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It's just gonna be one of those days...

I get to see my daughter every other week at OCY and I called so many people to see if I could get a ride. I'm done to calling my caseworker, I left a voice mail but she's bad at returning calls.

I wouldn't mind the hour and half walk if it wasn't cold and rainy. Still she's my life and thats isn't gonna stop me. Hell if it didn't stop me from doing the crazy shit I did before than why should it hold me back from this...

But shit it's one of those days....

manifesting - readily perceived by the eye or the understanding; evident; obvious; apparent; plain
(source: dictionary.com [web version])

Am I comparing a current manifestation of my addiction to the way my life was before I got clean? Am I plagued by the idea that I should know better?

02/22/10 1:19 PM

Do I compare the way I am now to the way I was in my addiction? Are you asking if I should have known better when I acted in a manner that is typical of behavior of me in my active addiction when I am trying to change these behaviors? This is how I am understanding this question and I will answer accordingly. It will require some thought so, once again, I’ll need to come back to this later...

02/23/10 10:42 AM

I’m sitting here trying to see if I have been comparing my ‘before and after’. Nothing has been immediately evident. So I look closer and its staring me in the face. My apartment is rather cluttered and disorganized. Keep in mind, it isn’t nearly (not even close) at the level of disgusting filth I had allowed my previous dwellings to degrade to (dog shit and piss on the carpet, beer bottles strewn about, paper towels all over, trash strewn all over the kitchen floor in bags, hundreds of used, uncapped syringes on the bathroom sink [which I would often re-use without disinfecting])

My apartment right now simply has piles of laundry on the floor, clothes waiting to be put away, a few empty cigarette packs on my night table, dog hair on the carpet (I JUST vacuumed but Shaman is shedding fiercely now), paperwork lying about waiting to be filed and some dusty table tops.

My place isn’t dirty but it is disorganized and cluttered. To me this is a sign of my life being unmanageable. I’m okay with it though because I DO pick away at stuff in intermittent bursts of cleaning and I DO see progress and some sort of commitment to maintaining a clean, organized apartment. I see movement in a positive, productive manner.

When I was getting high, the simplest things were impossible to do. Walking the dog, taking the trash out and eating were chores that delayed me from sticking a spike in my arm for the next rush. I couldn’t bring myself to take the dog out when I had a couple bags of powder and syringes sitting on the table. A fifteen minute walk was too long to be away from my bags.

Its not like that nowadays. Shaman and I enjoy our daily walks. I enjoy not having to rush home to quickly mix a solution and draw it up into a rig. I no longer need to desperately find a good, easy vein to hit.

Yeah, I’m doing alright now in spite of a few pieces of laundry on the floor. Dirty clothes ain’t shit compared to the complete package of disarray and desperation of how I was living only six months ago.

i've managed to stabilise myself on 200mg of IR tramadol (100mg b.d) plus 150SR, bd as well. so 500mg of tramadol throughout the day. and i'm still pretty uncomfortable. RLS hasn't really gone away at all, not getting my bacolofen refilled yet is part the reason for that; i don't know why i haven't done that. the last place you'll find me when i'm feeling this uncomfortable is out in public. it's been a struggle to even come in for fresh fruit and shit lately

anxiety hasn't been much of an issue thankfully, it's mainly depression and the want to get high at the moment. a few certain aches and pains have triggered the want to use a few times. that's usually when i just pack a small cone, smoke it and put some music on and take my mind from those thoughts. so while the cravings are definitely knocking at my door they're not as bad as i thought either - but it's only the first week. next week and the week after will be the trying times, i'm certain about that.

i'm back at my friends during the week as has been the case the last couple weeks. i haven't officially moved in but i crash here normally monday through to friday or saturday. it works out well for both my friend and i because he's just split up with a gf of 5 years and is pretty lonely without me around and i'm a bit the same in my situation.

i still love my solitary confinement. that's what the past couple weekends have been for me, as well as through the day when i'm home alone and my friend is at work. i get all day by myself, minus classes, and then good company in the evening. we still go about our own routines as we would so we're not throwing each other off. except i'm the unlucky bastard doing the fucking washing up everyday i don't care because i'm not paying rent yet and those simple daily tasks bring back a bit of reality after you've neglected them while being all fucked up.

my appetite has been the same as well. it hasn't shot up as usual and my sweet tooth hasn't come out to feed yet. the areas where i've lost weight over the last couple of months are starting to tone up again since i'm a bit more active and lifting again. i'm still not doing anywhere near enough as i should be, probably because of the weed i've been smoking. give me another week and i hope to be lifting weights everyday again; morning, lunch and afternoon sessions.

speaking of weed, i'm gonna go have a smoke now and maybe head out for a hair cut that i'm in need of.

till next time.

I fucked up again and I used the fact that someone hurt my feelings to rationalize what I did, but it was all me and only me.

