Let’s rewind, again.

Regression is a terrible thing in most cases. When people regress it usually has to do with something they’ve moved forward with on a significant level. Or something they’ve conquered and overcome. But sometimes regression is just a circle.

Have you ever stopped to think that maybe you’re not moving forward at all? It’s possible you’re just playing ring-around-the-rosie with yourself and you’re just going to eventually end up right back where you were. That’s not regression, that disillusion. You were alluded to the fact that you were making forward progress, only to find out that life isn’t actually linear like all those scientists say. It’s a fucking loop. A paradox.

It’s been three years since I’ve gotten off that boat. Three years since I’ve sent foot on a ship and gone anywhere even near the open ocean. It was hell there, one of those worst times of my life. I wouldn’t go back and do it if you paid me. I’d do it again for free.

All of those thing that I worried about, the crime, the traffic, the hustle and bustle of city living, it was all true. Every bit of it. This city has more chaos than I have ever experienced.

I have started taking the train to lessen the stress however. It is kind of nice, almost nostalgic to Japan, almost.

Racing to catch the next train, due in just under a minute. Knowing that if I miss this one I’m going to be exactly 7 minutes late to work, again. But that snooze button always gets the best of me. That extra 5 minutes of shut eye turns into waking up 10 minutes past my leave time. The frantic rush to find clean clothes but usually settling on yesterdays jeans that I snuck downstairs to find while still only half dressed. The imperative frosted windshield that takes 10 minutes to clear. The non-existent coffee that I forgot to pre set the night before. And finally, the pre-dawn drive to the station, to park 5 stories up in a building where the elevator is usually out of service, and a walk of a hundred murders of crow dancing above my head as I pray to avoid their darts of white feeces raining down around me.

Pure fucking chaos.

Throws of Addiction

Addiction can kill, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The shell of a person, wilted down from the inside out. Their souls become barren, caught in the throws of anguish and despair.

But addiction doesn’t have to be to an illicit substance. One can be hooked on affection, climbing into the bed of a stranger just to feel physical contact. Attention, feigning illness where one does not exist cept in the crevices of their broken minds.  Even addictions to loneliness are real. Isolation, declining invitations and phone messages. Praying to be left alone in their own solitude.

I am addicted to silence. I crave the empty airwaves, void of every noise less the ones I choose to make. The tap of a woodpecker, the song of a bird, the slight nuances reaching in from the outside. I long for silence, to be in a place where noise is a choice that I get to make.

But alas I live in chaos, heavy footsteps followed by slamming of doors. Random screams and cackling laughter. Outside, rather than the sweet sounds of nature I am greeted by the car horns and passer-byers. How I wish I could find silence within the noise. To be able to tune out all the excess chatter and fall into a world of silent bliss.

I fear it will drive me mad one day.

Behind My Eyes

via Behind My Eyes

Bipoloar much?

In my last post I mentioned waves, about my moods going up and down and I didn’t know why. My depression came back full swing a few weeks ago and I checked myself into the mental health clinic to see someone-immediately.

Upon the conclusion of our first 2-hour session she thought that I may have had a touch of bipolar disorder. A week later, I had another break down and went in to see the psychiatrist and explained to him what was going on. He took a look at my medication history and how I reacted to each of them and concluded that I have officially been diagnosed with Bipolar Type 2 disorder. He put me on a concoction of Prozac, Xanax, and Zyprexa. One to keep me from going too low, another to keep me from going too high and the Xanax for my anxiety. It’s working, I think. My depression has been kept at bay.

Anyways, I finally have an answer to all the questions that we’re locked in my head. My psychologist says she also thinks I have OCD tendencies. She wants me to talk to my psychiatrist at my next appointment and see if another medicine can be added to help with that symptom.

Downward Spiral

Depression is a downward spiral, something that hits you so quickly it feels like you’ve been blindsided by a bus riveting down the highway. Then you’re left just laying there, motionless, with your eyes open- devoid of any emotion.

