After an online friend lamented the lack of boob shots that she felt my "18 and Over" warning promised, I thought I'd better explain.
Although this blog and the links provided are appropriate (and necessary) for some younger viewers/readers, I wanted to convey that some of the situations/events narrated within deal graphically with "R"-rated matter- sex, drugs, death, serious mental illness, and- occasionally- even POLITICS. (By their very nature most of my posts touch on something-or-other political, but it's the "Dear Obama"-type crap that merits a warning).
Speaking frankly, as I am often too apt to do, age is not a defining characteristic of my target readership. There are people in their 60's who may never have the stomach for my subject matter. Some of us never quite grow comfortable enough to chat casually about sex, there is certainly a large contingent of those lacking any sense of humor about mental illness, and there are more unfortunate souls walking the earth who cannot forgive themselves for their past transgressions, nor can they forgive their transgressors.
Those whose view of the sanctuary is terminally obstructed by visions of sin will have to seek truth elsewhere.
For the remainder, I invite you to debate/ suggest/ just check in and PAY ATTN TO ME as we all work towards becoming our own best selves. And stumble. And push on.
Showing posts with label addictions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label addictions. Show all posts
Friday, March 19, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Urban Survival for Complete Imbeciles
First and Foremost! I want to disclaim that the situation you are about to read (about?) is not my fault. The place had shitty plumbing when I moved in- generally taking 3-4 flushes to quaff a modest amount of toilet paper. I never challenged it with female products, I quit feeding it paper towels long ago, and eventually put it on the "paperless diet". It's gotten to the point where I'm happy to see it even dilute my urine in a single flush. At any rate, now that we've clarified who the victim is here. . .
Never, ever, ever assume that all brands of drain opener are the same and thoroughly compatible. Apparently, while one major brand is made of hydrochloric acid (which begs the question of what use it is in declogging a major case of bulimic toilet), others are made out of sodium hypochlorite. Which may be a base, or it may actually be the same thing in colloquial chemistry-speak. Yeah, I don't know.
All I know is that I'm so paranoid about accidentally creating a chemical bomb that I hadn't dranoed my bathtub in a year fearing the implications of hydrochloric acid mixing with any lingering molecules of dried on clean shower spray, or- god forbid- soap scum.
I finally got around to tackling my own stagnant drains when I found myself still standing in yellow water at the end of my shower and several weeks after I quit my first-world habit of trying to flush toilet paper down the loo. Hell, I even tried limiting my butter consumption It seemed to alleviate the issue to some degree, but frankly I feel that the goodness of real butter cannot be measured in plumber's labor hours.
Since I became semi-obsessed with household accidents (and germ transmission) a year or so ago, I had no fewer than three 1/2 to 7/8 used jugs of "U-bend Blaster," "Theta Pi Omega's Party Punch Concentrate" and "Facelift Strength Formula". As I recall, I used one in the shower and the content of the other two in the toilet. I must have lucked out and used the two compatible chemicals in the toilet.
Unfortunately, they didn't work. The water was still foamy with caustic goodness after many, many flushes and the dumping of much hot water. Eventually I had to break the cardinal rule against plunging a pipe full of caustic chemicals. I had to, though- see, I really had to pee and I didn't know how my sweet kidney juice would interact with the remaining drain-opening bubbles.
Unfortunately, this really has not resolved my problem. True, I can once more pee in the shower, but that's not always feasible. I don't think I can quite bring myself to defecate in the bathtub. Perhaps that should go directly into the plastic TP bag.
OR MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, MY LANDLORDS COULD REPLACE MY TOILET
Never, ever, ever assume that all brands of drain opener are the same and thoroughly compatible. Apparently, while one major brand is made of hydrochloric acid (which begs the question of what use it is in declogging a major case of bulimic toilet), others are made out of sodium hypochlorite. Which may be a base, or it may actually be the same thing in colloquial chemistry-speak. Yeah, I don't know.
All I know is that I'm so paranoid about accidentally creating a chemical bomb that I hadn't dranoed my bathtub in a year fearing the implications of hydrochloric acid mixing with any lingering molecules of dried on clean shower spray, or- god forbid- soap scum.
I finally got around to tackling my own stagnant drains when I found myself still standing in yellow water at the end of my shower and several weeks after I quit my first-world habit of trying to flush toilet paper down the loo. Hell, I even tried limiting my butter consumption It seemed to alleviate the issue to some degree, but frankly I feel that the goodness of real butter cannot be measured in plumber's labor hours.
Since I became semi-obsessed with household accidents (and germ transmission) a year or so ago, I had no fewer than three 1/2 to 7/8 used jugs of "U-bend Blaster," "Theta Pi Omega's Party Punch Concentrate" and "Facelift Strength Formula". As I recall, I used one in the shower and the content of the other two in the toilet. I must have lucked out and used the two compatible chemicals in the toilet.
Unfortunately, they didn't work. The water was still foamy with caustic goodness after many, many flushes and the dumping of much hot water. Eventually I had to break the cardinal rule against plunging a pipe full of caustic chemicals. I had to, though- see, I really had to pee and I didn't know how my sweet kidney juice would interact with the remaining drain-opening bubbles.
Unfortunately, this really has not resolved my problem. True, I can once more pee in the shower, but that's not always feasible. I don't think I can quite bring myself to defecate in the bathtub. Perhaps that should go directly into the plastic TP bag.
