black roses skipped doses and psychosis
thursday night, i had a total meltdown. it was like what happened earlier at work, but the full-length version. ten o'clock while i was cleaning my bathroom. scrubbing my toilet, actually. in the most humble of positions, i have completely gone to pieces.
i haven't cried that long and that intensely since last summer before i started taking something. when i was still getting full-scale panic attacks and emotionally acting out at work, in which case i would have to retreat to the back of the house to compose myself. so i wouldn't be facing customers with bloodshot eyes and streaky cheeks. public displays of emotion are awkward and generally uncomfortable for anyone caught within ten feet of my performance art.
so thursday and friday that bubble-head feeling and worse-than-pms mood swings. rib-cage-rattling sobs and my eyes could surely bleed on command . . . not wanting to die but so agitated in my own skin . . . i wanted to peel it off like a newly scabbed tattoo because it felt like bugs were crawling around my ankles at one frenzied point, still in the bathroom, kind of like when you're transitioning on mushrooms, that feathery sensation snaking around your arms and wrists as the poison courses through your veins on its way to your head. but it was unlike anything i've ever felt before; i've never felt psychotic, if this is what it's like. maybe i was during the eating disorder years, but i was delusional in the way that love is blind.
fear and panic in the air, i want to be free from desolation and despair. so here is my map of the problematique: i've never been on antidepressants long enough to come off them and experience withdrawal. i accidentally went off it for five days because i let my prescription run out, and couldn't get to a pharmacy until three days later, at which point they told me it was too soon to refill. i was gonna try to stick it out 'til saturday, i didn't think a few days would make that much difference. at least, i hoped there was enough residual serotonin left in my system to string out the effect, if somewhat haphazardly.
are you up in the middle of the night? it seems no one can help me now, i'm in too deep, there's no way out. i felt so completely unable to control my own thoughts and behaviors. it was definitely different than a panic attack. i wasn't panicking, i was just consumed by my pain, my torment, my self. i was allowing myself to feel it, not fight it. i didn't know myself. i was screaming at myself in the mirror, at a reflection i didn't recognize. fuck, i didn't even see what chemical i was using to clean my bathroom; i was shocked to find the next day that i had picked up windex to clean the toilet when i thought i was using the chlorox green clean. they are both green liquids in a spray bottle. i never saw the word "windex" on the label. not that it's a big deal. my toilet's still clean. but if i thought situations had mimicked such a thing as hell before, this must surely be it. i had previously attributed my symptoms to sleep deprivation, in the absence of any other obvious explanation. but how could i have been so out of touch? sleep dep for me means tension headaches, migraines. this heady feeling was the opposite of a headache, kind of like being high, but agonizingly so. i kept feeling like i would swoon, black out, nod off. it had something to do with my balance in my ears -- like being underwater or eardrums popping on an airplane. i hated the feeling every time i took a dip. total airhead. complete lack of gravity. tweak.
so anyway, i called my psychiatrist on friday and she called in the refill to the pharmacy and i'm back on it now. all the symptoms are pretty much gone -- nausea, head rush, mood swings, mild cramps, and intestinal upset.
from the depths of despair to grandeur -- sunday i'm a bum, staying in bed all day because it just feels better to sleep -- dream -- imitate death -- than to face the fact of my existence. then, yesterday, i'm all over the place, gogogo, flying high, and for no reason, because i don't have anything to be elated about. nothing has changed. but i have this impending sense that i'm about to be on top of the world again, because i've done my time under it. i'm waiting for my wandering to yield whatever i could not find if i were looking for it. "the less you look, the more you find," according to brandon. i cut out my horoscope from a paper i don't take too seriously, but even the crap writers usually have something that strikes a nerve with me:
sagittarius
in his book the medusa and the snail, science writer lewis thomas said that the english word "error" developed from a root meaning "to wander about, looking for something." that's why he liked darwin's idea that error is the driving force in evolution. i think this wandering-about-looking-for-something approach should be the driving force in your personal evolution, sagittarius. the coming weeks will be a great time to meander and get distracted and stumble upon unexpected opportunities. may all your mutations have a positive spin! (p.s. lewis also wrote this: "the capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music.")