At least perhaps I made a friend out of it, but I can't get rid of the loss I feel from losing another.

There was so much that I wanted/needed to talk about tonight...I guess I'll get it out later.

Once again I can't cry, and I really wish I could.

So what I've lost most of my friends, make new ones right. Sounds so easy, doing it on the other hand isn't.



Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing.
Anais Nin
*One of my favorite writers

'For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.'
John Greenleaf Whittier

To perceive is to suffer.
Aristotle

this is rather random and meant mostly to stump vgoraz. i will post some other things when i think of it.

*i've worn my husband's pants out to a club.
*my husband and i share pairs of shoes.
*we have shared a toothbrush for an extended period of time.
*he has worn a top of mine out to a bar.
*we like sharing a bed

How have I compared my addiction with others’ addiction? Is my addiction “bad enough” if I don’t compare it to anyone else’s?

02/22/10 12:48 PM

Sometimes I compare my addiction to other people’s the opposite way. I think to myself that my addiction was worse than others. I analyze and look at it from a technical aspect. I tell myself that folks who smoked crack weren’t as bad as me because the bioavailability of crack is less than that of IV cocaine HCL. I know that this is nonsense though because I have smoked crack and it delivers similar after effects as IV coke (the comedown, the chase, etc.)

I was never homeless, I never prostituted myself, I never did time in prison, I never mugged anyone or snatched purses but I truly know in my heart that my addiction was bad enough for me. The pain and hopelessness was powerful enough to knock me to the ground.

As I look at the list of ‘I nevers’, I feel some concern. They say that our ‘I nevers’ become a reality if we allow our addiction to progress through relapse. I just hope I never relapse again.

I heard the pounding of hand-to-wood beats resonating through the rest of the house as I woke from a mid-afternoon nap. The knocking had to be from the front door and must've been going on for some time. But by the time I could tell what was going on, it had stopped. Too hazed from sleeping, eyesight still splotched with drifting fuzzy film, I walked to the bathroom and began urinating. The toilet stunk of days-old dried piss stuck to the sidewalls of the ceramic basin.

Around this time, it had become increasingly difficult for me to get good sleep. I napped more often. It seemed to go this way every year around mid May. When the weather gets warm, I don't know, I just get restless. It could have, of course, been the paranoia I'd amassed from growing and processing massive quantities of cannabis in my bedroom and adjoining closet-space.

I thought I'd probably told too many of my friends. I'd stay up at night thinking about one of them getting pulled over by the police for speeding and getting caught with a few grams of coke or a couple of pain killers. They'd get scared and intimidated and tell the cops about this friend they have that grows weed. That way, the police would play nice and let them get off clean. I wasn't even sure if that's how it worked. I watched a lot of cop dramas and saw how rats got shot. I never thought, “I'll kill a motherfucker if he rats me out.” I wouldn't. And everyone knew it so I was a perfect target. Why wouldn't someone save themselves by giving me up? It wasn't going to come back to them.

So I kept on pissing in that toilet. I was staying at my Dad's at the time. He was a ruined man of little possession and less money. His house was decrepit, mold growing in wall corners and over every inch of the bathroom's peeling wallpaper. The toilet was pink on the outside and a light butter speckled in black in the bowl. Years before, when the mold began growing, you could aim your stream on the spots and they'd wash off. By this time, though, the spots had become a steady film overgrown on ceramic.

There was no reason to refurbish the house however. After I moved out, it was just him there. My father is a useless bend of a man, unable to care for himself let alone the others in his life who tried to depend on him. Why did I live here? It was cheap and I was in college. I tried to say it was bohemian and maintenance free. I just didn't want to feel embarrassed about it. I was, regardless.

So I was kind of paranoid. It came and went. When nothing else was going on, I'd remember that I was doing something illegal. Why do people worry? It's so worthless.

I remembered the knocking on the front door. I looked through the dusty miniblinds in the bathroom window into the street in front of the house. A white police-cruiser was parked in the yard across the street from the house and the owner's officer was walking down to their door.

My fears were apparently coming to fruition. They had been knocking on my door to arrest me. Why didn't they just knock the door down?

Think of November, somewhere around the middle of the month in central Virginia. Almost all the trees have shed their leaves. The mountains surrounding this God-fearing city are brown besides a few spots of evergreen.

One mountain in particular is bald. Atop its head, this mountain has nothing but rock, gray and bleak. Back in the 1970's a bunch of acid heads had a party on the top of that mountain, now appropriately called “Bald Top,” and things got out of hand.

Not surprisingly, two days into the week-long love-and-drug fest, a girl lay face-down dead on the ground behind her tent. Police found semen all over her body, in her every orifice. Her face was covered in bloody dirt. It had been pounded into the ground from the blows, blunt force trauma, to the back of her skull.

Several theories arose from authorities in the area only a few hours after she had been found. Detective Christopher Brown decided that several men had raped her in a psychedelic episode of rage and hedonism.