OR MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, MY LANDLORDS COULD REPLACE MY TOILET
Thursday, October 22, 2009
More adventures from the Mcfabulous state hospital
Amy was beautiful and always gave away her arrival with the forcefield of urine-stench that warded off predators for a good solid 6-8-foot radius. Those rank molecules were not contained solely by the black duster she wore day in and day out, nor in the white blouse that she never changed- not even in the elegant long black pin-around skirt that fortnightly alternated with the denim miniskirt, for the odor continued to penetrate the miserable air even in the showers.
Of two things I was certain: one- that Amy had been seriously overmedicated at some point, leaving her shapely legs unable to adapt a normal standing pose, and two- that there was more to Amy than met the eye.
Carrying a perma-stench was a grevous sin, unlike- for instance- shitting your pants. Sure, one might stew for half and hour or so during shift change, but shit was an inherently temporary state. With shit, eventually, depending on your perceived level of competence, someone would either come along and clean you up or berate you until you cleaned up after yourself. With urine, eventually, stuff dried.
By affirming my vegetarian diet somewhere in the shuffle of intake paperwork, I’d foolishly assumed that I had kosher in the bag. So comfortable and homey was the system that I didn’t even know from which end to begin my rant when the day came that my tray came out with a sticker on the side reading “BEGONIAS- VEGETARIAN” and bearing a steaming fried catfish filet.
Such are the times that testify to the utility of the trays being served by through a slit in a steel door, visual contact between patients and food first being made through Plexiglas and (if the tech is so kind) drawn blinds), requests for condiments being heard (or not) through a hole drilled through. Presumably, there was some rhyme or reason behind the restrictions placed on the number and variety of condiment packets issued each patient: the mind reels at the possibilities: Secret hallucinogenic properties of a sugar rush acquired from the consumption of greater than four packets of sugar in a single sitting? A magical midnight feast drawn together of mixed jelly, mustard, aspartame, and pepper? Generally the reasons behind condiment rationing weren’t so exciting: most often, they were simply out of stock. Occasionally, the serving tech would deem the requested condiments inappropriate for meal congruence and deny them on a whim.
Sometimes, they would decline to serve an entire meal to a patient whose behavior was, in their opinion, not suited to the kitchen on a unit of a high-security state mental hospital.
Of two things I was certain: one- that Amy had been seriously overmedicated at some point, leaving her shapely legs unable to adapt a normal standing pose, and two- that there was more to Amy than met the eye.
Carrying a perma-stench was a grevous sin, unlike- for instance- shitting your pants. Sure, one might stew for half and hour or so during shift change, but shit was an inherently temporary state. With shit, eventually, depending on your perceived level of competence, someone would either come along and clean you up or berate you until you cleaned up after yourself. With urine, eventually, stuff dried.
By affirming my vegetarian diet somewhere in the shuffle of intake paperwork, I’d foolishly assumed that I had kosher in the bag. So comfortable and homey was the system that I didn’t even know from which end to begin my rant when the day came that my tray came out with a sticker on the side reading “BEGONIAS- VEGETARIAN” and bearing a steaming fried catfish filet.
Such are the times that testify to the utility of the trays being served by through a slit in a steel door, visual contact between patients and food first being made through Plexiglas and (if the tech is so kind) drawn blinds), requests for condiments being heard (or not) through a hole drilled through. Presumably, there was some rhyme or reason behind the restrictions placed on the number and variety of condiment packets issued each patient: the mind reels at the possibilities: Secret hallucinogenic properties of a sugar rush acquired from the consumption of greater than four packets of sugar in a single sitting? A magical midnight feast drawn together of mixed jelly, mustard, aspartame, and pepper? Generally the reasons behind condiment rationing weren’t so exciting: most often, they were simply out of stock. Occasionally, the serving tech would deem the requested condiments inappropriate for meal congruence and deny them on a whim.
Sometimes, they would decline to serve an entire meal to a patient whose behavior was, in their opinion, not suited to the kitchen on a unit of a high-security state mental hospital.
Friday, October 16, 2009
A *real* Bipolar Life
. . .not descriptive my moods nearly as distinctively as my life. It takes a year or two for my depressive episodes to successfully mentally castrate me.
For instance, I became pretty gung-ho about suicide at the ripe old age of 9. Or maybe I was 8? What I know for sure is that I was in the fourth grade. So commenced my long, boring, often worthless/ detrimental life in therapy. However, it wasn't until the 6th grade that I opted to trade off leisure time and my brain-mouth filter for passing grades and freedom from the tyrannies of detention.
5 years after that I quit high school and, over the 7 years to follow, spent my time essentially being a winner at life. I travelled around the US and to the opposite end of the Earth. I followed the Grateful Dead (the *real* Dead) I travelled the Russian countryside "riding the dog" (Russian colloquialism for taking the train without buying a ticket.) I dyed my hair blue, red, pink, and purple and taught college classes without considering removing my nosering. I won over 20,000 dollars in grants, largely for the express purpose of going to study in countries known for hard drinking. I met a fabulous girl and married her.
Unfortunately, in my 2nd year of grad school I was socked in the belly by the most ruthless depression I had, till then, experienced. My concentration was so poor that, not only could not read for awhile, but I couldn''t even sustain attention long enough to make it through a sitcom anymore. I also lost a huge chunk of my appetite; I probably averaged a couple hundred calories a day for about 3 weeks. Oddly enough, I didn't notice that I was getting malnourished until one night in bed I discovered my cervical vertabrae. At the time, I also noted how much money I hadn't spent on groceries.
Of course, cash flow from starving myself ended very shortly. I relapsed with my bulimia in all its former glory. I was genuinely aurprised and secretly proud when I was diagnosed with Anorexia a few months later. I mean, I knew that I could puke my way thin, but this was the first I'd heard my 100,000-calories-per-day habit included in the criteria for AN.
