juushika

( Non-detailed headcold talk. )

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I've also been having hallucinations for the last week or two?? I'm hesitant to call them hallucinations because they're very much that thing where your brain tries to pattern match for partial information. But it's been happening a lot. I've seen gray blur = greyhound, dot of light = glowing eyes of a black dog, moving dot = spider (this one a lot! why!), black blur = cat, and heard a man say, "hey, what's up?" so distinctly that I had to make sure I wasn't in voice on Discord.

In the past I've taught myself to interpret similar stimuli as my black dog beastie, to help build & reinforce my comfort/nightmare/embodied metaphor. So in a way this feels like a success and is more interesting and reaffirming than it is scary. (Except the spiders.) But it's still for me super unusual to have this happen more than once a month or so. I chock this up to significant stress compounded by fatigue.

Is this what a hallucinations are, or do they need to be more concrete and sustained? What's the link between hallucinations and aphantasia—the interpretations are definitely brain-side, and what I'm actually seeing is peripheral blurs or movement, but where are those elements coming from? Is it just the result of slow processing (on account of stress, etc) that makes my eyes confused and provides inadequate information to my brain? ?? How do brain work?

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Because of Dev's work scheduling, we're doing the actual move on Friday (the 5th) instead of our move-in date of Wednesday (the 3rd). This is the right call—it gives us three days to do a lot of errands/loading/driving/unloading/errands instead of something like one day in the middle of the week to try to manage an impossible number of things. It was still crushing to realize I'd spend another two days here. But the cold is a blessing; it makes time move in an endless long blur—not faster, but less real.

But that feeling that things are so close to being done except for this last hurdle, this one more delay just ... haunts me until the very end.

Sometimes I want to give people a sign that says I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT IT MEANS TO BE DEPRESSED (slash ANXIOUS slash MENTALLY ILL) and then have them wave that around instead of talking.

This is directed at no one; it is a whispered response to a complete internet stranger that wasn't even talking to me. Just so as that you know.

I'm still not doing great. Two weeks ago my sister graduated from the University of Oregon, so I went for that—and Father's Day, as it was the same weekend; and attendant extended family (uncle and his family, grandfather with wife) activities. To my surprise I was happy for her almost entirely without jealousy/resentment (on account of my failed college experience), although graduation itself was mildly triggering. The whole weekend went fine and it was absolutely exhausting, in part because events like that always are, in part because of some specific circumstances, in part because I'm still just not doing well.

It's depression, mostly at this point. The back is still bad, more or less, but it's plateaued at this new level of always this bad and so I'm learning to live with it. That was hard to do over the graduation stuff, so I ended up trying two new happy pills. Verdicts: Vicodin (hydrocodone/paracetamol) was moderately effective but had more side effects, largely spaciness—intense, emotionally non-responsive spaciness. Neurontin (gabapentin) was extremely effective, rendering all my muscles (all of them! even my shoulders, which hold tension, not pain) into limp noodles and me likewise; I experienced some moderate unsteadiness but Devon, who would better know, says it did less to my cognition. Neither were as awesome as Tramadol, but 1) they were out of Tramadol and 2) much of my love of Tramadol stems from its side effects, which worries me. Would I take Neurontin again? Yes, but I'm not constantly thinking about how badly I want to take it again, which makes me think it's the better drug for me.

After graduation I stayed a few more days in Corvallis and just spent time with Devon, and they were good days, but the monotony of depression is a mire, it rises over anything good and renders the entire landscape a bland sort of miserable. It's been months of this now, it's dull and not worth recording, and I invite it to fuck off, please and thank you, at its earliest convenience. This time around it's killed my appetite, which is fantastic because I just didn't have enough food-related neuroses; but no one wants to hear about how hard it is to shower or do laundry, and I don't want to write about it.

Dee and Devon both have been angels, in their limited possible capacity—further "it's not you it's me." I could write about August but I don't know how to do her justice. No spoons these days, so evenings when she's whining for food can be torture, but when I got back after a week in Corvallis ... she always demands immediate snuggles, and we had that, but seeing her again also rekindled this love affair and we've been head over heels for each other since. She is my cat in this devastating, heartfelt way, and I have never known a creature so beautiful. That doesn't idealize her, and I don't think she's half the cat I was expecting when I adopted her, but even at her most annoying I would not change her for the world. Even when the intensity of this love fades down, again, to background noise, the truth of that will not alter.

And everyone should have an overenthusiastic wigglebutt of a puppy come to meet them at the train station.

It's not awful but it's not good either, these days, and at this point I'm just waiting them out, but I might as well mention that they exist and so, still, do I.