if there were no such thing as music, i may as well be an anaerobic bacterium. i will be chasing the starlight until the end of my life (i don't know if it's worth it anymore) . . . but i would totally fuck muse. those british punks would be worth one night of my time. i am acutely aware of my attraction to danger. i am a risk-taker, because, really, it's the only way to live. ironically, sometimes tragically, life is experienced most intimately, most sensuously, even sensually, at the edge of death. there is something almost erotic about that fine line, just before the awkward dying part. i love my psychopaths. that could be a bumper sticker. i am attracted to these sick relationships. the more they hurt me, the more i get attached. my hindsight still isn't 20/20. the phantom of my opera, my life, let me come for a week, probably against his better judgment, but i was so intent on it despite the emotional risk to me, which he explained very clearly like the warning label on a bottle of poison. i took the poison. i was in love and immune to fear because love, being blind, can't fear what it can't see. but the evidence is still on my credit card, and i still don't regret it. i make my decisions and live with them. i feel like i've had such a rich and colorful life (even if those colors are dark like black roses and bleeding hearts) that i've lived more in 27 years than "safer" people do in a lifetime. i figure, if you can live the fullness of one life in just 30 or so years, then you can end up living like 2 lifetimes in one. my randomly chosen coffee companion told me that sounded schizo, albeit jokingly, when i first scratched out that thought in a rather involved philosophical conversation. but this is the same guy that filled out his starbucks job application while coming off a 15-hour acid trip. this is the same guy who says unicorns exist because he saw one on LSD. he said this after i insisted reindeer are real animals in canada, like caribou. i don't remember how we got from the meaning of life to unicorns and reindeer, though.
finally, i must mention ladyfest. dayton's holding its first-ever ladyfest event, which includes all art forms presented by women. i'm reading poetry in the open mic portion, but there is also visual art, dance, music, and anything else creative. it's the weekend of september 12-14. i heard it's all being held at one venue, some space next door to the masque. i'm not sure what day i take the stage, but it's all still being worked out. however, my name is on a poster at pacchia's espresso bar, at the bottom of a long list hanging off the bulletin board, down near the trashcan.
i haven't cried that long and that intensely since last summer before i started taking something. when i was still getting full-scale panic attacks and emotionally acting out at work, in which case i would have to retreat to the back of the house to compose myself. so i wouldn't be facing customers with bloodshot eyes and streaky cheeks. public displays of emotion are awkward and generally uncomfortable for anyone caught within ten feet of my performance art.
so thursday and friday that bubble-head feeling and worse-than-pms mood swings. rib-cage-rattling sobs and my eyes could surely bleed on command . . . not wanting to die but so agitated in my own skin . . . i wanted to peel it off like a newly scabbed tattoo because it felt like bugs were crawling around my ankles at one frenzied point, still in the bathroom, kind of like when you're transitioning on mushrooms, that feathery sensation snaking around your arms and wrists as the poison courses through your veins on its way to your head. but it was unlike anything i've ever felt before; i've never felt psychotic, if this is what it's like. maybe i was during the eating disorder years, but i was delusional in the way that love is blind.
fear and panic in the air, i want to be free from desolation and despair. so here is my map of the problematique: i've never been on antidepressants long enough to come off them and experience withdrawal. i accidentally went off it for five days because i let my prescription run out, and couldn't get to a pharmacy until three days later, at which point they told me it was too soon to refill. i was gonna try to stick it out 'til saturday, i didn't think a few days would make that much difference. at least, i hoped there was enough residual serotonin left in my system to string out the effect, if somewhat haphazardly.