While its true that earned my M.A. that year, and, two years later, was awarded my second FLAS fellowship to spend a year drinking in Poland, I never recovered totally mentally/physically and certainly not intellectually. My flame had burned out, and I slogged my way through the fifth year. Unfortunately, 5th year is when your committee and your advisor seem to expect brilliant ideas to actually be developed and ardent copyediting of every last draft. The ten=day long exam sounds like it would suck, as well. I started getting occasional Cs, whereas in my first term I'd actually cried about A minuses. I always felt like a mental midget in graduate school after maintaining a 4.0 GPA (in my field only) through my BA. While my specialty isn't large enough to be considered a big pond, I did feel that I'd gone from big fish/small pond to small fish/small pond.
It's pretty much been upstream in cold waters since then. I've gradually lost interest/ability in everything that once made me at least minimally sociable and lucky enough to have varying regular opportunities to appreciate singlehood (from taking exstacy to going dancing at the S&M club, to taking random jobs- some under the counter- and leaving them on a whim and dying my hair to clash with my mostly Goodwill couture). My friends were family to me and our fundamental duty to one another was to let the good times roll. Having to quit graduate school did a number on my self-esteem & my work ethic. When I thought nothing could be any worse, 2004 really was spectacularly bad, especially exogenously. (Nearly had my foot amputated, the last year of my 20s, an awful president was elected for the first time to a second term, my wife left me.) 2005 sucked me dry and spit me into the wind as I dealt with the end of my marriage by honestly applying myself to suicide. I just went round-and-round the drain of my own misery, pulling anyone who tried to care about me in to drown, too. To top it off, my eating disorder- which is now old enough to drink, BTW- has managed to mature into its most feral and extreme depths in the past 4 years.
I would really like to grow out of this stage, but I honestly believe that 34 may be too late for me to accomplish a life worth writing about, not to mention worth reading about.
(If you actually managed to read this thing, kudos! Leave a comment so I can single you out on tEEf)
For instance, I became pretty gung-ho about suicide at the ripe old age of 9. Or maybe I was 8? What I know for sure is that I was in the fourth grade. So commenced my long, boring, often worthless/ detrimental life in therapy. However, it wasn't until the 6th grade that I opted to trade off leisure time and my brain-mouth filter for passing grades and freedom from the tyrannies of detention.
5 years after that I quit high school and, over the 7 years to follow, spent my time essentially being a winner at life. I travelled around the US and to the opposite end of the Earth. I followed the Grateful Dead (the *real* Dead) I travelled the Russian countryside "riding the dog" (Russian colloquialism for taking the train without buying a ticket.) I dyed my hair blue, red, pink, and purple and taught college classes without considering removing my nosering. I won over 20,000 dollars in grants, largely for the express purpose of going to study in countries known for hard drinking. I met a fabulous girl and married her.
Unfortunately, in my 2nd year of grad school I was socked in the belly by the most ruthless depression I had, till then, experienced. My concentration was so poor that, not only could not read for awhile, but I couldn''t even sustain attention long enough to make it through a sitcom anymore. I also lost a huge chunk of my appetite; I probably averaged a couple hundred calories a day for about 3 weeks. Oddly enough, I didn't notice that I was getting malnourished until one night in bed I discovered my cervical vertabrae. At the time, I also noted how much money I hadn't spent on groceries.
Of course, cash flow from starving myself ended very shortly. I relapsed with my bulimia in all its former glory. I was genuinely aurprised and secretly proud when I was diagnosed with Anorexia a few months later. I mean, I knew that I could puke my way thin, but this was the first I'd heard my 100,000-calories-per-day habit included in the criteria for AN.
While its true that earned my M.A. that year, and, two years later, was awarded my second FLAS fellowship to spend a year drinking in Poland, I never recovered totally mentally/physically and certainly not intellectually. My flame had burned out, and I slogged my way through the fifth year. Unfortunately, 5th year is when your committee and your advisor seem to expect brilliant ideas to actually be developed and ardent copyediting of every last draft. The ten=day long exam sounds like it would suck, as well. I started getting occasional Cs, whereas in my first term I'd actually cried about A minuses. I always felt like a mental midget in graduate school after maintaining a 4.0 GPA (in my field only) through my BA. While my specialty isn't large enough to be considered a big pond, I did feel that I'd gone from big fish/small pond to small fish/small pond.
It's pretty much been upstream in cold waters since then. I've gradually lost interest/ability in everything that once made me at least minimally sociable and lucky enough to have varying regular opportunities to appreciate singlehood (from taking exstacy to going dancing at the S&M club, to taking random jobs- some under the counter- and leaving them on a whim and dying my hair to clash with my mostly Goodwill couture). My friends were family to me and our fundamental duty to one another was to let the good times roll. Having to quit graduate school did a number on my self-esteem & my work ethic. When I thought nothing could be any worse, 2004 really was spectacularly bad, especially exogenously. (Nearly had my foot amputated, the last year of my 20s, an awful president was elected for the first time to a second term, my wife left me.) 2005 sucked me dry and spit me into the wind as I dealt with the end of my marriage by honestly applying myself to suicide. I just went round-and-round the drain of my own misery, pulling anyone who tried to care about me in to drown, too. To top it off, my eating disorder- which is now old enough to drink, BTW- has managed to mature into its most feral and extreme depths in the past 4 years.
I would really like to grow out of this stage, but I honestly believe that 34 may be too late for me to accomplish a life worth writing about, not to mention worth reading about.
(If you actually managed to read this thing, kudos! Leave a comment so I can single you out on tEEf)
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
I am the ultimate asshole
Nothing poetic about it- I am scum of the earth and, ultimately, show loyalty and love only to my twisted compulsions.