At the risk of jinxing myself again: a little better day by day. Today I cleaned Kuzco's cage and came down for dinner, which is actually an improvement, and I feel like a living Amanda Palmer song (let's, er, ignore the slideshow). I'm also in a wrist brace for repetitive stress issues (just the right for now, but the left should kick in soon if pattern follows), but an anti-inflammatory has helped reset the back pain, which probably helped to alleviate my mood; bless Devon for forcing me to take one. Good is relative—three spoons instead of none—but, aside from my usual if-I-were-really-depressed-then-I-would-never-feel-better emotional veracity/self-doubt anxiety, any good is welcome. Maybe someday soon I'll be able to figure out what day it is and/or wash my hair.

I've been sleeping crazy hours (no really Juu you don't say), which is disturbing August's schedule. She still sticks to me like my own small shadow—except much fluffier. A few early mornings ago I drifted out of a doze with a cat pressed to my chest, warm and soft and full of purrs, nudging and snuggling me until I was awake enough to check the time and serve her a slightly belated breakfast.

So some of this, some of that, I guess. The idea that this too shall pass raises my hackles for too many reasons (first above all at this particular moment is the above anxiety of emotional veracity), but it's still true. Misery, and a warm black cat. It could be worse.

kaimetso asked for "a deep and thorough explanation on your thoughts and feelings of alcohol/drugs, use, and people," so all of you get to hear, or at least see it blip up on your flist—because I don't mind at all if you ignore it. This is a personal, private thing and I know almost everyone has a different view—many held just as strongly. But I was asked, and this is a good "about me" to have out there, so I answer.

I don't use any sort of alcohol or drugs. I've had no more than two sips of alcohol in my entire life (one at a religious event, one before knowing the contents of the drink I was served); I've never smoked and never taken any sort of recreational drug. It's taken me years—and a lot of pain—to consider taking medication, and I limit my use to the bare minimum (rarely more than once a month). Obviously this is a important issue for me, but I don't often talk about it for the same reason I don't talk about my vegetarianism: I hold strong views and it's a personal choice and issue; it's not my business to change anyone else's life, so it's best I keep my views to myself and avoid, rather than speak against, the behaviors of which I don't approve.

I'm a depressive—which is my primarily and most rational reason for avoiding anything that could possibly be mind-altering. If I used drugs or alcohol it wouldn't be social or intermittent: I would use them in order to change my mental state, and I would want to continue taking them in order to maintain my changed mental state. And that right there is a recipe for addiction.

I know I would do this because I have. Any time I take medication, I have this urge—which was most obvious (and most recent) when I took Tramadol (see posts: one, two, three). Just one pill is enough to give me cravings for more, and if I have access to medication I will begin to take it daily rather than when I most need it. This became enough of a problem when I was living on my own in Portland that I stopped keeping Aleve and Benadryl in the house. For years I used self-injury to change my mental state—relying on the euphoria of cutting to break the numbness and disassociation caused by my depression, using the endorphins and lightheadedness of starvation to escape my usual mental state for days at a time.

The simple truth is, the world inside my head isn't particularly enjoyable. I have a low emotional baseline, I'm prone to moodswings and have experienced long periods of severe depression, and I have daily anxiety. I also have chronic pain, which is relevant here because of the link between pain and mood disorders and because many of the medications I'm exposed to treat pain. I'm at a good place right now, but these problems persist to lesser degrees and always have the chance to reoccur in their worst forms. Artificially changing my mental state is twice-dangerous: I enjoy the improved mental state enough to wish to preserve it, and when I return to my usual mental state it's so painful in comparison that I'm even more anxious to return cutting, or taking pills, or going another three days without food—whatever will change my mental state again. I know that this problem and cycle exists with OTC meds and self-injury. I assume that it would be similar for alcohol and recreational drugs, based on simple common sense and on the behavior I've seen in others. I could be wrong. Perhaps I could indulge socially, for the taste, or in moderation. But I don't trust myself enough to risk addiction in order to find out.

This is a personal, intense decision on my part, and it creates some unavoidable bias against the alcohol and drug use of others. I think it's stupid and dangerous, a bias no easier to shake for the fact that I've seen people use mind-altering substances for precisely all the reasons I've just discussed—and because most of the people I've seen drinking or using drugs are college-aged kids who get drunk, blare loud music, make out with strangers, and then vomit in the toilet. That creates rather negative associations.