According to Brown, this group of men found her wandering from the fire back to her campsite, probably to urinate and the like. Furthermore, these would-be rapists & killers, held her down and silenced her screams from the rest of the party's inhabitants.

Two days passed and the party-goers were still barricaded by interrogators, not allowing anyone to leave the mountain. In all the investigation, the police found nothing. No one gave up any explanations or first hand accounts of what happened.

So, the girl who was beaten and raped died an untimely, brutal death. She was most likely embarrassed and tortured. Her hair covered with dried semen, her face and neck the same.

It's okay, the mortician will clean all of it off before any of her family or friends sees the body. There will be a nice, neat visitation and funeral.

The party-goers were all directed off the mountain on the third day of stalemate. The fourth day saw a great fire burn the top of that mountain. It was gated off and has been closed to the public ever since.

The flames burned hot in the night, illuminating the sky over the whole valley. Though, no one around got so much as a photograph. Next morning the papers read, “Mountain Burns Overnight: Now Bald.”

Police released a statement the day after the mountain-top burned.
“For the sake of our children and
the welfare of our community,
Lynchburg will no longer be a
haven for drug addicts, for miscre-
ants.”

Think of November, somewhere around the middle of the month in central Virginia. Almost all the trees have shed their leaves. The mountains surrounding this God-fearing city are brown besides a few spots of evergreen.

One mountain in particular is bald. Atop its head, this mountain has nothing but rock, gray and bleak. Back in the 1970's a bunch of acid heads had a party on the top of that mountain, now appropriately called “Bald Top,” and things got out of hand.

Not surprisingly, two days into the week-long love-and-drug fest, a girl lay face-down dead on the ground behind her tent. Police found semen all over her body, in her every orifice. Her face was covered in bloody dirt. It had been pounded into the ground from the blows, blunt force trauma, to the back of her skull.

Several theories arose from authorities in the area only a few hours after she had been found. Detective Christopher Brown decided that several men had raped her in a psychedelic episode of rage and hedonism.

According to Brown, this group of men found her wandering from the fire back to her campsite, probably to urinate and the like. Furthermore, these would-be rapists & killers, held her down and silenced her screams from the rest of the party's inhabitants.

Two days passed and the party-goers were still barricaded by interrogators, not allowing anyone to leave the mountain. In all the investigation, the police found nothing. No one gave up any explanations or first hand accounts of what happened.

So, the girl who was beaten and raped died an untimely, brutal death. She was most likely embarrassed and tortured. Her hair covered with dried semen, her face and neck the same.

It's okay, the mortician will clean all of it off before any of her family or friends sees the body. There will be a nice, neat visitation and funeral.

The party-goers were all directed off the mountain on the third day of stalemate. The fourth day saw a great fire burn the top of that mountain. It was gated off and has been closed to the public ever since.

The flames burned hot in the night, illuminating the sky over the whole valley. Though, no one around got so much as a photograph. Next morning the papers read, “Mountain Burns Overnight: Now Bald.”

Police released a statement the day after the mountain-top burned.

“For the sake of our children and
the welfare of our community,
Lynchburg will no longer be a
haven for drug addicts, for miscre-
ants.”

While I was in hospital, a psychiatrist talked to me about all the drugs I'm prescribed. He said that there was no reason why I should be on both clonazepam and diazepam, and, get this, he suggested that I completely stop the clonazepam (cold turkey) and just replace it with an extra 10mg's of diazepam. 10 fucking milligrams!? I would have laughed in his face if I hadn't been so angry.

It's fairly well known that 0.5mg's of clonazepam is equivalent to 10mg's of diazepam (see here), so if I stopped my clonazepam (I take 6mg's a day), I'd need to be on an extra 120mg's of diazepam! Not a measly 10! Needless to say, I refused his suggestion. I've been on clonazepam for 6 years, I'm wickedly dependant on it, and I'm not gonna let any doctor fuck around with my dose unless he actually knows what he's talking about! 8)

Today is Sunday, Feburary 21st, 2010 and is now 740 PM.

Right or wrong, across all ethnicities and tribal affiliations Filipinas are sterotyped as insanely jealous lovers. In my own experience, with a whopping 3 Filipina lovers, I have found that 2 out of 3 are. Jackie is for sure.

I have no real problem with jealousy actually, though Rizza's used to drive me insane. Jackie ran through my many female friends and then set her sisghts on Rizza despite the fact that Rizza is (apparently) living with a man, I do not have her address, and at the time really had no contact with her. Still, finding, in conversation, that Rizza and I had an email/IM account for communication, she fixated on it.

One day, trying to show her how much bI truly cared, I offered her the account ID and...password (hahaha I know). Jackie played it very demure, "Are you sure? I mean I do not want to seem like I am forcing you. Anyway I will never go there."