I had some hope today- an appointment with a shrink experienced in eating disorders. I promised myself and all who would listen that I was going to do my damnedest to let him lead me and give all doctor's orders a silent but fair trial. Because clearly, I fail utterly and completely at taking charge of my own life. I was prepared to try medications that turn me into a fat-swarthed, drooling, twitching captive. I was expecting to be ordered back into therapy. I psyched myself out to be brainwashed by the 12 steps. I was expecting to be admitted to rehab or an EDU. I was hoping that he would perform some kind of magic to get me charity aid, as centers that actually treat both EDs and other addictions concurrently as few and far between, and none are covered by my state Medicaid.
Unfortunately, nobody bothered to note down that I was given an appointment today- instead they some assigned me the 30th of October. "If I make it that long," I wanted to mutter under my breath, but the reality is far too graphic and dire to diminish with a pathological passive-aggresive reply. I feel like another chunk of me dies every day and I am sick and tired and I will probably have to abruptly stop taking the anti-convulant prescribed to me because I don't have enough refills to last another month-and-a-half.
I just wish I had some goddamn ativan. And some sort of effective sleeping aid. If I could sleep until the date of that appointment, it would at least slow down the deterioration of all of me.
I wish I was a decent human being.
I had some hope today- an appointment with a shrink experienced in eating disorders. I promised myself and all who would listen that I was going to do my damnedest to let him lead me and give all doctor's orders a silent but fair trial. Because clearly, I fail utterly and completely at taking charge of my own life. I was prepared to try medications that turn me into a fat-swarthed, drooling, twitching captive. I was expecting to be ordered back into therapy. I psyched myself out to be brainwashed by the 12 steps. I was expecting to be admitted to rehab or an EDU. I was hoping that he would perform some kind of magic to get me charity aid, as centers that actually treat both EDs and other addictions concurrently as few and far between, and none are covered by my state Medicaid.
Unfortunately, nobody bothered to note down that I was given an appointment today- instead they some assigned me the 30th of October. "If I make it that long," I wanted to mutter under my breath, but the reality is far too graphic and dire to diminish with a pathological passive-aggresive reply. I feel like another chunk of me dies every day and I am sick and tired and I will probably have to abruptly stop taking the anti-convulant prescribed to me because I don't have enough refills to last another month-and-a-half.
I just wish I had some goddamn ativan. And some sort of effective sleeping aid. If I could sleep until the date of that appointment, it would at least slow down the deterioration of all of me.
I wish I was a decent human being.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
In which I manage to stay out of the hospital for an entire month. . .
. . .Only to reemerge with a double-booking- admitted to the local psych floor not 2 weeks before being reunited with my much-maligned regional state hospital for the third time this summer.
I like to blame the latter on the former- I was discharged from the local ward on the second day of a total and abrupt restructuring of my crazy meds, scarcely enough time to pony up a life-threatening allergic reaction, let alone get all one's neurotransmitter receptors aligned and firing routinely on the same side. This was my first total med dump and fresh start in as long as I can remember. While I routinely discontinued my meds gradually in the days following a discharge, this d/c of my anti-depressant and anti-psychotic drugs had the unique characteristic of being thoroughly sanctioned by my prescribing physician. And please do note: I continued to take my shiny new rxes essentially as written through discharge and well back into my routine welcome-home flurry of self-destruction. I managed to spin myself into psychosis and the complementary OD on leftover anti-psychotic meds just fine on the trim new combo of oxcarbazepine and buspirone. Though I must confess that my latest delusional break was not the sharp departure from reality that customarily won me a free visit to the emergency department, and my accompanying OD was relatively trifling (a very large daily dose, really not even an overdose- though sufficient to cause partial seizures throughout my night on a heart monitor). Especially in light of the fact that I induced vomiting shortly after I began to feel the effects and called for my ride to the peanut farm not long thereafter.
I used the above as leverage for a swift and low-bullshit discharge from what turned out to be (at the time) a *remarkably* crazy bad unit of the state shithole. One night a patient decided to express his opinion regarding the shit on the unit by brandishing his colostomy bag and whipping it around the dining area and across the front desk counter. When staff denied him a replacement bag, he continued expressing himself directly onto the floor, leaving a trail as he traversed the hallways and two public TV rooms. The techs helpfully set up yellow >CAUTION! WET FLOOR!< signs around the major deposits and proceeded to ignore the human feces punctuating every major thoroughfare of the hall for a couple of hours, ostensibly in the hope that the patient have the shame? embarrassment? dignity? pity? to pick up his own shit after experiencing zero discomfort spreading it around to begin with. Such flights of fancy on staff's behalf only cost an evening's worth of major health code violation- not long enough for it to have any repercussions. And honestly, most of us sympathized with guy enough to tolerate the shitty protest for a couple of hours.
He possessed the intestinal fortitude to literalize what all of us coherent patients had mistaken for a only figurative retaliation against the unfairness of being confined to Monroe Hall. The colostomy patient shat for all of us that night.
It was particularly oppressive being female at a time when the patient population, for whatever reason, was 75% male.
