Tuesday, August 09, 2011

you me everybody everybody



no one has claimed responsibility. no one will. maybe because i have demanded you give up your anonymity with no sense that by doing so you will be welcome. you're known to me, you must be to refer to 'in person', but no i don't know you. there's no one left in the world i can claim to know. and there's no one in the world who can claim to know me. strangers all, so it goes without saying we will cross lines we are ignorant of.

there are a bunch of lines in the sand i am well aware of, and this is me ignoring the fuck out of them.

i'm not sharing myself. this isn't for you. there is nothing about me that is not driving by selfishness most pure. this is for me. i'm not blogging for sympathy or validation. this is self-sabotage at its simplest. left to my own devices i will bottle things up until i implode. it isn't enough to write things out. these words must be read. someone else has to know, and i have to know someone else knows. not so they can do something about it, not so they can fix it or go white knighting on me, just so my state of heart isn't a secret. so this farce i act out is recognised for what it is and doesn't become too heavy. experience has taught me this and it wasn't an easy lesson.

this is self-managing.

i know it looks like attention-seeking. it isn't. it is for this reason i have taken to disabling comments on the rawer posts, as i do not want to be seen as inviting any sort of response.

it takes a long tine to get it, if you ever do. long time readers get it. lots of you are new. or not. i don't know, i've no idea who is reading or why. maybe this is flogging a dead horse. it seems it needs rehashing though. now. i don't want sympathy. i don't want advice. i don't want suggestions or empathy. i don't want validation. i don't want comfort. in fact, beyond reading this, i want you to pretend that nothing is wrong and indulge me in the pretence that everything is just peachy.

this isn't sharing. fuck, look at what i air here in public, and then take a moment to think about what i'm not sharing. this blog is a fucking weapon. it's a poison and you don't even know you're weakened. shall i go there? i'm going there.

this blog makes people fall in love with me. oh yes it does. let me count them...four. no, wait, how about five. that i know of. why, why, why, i don't know. because i'm 'sad and dangerous'. because this place reeks of confessional, it lets you buy into the belief that these 'truths' are some intimate trust between you and me, as opposed to me and the whole fucking internet. you start to believe you have some special insight into my character. you start to believe that you can save me. or fix me. or tame me.

i'm the catalyst of three separations. they would have occurred even if i hadn't been born, but i was born, and i was there, with my blog, and i'm the catalyst because people fall in love with me. i've cut people from my life because they crossed lines and assumed an intimacy, familiarity and level of trust that hadn't been earned and they didn't understand it. i've had people cut me out of their lives because that was the only way to preserve their marriage.

because i write this, and because you read it.

this is for me. i need this.

and it makes it really hard to write with this history sitting on my back and knowing that the point of writing is to be read, and knowing that being read just invites all that shit to circle around again. self-censoring comes out, and it bleeds on and on, until eventually nothing is written and everything is secret and all is pointless.

can i tell you my joints are on fire right now? i have hot glass wires in my arms. i have no nurofen. i have a headache. i have no way out. but i have to write this because ever since that well-intended email landed last night i have been churning. turmoil. in what my psychologist had called a 'state of extreme distress'. this has to be written.

why i wonder. kind strangers have emailed me previously with messages of support and warmth (i'm thinking of you, you, you and you in particular, who i have not answered and probably will not, but thank you). they were not anonymous though. strangers, but not hiding.

anonymity shouldn't bother me either.

but you said.

you fucking said.




