Azure Cloud
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2013
- Messages
- 523
Screwed by bad choices and a situation out of my control
This is a long story. I am so grateful to anyone that can read through it all!
I'm almost 44 years old and i find myself struggling to not give in to the darkness that has enveloped my life.
I have largely been a functional addict for most of my life. I have abused one substance or another since the age of 14. Mostly weed and psychedelics until in my early twenties. At that time, I took a 7 year hiatus to focus on finishing my undergrad program and a masters degree in geology. During my PhD program (geochemistry focussed), it was 1999 and I found a pharmacy in Juarez that would FedEx cheap oxycontin into the USA from El Paso. This was the beginning of the end. Oxycontin was a great motivator at first but turned into a major brain fogger and distraction with in a year or two. After a grand maul seizures early in 2003 followed by a house fire in late 2003, I could not focus on my PhD program any longer and finally gave up on 2005.
I also started back on weed in 2001 because after the birth of my son. My wife made friends with a woman at her La Leche League meetings who was married to a guy that grew the most incredible weed.
My wife and i became excellent doctor shoppers as the Mexican pharmacy guy started become too unreliable. In 2003 we discovered records only online pharmacies (thanks to being established with a croaker of a doctor we had the needed records). I was odering 90 to 120 Norcos a month from four different pharmacies. Those pharmacies all got shut down in 2005 i believe. Sobriety was forced upon us, but then i found a reliable source of opium poppies online. I also found that adderall was a great drug to alleviate my opium withdrawals.
Long story short, since then I've made two attempts to find control at methadone clinics, but those just ended up putting me in a worse place in terms of my addiction. I have also had a couple of somewhat successful runs with suboxone docs, finally coming of subs late last summer.
However due to my wife suffering from neuropathy i thought i needed something extra to deal with working and being the primary care giver (taking the role of mother and father) to our children. Adderall fit the bill. This began in 2009
So at this point I'm abusing Adderall to get high because Suboxone was not doing the trick. I thought I was using Adderall to defeat the high denied me by the subs. Also due to a one year probation imposed on me for being busted for growing cannabis I really became dependent on Adderall, legit script, but never enough.
After working at an environmental testing lab from 2006 to 2009, I managed to fall into a great job as a manufacturers rep, working for my eldest brother. I loved my job and never thought I would need to find another one the rest of my life.
Well late last year my brother killed himself and the manufacturer decided to let our territory dissipate into the surrounding territories and I was out of a job. The irony is that i finally got off Suboxone completely the summer preceding my brother's suicide. I was also a week or two free of Adderall before his death. Not focusing on my grief because my parents need my support and help as the executors of his estate, I was drug free except for cannabis for a few months.
I must say my brother left quite the mess to clean up. He shot himself in the back of the head in a bathroom closet. It fell to me and a good friend to clean the closet, pull the carpet, replace the floor boards, sanitize and repaint the wall, and lay tile so the house could be sold. The executor responsibilities have been an immense burden because his only heir is a beautiful five year old little girl. Probate court is a bitch to deal with.
Once the process of gathering his financial securities and liquidating his assets began to wind down, i find myself trying to find employment. Every time I see a contact to try to network with from the old job, the true grief I put off earlier sets in. I breakdown and cry trying to talk to our old customers as I look for advise or opportunities for employment. Initially applying for jobs I was honest about what happened thinking this would help explain why I am unemployed through no fault of my own. Come to realize no one wants to hire someone with a perceived victim mentality.
2 months ago I decided I needed to get back on the Adderall because at the age of 44 my work experience only spans 10 years due to spending so much time in graduate school. I thought I could control my Adderall usage this time. It is not working, but I cannot not remember how to operate without the crutch of drugs. Between the late onset of true grieving and the loss of confidence in myself to find a job that will allow me at least to give my 13 year old son a couple of nice vacations while he is still young enough to really appreciate it with what is left of his childlike wonder and awe, I feel frozen in my tracts. I cannot approach potential employers with any confidence what so ever. I am like a deer caught in the headlights.
I desperately want my son to see me pull out of this and be a success, to be a good example, so he can know he is made of strong enough mettle to overcome any obstacles he may face in his life. His school work is definitely suffering because he does stress out about our finances, though he should not, and as much as I try to hide the debilitating depression I have fallen into, I know he feels it.
The Adderall is not working. At first is gave me a boost of productivity on the job search, but now it has only thrown me into a very dark place I see no way out of.