I like to blame the latter on the former- I was discharged from the local ward on the second day of a total and abrupt restructuring of my crazy meds, scarcely enough time to pony up a life-threatening allergic reaction, let alone get all one's neurotransmitter receptors aligned and firing routinely on the same side. This was my first total med dump and fresh start in as long as I can remember. While I routinely discontinued my meds gradually in the days following a discharge, this d/c of my anti-depressant and anti-psychotic drugs had the unique characteristic of being thoroughly sanctioned by my prescribing physician. And please do note: I continued to take my shiny new rxes essentially as written through discharge and well back into my routine welcome-home flurry of self-destruction. I managed to spin myself into psychosis and the complementary OD on leftover anti-psychotic meds just fine on the trim new combo of oxcarbazepine and buspirone. Though I must confess that my latest delusional break was not the sharp departure from reality that customarily won me a free visit to the emergency department, and my accompanying OD was relatively trifling (a very large daily dose, really not even an overdose- though sufficient to cause partial seizures throughout my night on a heart monitor). Especially in light of the fact that I induced vomiting shortly after I began to feel the effects and called for my ride to the peanut farm not long thereafter.
I used the above as leverage for a swift and low-bullshit discharge from what turned out to be (at the time) a *remarkably* crazy bad unit of the state shithole. One night a patient decided to express his opinion regarding the shit on the unit by brandishing his colostomy bag and whipping it around the dining area and across the front desk counter. When staff denied him a replacement bag, he continued expressing himself directly onto the floor, leaving a trail as he traversed the hallways and two public TV rooms. The techs helpfully set up yellow >CAUTION! WET FLOOR!< signs around the major deposits and proceeded to ignore the human feces punctuating every major thoroughfare of the hall for a couple of hours, ostensibly in the hope that the patient have the shame? embarrassment? dignity? pity? to pick up his own shit after experiencing zero discomfort spreading it around to begin with. Such flights of fancy on staff's behalf only cost an evening's worth of major health code violation- not long enough for it to have any repercussions. And honestly, most of us sympathized with guy enough to tolerate the shitty protest for a couple of hours.
He possessed the intestinal fortitude to literalize what all of us coherent patients had mistaken for a only figurative retaliation against the unfairness of being confined to Monroe Hall. The colostomy patient shat for all of us that night.
It was particularly oppressive being female at a time when the patient population, for whatever reason, was 75% male.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
'Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.'
O'Brien, 1984
O'Brien, 1984
Thursday, April 16, 2009
That I might sleep
Seroquel. That's put an end to this madness, for the night and perhaps even tomorrow if my vasculature gets lucky. Maybe not as effectively as Zyprexa- I still can't believe how efficiently my neglected "regular" 15mg dose knocked me out when I unwittingly signed myself in to the psych ward last Wednesday. And how immediate and unrelenting the hunger was!
Thank fuck I'm off of that. Seroquel might not hit as hard and, sure, there's those lovely extra=pyramidal symtptoms if I accidentlyonpurpose take more than 400 mg within 24 hours, but if I don't take it every night, and top if off with some hydroxizine and the bioequivalence of 20 mg diazepam, it does the trick.
Eep, I hope.
Thank fuck I'm off of that. Seroquel might not hit as hard and, sure, there's those lovely extra=pyramidal symtptoms if I accidentlyonpurpose take more than 400 mg within 24 hours, but if I don't take it every night, and top if off with some hydroxizine and the bioequivalence of 20 mg diazepam, it does the trick.
Eep, I hope.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Sharps bin made of a peanut butter jar
I hit an artery tonight. I didn't realize it immediately, cause the aassembly of terumos is so loose that a bit of the red flag generally pushes its way in the moment one pops through the vein wall, but .15cc of blood with a (what I realized was not the rhythm of my shaky hands but) pulsing gush (fortunately?) signalled "too good to have hit true" even to my addled brain. ANd my addled brain yanked it out and proceeded to spend the next several minutes ruminating over possible loss of limb while the drugs hemodialyzed. We hate it when they do that.
Too bad there's no 800 number for junkies in crisis. We are hesitant to seek out medical attention, for reasons sampled below. I tried calling all the exhange program hotlines in my state as I am generally reluctant to bother the local guy outside of business hours unless I'm off my gourd. Finally I settled on texting him. Hopefully my foot won't fall off. I'm going to try to meet him on Monday and I'm betting he'd feel bad if I lost a limb all because the exchange ran out of 29 gauge needles (forcing me to perform surgery elsewhere.)
I swore I was going to bed hours ago, swore I would put the sword down and yield the anti-psychotic and go-to-sleep. But something (tender, beckoning veins that dissappear under attack? the SIX fucking pounds I seem to have accrued since I was in the hospital three nights ago? insufficient xanax stores?) (I vote the latter) drew me to the pharmacy like some kind of really jittery bug to one of those electric zappers and the countdown has begun again.
Fortunately, the pharmacy with the cheapo needles nearby is closed tomorrow. (Something about nailing a Jew to a tree and then reciting the necronomicon?) And I absolutely will not drive on 3 days without sleep, so this silliness has a natural-if postponed- pausing point.
Oh, my bus pass?
Too bad there's no 800 number for junkies in crisis. We are hesitant to seek out medical attention, for reasons sampled below. I tried calling all the exhange program hotlines in my state as I am generally reluctant to bother the local guy outside of business hours unless I'm off my gourd. Finally I settled on texting him. Hopefully my foot won't fall off. I'm going to try to meet him on Monday and I'm betting he'd feel bad if I lost a limb all because the exchange ran out of 29 gauge needles (forcing me to perform surgery elsewhere.)
I swore I was going to bed hours ago, swore I would put the sword down and yield the anti-psychotic and go-to-sleep. But something (tender, beckoning veins that dissappear under attack? the SIX fucking pounds I seem to have accrued since I was in the hospital three nights ago? insufficient xanax stores?) (I vote the latter) drew me to the pharmacy like some kind of really jittery bug to one of those electric zappers and the countdown has begun again.
