| We went to bed around six this morning. By the grace of my fellow pharmaceutical junkies I had a few klonopins in me, plus the requisite triazolam. So when My Girlfriend tried to get me get up and come outside with her to confirm that her car had, in fact, been stolen, at 7:50am I really was not able to do that. Of course, she missed everything she was supposed to be doing this morning: mailing bills, class, picking up a script for me, and taking her friend out to a birthday lunch. When I finally agreed to come to consciousness, around (post) noon, I felt awful when I realized that she had, in fact, had her car fucking STOLEN. With CDs and other fabulous items inside. Luckily the CDs are without cases, so they can't really be pawned. So we wound up taking the bus back to my house. She's taken the car to go and retrieve my stuff and her stuff, including the laundry we were so excited about me doing last night and the groceries I bought for my house on the way home last night. As we were walking the bus route, the way you do when it's well below freezing and best to keep moving rather than just jump on any random bus that passes in the hopes it will not deliever you to West Virginia, I found out her car has enough gas in it to go 170 miles on the highway. Enough to get out of state, as a matter of fact. I'm fairly certain there are at least 3 different states a car leaving this city on the highway with 170 miles to go could wind up in. Perhaps 4. Maybe 5. Lets just hope some moron needed to get to his drug dealer fast and it will be located, abandoned, outside a crack house sometime this evening. Let's hope that there's not a big market for parting out Saturns, cause that would suck. Someone tried to break into her car last month. This was apparently a junior criminal. JC didn't try, oh, say, jimmying the lock or even breaking a window. The Stupid Criminal of the Month gift for November had been a very large bottle opener, and someone had actually attempted to pry her door open. "Maybe it's the same guy," I suggested. "He went and took a correspondence course and this is, like, his final." I have to go do some Tae-Bo on video, toss this blunt syringe and pack up a new one in the hopes that I might be somehow fortunate tonight, take a shower, glam myself up, and head to the bar. Which is what all self-respecting people are doing at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon, right? | |
Wednesday, November 6, 2002
In Which her True Colors Show
3:14 pm
Tuesday, November 5, 2002
Net Worth
3:37 pm
| I wonder what percentage of my personal net worth is in the form of pills. Buspar, Zoloft, Effexor XR, those buggers aren't cheap. They're certainly worth more than my computer. At this rate I will have used up my annual prescription allowance (student health insurance, year runs Sep-Sep) by oh, say, next Tuesday at 3. | |
Monday, November 4, 2002
6:40 pm
I am so tired. I have been awake for what. . .? 26 hours now. I got some good news, though. This year my insurance policy has expanded itself to include 90 percent of the cost of an ED daypatient program. I don't know how really enmeshed I actually am in my eating disorder though. The depression has taken over, totally at the wheels. I'm crying again, the perfect sign that the half life of the last 100mg dose of Zoloft I took has left my body. 100 to 50 is a steep drop. And the Effexor XR isn't exactly kicking my ass. I'm still on a low dose, just 75, but it doesn't seem to be doing much of anything. I feel more and more of a push to self-destruct, that little trigger I can't fucking unhook.
I got one of the nicest letters I've ever seen from an insurance company today. It authorizes me a visit per week for the next 6 weeks, at which point there will be an "update" If it becomes necessary to increase the frequency and/or the duration of the or if an (sic) hospital admission is required, Bastardcorp must be contacted in advance for approval
Looks like they've got it all figured out, don't they? Oh, I am so looking forward to my very first court order to undergo ECT1. Just the thought of it makes me want to cry, my brain turning into a boiled egg like it did anomalously on March at a party 12 years ago.
No e-mail from the Man. I dropped by his department and left the tape in his box. The ball is in his court and I am too too tired to fucking go chasing it around.
Walking home with a bag of 60 syringes (they don't bruise much if you use a new one each time, I'm running low on pills and need to economize)2, my Barnes & Noble birthday box from Dad (Some Russian-related stuff, Religion for Dummies, Moby's Animal Rights And "Me talk Pretty One Day" on CD Oh well, I guess its high time I started acting like the worthless piece of handicrap I am. I am currently dying my hair vampire red. Always been one of my favorites, it's beautiful in the first place and fades out not too badly. Hmmm. Maybe I should go rinse it out now.