Well, time was that for one reason or another that she ended up there and rifled through emails and photos going back to when I first came to NY for Hep Treatment.

I got a terse 3 line Email talking about how heartbroken she is. Finding that I used some of the same phrases with Rizza, that I used with Jackie. I explained it as having taken place after Rizza ran away...and (honestly) her parents begged me to beg and cajole her back to Mindanao.

She was so sad to see the photos...I gently explained to her, what if one day I discovered photos of her and HER ex? Did they not have pictures holding hands? Crisis averted.

I finally had it with Rizza's games and told Jackie to erase the ID for me (since I use a handheld usually). She gladly erased it.

A week later I got another terse email, "Rachi, why is that ID active again?" I told her I had no idea, but calmed her down telling her that it was probablly Rizza. I told her kist change password to a word only you know, and delete the account again. She happily did so.

2 days later same thing, repeat. 1 day later, now she was getting very angry. By bow she was obsessing over the ID. I did not realise it but she had taken to going there and reading whatever offlines Rizza had sent me.

Early last week another email, "Rachi, why is she saying about when you were in Cambodia?" I had never talked about the 4 months trip Rizza and I took there in 2008. No biggie.

By now though she was really curious about that period in my life. Without me even knowing, on Friday she went online and found Rizza online. She also saw an offline to me saying,"You want to supposrt some botch with 2 kids? You won't even give me kids, you won't send me money and you want THAT? She will hurt you I promise you!" Hahahahaha, and she began talking to Rizza!!!!!

Rizza apparently loves me (I doubt it but that is the story), and said she never cheated on me...that I cheated on her! She said, in Bisaya "Look, we both are Bisaya, you have to trust me I will tell you all about Rachamim."

She proceeded to tell Jackie all this bullshit, actually not one iota was true. Most of it though supposedly took place during time I was in Cagayan with Jackie, so that she knew it to be false.

Later that night I got emails on my business account and Rizza was very upset. I called her up on the phone. "You cheeeeeeeeated. You gave that girl our password! How could you!!!"

Now I had not yet spoken to Jackie that evening. My heart began beating so hard. I said, slowly, "What...are...you...talking..
about?" She told me my girl had asked all kinds of personal things...I was almost physically sick. "You crazy bitch, what you told her?"


Rizza asked, "Do you love her?" I was feeling so weird. I have known Rizza since she was born, seen her grow up, made her my wife, beeen through wars married to this girl, and she knows me well enough to know that if I gave her THAT password, something was happening to me.

I softly said, in English, "Yes I do, soooooooooo much."

Rizza began crying, asking me how I could do this. I started laughing, I could not help it it was just so surreal. I said, "Whoaaaaaaa, you ran away and fucked some guy. I never did anything, YOU did. I told you for months, if you don't wide up this would happen. I am young enough to make a life still and I will. I told you this, many times Each time you you swore you were gonna do the right thing. You shamed your entire family. Look what you have done and now you blaming me?"

She said,"I do not feel in my heart that I cheated. So many women always wanred you. You cheated on me (in 2002, when we were separated)." I said there is no excuse and you know Rizza, even after you did this shit I offered you many chances, I tried to be understanding, for you and your family's sake but I am not a toy to pick up and play with when you are bored. Now I met this woman and I love her, she and I will marry."

Rizza said, "What? How can you marry? There is no divorce here (meaning Philippines)." Neither you nor her can divorce so you can never marry."

I said, "For her, its already taken care of (she was never legally married but Rizza does not know). As for you and I? I will do a Get (Jewish Divorce) so I can marry her in Jewish Law, good enough for me and legal in Israel."

Rizza replied," What if I return now, you will give me a chance?" "No Rizza, those chances have ended. I wish you happiness."

She asked if I would send her to Europe. I said she could not go cause her parents wil not release her paperwork. In the Philippines you must reapply for birth certificates, etc in your home district. Her family controls the entire region (3 provinces).

She spoke about some vague plans, and I told her to take care of herself.

I did not hear from Jackie all that evening and I began to get paranoid. Finally she came on and I waited for her to bring it up, finally she did and asked me how had I ever married a mentally ill girl, hahahhahaahahahaha. I said, I do not know if she is nuts but maybe she is. But I saw the girl grow up, I was always in and out of the country, shit happens. She told me, "I don't care what she says, nothing she could ever say would ever make me turn from you baby." A warm feeling came over me and I let the anger I had over her doing it behind my back slip away.

Funny to fall in love for the first time, in middle age but I have to admit I like it alot .