are you up in the middle of the night? it seems no one can help me now, i'm in too deep, there's no way out. i felt so completely unable to control my own thoughts and behaviors. it was definitely different than a panic attack. i wasn't panicking, i was just consumed by my pain, my torment, my self. i was allowing myself to feel it, not fight it. i didn't know myself. i was screaming at myself in the mirror, at a reflection i didn't recognize. fuck, i didn't even see what chemical i was using to clean my bathroom; i was shocked to find the next day that i had picked up windex to clean the toilet when i thought i was using the chlorox green clean. they are both green liquids in a spray bottle. i never saw the word "windex" on the label. not that it's a big deal. my toilet's still clean. but if i thought situations had mimicked such a thing as hell before, this must surely be it. i had previously attributed my symptoms to sleep deprivation, in the absence of any other obvious explanation. but how could i have been so out of touch? sleep dep for me means tension headaches, migraines. this heady feeling was the opposite of a headache, kind of like being high, but agonizingly so. i kept feeling like i would swoon, black out, nod off. it had something to do with my balance in my ears -- like being underwater or eardrums popping on an airplane. i hated the feeling every time i took a dip. total airhead. complete lack of gravity. tweak.
so anyway, i called my psychiatrist on friday and she called in the refill to the pharmacy and i'm back on it now. all the symptoms are pretty much gone -- nausea, head rush, mood swings, mild cramps, and intestinal upset.
from the depths of despair to grandeur -- sunday i'm a bum, staying in bed all day because it just feels better to sleep -- dream -- imitate death -- than to face the fact of my existence. then, yesterday, i'm all over the place, gogogo, flying high, and for no reason, because i don't have anything to be elated about. nothing has changed. but i have this impending sense that i'm about to be on top of the world again, because i've done my time under it. i'm waiting for my wandering to yield whatever i could not find if i were looking for it. "the less you look, the more you find," according to brandon. i cut out my horoscope from a paper i don't take too seriously, but even the crap writers usually have something that strikes a nerve with me:
sagittarius
in his book the medusa and the snail, science writer lewis thomas said that the english word "error" developed from a root meaning "to wander about, looking for something." that's why he liked darwin's idea that error is the driving force in evolution. i think this wandering-about-looking-for-something approach should be the driving force in your personal evolution, sagittarius. the coming weeks will be a great time to meander and get distracted and stumble upon unexpected opportunities. may all your mutations have a positive spin! (p.s. lewis also wrote this: "the capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music.")
if there were no such thing as music, i may as well be an anaerobic bacterium. i will be chasing the starlight until the end of my life (i don't know if it's worth it anymore) . . . but i would totally fuck muse. those british punks would be worth one night of my time. i am acutely aware of my attraction to danger. i am a risk-taker, because, really, it's the only way to live. ironically, sometimes tragically, life is experienced most intimately, most sensuously, even sensually, at the edge of death. there is something almost erotic about that fine line, just before the awkward dying part. i love my psychopaths. that could be a bumper sticker. i am attracted to these sick relationships. the more they hurt me, the more i get attached. my hindsight still isn't 20/20. the phantom of my opera, my life, let me come for a week, probably against his better judgment, but i was so intent on it despite the emotional risk to me, which he explained very clearly like the warning label on a bottle of poison. i took the poison. i was in love and immune to fear because love, being blind, can't fear what it can't see. but the evidence is still on my credit card, and i still don't regret it. i make my decisions and live with them. i feel like i've had such a rich and colorful life (even if those colors are dark like black roses and bleeding hearts) that i've lived more in 27 years than "safer" people do in a lifetime. i figure, if you can live the fullness of one life in just 30 or so years, then you can end up living like 2 lifetimes in one. my randomly chosen coffee companion told me that sounded schizo, albeit jokingly, when i first scratched out that thought in a rather involved philosophical conversation. but this is the same guy that filled out his starbucks job application while coming off a 15-hour acid trip. this is the same guy who says unicorns exist because he saw one on LSD. he said this after i insisted reindeer are real animals in canada, like caribou. i don't remember how we got from the meaning of life to unicorns and reindeer, though.
finally, i must mention ladyfest. dayton's holding its first-ever ladyfest event, which includes all art forms presented by women. i'm reading poetry in the open mic portion, but there is also visual art, dance, music, and anything else creative. it's the weekend of september 12-14. i heard it's all being held at one venue, some space next door to the masque. i'm not sure what day i take the stage, but it's all still being worked out. however, my name is on a poster at pacchia's espresso bar, at the bottom of a long list hanging off the bulletin board, down near the trashcan.