I got one of the nicest letters I've ever seen from an insurance company today. It authorizes me a visit per week for the next 6 weeks, at which point there will be an "update" If it becomes necessary to increase the frequency and/or the duration of the or if an (sic) hospital admission is required, Bastardcorp must be contacted in advance for approval
Looks like they've got it all figured out, don't they? Oh, I am so looking forward to my very first court order to undergo ECT1. Just the thought of it makes me want to cry, my brain turning into a boiled egg like it did anomalously on March at a party 12 years ago.
No e-mail from the Man. I dropped by his department and left the tape in his box. The ball is in his court and I am too too tired to fucking go chasing it around.
Walking home with a bag of 60 syringes (they don't bruise much if you use a new one each time, I'm running low on pills and need to economize)2, my Barnes & Noble birthday box from Dad (Some Russian-related stuff, Religion for Dummies, Moby's Animal Rights And "Me talk Pretty One Day" on CD Oh well, I guess its high time I started acting like the worthless piece of handicrap I am. I am currently dying my hair vampire red. Always been one of my favorites, it's beautiful in the first place and fades out not too badly. Hmmm. Maybe I should go rinse it out now.
1. I'm not sure whether I realized how fatalistic this sounded at the time. I imagine most guerilla pharmacologists dealing with a serious affective disorder while more or less starving themselves to death have pretty loopy memories. I don't recall whether ECT had been brought up yet at this time. I do know that my first "commitment" threat took place in May 2000. Seeing any degree of truth turn out from the tea leaves is a scary thing. Several doctors have suggested ECT since 2003, though I managed to defer any involuntary hospitalizations until 2005.
2. And this is the way the psyche crumbles. . .
2. And this is the way the psyche crumbles. . .
In Which Everything is So Very
Well, I did it. I commited an act of e-mail stalking. If I get no response I guess I'll have to presume that he had just had too much to drink that night and I will give him the tape the next time I see him.
A wave of "I don't matter"ness has just come over me. I slept well past 4 today and so have decided to pull another all-nighter. Unfortunately, the Minions of the World Insomniacs are at their greatest on weekend nights. I've had 420 calories today. I ran, after dark, and I will probably go again in the morning. I just have to stay up long enough to go to my gyn appointment tomorrow at 1:30.
Then I'll have another appointment with my therapist at 2ish on Tuesday. What do I want to show her? A client dissappering before her eyes, dying of loneliness, or a woman who is rolling with the punches? I feel the loneliness now. I feel it so deep and disgusting and dirty like that soup I just made myself eat. My appetite has come back to some degree. . . I think the way I am feeling is the result of half my dosage of zoloft being ripped from me in the past few days. The crying, I can see it happening. If only I could read. I will try again.
I need a real life outside of my apartment but whenever I am out too long I feel like an alien. I *have* to get back to my case where I belong. So I sit here lonely because (oh, lame) nobody is responding to my messages, because I developed an unlikely crush and am not getting unreasonably quick results. And my students are emailing me begging me to come back to them because I am more fun than their substitute. Maybe so, but at least your substitute can *read*.
God this feels awful. I don't want to be sick anymore. A character of Dostoevsky's said that only the sick see ghosts because they inhabit the realm between the dead and the living, they are on a precipice of sorts. I don't want to be on a precipice anymore. Why do I have to be sick? I'd rather be dead. Not, "I'd rather be dead than fat", that is utterly ridiculous. The only reason I am losing weight right now is my depression. It will only be once I get below 120 that it becomes attributable to and classifiable as anorexia nervosa. And maybe that will be good. Maybe that will numb the depression.
But I will still be sick, and that's the bugger. I want to be healthy or just fucking die already. I don't have the guts to do it myself, I know. I actually consciously saved myself from my last two ODs by purging after realizing the effects of having taken too many pills and making myself stay awake for hours afterward. I know I want to live. I just don't fucking want to live like this. I want it to go away.
A wave of "I don't matter"ness has just come over me. I slept well past 4 today and so have decided to pull another all-nighter. Unfortunately, the Minions of the World Insomniacs are at their greatest on weekend nights. I've had 420 calories today. I ran, after dark, and I will probably go again in the morning. I just have to stay up long enough to go to my gyn appointment tomorrow at 1:30.