you know this wires in my arms, they're hot glass, they're rusted nails, i don't even know any more, i've lived with this for so long i don't even know what it is i feel any more. you know i'm on a new medication and it is fucking with me. there's a daily alarm set for me to take my tablet, or else i'll get withdrawal within an hour, because i don't trust myself to simply remember to take it. there's a song plying right now, and the lyric repeated over and over is 'i hope you die' to chill lounge music by a singer who is calm and without malice. i cannot write for me any more. i cannot write a lie. without fiction nothing i do has any point. my identity has been taken from me. the identity i made for myself, the only one worth having, and it's gone. people who knew that identity still interact with it, that peeling chipped shell i'm not even touching the sides of. i can take no pride in my ability to at least do my job well, i can't even do that now, and they slap me in the face and leave me to drown and don't care if i am a bad worker, so i don't care if i am a bad worker, and my absenteeism is late blossoming, i never wagged school, i never wagged the job i fucking hated, but now my alarm goes off and i don't care, i don't even use that stolen day for anything, i just lie in bed with my eyes closed as long as i can, because i cannot face the world and there is no point to my being awake, and i'm planning this trip as a means to force me away from easy outs and my comfort zone, where i will have to reclaim some sort of determination and build myself over again on the other side of the world where no one knows me and no one will know who i used to be and i don't want to go, i don't want to go, i'm afraid and i'm tired and i can't even get out of bed in the morning, how am i supposed to set off into the unknown when i don't want to go and all the challenges sand lessons i'll learn have no point if i cannot write them out but i can't stay. i can't stay. i can't stay. i can't stay. this life draws closer to being unbearable with every minute i am awake and aware.

i'm turning into everything i don't want to be just to last these last few months to go on an adventure i don't have the capacity to survive. all you new people, all you old people, i fucking devour you. you're distractions. i need to be alone, i need solitude and silence but fuck i can't take it any more, i can't bear to be with myself any more, i hate what i am and what i have and what i have not, i hate the choices i've made and how few choices i have left in front of me, and i seek you out, you people, you distractions, you time killers. put your trivial voices in my head, cock in my cunt, get some skin on skin and be just a body for a few minutes respite before i go back to being a mind that just doesn't stop, and none of you are enough. none of you. even if you were once before. feed the hunger and the hunger demands more. i've fed all of you to the hunger, and now you're all used up and useless. is it the new meds? i don't know. i don't know. i have to start the increased dosage tomorrow. what will that do.

are tehse even emotions? i don't know. yes. no. i don't know. i'm flat and featureless, and all the turbulence of atmospheric burn up at the same time. maybe this is simulating emotions i think i should be feeling. but no. because i cannot tease apart this confusion. hurt angry mean little animal. lash out. it is instinct. there is no why. do i care enough to write this post? do i not care enough to not write this?

here are the consequences - you're offended. i am lowered in your esteem. you withdraw. any of you. all of you.

i can't find it in me to care. i don't know if that is the medication or me.

what judgement. i have none. i'll post this because this is for me. and i'll leave comments open this once, because this is for you.

i've lied to my head doctors to stop them from committing me on the spot. i'm suicidal and i don't want to be. i plan based on the intellectual probability that things will get better, one way or another. there is no hope emotionally, and i can't afford it.

and you said.


you fucking said.




you're "glad" i'm here with you.




hey, i'm just going to go into the chemo lounge over here and tell all these cancer patients who are in for the third fourth fifth round that hey! i'm glad they're here too! because they make the world a better place for being in it. or something. yeah, be happy about that.

is that what depression is? emotional cancer. thought tumors. malignant and metastasizing and spreading to everyone who enters my mind.

i'm not selfless. i take no comfort that my misery adds anything to your life. this isn't a tragedy the bard would write. there's no fucking romance, poetry or beauty in this. don't even fucking try it.



and you said.

you fucking said.


"You're never alone."






oh, i know it. oh boy do i know it. i need you all, i hate that i need you and so i hate you all. the only peace i find is when i am truly alone, with no one around and the threat of no one coming, nothing to hear, no means for me to contact anyone else. never alone. no. there's fucking millions of me, arguing and fighting and contradicting and being a confusion. and then there's all you. you worthless useless distractions. you calorie-free cardboard. you nothing.

you're always alone. i'm always alone. all that hallmark good feeling is so much nothing. maybe that helps you sleep at night. i'm alone. in my head. none of you in here with me. none of you reading my mind and doing exactly what i need when i need it, because none of you could if you could. none of you can get me up in the morning. none of you can do my exercises for me. none of you can make the decision to wait another day for me. none of you can do shit for me.

