. My brain is tired. 

So it's more of the same. Rest, mild exercise, nutrition, electrolyte water, calm app. 

Do I revel in being miserable? Not quite. Seriously, you try stopping Clozaril after 21 years and see what happens. You stop retaining water, you stop wanting to eat, headaches, flashbacks, moodswings, BP changes, heart rate drops, even your body temperature is different. Slightly lower. Fatigue, nausea, tingling, twitches, tinnitus... feeling narcoleptic because you don't sleep deeply. 

But seriously, if that stuff was helping, how did I manage to OD on three bottles of scripts while on a therapeutic dose? Anyone? Anyone at all?

It wasn't helping. So now the chemically suppressed memories and emotions come out and the body struggles to keep the mind together. I have to keep the body alive while the mind heals.

The Rose

Some say love, it is a river

That drowns the tender reed

Some say love, it is a razor

That leaves your soul to bleed

Some say love, it is a hunger

An endless aching need

I say love, it is a flower

And you, its only seed

It's the heart afraid of breaking

That never learns to dance

It's the dream afraid of waking

That never takes the chance

It's the one who won't be taking

Who cannot seem to give

And the soul, afraid of dying

That never learns to live

When the night has been too lonely

And the road has been too long

And you think that love is only

For the lucky and the strong

Just remember in the winter

Far beneath the bitter snows

Lies the seed that with the sun's love

In the spring becomes the rose

Mind Your Own Business Series 4/21 p2

Anyways. So, meds are not the ultimate solution

Diagnoses are not the ultimate solution.

Genetics and chemicals? Well, I'm gonna go back to the nature vs nuture.

All of these disorders? Well people like to look for answers or find causes or demons.

Some people jump to look at their genes... others find a chemical or food or an environmental factor such as electronic devices or the weather...

History plays a role, in combination with the rest. I do not doubt that any of the disorders are not "real". They are complex. Autism, ADHD, Depression of whatever type, and Dissociation.

The thing I noticed about Covid was how psychological it became. People did die. I tested positive at one point. For me it was like a mild flu. But I saw people thinking they had it when they didn't, time after time. The thing that lasted was that autism spectrum seemed to become more widely known. I had to think about that. 

ADHD... I've seen so often, parents of kids with ADHD, they get focused on the diagnosis whether they medicate or not, and it becomes an animal of its own. When there's so much to the relationship and the person. And then people don't see the social factors that are playing into the diagnosis. They don't see the nurture side of the causes and what drives it. The medications that are used most commonly? Methamphetamines, a close cousin of amphetamines. One of the earliest uses of amphetamines? Hitler gave his soldiers amphetamines at the outset of world war II to make them stronger and more energetic/fanatical. The result? Some of the worst atrocities mankind has ever known. These drugs, they crystalize the thought... but there are environmental factors. Eating a healthy diet. Getting enough sleep. Positive emotional relationships. The absence of head trauma, both physical and psychological. You have two kids and one has an LD? Maybe it's not the kid. Maybe it's not pure genetics. Maybe it's more complicated then that. Maybe, just maybe, you had a genetic predisposition, and the social and environmental factors did the rest. There will always be the weak and the strong. Both mentally and physically. Head trauma can cause all sorts of LDs. Head trauma isn't just physical trauma. It's psychological trauma. Accidents. Abuse. Neglect. Not that anyone needs to beat themselves up. It just means that it's not random, it's not just genes, and it's not just drugs.

Mind Your Own Business Series 4/21

So, I've been thinking more about boundaries and minding one's own business.

I used to not have the slightest understanding of boundaries. I applied rules. Simplistic ones. Then I came off Clozaril and my feelings opened up. Man. Coming off Minipress was an extremely frightening experience. Shit got epically real in all the wrong ways. Do not ever take that red pill. Don't do it. I'm telling you. Those things are highly dangerous. 

Coming off Clozaril was much different. It was like leaving the matrix and seeing reality for the first time. Both the internal reality and the external. Oh, Prichards was angry. He was no longer God. He was also afraid. He was afraid for the world to see what he had created. And then everyone was afraid. I didn't like what I saw in many cases. People didn't like that I could see.

I could see the fakeness. I could see the façades. I could see the corruption. I could see the dirt, and the ugliness. Oh they came up with all sorts of names. They brought out the big guns to shut me up and medicate me back. Oh, they pulled out every tool. So yeah, I got angry. It's not something you can forget. It's not something you should forget. It was a lesson.

Yeah, I got a lot of heat. I had been the good little soldier, taking my drugs and staying in line. Thing is, those same drugs that were my "salvation"... Clozaril "my" medication. My "gold standard". My angel in the form of a pill. The second coma? The one I went into the day that McClean released me? The one that should have killed me if the first one didn't? Well guess which med I was on at the time? The one that was supposed to save me. I was on Clozaril when I went into a coma. Well ain't that fuckin beautiful. Genius. It did a damn good job. They barely brought me back. Barely. Damn good job. Let's take more and have coma #3, why don't we?

The time I had dialysis? I was on gold standard #2. Lithium. Damn good job lithium. Sure did work. Just brilliant.

Coma #1? CDC phone call? Delirious and trying to rip wires off my body with 3-4 people holding me down? That was Depakote. Good job meds. Good job.

Thank the Shrink, I am saved. I'll thank the ICU and ER staff instead. The shrink can go fuck himself.