Then I'll have another appointment with my therapist at 2ish on Tuesday. What do I want to show her? A client dissappering before her eyes, dying of loneliness, or a woman who is rolling with the punches? I feel the loneliness now. I feel it so deep and disgusting and dirty like that soup I just made myself eat. My appetite has come back to some degree. . . I think the way I am feeling is the result of half my dosage of zoloft being ripped from me in the past few days. The crying, I can see it happening. If only I could read. I will try again.
I need a real life outside of my apartment but whenever I am out too long I feel like an alien. I *have* to get back to my case where I belong. So I sit here lonely because (oh, lame) nobody is responding to my messages, because I developed an unlikely crush and am not getting unreasonably quick results. And my students are emailing me begging me to come back to them because I am more fun than their substitute. Maybe so, but at least your substitute can *read*.
God this feels awful. I don't want to be sick anymore. A character of Dostoevsky's said that only the sick see ghosts because they inhabit the realm between the dead and the living, they are on a precipice of sorts. I don't want to be on a precipice anymore. Why do I have to be sick? I'd rather be dead. Not, "I'd rather be dead than fat", that is utterly ridiculous. The only reason I am losing weight right now is my depression. It will only be once I get below 120 that it becomes attributable to and classifiable as anorexia nervosa. And maybe that will be good. Maybe that will numb the depression.
But I will still be sick, and that's the bugger. I want to be healthy or just fucking die already. I don't have the guts to do it myself, I know. I actually consciously saved myself from my last two ODs by purging after realizing the effects of having taken too many pills and making myself stay awake for hours afterward. I know I want to live. I just don't fucking want to live like this. I want it to go away.
Sunday, November 3, 2002
"Loves Gone and Past"Another OD relic updated for today's consumers.
Because I can! Petty and Vindictive
(Subtitle 2002: Why I have no reason to regret Him dumping me)
he's already showing signs of losing his hair.
he's almost a year younger than me.
uses stupid words to refer to anatomy.
keeps a gun in his apartment.
never had any qualms expressing his opinion that girls should not be hairy or pierced.
doesn't like Jerry Garcia.
from a long line of bigots.
in total denial over his own issues.
he's almost a year younger than me and he works at the rib place.
his feet smell.
no, really.
has OCD like behaviors.
has mentioned more than once that he 'forgot to eat today' because he was stoned/tired.
looks eerily like my biological grandfather.
narrow musical interests.
talks about this 'girl' at work who's apparently after him, calling her a psycho, but apparently dating her anyway.
owns no utensils.
I saw him eat fast food three times in one day once.
it's obvious when he's trying to be cool.
believes 10 pm is a good time to start hanging out.
unimpressive attitude towards menstruation.
said "nice ass. not fantastic, but nice."
lacks even partial mastery of the art of sarcasm.
needs a new toothbrush. badly.
is capable of speaking his mind for extended periods of time, but saying little. (i gave him a run for his money)
when I told him I'd joined the campus condom club and had to pay for 50 of them at a time, he said, 'it's not my fault you're a tramp.'
he doesn't keep condoms around.
when he doesn't want to be nice, he doesn't even try.
I'm sure there are more, I know there must be. I feel like maybe having this list will help me, so I will probably come back and update it.
Update: Jan 1, 2002
(New Year's Resolutions)
I will not have sex with any man who:
is a bigot
is younger than me (oops, but only once)
doesn't tell me I am beautiful and fabulous/
I have not known for a least a month (one-night stands in foreign countries exempted)
Has a girlfriend or a wife.
Chases tail in my presence.
Isn't concerned with my happiness, pleasure, and well-being (i.e. does not have a problem with me being a "mental patient" and the things like therapy a medication that go along with that)
Doesn't really want me.
Doesn't really respect me.
Doesn't like me1.
That's it for 2002's sexual resolutions. I have done pretty well actually. In between obsessing about the guy I talked to last night and my imaginary brain tumor2, I thought it might be a good idea to put these lists together and see how well I'm doing at preserving some semblance of my dignity.
I made M a tape last night of an album I think he should hear. This is not out of character for me at all. It will be the third tape I've brought someone at that bar, and I haven't slept with any of them.