Ok. I have an important question!! Im not sure if Im doing this right. My first time.... here is the deal: My sweetheart has recently experianced paralysis with coherency after mixing weed and alcohol. I am saying he passes out and looses full control of his body, but can still hear and feel everything around him, and remembers everything that happened when he comes out of his "coma". He doesnt usually mix the two, and wont ever do this again, but I need to know if this has ever happened to anyone that you know, or possibly yourself??? We have both researched it online and nothing! It starts with him getting very relaxed, and even failing to properly breathe, which is probably an effect of the herb. Then he passes out! (has only happened twice and both times he was on the floor already sitting down). His breathing becomes very shallow and he becomes pale, and he said (after he regained control/consciousness) that he felt a forboding feeling like something excruciatingly painful was going to happen to him or he would die. Gradually he came back to color and even breathing, and could have been taken for asleep, BUT while he was passed out i could see him smile slightly at jokes we played on him (he said he was laughing inside) and he swallowed as if thirsty, so I poured water in his mouth and he drank it (which I would say are involuntary motor skills). When I prompted him to get up he would have tremors, but his mind couldnt control his body. When his eyes began to open they were completly void, and he had no control over them either (they just looked straight ahead). This episode lasted for about four or more hours! The second time this happened I wasnt there and the experiance was much more alarming to him, but also made him realize the mixture of pot and alcohol was doing this to him, because when he did one or the other by itself he was fine. Needless to say this was very frightening and Im deeply concerned. I dont need anyone to tell me he shouldnt do that again, and want to know if anybody has ever heard of or seen this happen before???? Thank you all very very much for reading![/SIZE]

The arch of my love light
curved toward the heavens
touched the stars.
The downward stroke of your brush
called to me,
Cried out to me.
You never said a word,
Not with lips and tongue and vocal cords straining.
Your eyes and your silence said more to me than
the words of all others.

I pulled myself to you.
Straight up face to face with you.
I pulled you down inside of me.
Down where no one else had been.

You leave, but somehow stay
The residue of your sticky love
Clinging to me for days
My mind in constant thought
Of you.
Of you.
Always of you.
I can not move past the moment
My eyes and yours touched rays
Your prismatic love shines all around
the various hues distracting me
The allure of you is irresistible.


Forgive me, just in a mood for words.

My muscles ache.
Laps around tables,
Stools, a bar.
A screaming baby,
And a mother who
Wishes
She could just run away.

No destination.
Lost in the freedom
Of great lungfuls of air.
Arms waving
Legs pumping
Feet slapping hard against the pavement.
Just to get away
Away.
From the endless miles
Walked like an ox in a yoke.
Slowly watching the ground rise
On each side.
As my rut grows deeper.

There was a dream once.
Now it is lost,
Under the mountain of parking tickets, reciepts,
Unsent love letters, fast food wrappers,
Dirty diapers and used condoms.
Kleenex, that wait to dry the tears,
That never seem to come.
I wish that I could set this place on fire.
And watch as the pressed pulp,
Bleached white for your convinence
Turns black and crumples
Then grays into ash and floats away.

And somehow, somewhere
Beneath the molten pain
There will be a glimmer
That will catch the eye
A forgotten hope.
An old idea
Made new by the
All consuming purification
Of the heat.
The misery and drudgery
Denatured.
A highway and a pair of high tops.
A way out,
And the desire to leave.
A sick feeling about the stomach and head.
Two weeks in bed unable to wake up,
or cry.
Holding the pain of guilt in deep
where it cannot cut me.
A lump in the center,
compressing my vital organs.

Two months without your eyes.
Too long without the sound of you
Falling against my ears and skin.
My hands and mind will not unclench.
Afraid to lose the litte piece of your shirt
that was all I was able to grab,
When you turned.
Walked away.
Forgot the magic of us.

How do I unstick from the moment of you?
When you were the one, my sweetest muse.
Some time from now, I will gaze across
the canyons that separate what was,
what will be,
And what is.
Each an eternity in its own right.
Winding roads that intersect from time to time
(When we least expect)

There I will see,
A girl, and a boy,
And a moment that lasted
And lasted.

Sitting, straying, praying

for something..

I know I should be thankful, and this I am--- but am not being.

Old patterns die hard, truly. But where did it start and where am i going?

-------

My hand grabs the pavement, a raw grip tearing at cement.
A hole, in there, in this child somewhere. Behind a sort of barrier only kind minds admire.

C'mon, put a little sugar in this cup-- pleading with me, myself and everyone.

give us some love, and i will stir the dust.

--------

I never was one to hold onto friendships.. or is it the glue never sticks to me or any i want to be?

In ways i give up, surrender to hermits delight of seclusion and unrequite. Resenting myself after even saying.

Assuming i suck always, and none give a fuck enough. Thats fine cuz neither do i. Probably why I am where I am-- lost in some retarded made up land.

------

I want to save everyone, because maybe within this someone will save me.. or I will figure out how to save myself. I say this loosely, in the broadest terminology.

Or is it when another's broken-- I let my own guard down, enough to put a drop of heart in their tin mug? Most likely.

I am kind out of being generous with my happiness. Though I have to be honest with myself, unconsciously I do expect this in return--- /me mutters the golden rule.