I want to institutionalize my self for 30 to 90 days to get the help I need but if my son ever discovers that my addictions are the root of what has caused him to do without certain things, that my addictions since before he was born is the reason I did not pay him the attention he deserved form ages 5 onward (I was super dad until he started kindergarten), I don't think he will every forgive me. He hates drugs, esp after seeing me being arrested by the swat team.
I have been on Adderall for 5 years now with horrific cycles of manic-depression associated with its use. But I don't know how to stop. I feel like I need to find a way to support my family properly again as soon as possible. I am so torn between the anxiety of finding a job, while knowing that the Adderall roller coaster is making it impossible at the same time. I will not be able to keep a job with comedowns that will inevitably make me a shitty employee. Yet I am completely scared to not have the Adderall available to provide the edge I think I need to compete with the other tens of thousands of people also seeking employment (many of them younger and with a more recent education and a more focused set of skills than I have). Plus I have never found my old energy and motivation to return no matter how long any of my drug free episodes last. What makes it harder is that my wife acts like she is completely disabled: she can hardly help around the house but she can sure make messes for me to clean up. I feel like I live with two children but one is an adult. My oldest child is 23 and striking it out on her own supporting herself as best she can despite the lack to coping skills my wife an I were able to teach her. (more guilt I don't know how to overcome, even though she has long since said that she has forgiven me...really she blames her mom and considers herself lucky I was a good stepdad that took the time to make sure she never missed a basketball practice and being the one to breakdown dense algebraic geometry problems step by step in such a way that her ADD mind could understand the small steps that are the true basis of any complicated problem).
Most days, even with the Adderall, I am too depressed and lack the self-confidence I need to sell myself to any employer.
I am stuck in a negative thought cycle always feeling bad about how I know both my children would have such better lives if I had not been a junky my whole life.
I do not know what to do and I do not expect anyone to have specific answers for me; but any input would be so appreciated. I just feel fucked in my head. And even worse, I know that children of depressed parents tend to have a lot of coping issue problems later in life as well. My daughter has male dependency issues that have landed her in an abusive relationship in the past even though I tried my best to make up for the benign and loving fatherly attention her bio-dad never gave her.
Well this is all I will burden you with for now. Thank you for reading. Feel free to comment, but know I have still so much to that I need to express so I can finally get these demons out of my head and soul. I try to make baby step forward but I am always taking a few steps back just as quickly.
I want to make a loud cry for help to those around me, but I am a coward when it comes to asking for help.
AzCL
This is a long story. I am so grateful to anyone that can read through it all!
I'm almost 44 years old and i find myself struggling to not give in to the darkness that has enveloped my life.
I have largely been a functional addict for most of my life. I have abused one substance or another since the age of 14. Mostly weed and psychedelics until in my early twenties. At that time, I took a 7 year hiatus to focus on finishing my undergrad program and a masters degree in geology. During my PhD program (geochemistry focussed), it was 1999 and I found a pharmacy in Juarez that would FedEx cheap oxycontin into the USA from El Paso. This was the beginning of the end. Oxycontin was a great motivator at first but turned into a major brain fogger and distraction with in a year or two. After a grand maul seizures early in 2003 followed by a house fire in late 2003, I could not focus on my PhD program any longer and finally gave up on 2005.
I also started back on weed in 2001 because after the birth of my son. My wife made friends with a woman at her La Leche League meetings who was married to a guy that grew the most incredible weed.
My wife and i became excellent doctor shoppers as the Mexican pharmacy guy started become too unreliable. In 2003 we discovered records only online pharmacies (thanks to being established with a croaker of a doctor we had the needed records). I was odering 90 to 120 Norcos a month from four different pharmacies. Those pharmacies all got shut down in 2005 i believe. Sobriety was forced upon us, but then i found a reliable source of opium poppies online. I also found that adderall was a great drug to alleviate my opium withdrawals.
Long story short, since then I've made two attempts to find control at methadone clinics, but those just ended up putting me in a worse place in terms of my addiction. I have also had a couple of somewhat successful runs with suboxone docs, finally coming of subs late last summer.
However due to my wife suffering from neuropathy i thought i needed something extra to deal with working and being the primary care giver (taking the role of mother and father) to our children. Adderall fit the bill. This began in 2009
So at this point I'm abusing Adderall to get high because Suboxone was not doing the trick. I thought I was using Adderall to defeat the high denied me by the subs. Also due to a one year probation imposed on me for being busted for growing cannabis I really became dependent on Adderall, legit script, but never enough.
After working at an environmental testing lab from 2006 to 2009, I managed to fall into a great job as a manufacturers rep, working for my eldest brother. I loved my job and never thought I would need to find another one the rest of my life.
