Small Batch, Big Pharma

Today is not a good day.  Endless sadness.  Endless.  Too nervous to get a project started.  Too depressed to finish projects.  The only way that I know how to survive this feeling is to waste time online, telling myself that this too, shall pass.  Even procrastination gets old REAL fast.  I don't like wasting time, I would prefer to be involved in something, but when leaving your own home seems terrifying, you work with it in the best way possible.

I am planning on working up the courage to go to the pharmacy today, and to pick up my prescription for Latuda.  Even though my boyfriend doesn't want me to get back on meds, I really have no idea what else to do.  I just cancelled my appointment with a Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor, and now I am somewhat regretting it.  I am wondering if it is yet another missing piece to the puzzle.  I practice and play with different herbs and get decent enough results, but it would be nice to work with a professional on this matter.  The cost is a bit much, however.  I can afford it if I dip into savings, but I worry that I will need my savings to buy groceries and pay for other general necessities once my father is no longer here.

I can't help but notice how much nicer my skin looks now that I am continuing to withdraw from Wellbutrin.  It really helps my self esteem a lot to have that aspect of my life in order.  Acne is so difficult to ignore.  Impossible, really.  My skin just feels very glowy, very full of good blood and warmth and health. It's kind of a dream come true (I've struggled with acne since I was around 11.  I remember getting my first pimple, and thinking "Well, this is the end of my innocence.  I guess I'll have to put up with this crap for some time.").

Funnily enough, my current blase attitude and feeling that I can't quite get going is pretty much identical to where I was by being on 300mg of Wellbutrin XL, 20mg of Prozac, and 0.5 mg of Klonapin three times a day.  But with that combo, I had much much less energy, more dizziness, and zero interest in facebook, socializing, or interest in much of anything.  TV always seemed like a great idea.  Oh, and the complete lack of libido and numbness of sexual or erotic feeling was killer.  I may have just a touch more suicidal ideation while off of my medication, but at least I can feel sex, have enough energy to do the dishes, and dream about my future and projects.  I think it's obvious that the pros far outweigh the cons!

But will Latuda fare any better?  I'm planning on micro-dosing, because my gut tells me to.  God damn.  I could, honestly should, write a whole other post about how intuition is so essential for figuring out a medication combo that works.  To resolve health issues.  To determine whether you can trust a person or not.  In short, it's just really effing essential.

Anyways, back on Latuda micro-dosing:  I'm hoping that less than 10mg can affect my mood somewhat.  I'm not looking for a complete overhaul, I'm not looking for a huge change, just a subtle leveling out.  I still don't understand why dosages of medication aren't tailored to each individual.  Each person is a different body weight, but there is one recommended dose, it seems.  To me, finding the right dosage doesn't look like a line graph, where with more meds you get less symptoms.  It's more like a bell curve, where you have a "sweet spot" where the medication is being metabolized properly, without too much un-metabolized product just floating around the body causing chaos.  I just feel that even the more conservative doctors prescribe far too much.  When I was working with my last doctor, I mentioned to reduce Wellbutrin so that more Prozac could be added.  Nope, he said.  More Prozac.  After one week I was feeling very fucked up, just very drugged, with nausea and blurred vision.  I feel like the liver has only so much real estate and metabolites to process so much drug in a given day.  And then to add an adjunct medication, you may need to reduce the current one so that there is enough resources for the body to process the drug.

I wonder if psychiatric medication can be diluted like a homeopathic remedy.  I wonder if that would be effective.  I winder if we can all sit around a circle and say a prayer to the active ingredient, to make it more effective.  It's funny to picture big pharma reps attempting to get down and spiritual in a hut in the Amazon.  What if, after we have an alternative medicine revolution, they decide to re-brand and start using the USDA organic label to sell more small batch Prozac.  They can get attentive hipsters and off white paper to make them seem more granola.  I am looking forward to this, for the laughs!

I'll talk to my naturopathic doctor tomorrow about trying TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine).  It might be helpful, it might be horrendously disappointing.  I may mourn the loss of some dollars.  I may get tense excitement that it works, and then start worrying about how to keep affording it.  But if a treatment can get me back to working and getting an income, then it's totally worth it to me.  I have so many ideas for income, I just need the stability and energy to do it.  I pray that I can get there.  

The Zombie Huntress and Victim

I can't tell if I am going to still be in freak out mode, or if I will eventually level off.  It's all a bit much for me to take in right now. I hope that this blog works out.

Lately, I've just been very very very overwhelmed about 'making it' in this world.  'Making it' meaning owning a car with relative ease, an apartment, food, and a little bit left over for entertainment and clothes.  I think that I need to quit it with the unchecked idealism and get on disability, already.  I'm already completely dependent upon my dad and his monthly checks, but eventually this will come to an end and I just stress endlessly about how to have a secure future.

It's strange to read the harsh criticisms for people who are on welfare or other public assistance, and I will soon be one of them.  Yes, passionate Republican family and extended family, I will soon drain the system.  I've gotten excellent grades, had awards come to the palms of my hands with strange frequency, gotten onto the Dean's list in college, participated in this and that club, plenty of praise and promise....and now I get to enjoy the scorn of being a lazy fuck.  Thanks, compassionate and caring family.  It's like you've totally bypassed the fact that I'm an actual, complex person and not a potential disability statistic.  I can feel the love.  I'm only as good as the amount of dollars I can contribute to our consumerist utopia.  That's cool.  When the truth is we all know that you can bust your ass and still struggle.  But hey, maybe you should try harder at walking to work in freezing temperatures so that I don't have to watch you from my new car.  You.  Are.  Killing.  My.  Vibe.   

