Awareness and Anticipation

An hour from now I’ll be in an ambulance en route to the hospital. In an hour and a half I’ll be on a gurney in the emergency department triage. In two hours I’ll be in a room, yellow sector no doubt. I’ll have a sitter, and the sitter will have a book of word puzzles. The sitter will fall asleep within twenty minutes, wearing that scrubs top with flowers and an afghan enveloping her obesity. In three and a half hours I’ll see the doctor. He’ll write me for an IV and pain medication. In four and a half hours I’ll finally get the pain medication. A nurse who knows me will enter my room with a pink bin filled with this and thats. We’ll exchange pleasantries. He’ll irrigate the wounds, exposing the bone, no longer overlapped by tendon. I’ll make a few comments about what I see. I’ll tell them to be careful because there’s arterial damage and it’ll squirt. There will be arterial damage and it will squirt. In five hours the doctor will come in with someone from plastics. The both of them will hover over me and comment on what they see. At this point I’ll be asking for more pain medication. I’ll receive dilaudid via IV fifteen minutes later. Then the doctor will come in with his pink bin full of this and that and ask me if I’ve been to radiology. I’ll say no. Ten minutes later someone who knows me, dressed in blue scrubs will push and pull my bed towards the X-ray machine. I’ll have two x-rays done in two different positions. I’ll be wheeled back to my room in the yellow zone. At unpredictable times Amy will call. Pam will call. Soon after I’ll be stitched up, all the while making conversation with the doctor and watching.. learning. About eight hours from now I’ll speak to a psyche representative. She’ll say “Remember these three words. I’ll ask you to repeat them later. House, honesty, apple.” She’ll continue on. She’ll ask me to repeat the three words. I’ll say “House, honesty, apple.” She’ll say she needs to speak with my therapist and to Pam but she won’t think I’ll need to be admitted into the ward. An hour later, with Amy by my side, the psyche rep. will enter the room and tell me I’m ready to go. Ten minutes later the nurse will come in with paperwork. I’ll ask for a prescription. She’ll tell me she’s going to get the doctor. The doctor will enter. He’ll write me a prescription for 10 Oxycodones. Then I’ll leave.

And the cycle rotates as it always has.

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Recovered Memories

Recently I stumbled upon several pictures and a few videos of me doing things I really shouldn’t have been. They’re quite graphic, which is why I’m not going to post them. Actually, in addition to that reason, I don’t feel it would be “healthy” for me to see them every time I go to view my blog. Normally I’d delete such content, but something stops me and I’m not sure what it is. Whatever the reason, I think it clearly coincides with my connection to the dark.

I’ve always been a bit dark, but not to the point in which I’m knowingly looking at pictures of mutilated corpses, or dissecting myself out of anatomical curiosity. The latter happened to be the reason behind my last injury; or so says my shrink. She has good reason to believe that, as I guess I spoke to her as it was happening. Or soon after. Either way I was still out of it and remember nothing of the conversation. My point is, I think there’s a clear connection between my dark-but-not-too-dark conscious, and my morbidly disturbed subconscious, and the line, I’m afraid, may be quite thin.

It’s surreal to view yourself as you always have more or less, but to add the heavy concept of death. Not in the typical sense, but I mean to truly be aware that there’s a good possibility you might not be around that long. Dramatic I know, but coming to terms with that is a good exercise in reality I guess. For me that is, as I tend to flirt with mortality monthly.