When I’m not in a depressed state, things are wonderful. I can read about depression and hear people talk about it but it seems like something I just don’t relate to, its a life I’ve never experienced- even if a majority of my time has actually been spent in such a state. When I come out of a stage of depression I become my normal self again- happy, optimistic and light-hearted. I actually forget what it felt like it to be depressed. When I’m in a high state- I don’t want to call it manic because Im not entirely sure that it what it is- I have ample energy and drive to do things. I excited to the point of tears over somethings that most people would call me crazy for. I speak to people when they walk by and I acknowledge their presence. Life is good, it’s really pretty good.

When the depression hits, god it’s terrible. I want to cry over everything. I have no motivation to do anything and things that once were so enjoying become a challenge.

What I want to know is why I go through these waves, why do I have periods that are great. Sometimes they last for months on end. And then the depression swings back around and keeps me subdued for periods just as long. I hate this feeling, I hate that I can forget it happens and the only reminder I have are the half empty bottles of anti-depressants lying around, tucked in drawers. And when I see them I just look at them and wonder why I needed them, why I even bothered to take them. And then when times like this kick in, I wish nothing more than to have that prescription up to date.

Depression is a Trip

Depression

Depression is when you get home and you don’t even want to get out of your car. So you sit there, waiting to go inside, until you finally muster the energy and will to go in.

Depression is when you get to the top of your steps once you are inside and lay across four steps resting your head on the landing because you just don’t want to go any further.

Depression is when you go into the kitchen and stare at the fridge and know that you really should cook something but even now, the one thing you enjoy the most, has become a chore. So, you grab a bottled water and some chips and slink into your bedroom.

Depression is when you finally climb into bed, knowing the covers and blankets you want are downstairs but you don’t even care enough to go down and get them. Because all you want to do is crawl into your bed and stare at the wall.

Depression is when you don’t even want to eat the food that you did bring with you. Not because it’s bad food, just because you don’t want to eat at all.

Depression is when you would rather stare at the wall, or the ceiling, or an inanimate object rather than reaching over and looking for the remote control.

Depression is life. Life is depression. But depression doesn’t mean you cant have parts of your day where you smile and laugh. It just means that when you succumb to the melancholy that all is lost for that point in time.

Are you TRYING to kill me?

November 12th- 59 days and a wake up. That’s how long I have until I will wake up in Washington DC. December 6th- My 26th birthday. December 7th- Start new job, meet new people, become acclimated with an office building that houses over 170 different corridors; piece of cake.

October 12th- My last day on Klonopin according to my new shrink. Who in their right mind would taper someone off of a medicine they have been taking for almost three years, while they’re not taking any other medicine for their anxiety just weeks before they’re supposed to move out of the country, completely away from a doctors care, go three weeks without even checking into another hospital system in a different country?  This bitch must be outta her mind. The most stressful period of my life in the last three years (well, that is yet to be determined I suppose) and she wants to take me off of my medicine and just ship me off. I get anxious just at the thought of it. It’s crossed my mind to taper myself off slower than she wants so when I do get to DC I can go see another doctor and come back onto it and never have to actually have it out of my system. I tested it today, I went three days without taking it, actually 7 doses all together, and I was ok until this afternoon. I don’t know if my body needs it as much as my mind needs it as a backup in case I have an anxiety attack.

Is that an addiction, or just a dependency?

I don’t want to go back to not being able to speak, or walk around or see people or leave my house or get behind the wheel of a car. I want to be able to function as a normal person. This medicine is the only thing that allows me to do that. It enables me to speak in front of a group of people with only my hands trembling as opposed to my voice, it allows me to open up and express myself, it frees my mind from the thoughts that get played on repeat- over and over again. For once, in such a long time, I have felt like a normal person. If something works, because of the glue you put between the cracks, do you really want to melt that glue and have all those pieces that you spent so long trying to reassemble, just fall apart? That doesn’t seem like logic to me. Fuck your monochromatic outlook- EVERYTHING IS GREY GODDAMMIT.

