Posted on May 26, 2010 in Blogging
I have a secret blog that I keep irregularly updated. Not many know about it, but it seems to catch a more antic — if not manic — side of me.
Click on the picture to catch the latest installment.
Posted on May 25, 2010 in Medications
What does House see in [[Vicodin]]? Sure there is a fleeting happiness and some pain relief. But afterwards you turn into a pathetic bit of rot floating in a cesspool. The loneliness of the night becomes an intransigent gulf of despair.
The white lozenges seem harmless enough. You can imagine chewing them. (I don’t.) I’m not sure if the pain truly goes away or if you are merely rendered too jolly to care about it.
This time the druggist forgot to attach the warning label which urges you to devour your painkiller with food. I remembered past regrets and put on a little weight downing bottled smoothies every time I swallowed. One incident stands out in particular: I took the meds without eating. When the nausea hit, I decided that the smartest thing to do was to avoid eating anything until it blew over. During this torture, Lynn took me to her grandmother’s house where I politely declined a meal and lay on a couch. On the way home, the uge to blow overwhelmed me. Lynn pulled over and I just opened the door, leaving a puddle outside the old cemetery in Menlo Park. At home, the warning label clearly rang out: take with food. That incident served forever after as my reminder to respect the Demon Vicodin.
So it amused me when, in a recent episode of House, Taub and Foreman chomped down a few tabs each on empty stomachs. They felt the exhileration but neither of them threw up. Demon Vicodin came out of myth and winked at me, secure in the knowledge that television will always distort and outright lie.
Posted on May 21, 2010 in Blogging Site News
The other day this site was down for a few hours. The reason? We had exceeded our quota. This puzzled Lynn and me because we don’t see that much traffic on our blogs. We’ve slapped down the spinning of spiders and steeled our site against bandwidth pirates. Our provider assures us that we’re being read: So where are you? Why don’t you speak to us?
Posted on May 15, 2010 in DBSA Support Groups and Conferences Depression Psychotropics Stigma
The reason why I take medication is that the benefits they offer in the stabilization of my moods outweigh the side effects. But if they don’t work, all you get are the side effects.
Posted on May 14, 2010 in Abuse PTSD
The Cause for the Canonization of Roman Polanski took a big hit today when English actress Charlotte Lewis came out and hinted that he had taken liberties with her during the filming of Pirates in France.
Posted on May 12, 2010 in Medications Neurology Psychotropics Sugar and Fat
My endocrinologist took my left hand and pressed the finger nails. They turned white beneath her touch, then filled with pink blood as she released them.
Posted on May 12, 2010 in Site News
If you are a regular reader who feels neglected or who would like me to include your blog on my links on the left hand side of my blog home page, all you need to do is leave a comment with the URL either here or on my Facebook fan page.
Posted on May 10, 2010 in PTSD Violence
No hands come down hard on me, no shod feet find my thighs and calves. It is only the memory of being overwhelmed that entangles me, the shock of having been shocked.
Posted on May 5, 2010 in Dreams
Everything starts in a dorm. I’m at the top of a dark landing, proceeding down.
Posted on May 4, 2010 in Travel - Conferences
How American Airlines assigns you your seating group number baffles me. It is an important enumeration when it comes to the moment when you take your seat, but I cannot see how it is derived. All I know is that after all the first class passengers, the priority passengers, the other kind of priority passengers, and the guy who winked at the gatekeeper just right, I was allowed to board in Group 3 going one way and Group 2 on the way back. None of this efficient “board by your seat number” that other airlines use: you looked at your ticket and got on board with your designated peers. These might be seated in the very back of the plane or the front; by the windows or along the aisles. Unless you happened to be traveling with a lover or a friend or a business associate, you found your place alone.
During the boarding, I arrived after the man occupying the middle seat had taken his place. Then, in Group 4, came the woman who sat in the window seat. One would have expected in a cunning design that she would have been on first, but American Airlines saw it fit that the two of us who had superior rankings get up and allow her to alight on her cushion for the four hour ride. Traffic in the aisle stopped so we could make room for her and then resumed when we were finished. When all the groups had been assigned, the doors shut and the pilot took us to Chicago.
The plane shook as we came down over the wooded plains to the west of the city. A fellow in a seat ahead and to the right of mine did not take the buffeting so well and I confess that I, too, was touched by nausea. The plane performed its perfunctory bounce of arrival and I thought “Well, that trial is over”.
But it wasn’t. Traffic controllers had had us touch down on the runway farthest from the terminals and at O’Hare, that was a long way. “We’re taking the tour,” one woman said to a friend on the telephone. Past the perimeter fence and a road just outside it we drove for ten minutes. The fellow who wanted to barf kept rubbing the back of his neck and taking deep breaths. “Pleeeeease God,” I murmured in a hedge of prayer, “please stop this ride before he blows.” When we finally arrived, the sick man bent forward, but he didn’t blow chow, yawn in technicolor, or talk to the air sickness bag. Everyone rushed out and we were all in Chicago, under a long greenhouse stretching to curbside.
On the way back, the plane raced across the continent. Upon leaving O’Hare, we were told that we had already shaven ten minutes off our flight time. When we set down, we were a full thirty five minutes early. I called Lynn to tell her that I was on the ground. It caught her by surprise: she was unpacking groceries. “Come as soon as you can,” I said, then hung up. “Oh,” I said when she answered the phone the second time I called “Don’t look for me in the baggage claim. I will come to the curb.”
Quite a crowd clustered along the street. Arrivals dropped their bags on the sidewalks and bent their necks to stare at the gutter as they watched the time they had gained in the air go to waste on the ground.
Posted on May 3, 2010 in DBSA Support Groups and Conferences Depression Mania Pointers PTSD
I wondered if I suffered from bipolar disorder at all, so well had my meds been working lately. The wash of mania seemed a dream fixed to an offshore rock.
Posted on May 2, 2010 in Depression Journals & Notebooks Loneliness
Once in your life someone came to you when you had this ache like a brass cauliflower that weighs you down now. When she spoke to you, the heavy flowerets parted and — in its place — bliss was injected.
Fool that you are, you wait around whenever the mace strikes you and crave that feeling of release that company brings one more time.
Loneliness Catechism
Why didn’t you come over to me?
You looked like you wanted to be alone.
It’s when I have that look that I most want company.