But looking back, there is a balance to it all. I've gotten this far on my own dumb luck and the brief entrance of charity from others. Be unknown to me is why I fail to feel appeased? At peace?

Is it idealic remnants that once stood like the Parthenon, archaic strands of a golden age passed?

----

If only my walls could talk. Or if only I could listen.

I have predicted at least 3 deaths

I skied off of a cliff in Colorado

When I lived in Yosemite bears used to hang out by my bedroom window

When I lived in Florida I learned how to surf by a famous surfer

I almost fell off a mountainside, riding a horse on a switchback on a moonlit ride.

Today I resolve not to masturbate again until I have paid off my credit card debt.

I'm down about $4,500 right now, with $1000 at 12% and $3,500 at 0% for another two and a half months. Of course, the zero apr needs to be paid before I can dig into the 12% money.

This resolution is "crazy" for me because jerkin' is far and away my favorite thing to do on planet earth. It's been a constant comfort to me since I was 12 years old.

It'll be tough because I need to pay off an assload of student loans during the same time, I pay a lot of rent, I only make $10 an hour, and I work as a contractor "as needed."

Luckily, I've been making myself useful at work and I'm a favorite for my skills if not my personality.

I just did some back of the envelope calculations, and if I continue to pull 20 days a month at work, and I don't see any increases in expenses, I have around $980 'to spend' a month. Food needs to come out of that, but I'm confident I can put the bulk towards the card if I need to.

So, best case scenario, if I live like a hermit (no real problem for me, except do hermits jerk off?) I can about have the card paid off by the time the interest kicks in on the rest of the loan. (I have about a grand in savings right now).

But will I be able to do it? I've definitely broken promises to myself before, and masturbation is my firmest habit. heh.

And finally, what is the point of this endeavor? I plan to use this as motivation to expand my skills and branch into some small-time business ventures. To see if I can work towards deriving more pleasure out of activities that improve me, rather than idle pleasures.

I'll post again if I go back on my word!

A lot of this is written from personal experience.


1. Belts, shoe-laces, drawstrings, and sharp objects are a big no-no! If you enter the ward with these (especially a high security ward), they will be taken off you.

2. Don't bother trying to break open a security door. It won't work.

3. Don't bother trying to smash a window. Even if it doesn't have bars across it, the glass is unbreakable.

4. If you get agitated and a doctor offers you some pills to calm you down, I suggest you take them. Otherwise it'll be an injection in the ass.

5. If you're given older "typical antipsychotics", put a towel over your pillow before you sleep to prevent it getting covered with drool.

6. If a fellow inpatient is sitting quietly by themselves, don't try to start a conversation. They obviously want to be left alone.

7. Avoid the dangerous/violent ones. You'll soon figure out who they are!

8. 99% of the nurses are friendly, helpful, and far more approachable than the doctors. Don't be afraid to talk to them.

9. If you're an involuntary patient, the doctor has the power to release you or keep you locked up. Be nice to them, and don't give them a reason to continue keeping you there.

10. Just accept the fact that you're there. It may take a few days, a few weeks, or in some cases, a few months - but you will eventually be discharged.

4 for these things will annoy me to the point of not talking to someone... one of these things is a good trait

*people who refuse to take responsibility for themselves
*people who think its a good idea to profit off other's hard work
*people who think everything is owed to them
*people who make their own destiny
*people who draw attention to themselves at every possible moment

*** copied from BL journal ***

Hey Jeff,

You readin' this? Hey motherfucker, the only reason you're reading this is cause you have doubts. Yeah, you want that shit in your arm again. You're remembering how nice it was. Yeah, it was nice when you had enough. Do you ever have enough, you stupid fuck? Did you forget about how the quality changes which causes disappointment and anger? Did you forget the times when you didn't have any and you would get cough syrup at the store? What about all the bullshit you told people (who knew you were bullshitting them) to get more? You put your own values aside to get ONE fuckin' taste in your arm.

What about heroin? Remember when you thought that heroin would be a better choice than slamming coke in your arm? Remember when you accepted the fact that if you did H you're life would be over because you knew how you were with loving drugs and that it would be ok cause you wanted to die anyway?

The person typing this doesn't sympathize with you and thinks that if you use now, YOU ARE A PUSSY.

Whatcha running from, pussy? Face it, kick its ass and move the fuck on. Why you running you coward? Life has alot of aspects to it that are pretty cool. You're afraid of experiencing shit you aren't used to and want to fall into a lazy little world.

Pussies are afraid of shit. If you do any more shit then you are a pussy.

For some reason people like you. People respect you. Are you going to do something good with that or are you going to manipulate and run away?