all this hand-holding, cry on my shoulder, i'm listening, curl up on my couch, it's nothing. it makes no difference. it did, once. before. earlier. when such small arms fire would have had effect.

that was years ago. you can't do shit for me now. it's nothing. it's proved itself to be nothing, meaningless, worthless, make no difference at all. because i still have to go back to being me when you trot off back to your life patting yourself on the back for a job well done. the come back is too hard. now i'd rather have no comfort at all. not even the pretense. it gets too hard. and now. now it's all about making you feel better for having made an effort to make me feel better. pardon me for once again displaying my selfishness; i don't have anything spare to help you feel better about yourself. go white knight at someone to whom it will actually make a difference, to whom it will actually help.

you said

"We'll help if we can. If you ask."




i'm not asking because none of you can do shit for me. you can't change a thing. i don't want help i want change. i'm not asking because i can't ask. no one who needs help can ask for it.






you said

"You're wonderful."

fuck off. i'm not some beautiful broken thing.





you said

"Don't ever stop."

don't ever tell me what to do.





you said

"I love you."









now ask yourself, is that still true?















all of this is true.
now.

one day it will not be.
one day.
not today.

funny


this is your fear, not mine


Friday, August 05, 2011

On the Subject of Towels

How do you prefer your towels;

A) Soft, fluffy, like wiping yourself all over with an obese Angola rabbit which has only ever bathed in fabric softener made from the milk of puffy pillows

OR

B) Ancient, dessicated and concrete, like drying yourself down with the tongue of a drought which rasps away your top layer of skin to suck up every last trace of moisture

Thursday, August 04, 2011

you are angels and drunks, you are magi

First Pristiq tablet yesterday at 0840 hours. No immediate effects noticed. MASSIVE NIGHT SWEAT.

Second Pristiq tablet today at 0840 hours. No immediate effects noticed until I realised I was chipper to the point of manic. Those of you on twitter copped the brunt of it. Below is the gist of my tweeting for the day, and by 'gist' I mean 'everything but the yes/no @ replies'. It's very shouty. (Start at the bottom and work your way up. It's a pain I know.)

