Son of a Preacher Man

On Valentine's Day I got an unexpected voicemail- from a long lost surviving member of the Northern Florida surfing gothic hippie crew. Actually, he was probably the first (new) person I met upon landing in the swamp in 1994 with whom I actually wanted to spend time. I met him when we both auditioned for a play and were cast as partners-in-mischief and (perhaps, I don't quite recall) even brothers. Of course shortly after rehearsals commenced, I met the FairyGodFaggot (who sprinkles sparkle dust on me from an adjacent plane as of November 2006, raise hell in death brother) who was, like me, cast across gender as a goofy old fortune-telling Gypsy. It felt like I had joined on with a psychedelic 3 Musketeers that summer.

The truly uncustomary thing for me- having grown up in the North- was that both of them were really chivalrous- southern gentlemen, as much as a couple of 18 year old boys in fishnets and eye makeup could be (Which, I suspect, is probably a bit more gentlemanlike than your average unadorned adolescent boy) They paid, they brought the wine and grapes, so to speak.

Partner-In-Crime guy actually did my makeup and cut my hair for me, when I was still stoically in denial about my bisexuality and far too dykish to even attempt those skills. He also regularly woke up at 4:30AM to borrow a car to drive me to work at AMOCO. (Here, "regularly" is a word meaning "for 3 and a half weeks until I got canned"). My Fairy Godfaggot dressed me up with fabulous textiles and cast off rings and bailed me out of jail and made me multiple mixed CDs. Partner-in-crime guy, on the other hand, wound up stealing a hideous heirloom opal ring from me* and my Dead Milkmen tapes when he fled up North (with his traditional zero notice). Of course, Fairy Godfaggot was far from perfect, as he had a terrible drinking-and-going-home-with-strangers-abandoning-me habit.

Generally speaking, I maintained a warmer relationship with FGF (who I'll refer to as Pryncess Xanax from here on out). Women and combustibly gay men often mate for life, and while I know he had friends out the french horn who all adored him, I have it in writing that I was one of his top 10 most favorite people in the world. I was his pet hippie and he was my, well- not to put too fine a point on it-my pet faggot. But after I moved, we strayed. I become essentially too depressed to tolerate. But I guess he one-upped me there, pulling the ultimate no-show at age 30.

Not as if the Preacher's Son (grandson, to be precise) was a cheap plastic consolation prize. Our relationship was different. I imagine part of it came from the natural intrigue a chick who (thinks she) is a lesbian holds for a young man. Another part of it, I'm sure, is that a diet high in cannabis with regular doses of LSD is key in maintaining that blissninnied-free-love state that had us all thinking it was a good idea to hitchhike across the country in March and sleep in the park in New Orleans. Further, the Preacher's Son actually introduced me to my very first Rainbow Gathering, a happening which profoundly affected the course of my life. . . until I blew it, of course, on booze and women. He was really quite generous, not even a bit of a chauvinist pig, broadened my world tremendously, and was a great sparring partner. . .

. . .Which really should have clued me in earlier. I mean, how do little boys and girls show affection for one another? Hell, I still have a certificate proclaiming me "Queen of the 'I Hate Tommy' Club" from kindergarten.

It seems he was also tricked into leaving Surfer Hippie paradise and now lives just a couple of (mid-sized, Midwestern) states away. And he decided to call me up on the 14th. And he's single, and still a cutie pie. Oh dear, watch me screw this one up within 48 hours of our reunion.

I've essentially had one "normal" sexual relationship in my life, because my preferences have led me to years of total asexuality broken up by a couple of mania-induced whirlwinds of sexual carnival tours. My ex-wife and I met at the tail end of one of those, and I always felt guilty about pulling a sexual bait-and-switch on her- towards the end as my sanity peeled away, so our sex life died after a long illness of acute loss of quality followed by ever-widening spans of behaving like roommates who sniped at each other, or childhood best friends who feel obligated to one another though they really have nothing upon which to base an adult relationship.

