Drugs.

This one is gonna be simple today.

I am so sick and tired of trying to explain that panic and depression is ruining my life, and that if it were so easy to just stop being this way, I would. I am sick of it to the point where I am going to kill my drug phobia and start taking an anti depressant just so I won’t get this enraged when people talk about emotional disorders as though they are so easy to overcome. Taking the drugs is the only way I am going to be able to exist on this planet without wanting to punch someone or stab myself in the neck. I am sick of defending my fear, I am sick of asking people to support me, I am sick of … Everything. Fuck it.

I won’t defend myself anymore. I will stop trying to reason with people who will pretend to understand and then talk shit behind my back.

I am so FUCKING sick of this shit.

May is here.

Haven’t blogged in a while.  I spent the last week at my Aunt’s house where there is no Internet.  Talk about the most relaxing week I have spent in a long time.  See, it’s so much easier to ignore minor body “symptoms” when there’s no WebMD around. 

As you may have noticed, I didn’t title this entry “May is here!”.  Yes, I named it “May is here.” Simple matter of fact.  It’s here. 

For those of you who don’t know, I don’t like May.  See, in May of 2009, I fell in to a horrible TERRIFYING depression.  Ever since then, May hasn’t been the same.  I don’t look forward to it, I dread it.  The last week of April I spent at my Aunt’s house, scared out of my mind that May was nearing.  The second to last week in April, I spent a day in the ER because of a panic.  Whether or not that had anything to do with May’s inevitability, I’m not sure.  As I think back, however, there are many, many other Mays that haven’t been kind to me.  I won’t get in to that here, but let’s just say that May and I don’t get along. 

So, yesterday I had the mother of all headaches, and of course, the first thing I think is that I am having a stroke or something because I tend to expect the worst.  I don’t like taking drugs, so I suffered through the headache until I got out of work at 9, and at that point I had a choice.  I was starving, so I knew I would have to eat when I got home, but at the same time I couldn’t imagine staying awake long enough to eat and let the digestion process begin before laying down to sleep to get rid of the headache naturally.  I bought a bottle of Tylenol.  I took two caps when I got in the car at 9:14, and timed it.  Yes, I wanted to see how long it took for the medication to take effect.  Curiousity killed the cat… etcetera, but I was curious because I never take Tylenol.  I guess I’m lucky in that I don’t get unbearable headaches very often, so I don’t know how long Tylenol takes to kick in. 

Anyway, it took 15 minutes for the headache to lessen, it didn’t go away completely, but it did take the edge off.  When I got home, I was so frantic that I had taken a drug that instead of eating, I decided to start watching my body for signs of an allergic reaction.  I’ve taken Tylenol before and never had a problem, but ever since May 2005 when I had a tonsillectomy, I have been afraid of an allergic reaction to medications.  See, Amoxicillin, an antibiotic I have taken my entire life, suddenly gave me a head to toe rash and I found that I am allergic.  So, yeah, that’s where my fear of drugs stems from, and I’m sure all of my intelligent readers noticed that it was May 2005 when this occurred. 

I didn’t eat any dinner.  Instead, I decided to lay down and watch some television before I went to sleep.  It was during this time that I noticed that I was WIRED.  I couldn’t go to sleep if you had a gun to my head.  All I wanted to do was go out for a run.  I thought about who I could call (at this time, it was after midnight).  I channel surfed, trying to ignore the fact that I felt like I had just smoked crack, not that I have a basis for comparison, but I figure crack probably makes you wired.  So I grabbed my smart phone (mistake) and I typed in “allergic reactions to Tylenol” (mistake).  While I didn’t show any symptoms of an allergic reaction, I was concerned that it boasts sleep disturbances as a side effect.  I was also confused that it stated in one of the links that Tylenol is a narcotic???  I wouldn’t have guessed that, but then, I’m not a pharmacist.

As you probably guessed, no allergic reaction to speak of.  If I was having an allergic reaction, I wouldn’t be here typing, I’d be at the ER.  But, I will admit to thinking that because it was officially May 1st when all this was occurring, I was very nervous about it.  What a way to start off May.

This morning, I opted for decaf coffee, just in case.  I am occupying myself with laundry until my sister comes over.  I have found that watching Harvey Birdman DVDs keeps me laughing instead of panicking, so I have Harvey Birdman on in the background. 