  • Extra points if the lie involves lemon meringue pie.
  • Yeah, I'm clocked off, but you can still sit on my lap and have your ear licked. Just tell me a lie and make me believe it.
  • Our hero enters the train mid-flight, the doors closing in on her, and squealing like a stuck schoolgirl piglet. #stylin'
  • Now; lion hunting.
  • Oh thank fuck I can stop being so loudly awesome. Was giving myself a headache.
  • HOME TIME HOME TIME THIS IS YOUR CASE WORKER AT THE MINISTRY OF LOVE, SIGNING OFF. SNOGS AND PAWINGS, MY FREAKY DARLINGS, SNOGS AND PAWINGS.
  • @battledinosaur SWEET LITTLE PEACHASAURUS YOU ARE WALKING CUTENESS EVEN IN YOUR SLEEP
  • @ZacDavies NAH MATE I JUST REALLY LOVE TEA CHEERS MATE
  • I WOULD LOVE A THIRD CUP OF TEA. LOVE ONE. LOVE IT. SWALLOW THAT FUCKER WHOLE. PHWOAR.
  • @trickyidnego YOU LEARN WELL, GRASSHOPPER. HAVE SOME ROSES.
  • @tyronotron @emlypie MAY THE LOVIN' BE IN YOU.
  • DOES THIS SMELL LIKE CHEAP ROMANCE TO YOU?
  • I WANT YOU TO WANT ME TO LOVE YOU. SO I CAN SPURN YOU. SCHOOL OF LIFE, CLASS IS IN.
  • @emlypie @tyronotron SING IT BACK BRING IT BACK SING IT BACK TO MEEEEEE
  • @emlypie WELL I LOVE HER ANYWAY. SHE GAVE ME A BISCUIT.
  • @idreamofcodeine AND BY THROW YOU MEAN HURL IN THEIR FACE. AWWW. YOU KNOW ME SO WELL. C'MERE YOU SACK OF SUGAR.
  • HEY @emlypie I'M GONNA STAND OUTSIDE @tyronotron's DOOR I KNOW HE'S HOME.
  • @emlypie WELL DAYUM WOMAN YOU SHOODA CALLED AHEAD YOUR MUM IS LOOKING AT ME FUNNY I THINK SHE JUDGES MY LOVE
  • @ZacDavies MORON 1+4 LAWL
  • I'M GOING TO WALK 100 MILES TO STAND OUTSIDE @emlypie's DOOR, WHICH ISN'T CREEPY AT ALL.
  • @ZacDavies NO REALLY. THAT SHIT IS BANANAS.
  • 4 hours ago
  • I'M FROM THE MINISTRY OF LOVE, I'M HERE TO HELP. YOU WILL BE LOVED. LIKE A MAROON5 SONG. NO I DON'T CARE IF YOU DON'T LIKE MAROON5. FFS.
  • @Marxamus @simonnix IF I DO IT REALITY DISTORTS AND IT DOES NOT SUCK
  • @simonnix BA-DUM-CHING
  • THE LACK OF FLOWERS YOU HAVE BROUGHT ME HAS NOT GONE UNNOTICED.
  • I think when she's drinking she's drowning some riot, what is my friend trying to hide...
  • @tyronotron TALK TO YOUR ANCESTORS, THEY'RE THE ONES WHO EVOLVED EARS.
  • @simonnix FUNNY IS PROBABLY GOING TO FILE A SEXUAL HARASSMENT CLAIM.
  • RT @charlesatan: @sirtessa I FIGURED EVERYTHING WOULD STILL BE IN ALL CAPS IF YOU WERE SPEAKING IN REAL LIFE
  • ALTHOUGH I WAS INDEED YELLING AT YOU BEFORE BECAUSE YOU ARE A JERK. BRING ME A CUP OF TEA AND I SHALL CONSIDER YOUR PARDON.
  • IT IS NOT ALLCAPS, IT IS MY AWESOMNIC FIELD DISTORTING REALITY.
  • [cries, rides off into the sunset.]
  • SURE, TAKE MY LOVE, BUT YOU SHOULD KNOW I DON'T LIKE YOU, NEVER LIKED YOU, YOU'RE A JERK.
  • NO REALLY THAT IS JUST FINE.
  • WHATEVER.
  • FINE. JUST FINE.
  • I'LL LOVE YOU IF I WANT YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID
  • You dispute my love? What are you saying, that I have bad taste in love? Who the fuck are you to tell me who to love?
  • [The previous tweet true for a limited time only.]
  • I love you, and am prepared to go to war if you refuse this love. Think carefully. I have elephants, triceratops and velociraptorbearsharks
  • @PoppyGallico you are ahead of me, and clearly branched off into an alternate universe in which lunch was uh maze ink.
  • Those of you in lagging time zones, here's a heads up: your lunch for Thursday is pretty bland. #youarewelcome
  • I DUB @tyronotron THE NEXT STAGE OF HUMAN EVOLUTION.
  • @Jazpuh_ special clauses and amendments for you, milady.
  • 7 hours ago
  • @Genghis_Dong I like to play benevolent dictator now and then.
  • SEE I DON'T SUCK RT @idreamofcodeine: @sirtessa you're adorable...your existence on my twitter feed brightens my day :)
  • @tyronotron I ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR EXISTENCE YOU REQUIRE NOTHING ELSE IN LIFE
  • @hannahrochelle I am not. Everyone else is irrelevant.
  • I have risen from my morose depths and lo the sun doth hide its face because verily I am a badass muthafucka like that. #sorrymelbourne
  • @hannahrochelle BOYS BOYS HAVE ALL THE FUN WE SAW @allyouzombies WITH HIS PANTS UNDONE
  • @jamesgorman the city sirens are BLARING IN MAH EARS
  • PHRASE REPETITION. SEPPUKU YOU FILTHY WORD ABUSER.
  • Right now @purrsikat & @_twertle are the most adorable things in my world right now. Dare you to usurp them.
  • Mirrorball is an appropriate soundtrack for burning buildings and toasting souls.
  • Spirals down 11 flights with the music up to awesome.
  • Of course they call a fire evacuation drill as I'm evacuating my bladder.
  • @nosubstance headbop sidestep blinky-blink headbop sidestep blinky-blink
  • @Genghis_Dong blink
  • @nosubstance blinky-blink headbop headbop headbop HUGE STARING EYES GLARE GLARE GLARE STOP hammer time
  • blinky-blink turn head all the way around squint blinky-blink-blink
  • i feel owlish. Like, i'm doing that suspicious blinky-blink thing owls do.
  • Dear friends; you are angels and drunks, you are magi...
  • Bayonets and banana bread; let me share the glorious death of this day with you, over and over, we rise as kings and rest as usurpers.
  • @hannahrochelle congratulations on leveling up, minihannah!
  • Is the abseiling window-washer harassing the seagulls, or are they harassing him? (Would love to have that job.)
  • Last night my body attempted to commit suicide via massive dehydration. #nightsweat

