Stream of Consciousness - Unmedicated version
I started this stream of consciousness almost two weeks ago. I have deleted it and restarted, because I'm in a different place. Well, sort of.
I have spent the last month or so without the supports that I usually have. I've been off of my medications for a month or a month and a half, my beloved is across the country (and has been for nearly six weeks), I haven't had my own money since the middle of December (as I'm paid on an adjunct schedule), and I've had to cancel therapy for the interim due to the lack of funds. I have spent six weeks relying on friends, emotionally and financially, because I couldn't find enough odd jobs to pay my bills. Hell, I could barely find enough to put gas in my car.
It's officially sunken in that I will be on medications for the rest of my life. I've quit my anti-depressant countless times before (because I'm a depressive, but I level out and I can live without it because I've learned coping skills...it's all a load of bullshit), but this was the worst withdrawal of my life. Maybe it's because I realized what it felt like to actually function like a normal human being, like with feelings and boundaries and recognizing my addictive, self-medicating behaviors? Maybe it's because everything in this universe and the next managed to go spectacularly and brilliantly wrong? Maybe it's because I'm getting older and my brain can't take that sort of yo-yo'ing anymore? IDK. What do know is that this was the first time that I can't think. I forget names or what I was saying in the middle of sentences, I forget things that were said not moments before. I know that there's a tension in my skull, like my brain is trying to fold in on itself. I know that I threw up for the first time in ages (and in doing research to try to verify if there was a name for the type of memory loss that I experienced, I discovered that nausea is a side effect of the detox syndrome...I had to cancel my classes because I'm detoxing...fuck). I know that I am vacillating between being hyper-tense, on-edge, ready to rip anyone's head off and not giving a shit about much of anything. I can't focus, I'm in constant pain (despite getting more massages from friends in the last few weeks than I ever have), I can't sleep or I oversleep, and I'm getting the delusions at the edges of my vision, now. Fog is the worst thing, right now. Trees become people who are strung up or guard towers, head lights become flashlights searching for escapees from some concentration camp that is built just outside of our stupid, narrow focus. I'm afraid that it's actually gas that's coming to clear out the city of some unseen and completely arbitrary menace. All I do is pretend that I'm trying not to cry, except when I do want to cry, the tears are locked up in some stupid box that I built so that I wouldn't be weak or a baby or melodramatic. I can't trust my sexual responses, because I'm terrified that I'll cross a very important line and betray my beloved or my lovers...again. I don't trust what I say because I don't know what happens between my brain and my mouth, and I don't trust my vocal cords to enunciate properly so that I can express what I was actually trying to say. It always comes out hard and sharp or just...shattered. I'm always cold, and shaking, and hungry, but without an appetite. I've become gaunt. It's only in my face, the sallowness emphasized by my strong chin and high cheekbones.
Other things that have happened while I'm dealing with all of, well, that. My great-grandmother passes away in her sleep a little more than 2 months before her 92nd birthday. I'm still sifting through my feelings on that one. While she was alive, I held her in a great deal of contempt. She went from her father's home to her husband's when she was 16. She was the pinnacle of Southern hospitality - no one entered her house without being fed, and she wouldn't imagine sitting down to enjoy her meal until she made sure that everyone had anything that they could possibly desire. She took great joy in this, in taking care of other people, putting herself last. And I despised her for it. Shew as the symbol of everything that I hated about the patriarchy and The Way Things Once Were, and By Gods, I'm Going To Be Different. And I am. But I'm not. I, too, take great joy in providing for my friends. I adore buying them gifts, helping them out when they are in tough spots, entertaining them with whatever wit and humor I may have left in my brain. I get my work ethic from her, too. She couldn't sit still for more than a few moments - long enough to scoop a bite of food into her mouth in hopes that the rest of us would let her do the next thing that she had thought that we needed. I forget to eat when I'm lost in a project, and book my days full to visit as many people as I can. Everyone always comes first. It may be unhealthy, but I don't know any other way. I got so much of my personality and work ethic and understanding of hospitality from this woman that I couldn't appreciate while she was alive. I took her kindness for granted. She never pushed her religion on us, just expected us to be good people. She never complained when I would rather lay on the couch and read than interacting with the rest of the family. I don't think that she understood my interest in education, but she listened attentively and intently, supporting me the whole way, as she did with her daughter and her grand-daughter before me. She wasn't the same person when her husband died, and Alzheimer's took her shortly thereafter. I hadn't seen her in at least ten years. I got updates from my mom when she went up to visit, but I couldn't find the time or bring myself to see her. My mom and I were in agreement that she would have been mortified by how she looked at her viewing. They didn't draw her eyebrows in (she lost all of her facial hair when a dryer exploded while she lived in South Africa), and she wasn't wearing make-up. I kind of wish that they had dyed her hair black, the way that she did every week until about 15 or 20 years ago. And this is the woman that I disdained for so much of my life.