He teaches at the same university that I do, and I know in which department, so I tormented myself playing Stalker for awhile. I could easily get his email, home phone, office #. . . There are 2 who go by the same first name in that department, but I'm pretty sure he is not the one that got his BA in 1974. He could not necessarily track me down so easily if inclined. There are 4 grads in our department with the same first name.
It's not technically stalking until one actually takes some sort of action, right? Like, oh, so, standing outside his apt at night caterwauling or, em, sending an e-mail composed entirely of an Emily Dickonson poem plus that DSM codes that define me which I shared with him last night.
I think he must have been mighty drunk3. He seemed more forthcoming than usual. Probably a mistake. But I want him to hear this music, so I will wait till next Friday and that is all I can conscionably do.
(Subtitle 2002: Why I have no reason to regret Him dumping me)
he's already showing signs of losing his hair.
he's almost a year younger than me.
uses stupid words to refer to anatomy.
keeps a gun in his apartment.
never had any qualms expressing his opinion that girls should not be hairy or pierced.
doesn't like Jerry Garcia.
from a long line of bigots.
in total denial over his own issues.
he's almost a year younger than me and he works at the rib place.
his feet smell.
no, really.
has OCD like behaviors.
has mentioned more than once that he 'forgot to eat today' because he was stoned/tired.
looks eerily like my biological grandfather.
narrow musical interests.
talks about this 'girl' at work who's apparently after him, calling her a psycho, but apparently dating her anyway.
owns no utensils.
I saw him eat fast food three times in one day once.
it's obvious when he's trying to be cool.
believes 10 pm is a good time to start hanging out.
unimpressive attitude towards menstruation.
said "nice ass. not fantastic, but nice."
lacks even partial mastery of the art of sarcasm.
needs a new toothbrush. badly.
is capable of speaking his mind for extended periods of time, but saying little. (i gave him a run for his money)
when I told him I'd joined the campus condom club and had to pay for 50 of them at a time, he said, 'it's not my fault you're a tramp.'
he doesn't keep condoms around.
when he doesn't want to be nice, he doesn't even try.
I'm sure there are more, I know there must be. I feel like maybe having this list will help me, so I will probably come back and update it.
Update: Jan 1, 2002
(New Year's Resolutions)
I will not have sex with any man who:
is a bigot
is younger than me (oops, but only once)
doesn't tell me I am beautiful and fabulous/
I have not known for a least a month (one-night stands in foreign countries exempted)
Has a girlfriend or a wife.
Chases tail in my presence.
Isn't concerned with my happiness, pleasure, and well-being (i.e. does not have a problem with me being a "mental patient" and the things like therapy a medication that go along with that)
Doesn't really want me.
Doesn't really respect me.
Doesn't like me1.
That's it for 2002's sexual resolutions. I have done pretty well actually. In between obsessing about the guy I talked to last night and my imaginary brain tumor2, I thought it might be a good idea to put these lists together and see how well I'm doing at preserving some semblance of my dignity.
I made M a tape last night of an album I think he should hear. This is not out of character for me at all. It will be the third tape I've brought someone at that bar, and I haven't slept with any of them.
He teaches at the same university that I do, and I know in which department, so I tormented myself playing Stalker for awhile. I could easily get his email, home phone, office #. . . There are 2 who go by the same first name in that department, but I'm pretty sure he is not the one that got his BA in 1974. He could not necessarily track me down so easily if inclined. There are 4 grads in our department with the same first name.
It's not technically stalking until one actually takes some sort of action, right? Like, oh, so, standing outside his apt at night caterwauling or, em, sending an e-mail composed entirely of an Emily Dickonson poem plus that DSM codes that define me which I shared with him last night.
I think he must have been mighty drunk3. He seemed more forthcoming than usual. Probably a mistake. But I want him to hear this music, so I will wait till next Friday and that is all I can conscionably do.
1. A glance at the first list should assure anyone in doubt that the items on the second list do, indeed, tend to be an problem. Perhaps moreso for women with self-esteem issues.
2. I have a proclivity for SNRI-induced imaginary brain tumors.
3. A contextual typo? Judging from the misspellings, and knowing that I was not on any anti-convulsants at this time, it appears I was drunk. When I wrote this. I don't think I'm going to be able to transcribe any entirely undoctored entries beyond the first. Though I could conceivably make things worse, being on topiramate now.
| 11:20 pm | |||
| |||
| 11:05 pm | |||
| |||
Friday, November 1, 2002
Yesterday was my 27th birthday. Here's what I got: a card from my father, a letter from my sister, a VS catalogue addressed to the former resident, an update package from my PPO, and an MCI bill.