You don't want that shit in your body anymore. Don't forget that there isn't enough of the shit to make you ok. This shit is just a delay to the real answer that will make you better. There just isn't enough

I'm very sensitive to words like depressed, bipolar, mental illness, etc. My father is a case of legit bipolar disorder. He's not one of the millions of misdiagnosed bipolar patients; he's the real deal. All my life, my dad has been a timebomb. It always just took time for him to go off on a manic episode lasting 2 months, all his money, and a lot of my family's peace of mind.

These days, he's got it under control with a massive cocktail of prescription medications. So he's not really the main topic of conversation/gossip in the family anymore. No, I'd say that title goes to my brother and myself. He's the uncontrollable alcoholic. I'm the junkie. All my aunts and uncles want to give us their advice, ask us questions about our struggles. It's annoying.

But then they ask us about our father. We say he's the same as he always was. They then look at us silently thinking, "I wonder if either of those boys is like their father."

I am paranoid as fuck about mental illness. I'm so afraid of being depressed by something other than opiate withdrawal. I'm afraid of turning out exactly like my father. I do hate him, by the way. A lot to be specifically. I'm not Oedipus or anything but I just really don't want to turn out like him. So that makes me overly sensitive about terms like depression and the like.

I'm not bipolar. I'm so tired of anyone suspecting it. Every time I've ever gone into therapy it's all they want to talk about. So I lie about it to my psychiatrist now. I officially do not have any family history of mental illness.

I've observed a few things about therapy and psychiatry thanks to this perspective. When they rely on family history in diagnosis, they prescribe antipsychotics for insomnia, SSRI's for anxiety, and nothing for ADD. when they don't suspect any inherited illness, they prescribe ambien and benzos for sleep, benzos for anxiety, and adderall for ADD.

i don't know what that means about the profession or how it deals with its patients. i don't even know the odds, genetically speaking, of me receiving my dad's bad genes and becoming a manic-depressive person. but if by just mentioning that my father is bipolar, in family and therapeutic settings, i get treated differently. it's not a good thing.

I use to have this nightmare, some mornings I would wake up sweating after thrashing around in my sleep but mainly I’d wake crying, I’d then get dressed hiding my tears and go off to work with the fallout still polluting my mind and often while travelling reliving parts of the nightmare over and over again which would bring those emotions flooding back.

The nightmare; it would start with myself standing outside a church as I welcomed all those who had come to mourn my wife. As time went on I would find myself inside the church talking to sobbing friends and family trying to console them, all the time I would be trying to be the strong one constantly struggling with this internal dam which held back the tears and emotions.

As the nightmare peaked I would find myself stood at the alter looking down at my friends and family and still I’d be holding back, I could see them all as clear as day, work colleagues, family, friends I’d studied with etc. I’d speak to all those there saying nice and bad things about my wife, that she was a loving mother, a friend and lover and all the time out of the corner of my eye I’d see my two children one would be drawing and colouring and the other just looking around eating sweets given to her by my sister. As I stepped down from the alter I’d touch the coffin and walk to my children.

I would wake at this point and then relive certain parts on my way to work.

The way I have been taught is that in a recurring nightmare there will always be something or maybe a couple of things that stand out as being significant. It’s important we can identify these. For me it was my children, they were very young at the time and very much enjoying their own little world, feeling totally safe and cared for with no awareness to their environment and the emotional turmoil, they were the key.

So what did I associate with them at that moment in time?
I wanted/needed their innocence, their lack of responsibility, their lack of awareness, their only worry at that time was ‘when was the next sweet coming’, ‘can I have a yellow pencil’, I wanted to be cared for… Once this had been shown to me, the pain stopped, understanding what is happening with you and your environment is the answer for finding ‘self awareness’.

Ten years ago my wife was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) after collapsing in the street with my 3 year old son. Around five months later I had my first nightmare visit, the rest is history…

I'm learning lots of things. I'm noticing my ego in situations I never would have thought it would appear.

Last night, at a meeting, dude was sharing how he had 20 days clean from shootin' coke and that he was struggling with the obsession of the ritual and the rush.

I JUST went through that very recently. I was COMPLETELY obsessing about the whole process of slamming coke in my veins. I truly thought I would cave in. I'm surprised I made it through and am AMAZED that that obsession is GONE now.

So, since I had just experienced what this guy was going through, I figured I could reach out and offer what I could.

Sounds appropriate, right?

Wrong!

After the meeting, dude was surrounded by dude's that have LOTS of experience in recovery and LOADS of clean time. I waited for them to shoot the shit with the guy was struggling and then I stepped in. Do ya see it? I stepped in.

I told the dude that I could relate. That I remember obsessing about drawing the solution into the rig, watching the blood fill the barrel and pushing down the plunger. I told him that he should do WHATEVER it takes to get through it (read a book, watch TV, even jerkoff and fall asleep if necessary) Do ANYTHING but use, that the obsession will pass. He was looking at me like I was nuts.

What the fuck was I thinking? I was talking about the ritual of injecting to a dude who was obsessing of injecting.