Who knows, though? Perhaps we'll just reignite that stiff upper-lipped justfriendship accessorized with a slice of cold, gelatinized sexual tension on the side. And- what the hell- he is alive.

*C'mon, H.! What kind of a moron do you take me for? I soothed all my resentments by making hippie- dresses out of all your stuff, though.

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)

But it won't get you ativan. . .

I told my psychiatrist the truth and he didn't fire me.

Just an ordinary day in the ICU

I don't know why I did it. I wasn't trying to kill myself, although thanks to this little lesson I've learned that I actually have the capacity. (I'd overdosed on various pills so many times before, only to wake up the next morning or, at worst- face a quick trip to the ER for gastric lavage.) I don't intend to kill myself, and I guess it's a bit awe-making ("awesome" doesn't seem to fit the context here) to learn that the very simple, painless (for me, certainly not for my parents) relatively quick method was in my grasp all the time.

But why? Why? Why? Why? It certainly wasn't one of those accidental ods where you party a little too hard and wake up in a bed with gates and wheels, tubes in every conceivable orifice. What I took was not a "fun" drug. I'll say it was prescribed as an anti-psychotic and no more, because I don't want to issue any lessons on How To Put Yourself Into A Coma the Miss Delusional way*as seen on TV.

I can only guess it was me playing a classic borderline personality headtrip on my dad, who was down visiting, took me out shopping (ATTN: I am now the proud owner of a wall clock!) Because I took the pills while he was waiting for me in the car,; I guess I told him I needed to stop off and get something. Once I realized what I'd done, I tried to induce vomitting, but I clearly didn't do a very good job. I walked out of the apartment, and asked him to take me to (name of private local looney bin) for an assessment. Which he did. I can't tell you how it went, though- apparently I lost consciousness shortly thereafter.

So I spent I think 2 nights in ICU before they moved me to the general floor.

I need to apologize to my father. He drives almost 3 hours to see me and at least every other visit involves the hospital.

And I have goddamned oral thrush.

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.

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?

. . . Something about how drugs that act on the dopamine receptors physiologically diminish willpower (as in the power to abstain when indulging is easier/more pleasurable)

We Interrupt this Miserable Life To Bring You Barely 21

In the event that you had forgotten, this is what the weekend used be for.

Beer and bongs and board games near xmas break 96 from UF . I didn't really need to be on acid. But not everyone does coke, right? Only so many people can possibly work in the restaurant business. . .

Right, um. As you were.

And now I proceed to reveal my face without my flesh

Yes I received your letter yesterday
About the time the doorknob broke.
When you asked me how I was doing-
was that some kind of joke?

Yes, it actually bothers me to be seeing a psychiatrist who believes my biggest struggle is "anorexia" (say this in your head in a sing-song voice,) then "depression". Yup, you got it. For the first time in as long as I can recall, I made it out of a quackologist's office with no Axis I complication of my affective disorder beyond "depression." Not even the vaguest attempt to force atypical anti-psychotics on me as treatment for my flaky skin, sleeplessness, flat affect, irritability, (inexplicably) depression and apathy, unresponsiveness, or anxiety. The doctor didn't even halfheartedly attempt to consider a lifetime of recurrent severe major depressive episodes as a cycle of some sort. Clearly, he had been kicked off of Seroquel's payroll¹. My last set of schizodiagnosticians had been in bed with the Abilify folks. Clearly, madly, passionate. In fact- I was threatened to be cut off altogether should I refused to ackowledge my "gradually emerging schizophrenia" and take Abilify (AAP # 5, IIRC. . . but anti-psychotics number 7.)

I refused.

And, for the time being. . . I refuse to continue. I'm filliing up everything Iwrite with non-sequitors this afternoon due to too many days with too little sleep. I also must now go to Wal-mart and return the crochet hoops, glittery spools of colored macrama twine, multiple feet of lovely, lovely trimming, a few feet or really ugly trimming (who needed blue leather braid on clothing? Why?). . . and odds and ends of fabric that I'd truly prefer not to. (all that fleece. . .chiffon, satin, corduroy. jeez, people!)