Well, that's what I got in the mail, anyway. I celebrated by going to Kroger to send Western Union someone and came away with a surprisingly non-bulimic collection of groceries. Well, maybe bulimic lite. Toilet cleaner, icecream, discounted "Halloween" themed dishrags. You can believe whatever you wish of your fellow grocers, or you can choose to be non -judgemental. I, for one, only take interest in the women (like me) who sit with the icecream door open so long it fogs the entire length of the freezer and has a case of diet soda in her cart. As for the guy in front of me in checkout with nary but 10 lbs of margarine and a bushel of cucumbers, I don't really care.
Ativan & Cranberry Juice 11.02.02
I hope 27 won't suck. Odd years are usually better. 25 was okay. 23 I was at least sane. 21 was the best birthday and probably the best year of my life. 19 I followed the Grateful Dead and went to Rainbow Gatherings. Now, looking back it seems I got built up by my birthdays and seem to expect something fabulous to happen each year. At the least, for the ratio of fabulous to atrocious to be high.
Maybe I can hold on to that. Maybe I can make it happen.
I've met the man of my dreams in a bar again. The fact that I have inadvertently over the course of the past 2 years taken 3 men home from this bar and done (un)speakable things with them does not necessarily discount the viability of my prophecy.
It would be wrong to say that I met him tonight, though. I've met him *before*. I've told him he looks like Greg Proops (sp) before. But tonight was the night I found out that he prefers to be called by his full given name rather than the nick everyone refers to him by, tonight was the night we compared psychiatric histories and trends in personal musical tastes.
When I told him yesterday was my birthday and how old I was, he kept repeating "what a baby". And that he thought I was older. "By what I say or by how I look?" I asked, holding my breath. Nobody past the age of 21 wants to look older. He said it was the things that came out my mouth that made him think me older.
I could tell he was smashed and asked if we could play the "sodium pentathol" game where it's like I give you the truth serum and you are unable to lie, but the best questions I could come up with were: 1) Are you a cat or a dog person. 2)Where do you live? 3)Is it nice? The last two were in relation to the fact that he holds a position at the university that requires the same level of education I do. I guess it was a sneaky was of trying to figure out whether he was as broke as I am. Considering that he bought my drinks all night and they let him run a tab should have born this out as as unlikely.
He took my last questions a little differently. Which was unfair, considering I was meant to be the administrator of the truth serum. He asked a question back: "It's nearby here, only a few blocks. Do you want to come home with me?"
No, I do not want to come home with you. Tonight.
You already have a piece of paper in your pocket with the artist and album I am going to put on tape to bring you next week. With an IOU to bring me some sort of tape. You already know my psychiatric history.
I took 20mg of valium before I went there because there would have been no other way I could have. O had intended to go to Shabbat first but it starts at 6, which about exactly when I finished my run. It weighed heavy in my mind: "hmmmm organized spirituality or forced socilalization?" Which one might last longer? At which would I more easliy evade 6000 years worth of "have a second-helping" Jewish grandma genes? At any rate, I was certianly not going to walk into Shabbat late again, let alone in stinky running clothes.
In sum, today: I woke up too late. I paid bills and rent. I tried to read, but I still can't. I went on campus with a Luna bar, making sure a number of people saw me eating it. I received a birthday card from my mother who keeps forgetting that I need a mommy at this point more than I need a friend, and a book from my sister. I wonder if I will be able to read it. Ha. I also got another bill. And I rallied the masses around me, unbeknowest to them, that this Effexor work, because I cannot fucking live like this anymore. And now I'm going to take a very long, 22mg lorazepam nap.
There is nothing more pointless, as a graduate student, than facing a weekend being unable to focus, concentrate, read. My back is shot from sitting on this shitty folding tailgate chair tapping away at a laptop balanced on plastic stack-em drawers. Nothing has happened on any of the 4 bulletin boards I regularly inhabit of which I am not aware, mo message sits in my hotmail, yahoo, or uni accounts long unopened and/or undeleted. All I want is to sleep for 8 hours, wake up and take the next new titration of Effexor (still Zoloft-tinged) and eat another handful of pills, sleep until Sunday, and wake up okay. And read, and read, and read. . .