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A short short short story

My green eyes have been fixed upon your photographs for so long that I feel if I were to close them you’d go away for good. Stay. Tears well but not because of the tendril of smoke that lingers close to my face, escaping from the only light source in the room. A solitary drip candle fixed securely upon a little saucer that I used to use during tea parties with my stuffed animals when I was four. No, I don’t cry because you don’t want me, I promise myself. My cheeks are stained with love. For you, for my unborn child. The distant beat of a car stereo drowns itself out and once again I’m swimming in painful silence. Looking at you. All fourty six pictures of you. Each brings its own version of sadness and joy, each burns itself a deeper hole into the memories I try and forget but instead savor. I sit cross-legged and sob, I pluck a few blonde hairs from my head and place them near the flame. They coil and writhe, I find it rather fitting. The smell that arises reminds me of the time you burned your goatee attempting to fix the pilot that had gone out in the kitchen. Another knot forms in my throat. All fourty pictures of you, and the flame grows brighter. The little saucer that reminds me of my childhood speckled with uneven clumps of ash, they swim within the velvet pools of wax. Another tear falls onto my lap. All thirty two pictures of you stare back at me with stories of their own.The saucer is beginning to look like tiny little black and grey leaves. I swear I can feel the child kick within my queasy gut. Our child. All twenty three pictures of you reflect the small embers that gather in the saucer, the shadows of my bedroom becoming animated upon the walls. Fingerprints upon all thirteen pictures of you remind me that they’re just pictures and I carress my extended belly, my thoughts racing so fast that I feel as though I used to when we would come home together after hours and make love. All five pictures of you force me to frown, my fragile jaw quivering along with the sporadic dance of the flame. Ash spills over the edges of the saucer. That one picture of you is all I have left. Promises of forever and eternity shrink-wrapped into a three by five photograph. I swear I feel that kid kicking as I place that photo of you over the fire and my green eyes dim along with with it like a sunset over a lonely sea.

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Multiple Miggs

What do you think of when you hear the term “multiple personalities”? I know what I think of. Or rather who I think of. That lovable character aptly named Multiple Miggs, the fellow locked in a cell next to Hannibal Lector in “The Silence of the Lambs”. I saw that movie for the first time many years ago. Though Miggs was a fictional character based on stereotype, and he was only featured once or twice in the movie, he somehow had a big impact on how I viewed the mentally ill. What makes a person like that?

Four years ago, approximately, I was further educated on what was once referred to as multiple personality disorder. Previous to that time, I didn’t believe it existed. I’m still not completely convinced. The powers that be have changed the name of the diagnosis to D.I.D., or Dissociative Identity Disorder.  Well, that name seems to be a lot more fitting, at least in my experiences. Breaking it down, we have the first and, in my opinion, most important part. Dissociative. To dissociate, in short, is to lose time. Seconds, minutes, hours, days. I’ve grown quite familiar with this word and what’s behind its meaning. Second we have identity. The alter, as it’s referred to, is that “personality”, or plural in many cases, that is different from the conscious person with the disorder. Disorder, the last part, is, I think at least, self explanatory. It causes issues.

While I certainly dissociate, that’s something I’m certain of, I’m not entirely convinced that at those times, alters come out to play. Who’s to say I’m not just pissed off and want to stir up trouble and strife when I’m in these episodes? I wish I could remember. If I get a certain rush from being in an ambulance, if I get a feeling of belonging, an excitement, a cure for the boredom, something that’s beneficial, anything… I wish for the life of me I could remember it. Then maybe, in my own twisted logic, I could have something to account the thousands of stitches, the embarrassment, the self loathing, and the mutilations for. Maybe someday, and then I could begin to twist that special feeling into something more productive. Passion plays out in many ways, and it knows not the concept of good and evil.

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Bad dreams

I have this recurring dream. The setting and circumstances vary with each dream, but in each one, I can’t seem to type fast enough. Fast enough for something, I don’t know what. Usually fast enough to get some kind of a point across to whomever I’m typing to. Sometimes it’s texting on a phone. I’ve tried to analyze this to the best of my ability, and  I’ve come to the conclusion, accurate or not. I feel inadequate and useless, most likely due to my disabilities. But I have a sense that I use these disabilities to be lazy and entitled. I think this is what these dreams confirm.

I clearly remember that fateful evening, 5 years ago, when I’d realized I had lost my mind. I was sitting on the kitchen floor, both legs stretched out ahead of me. I was wearing a suit, I had a tie on, I was wearing wing-tips. I was shocked and amazed, and more than a little confused that I had absolutely no recollection of the past few hours. More than that though, the sight before me put me into a near instantaneous panic attack.  There was a  box cutter that, like me, was surrounded in roughly a pint of blood. Having never seen so much blood coming from anyone, let alone myself, I called in the emergency and was taken away to receive a hundred stitches. That’s when the realization that I had some serious problems began.

Now of course I was sent to a psyche ward, that’s a given, and it wasn’t a good one. During group therapy I received misunderstood feedback from my peers. In example, some would explain to me the so-called “cutter’s mantra”. I quickly responded with, “I wasn’t aware I was doing it. I received what-so-ever no conscious gains.” Thus began the field of silence that surrounded me in every group I’ve been in since.