On the train ride home I switched from twitter to texts, and sent a lot of shouty texts to people who would not get in trouble or freak out to be the recipient of shouty amorous texts.

High as my yellow diamond kite with blue and green streamers. Cheery and directionless and useful as a marshmallow. I meant everything I said. I mean everything I say.

This message is for you II by sirtessa

I don't care if this is an artificially and medically induced high. It is here, and I must use and abuse the shit out of it while it is. I will suck it dry and leave myself empty and hollow, because when it leaves - and it is leaving - I will not be able to say any of these things with the fierceness they deserve.

You are magnificent. Be flawed and make magic.

I apologise for none of this.

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

no more please no more

I think the cold has contributed greatly, in that aside from getting into my bones I spend most days wearing heavy coats, hunching my shoulders and hunkering down in them, with my hands in my pockets. Bad posture. Bad for hands.

Been chewing Nurofen Plus like they're lollies. Terrible bad lollies that, if I take two at a time and wait an hour or so, provide real tangible relief. They're the shit. They've also burned a hole in my gut and when I shit I stain the bowl bloody. Lots of it. Clots of it. Fresh and infringing on McDonalds red.

I stopped taking them of my own volition, and stuck it out until my next GP appointment. Told him this. He told me I should not have been taking ibuprofen with Celebrex. I don't recall this, I'm sure I've checked with multiple pharmacists every time I buy yet another box of Nurofen. I'm sure I've even checked with my GP, multiple times. But, these drugs, they make things fall out of my head. Maybe they made that fall out of my head.

Clearly the Celebrex was not enough, so he gave me a prescription for Tramadol, to be taken twice a day instead of the Celebrex. He told me it was an opiate, and there may be some nausea and drowsiness, and it was simply a matter of getting my dosage right. He's still treating me for fibrmyalgia, he says, so this will be targeting neurological pain. I asked him if it was okay to take Nurofen with this. He said no, I wouldn't need to take it you see. But you said we had to get the dosage right-

Off I went with my prescription. $38 later. The pharmacist sought me out. I shouldn't be taking Tramadol with Cymbalta, and should talk to my GP. My GP prescribed them. Oh. Well. They really shouldn't be taken together, so if you feel any nausea, any side effects, stop taking them immediately.

First tablet Sunday morning. No noticeable effect. Second tablet Sunday night. No noticeable effect. The pain could have been less, but it's hard to judge on weekends, there being considerably less time spent in front of the computer.