My beloved wasn't able to make it to the funeral. I realize now that I didn't ask him to try. He was so busy catching up on the classes and client visits that he had to put off during the surgery and recovery period, and I didn't want to put him in that position. I guess. I didn't put much conscious thought toward it. I was too in shock, too shattered by the idea that my Gran-Nan passed - like she were immortal and that she would magically regain her memory one day - and I didn't even bother to learn who she was.
And then there were the standard stressors - the daily things that build up behind all of the big things and cause the whole tower to come tumbling down. Preparing lesson plans and assessments, while fighting the rip tide of depression and Numb; swallowing my pride and figuring out who I can borrow money from and when I can pay them back; getting out bed. Just getting out of fucking bed is an exercise in sheer force of will. Being good company to anyone in my presence is nothing short of a miracle. And I'm so conscious of how close I am to being overly-aggressive that I overcompensate into passive-aggressiveness, so as not to offend or over-react, and when I finally convince myself that I should say something, I'm thanked for saying something because it proves that I'm not a doormat. Which is fantastic to hear, when I'm trying not to be a raging, draconian, tornado of anxiety and control issues; OR trying to convince myself that I have enough passion to get out of bed to continue my life's goal of teaching people who actually give a shit about what I'm saying and be a dynamic professor who really gives a shit about her field, I promise. At least I'm proving that I'm not a doormat.
And now I'm wondering if I'm actually any more gaunt than I ever was, because I also have some pretty impressive dysmorphic symptoms, too. No thought is safe from the cycle of analysis, second-guessing, and self-loathing. Everything is stupid. I'm numb, but it's not a comfortable numbness - it's bleak and abyssal and insidious. And yet, I'm strung tightly, like a violin string, ready to snap at any moment. My muscles are pulling at the tendons, I can feel their connections in my joints, as if they're threatening to break off, to leave me a skeleton with dangling meat ribbons, some grotesque anatomy experiment, finally exposing that I am just a shape, a form to be admired, too beautiful to have boundaries or be reprimanded or be ignored. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I should never be given the skills to be a visual artist. Excuse me while I smoke a cigarette, and hunt down a beer. Just one, and just a beer. Must watch for signs of alcoholism, because I've always been inches too close, and there are so many, many things that I want to forget or ignore or silence.
I have spent the last month or so without the supports that I usually have. I've been off of my medications for a month or a month and a half, my beloved is across the country (and has been for nearly six weeks), I haven't had my own money since the middle of December (as I'm paid on an adjunct schedule), and I've had to cancel therapy for the interim due to the lack of funds. I have spent six weeks relying on friends, emotionally and financially, because I couldn't find enough odd jobs to pay my bills. Hell, I could barely find enough to put gas in my car.
It's officially sunken in that I will be on medications for the rest of my life. I've quit my anti-depressant countless times before (because I'm a depressive, but I level out and I can live without it because I've learned coping skills...it's all a load of bullshit), but this was the worst withdrawal of my life. Maybe it's because I realized what it felt like to actually function like a normal human being, like with feelings and boundaries and recognizing my addictive, self-medicating behaviors? Maybe it's because everything in this universe and the next managed to go spectacularly and brilliantly wrong? Maybe it's because I'm getting older and my brain can't take that sort of yo-yo'ing anymore? IDK. What do know is that this was the first time that I can't think. I forget names or what I was saying in the middle of sentences, I forget things that were said not moments before. I know that there's a tension in my skull, like my brain is trying to fold in on itself. I know that I threw up for the first time in ages (and in doing research to try to verify if there was a name for the type of memory loss that I experienced, I discovered that nausea is a side effect of the detox syndrome...I had to cancel my classes because I'm detoxing...fuck). I know that I am vacillating between being hyper-tense, on-edge, ready to rip anyone's head off and not giving a shit about much of anything. I can't focus, I'm in constant pain (despite getting more massages from friends in the last few weeks than I ever have), I can't sleep or I oversleep, and I'm getting the delusions at the edges of my vision, now. Fog is the worst thing, right now. Trees become people who are strung up or guard towers, head lights become flashlights searching for escapees from some concentration camp that is built just outside of our stupid, narrow focus. I'm afraid that it's actually gas that's coming to clear out the city of some unseen and completely arbitrary menace. All I do is pretend that I'm trying not to cry, except when I do want to cry, the tears are locked up in some stupid box that I built so that I wouldn't be weak or a baby or melodramatic. I can't trust my sexual responses, because I'm terrified that I'll cross a very important line and betray my beloved or my lovers...again. I don't trust what I say because I don't know what happens between my brain and my mouth, and I don't trust my vocal cords to enunciate properly so that I can express what I was actually trying to say. It always comes out hard and sharp or just...shattered. I'm always cold, and shaking, and hungry, but without an appetite. I've become gaunt. It's only in my face, the sallowness emphasized by my strong chin and high cheekbones.