I’m so sick of people telling me what I need to do, how I should speak, what I can or cannot say, how I can dress, what I can eat, where I can eat, what I can do recreationally, who i’m allowed to go out with, how late I can be out, where I’m allowed to go. I’m NOT 18 anymore. The Military is going to be the death of me, and i’m about to sign 4 additional years of my life away- i’m the idiot. I have no one to blame but myself. But shitty medical care? There should be something I should be able to due about this- I mean, the military is the reason why my anxiety is the way it is to begin with.

I just don’t want to be paralyzed with anxiety anymore. I want all of those feelings to go away. I honestly just want to be done with the military but that is a no go if I want some sort of a stable future. If I we’re smarter three years ago, I would be set right now with 65k in the bank, instead i’m 10k in debt and still have to buy a car and a home. With this credit? Yea, right!

59 days and a wake up. Someone please save me from myself. Let me make it through these next three months and keep my feet on the ground and ass out of the fire…

Try not

Try not to cry.

 Try not to let the tears rolls down your cheeks.

 Try not to taste the saltiness on your lips.

 Try not to wallow to self pity. 

Instead, let the blood roll down your arm. 

Let the physical pain overcome the emotional. 

You are stronger than that, stronger than the tears. Stronger than the pain. 

Try not to let it consume you; letting it be all of your being. 

Try not to cry. 

Don’t give in. If you give in, what is left? 

But the pain will be gone. The shame, the sadness, the isolation. 

Try. Try so hard to make it through the night. 

Let the tears fall. Its better than blood. 

Margarita Time

We’re all here for the same thing aren’t we? To get noticed I mean, to get some sort of recognition? It’s a cut-throat world out there, and we’re all smack dead in the center of it. There comes a day in your life where you wake up and ask yourself ‘What the fuck am I doing’ and then you change it. You make a big change, something that uproots your life in a way you couldn’t have imagined before and you end up somewhere new.

Sometimes that somewhere new is somewhere great and you excel in whatever your goal was, if you even had one in mind. Sometimes it’s a flop and you end up waking up again one day asking yourself the same question ‘What the fuck am I doing?’ So, what do you do? Do you uproot again and move onto something new and try your luck at a different set of cards? Or do you just bluff the hell out of the table and go all-in, win or lose, and hope to god that you don’t blow it?

No, you literally hit the casino right inside the city and withdrawal the $500 that’s left in your checking account. Inside the casino it’s filled with the laughter of drunken women and smoke from old men. Not the best casino but hey, it’s a ‘fuck it’ moment.

You look around for a low limit Hold ‘em table and find one tucked in the back. You take a seat next to a grey haired old white woman and a middle-aged Asian man. You put up the $500 and the dealer slides you back your chips. A few good hands and you’ve already more than tripled what you came in with. Another good hand, you take the pot and think it out. One more time. Well fuck, you just doubled up! Not quite the jackpot but damn near good enough. But damn near good enough is never good enough. You have to keep going. Keep pushing. Keep throwing yourself out there, hoping for the next big win. Finally time for another break through. Onto a different game, one with different odds.

“You’re a tough cookie, kid. Most people wouldn’t have risked it all like that.” Says some old man with a cigar in his mouth and a drink that resembles a clean scotch in his hand. He must have been watching you for a while. Instant boost of confidence. You don’t show anyone, but you tuck a little of your winnings into your pocket each time you hit. You’re up on the table by far, but what you’ve got hidden away, oh if they only knew. You go in- one more time, all or nothing- so they think. Blackjack baby, three to one. Walk away, and you do it ever so gracefully. Straight to the cashier where you lay your chips on the counter. Then you start digging out your pockets, $500 chips by the tens. The cashier looks at you and smiles, hoping for a tip when it’s all said and done. She totals you up, $376,000. “Here ya go Doll” As you slide her a $100 bill back. She frowns like it’s not enough. “Ungrateful bitch” You mumble as you stuff the winnings in your back pocket and head for the door.

As you walk out and hand the valet your ticket you think to yourself “What the fuck am I going to do now?” He rolls around the corner slowly in your silver 2001 Honda Accord and you slip him a $20 as he hands over your keys. Its 3pm and you have no schedule so you just drive. Right onto the highway and take the exit marked South. Mexico will do nicely, you can get a tan. And a margarita.