Third tablet Monday morning. Intense cold sweats, shakes and faintness on the train in, to the point of pushing for a seat and still not being sure that I wasn't going to keel over. This getting progressively worse during the day. Not having any flex time or sick leave without certificate to my name. Not being able to go home because I'm so behind at work I just can't justify it. Not being able to go home because I was certain I wouldn't last the trip. Spent five hours of work day mostly faceplanted on my desk and concentrating very hard on breathing.

Early afternoon the nausea took a step back, only to be replaced by drowsiness. "Drowsiness" is too light a word however. Diet narcolepsy perhaps. I did a quick dirty google on Tramadol. Lots of talk of seizures, and Serotonin Syndrome, and the fact that it is highly addictive both physically and psychologically.

I left work early to head over to Richmond, where I finally had an appointment with a psychiatrist.

Finally? I don't know. As if that is a good thing. The first session is always given to backstory and context, and I cried, because I can't break any of this down into small, easy to swallow pieces. It is either all - drowning and choking on everything - or nothing.

Cymbalta and Tramadol, the psychiatrist said. They should not be taken together, ever. The interaction can bring on Serotonin Syndrome, which isn't something that requires a dosage level be met, but can come on at any time. Stop taking it immediately.

Try Pristiq.

Who the hell comes up with drug names.

I've prescribed Pristiq to patients with both depression and fibromyalgia and had success, she says. You'll only have to take the one pill a day.

She does not give me a prescription, but sends a report to my GP, whom I am seeing later in the week.

For some reason, I am not relieved to be given professional permission to cease the Tramadol.

The drowsiness remains for the following day. I nearly miss my station. I nod off in a meeting I am chairing. I nod off while penning a sentence. I nearly miss my station again.

Questions. What the fuck was my GP thinking prescribing me these two drugs that would interact negatively? Does he have any fucking idea what he's doing?

Do I really want to try yet another drug?

And fail?

Friday. I see my GP. I tell him that the drug incapacitated me, and that the pharmacist and psychiatrist both stated emphatically that Cymbalta and Tramadol should not be taken together.

He shrugs and says "Well, that's where we're at now isn't it? We have to try these things, because we're running out of options."

He told me nothing other than it was an opiate and I'd probably get a bit of nausea. He did not inform me of anything. He made the decision for me. If I'd known, I would have decided against. I keep my mouth shut. He writes me a prescription for Pristiq. A box of 100mg and 50mg. Take the 100mg for a week, and then bump the dose to 150mg daily.

He doesn't tell me anything about this drug either.

I go home, and read about it. All the standard side effects you'd expect from an SNRI. Welcome home night sweats and muscle contractions, hello again insomnia and appetite loss.

What frightens me this time, what really frightens me, is that Pristiq has a much shorter half-life than Cymbalta. Pristiq is also marketed as Effexor, and I have read and heard many stories of people caught out by that - not randoms, people I know and trust - and being hit by severe withdrawal within hours of missing a dose, if that. Cymbalta has quite a long half-life. When I first started taking it I was prescribed Seroquel as well, in order to have a crutch to support me for the three to four weeks it took for the Cymbalta to kick in. Weekdays I take my dose when getting out of bed, at sixish. That's fine, that's regular. Weekends, however, I might not surface til 10, 11, 12.

Cannot do that on Pristiq.

Went to pick up prescription. Different pharmacist pulled me aside. Gave me advice regarding what other pain relief medications may be taken in conjunction with - Nurofen and Panadol with codeine are good for go. When I described the effect of the Tramadol, he said I'd probably had the beginnings of Serotonin Syndrome.

Had I? I didn't think- don't I know the effec- I've researched Sero-

The drugs. They make things fall out of my head.

$68 later, and I can tell you Pristiq are small, pink and square.













I am so tired of this. I don't believe I have fibromyalgia and therefore treating fibromyalgia won't help me. I hate these drugs. I hate what they do to my mind and so what they do to me as an idea. I'm in here somewhere. I must be. But I'm so tired of this. I'm so scared. I don't want to do this anymore.