Other things that have happened while I'm dealing with all of, well, that. My great-grandmother passes away in her sleep a little more than 2 months before her 92nd birthday. I'm still sifting through my feelings on that one. While she was alive, I held her in a great deal of contempt. She went from her father's home to her husband's when she was 16. She was the pinnacle of Southern hospitality - no one entered her house without being fed, and she wouldn't imagine sitting down to enjoy her meal until she made sure that everyone had anything that they could possibly desire. She took great joy in this, in taking care of other people, putting herself last. And I despised her for it. Shew as the symbol of everything that I hated about the patriarchy and The Way Things Once Were, and By Gods, I'm Going To Be Different. And I am. But I'm not. I, too, take great joy in providing for my friends. I adore buying them gifts, helping them out when they are in tough spots, entertaining them with whatever wit and humor I may have left in my brain. I get my work ethic from her, too. She couldn't sit still for more than a few moments - long enough to scoop a bite of food into her mouth in hopes that the rest of us would let her do the next thing that she had thought that we needed. I forget to eat when I'm lost in a project, and book my days full to visit as many people as I can. Everyone always comes first. It may be unhealthy, but I don't know any other way. I got so much of my personality and work ethic and understanding of hospitality from this woman that I couldn't appreciate while she was alive. I took her kindness for granted. She never pushed her religion on us, just expected us to be good people. She never complained when I would rather lay on the couch and read than interacting with the rest of the family. I don't think that she understood my interest in education, but she listened attentively and intently, supporting me the whole way, as she did with her daughter and her grand-daughter before me. She wasn't the same person when her husband died, and Alzheimer's took her shortly thereafter. I hadn't seen her in at least ten years. I got updates from my mom when she went up to visit, but I couldn't find the time or bring myself to see her. My mom and I were in agreement that she would have been mortified by how she looked at her viewing. They didn't draw her eyebrows in (she lost all of her facial hair when a dryer exploded while she lived in South Africa), and she wasn't wearing make-up. I kind of wish that they had dyed her hair black, the way that she did every week until about 15 or 20 years ago. And this is the woman that I disdained for so much of my life.
My beloved wasn't able to make it to the funeral. I realize now that I didn't ask him to try. He was so busy catching up on the classes and client visits that he had to put off during the surgery and recovery period, and I didn't want to put him in that position. I guess. I didn't put much conscious thought toward it. I was too in shock, too shattered by the idea that my Gran-Nan passed - like she were immortal and that she would magically regain her memory one day - and I didn't even bother to learn who she was.
And then there were the standard stressors - the daily things that build up behind all of the big things and cause the whole tower to come tumbling down. Preparing lesson plans and assessments, while fighting the rip tide of depression and Numb; swallowing my pride and figuring out who I can borrow money from and when I can pay them back; getting out bed. Just getting out of fucking bed is an exercise in sheer force of will. Being good company to anyone in my presence is nothing short of a miracle. And I'm so conscious of how close I am to being overly-aggressive that I overcompensate into passive-aggressiveness, so as not to offend or over-react, and when I finally convince myself that I should say something, I'm thanked for saying something because it proves that I'm not a doormat. Which is fantastic to hear, when I'm trying not to be a raging, draconian, tornado of anxiety and control issues; OR trying to convince myself that I have enough passion to get out of bed to continue my life's goal of teaching people who actually give a shit about what I'm saying and be a dynamic professor who really gives a shit about her field, I promise. At least I'm proving that I'm not a doormat.
And now I'm wondering if I'm actually any more gaunt than I ever was, because I also have some pretty impressive dysmorphic symptoms, too. No thought is safe from the cycle of analysis, second-guessing, and self-loathing. Everything is stupid. I'm numb, but it's not a comfortable numbness - it's bleak and abyssal and insidious. And yet, I'm strung tightly, like a violin string, ready to snap at any moment. My muscles are pulling at the tendons, I can feel their connections in my joints, as if they're threatening to break off, to leave me a skeleton with dangling meat ribbons, some grotesque anatomy experiment, finally exposing that I am just a shape, a form to be admired, too beautiful to have boundaries or be reprimanded or be ignored. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I should never be given the skills to be a visual artist. Excuse me while I smoke a cigarette, and hunt down a beer. Just one, and just a beer. Must watch for signs of alcoholism, because I've always been inches too close, and there are so many, many things that I want to forget or ignore or silence.
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