Long story even longer, I have had an itch to shoot some film lately.  It’s been about 5 days now that I have had the hankering to load a roll of film and shoot some stuff the old fashioned way.  So, I loaded some Fuji 400 in my Canon Elan II and I shot about 10 frames.  Can’t post them here (of course), but I feel good now.  I wanted something and I did it instead of ignoring it.  I did it instead of writing it off as “stupid” or “too expensive” or any of the million other excuses I use to get out of doing something that I really want to do.  This makes me happy.

I am excited for May.  I want May 2011 to break the cycle of bad Mays so that I can see that bad things can happen at any time, it just happens that the May problems are the ones I remember because I have it in my head that May hates me. 

Here’s to a great May, everyone!

Is it really so wrong?

I woke up at 6 this morning and made some breakfast (had a bit of acidity going on in the ol’ tummy) and had a cup of coffee.  About an hour after I ate, I started having heart palpitations.

Now, I normally have heart palpitations when I am really really hungry.  I’ve gotten used to it, and have found that severe hunger can cause a heart to palpitate.  I have no idea why, I’m not a doctor, just a lowly photo technician.

Anyway, the palpitations were getting on my nerves, so I decided to lay down on my bed and write my symptoms down in my “therapy journal”, which I’m not even sure why I keep writing in because all it says is “my stomach hurts today” or “I am feeling jittery today” every day, over and over again.  Oh, and there are the wonderful EMOTIONS that I write in there, too.  But writing them down rarely fixes anything like people CLAIM it will.

My arm went weak and collapsed under me.  Then I got a wave of weakness all over my upper body.

I jumped up off the bed and started pacing, doing my “relaxation techniques” that were “prescribed” through the therapist, which (after about 15 minutes) calmed the RATE of my heartbeat down, but not the shear FORCE of each beat.  I could actually SEE my pulse in my temple.  HOLY CRAP so I thought, call 911.  Well, I didn’t.  I managed to get my heart rate back to a “normal” rate, so I went back in my bedroom after about 20 minutes of complete and whole-body terror.

I sat on the edge of my bed and talked myself into going to the ER, then talked myself out of it, then into it, then out of it, then back into it after I noticed that I THOUGHT I had been considering the ER for about 10 minutes, and it turns out it was AN HOUR.  So, yeah, I lost an hour of my life in my spaciness and didn’t even realize it.

Now I get to the IS IT REALLY SO WRONG part…

Is it really so wrong that I don’t want to take medication?  How did people deal with anxiety before benzos and other “anti-anything-mental” drugs??  I don’t want to be a zombie God damn it and I don’t want to take drugs!  Is that so wrong?  Why does no one seem to understand that??  IF MY BRAIN HAS THE POWER TO DO THIS, SHOULDN’T IT ALSO HAVE THE POWER TO STOP IT without the use of drugs?  There is a reason I don’t smoke pot.  There’s a reason I don’t do coke.  I don’t want CHEMICALS in my body that will alter my BRAIN in such ways. 

So, my aunt (who is a nurse) asked me if I wouldn’t take insulin if I were diabetic?  Would I not take meds for hypertension?  If it meant that it could save my life — yes I would.  BUT I DON’T FEEL THAT ATIVAN IS A LIFE SAVING DRUG.  If I start having suicidal thoughts or actions, MAYBE I will consider it a life saving agent.  HOWEVER, isn’t the most famous side effect, the one that everyone laughs about in these “anti-anything-mental” drug commercials “increased thoughts of death or suicide”??  WHY WOULD I TAKE A DRUG TO STOP ME FROM KILLING MYSELF IF THE POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECT IS INCREASED THOUGHTS OF DEATH OR SUICIDE?  What a cruel joke THAT is! 

Listen, I am sure that many, many people have taken Ativan and lived and some people LOVE the drug for the help that it gives them, but I personally do not want to take drugs for this.  Am I so wrong for that?  I’m the type that doesn’t even like taking Tylenol for crying out loud.  Ativan is like if Tylenol decided to go on a bender and take some steroids and blow.  Why do I want that in my body??

I know that those of you who know me are laughing it up right now saying, “you’re a SMOKER!” and I am.  Do I like that I am?  Ha.  No.  Would I quit right now if I weren’t TERRIFIED of the withdrawals?  You bet I would. 

My life, as much as I love it, is a fu**ing double edged sword.

Wanna go on life’s biggest adventure?  LIVE.  That’s it.  That’s life’s biggest adventure.  No roller coaster in the world can give you the ups and downs that simple LIVING can give you.  Well, that’s my life anyway.