Fortunately, the pharmacy with the cheapo needles nearby is closed tomorrow. (Something about nailing a Jew to a tree and then reciting the necronomicon?) And I absolutely will not drive on 3 days without sleep, so this silliness has a natural-if postponed- pausing point.
Oh, my bus pass?
Friday, April 10, 2009
This is How I am Going to Die
I am a bipolar iv drug addict and a bulimic and I am dying, but not from either of these things. I am dying of ignorance. I am dying of the pervasive, erroneous belief in the healthcare field that symptoms of mental illness are just desserts, an appropriate punishment for our failure to take care of ourselves properly.
Independent of (and prior to) my real downward spiral into lowlife junkie loserhood, I was denied medical referrals for various symptoms, which were brushed off as "probably a side effect of my weight (loss)," despite a clearly documented history of external pathologies to explain various nerve and joint issues.
As a bulimic, I should have regular labwork done to monitor my serum potassium levels. I should always have a current prescription for potassium caplets.
As an IV drug user, I fear phlebotomists. Especially trainees, who populate the lab at the clinic I used to go to. But I wasn't sure how justified I was in my fear and loathing until I wound up in the ER a couple of nights ago, after a hard couple of days with more hits than misses which resulted in me looking even more of a loser than usual.
They wouldn't listen to my advice. They wouldn't let me have any water- dehydration is awful for venipuncture and the color of my urine specimin made it clear that I was dehydrated. They refused to try veins I knew would work and left me with a nice 5 inch long hematoma on the inside of my forearm. 8th time's a charm?
Apparently, my potassium was 2.7. This is actually a record low for me. The psych floor apparently waffled about taking me but I suppose they remembered how charming I was from a few weeks prior. At any rate, I had faith that whoever was sent up from the lab to redraw me the next day would be better. The last time I'd been on this floor, I'd had labs done by a magician.
No such luck, though. It was a repeat of the night before. This woman refused to draw from my hand, saying literally "because we're supposed to draw from here" (she points to the crook of the elbow, the first veins to be blown by every needle jockey.) Then she tied my arm off until it turned purple, dug around with her needle with no luck, paused for a minute to go out for a smoke break, continued to gouge me until she finally hit a minor vein. She proceded to literally suction the blood out of me for a good minute.
Then she finally released the tourniquet.
This is an excellent way to create a falsely elevated serum potassium reading.
So, at any rate- I'm not going in for regular bloodwork. The odds of getting an angels are pretty damn slim. The odds of getting an asshole who thinks the abusing me is going to anything other than send me after something to block out the pain are pretty high.
And the odds of me being admitted to rehab with hypokalemia? Well, now. That's just downright funny.
Independent of (and prior to) my real downward spiral into lowlife junkie loserhood, I was denied medical referrals for various symptoms, which were brushed off as "probably a side effect of my weight (loss)," despite a clearly documented history of external pathologies to explain various nerve and joint issues.
As a bulimic, I should have regular labwork done to monitor my serum potassium levels. I should always have a current prescription for potassium caplets.
As an IV drug user, I fear phlebotomists. Especially trainees, who populate the lab at the clinic I used to go to. But I wasn't sure how justified I was in my fear and loathing until I wound up in the ER a couple of nights ago, after a hard couple of days with more hits than misses which resulted in me looking even more of a loser than usual.
They wouldn't listen to my advice. They wouldn't let me have any water- dehydration is awful for venipuncture and the color of my urine specimin made it clear that I was dehydrated. They refused to try veins I knew would work and left me with a nice 5 inch long hematoma on the inside of my forearm. 8th time's a charm?
Apparently, my potassium was 2.7. This is actually a record low for me. The psych floor apparently waffled about taking me but I suppose they remembered how charming I was from a few weeks prior. At any rate, I had faith that whoever was sent up from the lab to redraw me the next day would be better. The last time I'd been on this floor, I'd had labs done by a magician.
No such luck, though. It was a repeat of the night before. This woman refused to draw from my hand, saying literally "because we're supposed to draw from here" (she points to the crook of the elbow, the first veins to be blown by every needle jockey.) Then she tied my arm off until it turned purple, dug around with her needle with no luck, paused for a minute to go out for a smoke break, continued to gouge me until she finally hit a minor vein. She proceded to literally suction the blood out of me for a good minute.
Then she finally released the tourniquet.
This is an excellent way to create a falsely elevated serum potassium reading.
So, at any rate- I'm not going in for regular bloodwork. The odds of getting an angels are pretty damn slim. The odds of getting an asshole who thinks the abusing me is going to anything other than send me after something to block out the pain are pretty high.
And the odds of me being admitted to rehab with hypokalemia? Well, now. That's just downright funny.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
What a Dreary Planet
Here's the thing about stimulants: the line between function and frenzy is drawn in the sand far out on the beach and, apparently, it's only a matter of time before the tide comes in. These chemicals have the uncanny characteristic of making everything just a bit more interesting. All objects become shinier, all people younger and better looking. And without them, suddenly- nothing holds the attention. One finds oneself suddenly, inexplicably, back in an ordinary world where everyone has to make their own fun. Worse than that, everybody has to devote large portions of their lives to the Profoundly Unfun and Drab.
Why would you ever consciously choose to live in the ordinary world?
Why would you ever consciously choose to live in the ordinary world?
Friday, March 6, 2009
The co-morbidity thread.
Anorexia is "worse" (better?) (superior, but with a darker prognosis) than bulimia. However, binging-purging anorexia has the highest mortality rate of all eating disorders. Er, of "both" eating disorders, neglected as compulsive over-eating is in the realm of research, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that COE is the deadliest of them all.