I should have just told him that what he was going through was normal and walked away.

Even better, I shoulda just shut my fuckin' mouth. Who am I to satisfy my self-centered, egotistical image by trying so hard to the point of being counter-productive?

There will be times that I can help folks by sharing my experience. I need to learn HOW to share that experience before I open my fuckin' mouth again.

I'm a nobody trying to be somebody. This 'trying' cannot fuck with others.

I hope I learned and I hope I didn't add to this dude's obsessive thoughts.

I'm feeling depression make a slow creepy walk into my head. At least that's what I suspect it is.

I'm angry and restless and have no interest in stupid bullshit.

I know how it works with me. Little things pile up, I hold shit in, I dwell on negative things and soon enough I find simple things impossible to do.

I'm lucky that I'm recognizing this early. It gives me a good position to stop the progression early which will be easier (but still difficult) than when I am mired in unrealistic thinking (self-pity, uselessness, hopelessness, self-hatred, etc.)

I'm at a loss though. Typically, I try to help others when I can to combat my own self-centeredness. Helping folks lately has been draining and aggravating. I suspect that being 'in service' to others is actually fucking me up.

I actually believe I need to be completely selfish and keep pursuing a life worth living without regard to those who reach out to me.

Its fucked up though. I mean, sometimes people only need someone to listen to them. How hard is that? I mean, really... if I can't even just sit on the phone and let someone vent so that they can feel better than what kind of person am I and why does it affect me so?

All I know is I CANNOT FALL INTO DEPRESSION. I remember (vaguely) many of the aspects I feel when I'm depressed and I'm certain I have forgotten the worst parts. I'm really not interested in being reminded.

I'm gonna fight this. I'll humble myself and take a shitty, low paying job until a true career presents itself to me again.

I'm going to continue exercising and eating properly.

I'm going to continue taking my vitamins.

I'm going to turn my phone off as often as needed.

I need to figure out some other things that will help me combat this because the things I'm doing already simply aren't enough (apparently)

Fuckin' A, man... I guess this is something that will help me be a stronger more compassionate, empathetic person.

Another example of 'ya gotta go through it to get through it'.

Enough fuckin' around.

I got this

"Intro"

Verse 1.

Somedays i sit, staring out the window.
Watching this world pass me by.
Sometimes i think, there's nothin to live for, i almost break down and cry.
Sometimes i think im crazy, im crazy o so crazy, why i am here am i just wastin my time?
But then i see my baby, suddenly im not crazy.
It all makes sense when i look into here eye's

Chorus.

Sometimes it feels like the worlds on my shoulder, everyones leanin' on me.
Sometimes it feels like the worlds almost over, but then she comes back to me.

Verse 2.

My baby girl, keeps getting older, i watch her grow up with pride.
People make jokes, cause they dont understand me, they just dont see my real side.
I act like shit dont phase me, inside it drives my crazy, my insecurities could eat my alive.
But then i see my baby, suddenly im not crazy.
It all makes sense when i look into here eye's

Chorus

Verse 3 (rap)

Man if i could sing i'd keep singin' this song to my daughter
If i could hit the notes i'd blow something as long as my father
to show her how i feel about her, how proud i am that got her
god im a daddy im so glad that her mom didnt *censured* (abort her)
Now you'd probely get this picture from my public persona,
that im a pistol-packing drug addict that bags on his mama,
but i wanna take this time to be perfectly honest, cause ther's alot of shit
that i keep bottled that hurts deep inside of my soul
and just know that i grow colder the older i grow,
this boulder on my shoulder gets heavy and harder to hold
and this load is like the weight of the world, and i think my neck is breaking
should i just give up, or try to live up to these expectations
now look, i love my daughter more than life in it self
but i got a wife thats determined to make my life living hell
But i handle it well, givin the circumstances im delt, so many chances
man its to bad i could of had someone else, but the years that i've wasted
is nothing to the tears that i've tasted, so here's what im facing:
three fellonies, six years of probation, i've went to jail for this woman
i've been to bat for this woman, i've taken bats to peoples backs bent over backwards for this woman
Man i should've seen it coming, why'd i stick my penis up it,
wouldn't have ripped the prenup up if i'd seen what she was fucking,
but fuck it, its over ther's no more reason to cry no more
i got my baby, baby the only lady that i adore (hailie)
so sayonara, try tomara nice to know you
my baby has travelled back to the arms of her rightful owner
and suddenly it seems like my shoulder blades have just shifted
its like the greates gift you can get, the weight has been lifted
And now it dont feel like the world's on my shoulder, everyone's leanin' on me
Cause my baby knows that her daddies a soldier, nothing can take her from me.

"Outro"

I got the lrics from HERE


Yeah I got my fucking baby back, I got my fucking deal approved ! * cheasy dance*

Last Time I Had Custody

Amanda These Days