Thus began my downward spiral.

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Coffee Rant

I’ve been out of pills for two days now. From what I’ve noticed, I’ve suffered no physical withdrawls. The same can’t be said, unfortunately, for the mental. I crave. I feel like I can’t live without it. I know I can, and I know these feelings will go away, but when one of the only things you really look forward to when you get up every morning is setting towels on the bathroom floor, turning on the shower, and doing crosswords or Sudoku while the steam blankets you like a womb, and you know that you won’t be feeling that today, tomorrow or anytime soon, you get very discontent.

I don’t know if drinking coffee is the best idea right now, it tends to make the neurons shoot a bit faster, which in turn causes me to dwell on such things. But I really am caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place because I know I have a problem but if I make that apparent to those around me, mostly my care-givers, I’ll be flagged as an addict. So I think if I can try my best to pull myself out of the gutter without going through the system, I could have my cake and eat it too. But you know how realistic that is.

I’m not all about addiction, as nobody is. So I’ll digress for now. Amy and I, Amy is my girlfriend, we went to an archery range yesterday with a few friends. We had fun and the time seemed to pass quickly. I was a bit wary of participating due to a left thumb with 11 stitches but I didn’t have any problem. My left hand, by the way, is nearly useless at this point. I’ve had two surgeries, and I’ve severed the extensor tendon (the tendons that allow you to point) on each and every fingers. Sadly, I twitch so much in my sleep that surgery repairs, so far at least, haven’t been successful no matter how secure the surgeons think they’ve made the dressing.

One day, when I’m sure I’ve stopped doing damage to my hand, I’ll get a tendon graft and it’ll be very strange to have the full use of my hand again. Until then I’ll have to adapt and make due.

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A Typical Thursday Afternoon

I have to make a serious effort to keep up with these blogs. I tend to either forget about them, or my incredibly-honed attributes of laziness take over which results in empty, neglected blogs.

Well it’s another thursday. Normally I’d be seeing my shrink today but some serious insurance issues are standing in the way. We used to meet three times a week but now it’s down to two and even those two sessions are being threatened. I’m watching clips of the Amazing Racist. If you haven’t seen his clips,
Ari Shaffir is funny as hell. Don’t take my word for it, take YouTube’s.

Down to 4 pills a day. Somehow they seem to come up missing. I don’t know if I take them or if I hide them, but I never remember stealing them. My girlfriend keeps them for me and when I dissociate I have remarkable stealth apparently because I’ve never been caught. I take them from right under her nose it seems. Which really sucks because then I end up with much less than I had planned and it messes up any system I’ve set up to conserve them. Anyhow, I’m going to continue watching
Ari Shaffir and other YouTube videos. I’m completely addicted to popurls. Check it out. It’s a mash-up of different sites which is highly customizable. I could spend all day there if I don’t stop myself.

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What we do for love

So this is what happened. I received a script for 40 percocets from my doc. Today, or yesterday at this point, was the 16th of March. The script was written for the 18th of March. That means I wouldn’t be able to get it filled until Sunday. normally that wouldn’t be a problem but I have what people call an addiction, and I had no pills left. So to remedy this problem I “dropped” my prescription in the snow. Of course it got wet, and of course this made the date written a bit difficult to see. So I handed it in to the pharmacist, crossed my fingers behind my back, and wished for the best. I got my pills. I did nothing illegal, I just… manipulated the situation a bit to fit my petty, unfortunate needs.

Now before you flame me for being a drug addict and force your saintly opinions on me, I have to make it known that there’s a long story behind it. I’ll tell it slowly, but until then you can assume whatever you’d like.

Ciao.

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So yeah…

My first entry in a brand spankin’ new blog. I’ve finally cracked and decided to start logging my addictions, my afflictions, my joys and my quirks-a-plenty. I’ll spend some time breaking this journal into sections. As unorganized as I am, I sure love to pretend.

Anyhow, I’d like to post a list of things that currently describe my life at the moment as accurately as possible. Music, banes, boons, status nonsense. You know how it is, if you’re reading this I’m sure you’re quite accustomed to the blog protocol. To be continued.

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