Bulimics of whatever weight, however, are more likely to present with/ acquire at taste for reality-adjustment. Is this taken into consideration when figuring morbidity/mortality rates of the messy binge/purgers vs. the pure ethereal restrictive anorexics? And what is the prognosis for those displaying symptoms of both eating disorders and substance abuse disorders?
Not too good, duh.
But doesn't one compulsion temper the other? Compulsion requires singular dedication to perfect. If one's attention is divided between spanking the monkey and gorging the gorilla, one can only slither so far down a particular rabbit hole before self-preservation ( of a sort) retrieves the self and sets it back down in the alternate whirlpool of self-destructive cerebral onanism.
Right?
Anorexia is "worse" (better?) (superior, but with a darker prognosis) than bulimia. However, binging-purging anorexia has the highest mortality rate of all eating disorders. Er, of "both" eating disorders, neglected as compulsive over-eating is in the realm of research, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that COE is the deadliest of them all.
Bulimics of whatever weight, however, are more likely to present with/ acquire at taste for reality-adjustment. Is this taken into consideration when figuring morbidity/mortality rates of the messy binge/purgers vs. the pure ethereal restrictive anorexics? And what is the prognosis for those displaying symptoms of both eating disorders and substance abuse disorders?
Not too good, duh.
But doesn't one compulsion temper the other? Compulsion requires singular dedication to perfect. If one's attention is divided between spanking the monkey and gorging the gorilla, one can only slither so far down a particular rabbit hole before self-preservation ( of a sort) retrieves the self and sets it back down in the alternate whirlpool of self-destructive cerebral onanism.
Right?
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Junkie Jews for Jesus
I've discovered an even stupider game than Race the Train. It's called something like Slamming Leftovers and has nothing to do with closing shift at the diner. I've done cottons a million times- that's something of a fact of life, of this life. It's low, but acceptable because everyone knows what it's like to be low with a lift in sight. Cottons are always in sight. But emptying out that big red box and checking to make sure you've squeezed every last drop of evil out of each barrel, collecting a murky orangey-brown pot of fools gold from the last 3 units of 6 or 8 pins, and tying off like it's just another taste--- that's just plain disgusting. It's one thing to bang a drop or so of fresh blood on your second or third try after missing. It's altogether another level of Purgatory (pardon the pun, if you catch it) to recook and inject a day and a half's worth of one's own elixir of life.
And on the title topic, I'm giving up for Lent. That's right. Just plain giving up. (I figure that as a heathen I have nowhere to be cast out of should I slip and catch hold of a ray of hope.)
And on the title topic, I'm giving up for Lent. That's right. Just plain giving up. (I figure that as a heathen I have nowhere to be cast out of should I slip and catch hold of a ray of hope.)
Thursday, January 8, 2009
News of the Stoopit
My lord, did I really play race the train tonight?
I wonder it it had anything to do with 54 hours without sleep. (The first 24 all natural.)
I wonder it it had anything to do with 54 hours without sleep. (The first 24 all natural.)
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
I brushed my hair today
The is an event, because it was the first time I had done so this year. Well, in this year of my life, anyway. November was a month of neglect: I've been reduced to reusing the same serrated knife (for slicing cheese and bread, but also for smearing them in mustard and margarine), plastic Taco Hell spork, and pyrex one-quart liquid measuring cup for all of my domestic needs (not to mention my designated "bathroom" cups) as I ignored the mountains (and probably-by now- unique biosphere) that filled my sink by the beginning of the month. I just didn't care. Now? I sort of care- I'm sick of my binges being limited to generic boxed stuffing, day-old baked goods & Lil' Debbie knockoffs, and gigantic bags of store-brand potato chips. But now it's grown to more of task than simply washing dishes and finding adequate space/facilities to dry them. Now I fear it would involve an obligatory relocation program for the community that have surely hosts a variety of (hopefully not sentient) life-forms.
At any rate, I started with something (minimally) less daunting: brushing my white-girl-dredlock-prone nap. My hair is getting long. It's also almost back to a natural color. And here's the clincher: while using the Jaws of Life to clean out my brush after this act of self-inflicted violence, I came across an entire hank of abnormally light hair. I couldn't tell in the darkness of my cave whether it was totally devoid of pigment, or just one of those random *really* light blond streaks that decide to grow randomly out of my head to help me retain my status of blondness as my natural hair color has metamorophosed (and nearly fallen off the Map of Blond) with age. I realized that what I was looking at could actually be grey hair, sprouting in streaks.
That's when I decided to revoke my moratorium on dying my hair unnatural colors. Sure, I may looks silly as I progress through my 30s with _Vampire Red_, _Azure_, and the inevitable _Ultraviolet_ sticking out from under my hood, but at least I won't have to subject myself to the horrors of _dying my hair its own color_ in order to remain in denial. Of course, with flourescent hair the denial may be a bit more outwardly obvious, but it's easy for me to believe I'm still punkrock.
(I was never punkrock. I was a gothic hippie.)
In other news, I believe I have officially blown my one remaining median cubital vein. This sucks, but on the other hand- it means no more trainee phlebotomists when I get bloodwork done. Ever.
At any rate, I started with something (minimally) less daunting: brushing my white-girl-dredlock-prone nap. My hair is getting long. It's also almost back to a natural color. And here's the clincher: while using the Jaws of Life to clean out my brush after this act of self-inflicted violence, I came across an entire hank of abnormally light hair. I couldn't tell in the darkness of my cave whether it was totally devoid of pigment, or just one of those random *really* light blond streaks that decide to grow randomly out of my head to help me retain my status of blondness as my natural hair color has metamorophosed (and nearly fallen off the Map of Blond) with age. I realized that what I was looking at could actually be grey hair, sprouting in streaks.