Well, that's what I got in the mail, anyway. I celebrated by going to Kroger to send Western Union someone and came away with a surprisingly non-bulimic collection of groceries. Well, maybe bulimic lite. Toilet cleaner, icecream, discounted "Halloween" themed dishrags. You can believe whatever you wish of your fellow grocers, or you can choose to be non -judgemental. I, for one, only take interest in the women (like me) who sit with the icecream door open so long it fogs the entire length of the freezer and has a case of diet soda in her cart. As for the guy in front of me in checkout with nary but 10 lbs of margarine and a bushel of cucumbers, I don't really care.
I hope 27 won't suck. Odd years are usually better. 25 was okay. 23 I was at least sane. 21 was the best birthday and probably the best year of my life. 19 I followed the Grateful Dead and went to Rainbow Gatherings. Now, looking back it seems I got built up by my birthdays and seem to expect something fabulous to happen each year. At the least, for the ratio of fabulous to atrocious to be high.
Maybe I can hold on to that. Maybe I can make it happen.
I've met the man of my dreams in a bar again. The fact that I have inadvertently over the course of the past 2 years taken 3 men home from this bar and done (un)speakable things with them does not necessarily discount the viability of my prophecy.
It would be wrong to say that I met him tonight, though. I've met him *before*. I've told him he looks like Greg Proops (sp) before. But tonight was the night I found out that he prefers to be called by his full given name rather than the nick everyone refers to him by, tonight was the night we compared psychiatric histories and trends in personal musical tastes.
When I told him yesterday was my birthday and how old I was, he kept repeating "what a baby". And that he thought I was older. "By what I say or by how I look?" I asked, holding my breath. Nobody past the age of 21 wants to look older. He said it was the things that came out my mouth that made him think me older.
I could tell he was smashed and asked if we could play the "sodium pentathol" game where it's like I give you the truth serum and you are unable to lie, but the best questions I could come up with were: 1) Are you a cat or a dog person. 2)Where do you live? 3)Is it nice? The last two were in relation to the fact that he holds a position at the university that requires the same level of education I do. I guess it was a sneaky was of trying to figure out whether he was as broke as I am. Considering that he bought my drinks all night and they let him run a tab should have born this out as as unlikely.
He took my last questions a little differently. Which was unfair, considering I was meant to be the administrator of the truth serum. He asked a question back: "It's nearby here, only a few blocks. Do you want to come home with me?"
No, I do not want to come home with you. Tonight.
You already have a piece of paper in your pocket with the artist and album I am going to put on tape to bring you next week. With an IOU to bring me some sort of tape. You already know my psychiatric history.
I took 20mg of valium before I went there because there would have been no other way I could have. O had intended to go to Shabbat first but it starts at 6, which about exactly when I finished my run. It weighed heavy in my mind: "hmmmm organized spirituality or forced socilalization?" Which one might last longer? At which would I more easliy evade 6000 years worth of "have a second-helping" Jewish grandma genes? At any rate, I was certianly not going to walk into Shabbat late again, let alone in stinky running clothes.
In sum, today: I woke up too late. I paid bills and rent. I tried to read, but I still can't. I went on campus with a Luna bar, making sure a number of people saw me eating it. I received a birthday card from my mother who keeps forgetting that I need a mommy at this point more than I need a friend, and a book from my sister. I wonder if I will be able to read it. Ha. I also got another bill. And I rallied the masses around me, unbeknowest to them, that this Effexor work, because I cannot fucking live like this anymore. And now I'm going to take a very long, 22mg lorazepam nap.
There is nothing more pointless, as a graduate student, than facing a weekend being unable to focus, concentrate, read. My back is shot from sitting on this shitty folding tailgate chair tapping away at a laptop balanced on plastic stack-em drawers. Nothing has happened on any of the 4 bulletin boards I regularly inhabit of which I am not aware, mo message sits in my hotmail, yahoo, or uni accounts long unopened and/or undeleted. All I want is to sleep for 8 hours, wake up and take the next new titration of Effexor (still Zoloft-tinged) and eat another handful of pills, sleep until Sunday, and wake up okay. And read, and read, and read. . .
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