Well late last year my brother killed himself and the manufacturer decided to let our territory dissipate into the surrounding territories and I was out of a job. The irony is that i finally got off Suboxone completely the summer preceding my brother's suicide. I was also a week or two free of Adderall before his death. Not focusing on my grief because my parents need my support and help as the executors of his estate, I was drug free except for cannabis for a few months.
I must say my brother left quite the mess to clean up. He shot himself in the back of the head in a bathroom closet. It fell to me and a good friend to clean the closet, pull the carpet, replace the floor boards, sanitize and repaint the wall, and lay tile so the house could be sold. The executor responsibilities have been an immense burden because his only heir is a beautiful five year old little girl. Probate court is a bitch to deal with.
Once the process of gathering his financial securities and liquidating his assets began to wind down, i find myself trying to find employment. Every time I see a contact to try to network with from the old job, the true grief I put off earlier sets in. I breakdown and cry trying to talk to our old customers as I look for advise or opportunities for employment. Initially applying for jobs I was honest about what happened thinking this would help explain why I am unemployed through no fault of my own. Come to realize no one wants to hire someone with a perceived victim mentality.
2 months ago I decided I needed to get back on the Adderall because at the age of 44 my work experience only spans 10 years due to spending so much time in graduate school. I thought I could control my Adderall usage this time. It is not working, but I cannot not remember how to operate without the crutch of drugs. Between the late onset of true grieving and the loss of confidence in myself to find a job that will allow me at least to give my 13 year old son a couple of nice vacations while he is still young enough to really appreciate it with what is left of his childlike wonder and awe, I feel frozen in my tracts. I cannot approach potential employers with any confidence what so ever. I am like a deer caught in the headlights.
I desperately want my son to see me pull out of this and be a success, to be a good example, so he can know he is made of strong enough mettle to overcome any obstacles he may face in his life. His school work is definitely suffering because he does stress out about our finances, though he should not, and as much as I try to hide the debilitating depression I have fallen into, I know he feels it.
The Adderall is not working. At first is gave me a boost of productivity on the job search, but now it has only thrown me into a very dark place I see no way out of.
I want to institutionalize my self for 30 to 90 days to get the help I need but if my son ever discovers that my addictions are the root of what has caused him to do without certain things, that my addictions since before he was born is the reason I did not pay him the attention he deserved form ages 5 onward (I was super dad until he started kindergarten), I don't think he will every forgive me. He hates drugs, esp after seeing me being arrested by the swat team.
I have been on Adderall for 5 years now with horrific cycles of manic-depression associated with its use. But I don't know how to stop. I feel like I need to find a way to support my family properly again as soon as possible. I am so torn between the anxiety of finding a job, while knowing that the Adderall roller coaster is making it impossible at the same time. I will not be able to keep a job with comedowns that will inevitably make me a shitty employee. Yet I am completely scared to not have the Adderall available to provide the edge I think I need to compete with the other tens of thousands of people also seeking employment (many of them younger and with a more recent education and a more focused set of skills than I have). Plus I have never found my old energy and motivation to return no matter how long any of my drug free episodes last. What makes it harder is that my wife acts like she is completely disabled: she can hardly help around the house but she can sure make messes for me to clean up. I feel like I live with two children but one is an adult. My oldest child is 23 and striking it out on her own supporting herself as best she can despite the lack to coping skills my wife an I were able to teach her. (more guilt I don't know how to overcome, even though she has long since said that she has forgiven me...really she blames her mom and considers herself lucky I was a good stepdad that took the time to make sure she never missed a basketball practice and being the one to breakdown dense algebraic geometry problems step by step in such a way that her ADD mind could understand the small steps that are the true basis of any complicated problem).
Most days, even with the Adderall, I am too depressed and lack the self-confidence I need to sell myself to any employer.
I am stuck in a negative thought cycle always feeling bad about how I know both my children would have such better lives if I had not been a junky my whole life.
I do not know what to do and I do not expect anyone to have specific answers for me; but any input would be so appreciated. I just feel fucked in my head. And even worse, I know that children of depressed parents tend to have a lot of coping issue problems later in life as well. My daughter has male dependency issues that have landed her in an abusive relationship in the past even though I tried my best to make up for the benign and loving fatherly attention her bio-dad never gave her.
Well this is all I will burden you with for now. Thank you for reading. Feel free to comment, but know I have still so much to that I need to express so I can finally get these demons out of my head and soul. I try to make baby step forward but I am always taking a few steps back just as quickly.
I want to make a loud cry for help to those around me, but I am a coward when it comes to asking for help.
AzCL
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