That's when I decided to revoke my moratorium on dying my hair unnatural colors. Sure, I may looks silly as I progress through my 30s with _Vampire Red_, _Azure_, and the inevitable _Ultraviolet_ sticking out from under my hood, but at least I won't have to subject myself to the horrors of _dying my hair its own color_ in order to remain in denial. Of course, with flourescent hair the denial may be a bit more outwardly obvious, but it's easy for me to believe I'm still punkrock.
(I was never punkrock. I was a gothic hippie.)
In other news, I believe I have officially blown my one remaining median cubital vein. This sucks, but on the other hand- it means no more trainee phlebotomists when I get bloodwork done. Ever.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Intensive Carpet Survey #7154
This is the part I hate most, I think. It reminds me of my brief foray into the world of crack at 15, and how smugly sure I was that I'd never wind up on my hands and knees weeding crumbs out of the carpet to administer to myself. How- in desperation- every little piece of crud becomes a potential barge to salvation: can I smoke this? sure, it's a fleck of popcorn but it won't kill ya. . . can I smoke this? nah, better not. its consistency is alarmingly similar to drywall and the taste confirms it. I made fun of our friend's little brother as he begged his elder for a taste of the ambrosian-smoke Dave still had stashed away. I'll give you a six-pack, I'll pay you 50 bucks on Monday. . . "Please Dave, I'll suck your dick," I mocked Mike because I was 15 and knew everything.
Conclusion of Survey- God, I need to clean. This place is getting seriously disgusting and I need a neutral backdrop for spotting leftovers from whatever leads into I.C.S.#7154.
Conclusion of Survey- God, I need to clean. This place is getting seriously disgusting and I need a neutral backdrop for spotting leftovers from whatever leads into I.C.S.#7154.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Would-be to-do list
Sweep bathroom and kitchen at old apt, with use of force when necessary. (I pancreas a well-made scrubbrush. Pick up rubbish from carpeted areas by hands, catch the detritus with the bissell. Mop kitchen & bathroom floors. Scrub entirety of bathroom, floor, walls, commmode, underneath those places most people are lucky enough never to even acknowledge, let alone repeatedly apply caustic chemicals and liberal elbow grease to tamp down the level of nasty stench.
So I'll hit all the "bulimic arterial spatter" points as well, out of courtesy. You know what I'm talking about- those sprays that inadvertantly wind up 8 feet up on the wall behind you. And who hasn't experienced a rousing game of "what's that stuff stuck to the ceiling, and how on Earth did it get there?"
I need to absolutely sterilize this new place, though. I grow accustomed to the rank odor of cat piss after spending an hour or so back home, but the stench is magnified a gugelplex entering the bathroom.
I'm also meant to change my address with the post office, SSA, HFS, and- oh! unpack my own shit. God forbid. And I've decided, on my second night here, that my top household decoration priority will be drapes. Stringing up networks of scarves from Russia and the Far and Middle East has a certain kitschy charm, but it doesn't make it nighttime indoors whenever I need it to be. Further, the uneven nature of using random cloths (even if some are quite large) as window coverings is that they never*quite* fit, leaving totally unjest individual rays to hit exactly one third of the face.
More importantly, I think, is that such curtains leave such a wide opportunity for nosy sniveling snitching peepers. Mom's coming up this weekend, my freedom depending, and I would love toenable her shopping complex. (It's generally quite tempered by my stereotypical late-20th century American Jew genes.) If I had anything to contribute, I could almost say that we balance each other out. In actuality, we haven;t down much "recreational shopping" (yes, drs. do this) since I lost my TAship in 2003. And I guess I'm not as much fun to shop for, when my response to every item proferrred is "and what exactly does one do with that?"
I don't need five new pairs of shoes at a time
I will write more on how much I love my new neighbors later, but for the time being I think I'd better do my TaeBoe before another crisis comes up.
So I'll hit all the "bulimic arterial spatter" points as well, out of courtesy. You know what I'm talking about- those sprays that inadvertantly wind up 8 feet up on the wall behind you. And who hasn't experienced a rousing game of "what's that stuff stuck to the ceiling, and how on Earth did it get there?"
I need to absolutely sterilize this new place, though. I grow accustomed to the rank odor of cat piss after spending an hour or so back home, but the stench is magnified a gugelplex entering the bathroom.
I'm also meant to change my address with the post office, SSA, HFS, and- oh! unpack my own shit. God forbid. And I've decided, on my second night here, that my top household decoration priority will be drapes. Stringing up networks of scarves from Russia and the Far and Middle East has a certain kitschy charm, but it doesn't make it nighttime indoors whenever I need it to be. Further, the uneven nature of using random cloths (even if some are quite large) as window coverings is that they never*quite* fit, leaving totally unjest individual rays to hit exactly one third of the face.
More importantly, I think, is that such curtains leave such a wide opportunity for nosy sniveling snitching peepers. Mom's coming up this weekend, my freedom depending, and I would love toenable her shopping complex. (It's generally quite tempered by my stereotypical late-20th century American Jew genes.) If I had anything to contribute, I could almost say that we balance each other out. In actuality, we haven;t down much "recreational shopping" (yes, drs. do this) since I lost my TAship in 2003. And I guess I'm not as much fun to shop for, when my response to every item proferrred is "and what exactly does one do with that?"
I don't need five new pairs of shoes at a time
I will write more on how much I love my new neighbors later, but for the time being I think I'd better do my TaeBoe before another crisis comes up.
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