If you can't tell, I'm kind of completely done and over people being hateful to those who struggle.  I feel as if the racism, the hatred, the prejudice, it's all just covering up the fear that they could end up like that person at any second.  That their empathy is so undeveloped that it would be easier to shove people away from your point of view than to recognize them as your equal, and at minimum offer pity, at most, offer physical help in the form of dollars or basic necessities.

Collectively, we just shove the sadness away from our own hearts, and even in our environments.  Just get over it, dear depressed friend.  Just work harder, dearest working poor employee.  Stop crying.  Don't whine.  Don't point out my hypocrisy!  Of course, I'm being a little hypocritical, because even the hater deserves love and respect.  To recognize that each time they lash out and undermine a group of people that they don't regularly have contact with, this is a sign that they are hurting....deeply.    

It's an awful catch-22 to choose to let down the effort of needed to cover up our sadness and pain.  We are then forced to feel our sadness and pain, which frankly, is awful.  I've always considered myself a champion feeler, willing to forego alcohol, weed, most vice-y things, in order to feel my pain and get the hell over it.  It's awful that feeling pain can be so problematic.  I try and remind myself that if I'm willing to feel it, at least I will be more able to find a genuine solution to it.  Instead of just slapping a huge generic band aid on all wounds, I can now identify what the hell kind of wound is going on and then apply the proper salve.  And If I have zero fucking clue about what the nature of my wound is, to at least brainstorm and experiment with solutions.  And salves.  To make the metaphor.  

I just took 3 caps of California Poppy tincture, two Kava root capsules, two GABAs....and I'm finally coming down from a bout of dermatillomania.  Thankfully, I don't have to tear apart my face anymore, but the ingrown hairs on my legs are shown no mercy.  It's disgusting and shameful and I hate the scars but this is the reality of what feeling feelings looks like.  That despite my best efforts to just chill throughout this damn thing, my body and mind still feel the need to numb out.  Because the emotional pain feels worse than the actual flesh wounds of a terrible nature.  Do you consume yourself or let the emotion consume you?  How do you even let an emotion consume you?  Do I consume something to expel the pain or consume to cover it up?  

Modern television bothers me to no end.  I don't need to watch a Zombie get disemboweled because  I've quite literally and figuratively lived the experience.  I am both the zombie, and zombie huntress.  I am both the numb, dead creature who is attacking the lively, desiring to live fighter.  I am both characters.  My mental illness provides me with both viewpoints.  I can't quite figure out a metaphor that ties in the Zombie's desire to supp on brains.  Maybe I desire a healthy, living brain, and I see the only means to do that is to consume myself, attack myself.  Again, I am both.  I can pass as mentally competent and fiercely struggle in the matter of hours, or sometimes, moments.  

But I'm pretty confident that I've had to develop the two sides necessary to any good late night TV drama because I couldn't express my pain, my ugliness.  I had to develop several different modes of processing: a shut down switch(trigger, normal processing hiccough), a numbing default (self harm), with the vital personality hiding behind it all.  

I'll never know if severe mental illness will ever make it to the on-demand digital TV screen, but I do know that this is my drama for one.  When I'm able to describe it others can understand but my psyche somehow makes sure that I am able to be at my worst when I am most alone.  A survival mechanism, sure, but a shitty one.  

first post

The anxiety is creeping up my throat and I don't think that I can handle it much longer.  A baby is crying outside my window, and I can't seem to handle it much longer.  My perfectionism is demanding that this post is perfect, and I can't seem to handle it much longer.

I cant seem to handle much of anything much longer, yet here I am 28 years later.  It's all to much, yet I haven't had enough of this life.  It's all too overwhelming, yet I still want more.  I have enough sensory experiences to last me forever, yet I want to experience the outside world.  I've already felt the blissiest of bliss, yet I want a sense of stability if you have it, thanks so much.

The sadness and excruciating mental and somatic pain compromises too much of my life experience that I would rather not go into detail...

Am I a knot of human material, or a deeply feeling, flexible, transparent symbol of societies collective sickness?

What am I and why am I here.  In a capitalistic sense I cannot answer it (for I don't work!  Therefore I contribute N O T H I N G).  But in a bigger picture-esque-type-style, I know that I'm here to deal, heal and to then teach others how to do it, so that we can finally fucking enjoy this life experience once and for all.  To put this collective darkness in the past, treat ourselves with dignity and enjoy this Earth, body and life the way that we were meant to. But this will take at least 1000 years, so until then, I'm here.

I hope that I can do it

I hope that I don't let God down.

I hope that this isn't a grand illusion that my mind likes to create for me.

But seriously, what is the greater purpose of the paranoia.  Yes, we're all going to have bad things happen to us, but I seem to have even worse things in store for myself.  Also, the predictions that my paranoia provided haven't been consistently true.  I thought that the fault line that runs through my hometown was going to swallow us all up in 2012 but that didn't happen.  

It's all been so inconsistent, so gross.

Why, when my boyfriends father drags on his e-cig in the other room, it feels like my brain is being sucked out of my forehead?  Why does it stress me out?  The toxins?  The invisible toxins, that are already in EVERYTHING, so I'm fucked, your fucked, it's all fucked.  What is the purpose to have my skin crawl from fear again?  How is this freeing humanity?

I guess I should meditate and have that answer come to me like a good New Age human.

But the skin crawlies follow me there, too.

So I put it off and watch trash on Youtube.  Like a good consumer.

Eh, but who the fuck cares.  I'm crazy (bipolar 2), therefore, irrelevant.

At least that's what the collective skin crawlies seem to say, vibrationally.