Maybe I'll pick up some actually embroidery thread at the actual hobby store as I was meant to on my way home. Gasp, shock, awe.

1.To be fair, I only later recalled reading of him drinking seroquel-flavored soup. But also in the name of honestly I must assert that he did not at all appear to be a risk at this point. Perhaps a company rep had dropped by just then to let him know how much she'd enjoyed her visits, but that she had to move and would never, ever, be coming back. The assorted caseful was sort of goodbye present. And the kids? That they had managed to escape icecream-flavored anti-psychotic soup is testiment to the patience that pink elaphant must possess to sit and wait years in the closet before emerging, and his unique traits that make him recignizabable even to the youngest of children who know that talking to invisible creatures is not worth free sweets.

Sid & Nancy Rolled Up Into One with Strains of Vivaldi in the Background

10:39 pm

At nine this morning my girlfriend found me passed out on the couch covered with blood. My take on the whole situation is that, since we had decided that my drug-induced spats of nodding out and cigarette dropping in the bedroom were, in fact, becoming dangerous (an entire cigarette burned down to the butt on the keyboard of my laptop, and a few burn holes in the sheets and carpet don't much compare, eh?) I had gotten up, either in my sleep or xanaxed to the gills (I am a genuine somambulent, thank you very much), I had wandered into the the living room to smoke. Not being able to find a workable lighter, I had naturally started the gas stove top to light my vigarette. I would be willing to bet that I dropped that cigarette but mistaken thought I had finished it. Naturally my nicotine cravings were unsatisfied, so back to the stove I went. Then I dropped the second cigareete, hit my nose on something or stuck my finger up there looking for gold, passed out, and bled all over myself. I'm not sure of the exact order of events. I'm prone to nosebleeds, so that event shouldn't trifle anyone.

I can, however, sympathise for my dear Girlfriend who, needing to pee at the wee hour of 9am, happened to find me and the couch covered in blood and passed out cold. That is to say, I was passed out cold and covered in blood, the couch (okay, futon) is inanimate, so its unresponsiveness bothered noone, but it was sufficently bloodstained that we flipped the futon mattress lest any of the Men in Blue (or the MIB, who I've been expecting for awhile) come around knocking on doors and asking questions after some silly girl is kidnapped and strangled running through the neighborhood streets at night, as I like to do in the summertime.

I was also dissassociating last night, which I've found to happen when I mix mind altering drugs or do a lotta lotta opiate. I was, for instance, swearing something at my computer whilst in a completely different room. I also remember an instance in which I was at some important departmental meeting whilst physically located in my kitchen over the stove.

I am also back to bingeing and purging nearly everyday and back to just about normal weight, all of which irritates me immensely. I mean, sure, EffexorXR was doing possibly irreverable nuerological damage, but I will testify that I never weighed more than 122 pounds while on it. Oh, wait, I forgot. I'm supposed to be in recovery from an eating disorder. I'm on Lexapro now, demanded because it's just about the only modern anti-depressant I am contraindicated for that doesn't lower your sex drive *that* *much*. And Buspar. My new psychiatrist seems harmless and educated and she is a lesbian, but she's really stuck on this idea that Lexapro and Buspar are the magic appleseed for bulimia.

I beg to differ. God, maybe I should just give in and let them put me on depakote. I lose my keys and wallet thrice daily, I have a collection of half-pairs of gloves and mittens, maybe it *would* be a good idea for me to try to take another pill at regular intervals.

BTW, boys and girls, if someone ever prescribes you Skelaxin (US patent) for a muscle relaxer, tell them to fuck off unto from whence they came. It costs a dollar a pill, at 8 pills a day. And it doesn't works. And it makes me much more aware of my esophagus than I ever care to be.

All apologies for having written this exclusively in American, I am too lazy to go to the other room and look up the chemical names of these drugs, and certainly too lazy to go in their and fetch extra "u"s to insert after my "o"s.