Furthermore I don't trust people under the effect of a mind-altering substances. Inhibitions exist for a reason: they keep tongues civil and pants on; they make a person responsible for and in control of their own behavior. I require that the people around me have self control and that they remain themselves. It takes a lot for me to trust someone; if that person's mindset changes (which is what drugs and alcohol do), they are no longer the individual I trusted with my emotional and physical welfare. I feel like I've been thrust into a situation with a stranger, and that scares me. This issue begins close to home: when my mother drinks she becomes louder and confrontational, changing her from the woman I know and chose to be around, turning her into someone who's partially a stranger and partially reminiscent of how she acts when she's at her most angry and upset.

And I simply don't like to be in the presence of alcohol. I've decided not to use it precisely because part of me really wants to—and I don't want to put that part next to a bottle of booze.

Despite all of this I do have a certain degree of tolerance for drug and alcohol use, precisely because it's none of my damned business what choices others make. I know that my views are private, extreme, and sensitive. I know there are people who use mind-altering substances without health risk, addiction, or major behavioral change. But however extreme my views, they are my own—I've arrived at them after careful thought, and they exist for my own benefit. This is my lifestyle. I stand by it. What anyone else does with their body is their own business, but I prefer to avoid drugs and alcohol whenever possible and I don't condone using them, which is why it boggles me that anyone thinks I would ever sit down with them and an alcoholic beverage. I'm near as like to sit down with a stranger and a bottle of poison, because in my mind they are close cousins—and I would like to avoid them both.

After coming off the Tramadol high, worse than readjusting to the pain (although my shoulder is a whole lot better, so that's good) has been readjusting to my mood. I forget, sometimes, that my baseline is pretty fucking low. It's hard to forget right now.

I feel like shit. It's a wasetland inside my head. I'm sleeping endlessly. I can't stop thinking about how, just a few days ago, I was cheerful for hours on end. Well, this is fun.

My back pain has been particularly bad lately. A week and a half ago was Devon's Swedish family reunion, which was a long day spent in Portland; the next morning I went to my house for breakfast and then we ran errands. I got little sleep in between and, in short, the weekend wore me out—and all the standing and sitting set my back pain off in a bad way. Despite hotpads and muscle relaxants and massages, the back pain lingers. It starts in my lower back, creeps up my spine, tenses my neck, and leads to pounding headaches. The neck pain and headaches make it difficult to read, or write, or sit at the computer; the back pain makes it difficult to lay down and sleep.

In short, I've been pretty miserable lately. Some pain, like my sway back or my tension headaches, I can cope with and almost ignore—like I stop hearing Devon's computer fans, always running in the background, I stop feeling those constant pains. But pain spikes are more severe and less familiar, and I don't know how to ignore them. Some—the sudden spasms of my lower back, or the binding tightness of my neck—just can't be forgotten. I'm in pain and I'm sleeping poorly and I can't find an escape, so for now I hide in the bedroom and devour a book a day and try to wait it out. I normally spend a few hours on the weekdays on Second Life, but I just haven't the pain nor people tolerance for that right now.

Meanwhile, far stranger than this pain spike and rather distressing, I spent the past two days shaking and lightheaded—in a state not unlike a panic attack, but without a panicked mental state. I took a caffeine pill (to see if it helped with a headache—which it did) and a muscle relaxant on Sunday morning. I was already shaking, which I attributed to low blood sugar because I hadn't eaten. We went out, and the shaking got so bad that it was affecting my torso as well as my limbs. Half an hour after eating the severity decreased, but minor shaking kept on—and continued, well in to the evening. No matter what I did or ate, I felt increasingly feverish and lightheaded. My pulse was racing. My stomach felt empty. I had difficulty breathing.

I've only had one panic attack (my anxiety usually presents itself differently) but this felt just like it—just like it, except that my mental state was just fine. I was contently watching video games and reading as it all went on, and was cheerful and a bit sleepy. The symptoms continued for about a day and a half, although the last few hours were progressively better. I'm premenstrual, but never had PMS exhibit similar symptoms. There's no way that a single caffeine pill would have such a lasting effect—and anyway, caffeine has never so much as made me hyper. I'm not unduly worried or concerned with what caused it, because it did me no lasting harm, but it certainly was just the strangest thing.

Other than that, I'm fine. Reading, as I said—and some great books, at that (you all should pick up Black Ships). I'm teetering right on the edge of breaking the top 10,000 reviewers on Amazon, and eagerly watching for the thumbs up that pushes me over. I saw my sister, and we went out to dinner and had a grand time. Ninja Gaiden II is borked thanks to an ironic new game patch, so the boy has switched to Halo 3 and Devil May Cry 4 for a bit (this affects me because I am the strange sort of video game girlfriend that rather enjoys chilling out and watching other people game). I am a bit withdrawn and quiet, desperate for a full night of sleep, and the back pain has me a bit short tempered—but on the whole, I'm doing well enough.