I have a lot of catching up to do. Sorry, I nodded off at some point and just woke back up. Ill try to answer as many of you as I can but want to first thank all of you for staying up with me last night (yeah, i realize its a world wide audience and New Orleans time doesnt really apply to the situation but still....) helping me through this.
Why not quit the opiates as I acknowledge they are ruining my life? Well, the greater of the two demons are the intrusive thoughts. A few of you on here know about them and know what they actually are. I have no intrusive thoughts about sunshine and lollipops. The only real intrusive thoughts OCD wise are of the most vile disgusting heinous things you can imagine. Think about the worst scene in any movie youve ever saw where you had to turn your head because you couldnt physically witness the entire scene yet it still haunted you all the way home and into the next day. THAT would be an intrusive thought type image only looking away isnt an option. In fact quite the opposite. Until you fully give in to the image your anxiety grows exponentially until there is no other option but to give in to try and "reset" the anxiety. Sadly, that just brings the same damn image back again ten seconds later with the accomanying anxiety of not giving in being 10x stronger. So you give in and repeat until something finally makes it go away. What makes it go away? I have no more clue about that answer than i do why it comes in the first place. :Edit:to be more clear, imagine the person on the recieving end of whatever vile shit in the movie scene is your mother, daughter, brother etc. and that the purpotrator of the violence is YOU. I did a poor job on conveying that properly. Its always personal....
The bitch of it is that the thoughts are never random. Theyre tailored specifically for you. If I didnt find rape in general disgusting and love my niece completely that intrusive thought would never have occured. If I werent religious the Jesus blow job intrusive thought would never have occured. It not images of disturbing shit in general...its images of the most disturbing shit for me personally. I dont know how to better explain it than that. Where the opiates come in is that when Im nodding out on opana or heroin I have zero intrusive thoughts. The rest of the time i deal with them to a certain degree daily. Getting high in and of itself wont do it but getting high to the point Im in and out of consciousness a la nodding DOES stop the thoughts.
The opiate problem is that it takes enormous amounts of them to nod and only two will do the job anymore. I may have done a poor job distinguishing between the two problems. My opiate problem comes from the fact that its my only escape from a hell I cant control but CAN close the door on when high enough....but now in order to get high enough to shut the door I have to do what are in essence doses of opiates that would kill even normally opiate tolerant users which is creating a myriad of health, money and work issues not simply due to the opiates themselves, but due to the amount of opiates. Cutting back on the opiates seems the obvious answer but then I can no longer shut the door on the intrusive thoughts which, in my case at least, is a terrifying thought. Until you've spent 18 hours with the worst image possible (geared specifically for you and you alone) you'll never really understand what Im trying to convey here. And Im happy about that because I wouldnt wish this on anyone. Im perfectly happy to be misunderstood because to understand means to have been here too and that isnt anything Id wish on anyone.
Do I feel different throughout the day re ups and downs? Not really but thats more the bipolar than the OCD. Bipolar works in cycles lasting weeks or months at a time. Generally Im depressed and have to fight to get out of bed every morning and have to fight through the day just to get back to my bed where I feel i belong. when bipolar swings the other direction I go days on end with no sleep and am so mad I snap at any little anything for no reason. I have atypical bipolar in that i have mixed states where instead of being happy go lucky, full of energy, seeking out sex and making silly purchases on big ticket items Im more likely to spend 6 days/nights unable to sleep pacing my living room ready to kill anyone or anything that trys to say hello. Its just anger and rage mixed with lack of ability to sleep. As you can imagine opiates are useful here too. In my personal case Im depressed 70% of the time, morbidly depressed like the recliner story 5% of the time, hypo-manic 10% of the time and "normal" 15% of the time. I call it normal since i cant see any of the other few options present but Id hardly call it normal if you know what I mean. Im not normal in the sense that regular people are normal....just not depressed to the point of cant get out of bed, not raging and unable to sleep and not morbidly depressed where getting out of bed isnt an option.
I am an avid reader and I apologize for not giving credit to whom it belongs but Ill click that link here as soon as I finish this post and take my dogs out and read the suggested material. Thank you for the title and thanks even more for the link making it accessible today.
I know I havent done enough justice to acknowledge all that gave support for me and Im sorry for that. I felt the need to address the few things I just did to clarify what I may have done a poor job of conveying before I fell asleep last night but today its sunny and cold which is a rarity down here and its mardi gras season so I think my best bet to get my head in a better place would be to hook up the dogs and go wandering around and clear my head.
Ill look into the support groups mentioned above...specifically the ones led by mood disorder sufferers as I do feel very much alone.
i take my meds as prescribed to include the klonopin. Have asked to be taken off Klonopin repeatedly as i cant see it doing anything at all but I do have mild tourettes that to a casual observer would appear as if I stretch my neck/arms a lot but nothing more. Thats why he gives it to me and I cant comment on why he wont take me off it even when i ask him to. I notice zero effects from it and the last time i did abuse it I took ten and didnt even feel relaxed but that was during a hypomanic state and probably my brain chemistry was so far gone that ten wouldnt dent it. After that i havent bothered to take more than prescribed as it seems pointless. I dont drink either. I smoke pot and abuse opiates which i guess is pretty obvious by this point in the thread.
Again, thank all of you for your support. Im going to comb through all your replies again later this afternoon and look into the suggested reading link as well. For now I feel I need to grab my dogs and get some fresh air to clear my head. My apologies if I did a poor job of recognizing anyone for their contributions. The important thing is I am alive this morning once again and even though I know Ill be right back where i was last night at some point in the near future I feel I at least have some support and options for "real world" support that all of you were gracious enough to share with me.
Bless you all.
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and closs them off the list each day and your self esteem will slowly build just knowing you can accomish just those simple tasks. 
), appears legit, tho formatting was out in some places in the epub version. Good insight into depression, def made an impact.
