Mental Health Mental Illness Support Thread V. How do you feel?

[PtahTek]

How long does it take you to notice and how do you get yourselves oriented back to a good baseline?

First: Thanks for the post... it helps in self-reflection.
My thoughts on the question:
Just the thought of me losing "control" and over indulging is enough to put me in a mental state that is *down for lack of a better word. This feeling usually lasts until I either re-dose with same or decide to walk - then it takes until my feeling of control is back in effect and bank is looking close to where it was before my "run". I can feel in control but if the bank doesn't look right then I know shit is still amok and further work is needed.
I would think we all go through this: What I call head-fuckery. IMO this is the most deadly aspect of using drugs. It is an imbalance (obviously) and if we recognize this and know it is correctable then it is a little easier to deal with, ime. If we cannot recognize it as what it is, it can lead to a serious downward spiral that could possibly end in self-destruction, god forbid.
Your post is not in vain. It is life giving to some and appreciated by many. Hey, ya coulda been making that hours long trip with your self screaming and yourself screaming back the whole time on the road. LOL This may be what I am referring to as part of the downward spiral. But we all know this, maybe sometimes forget in the fog and confusion that comes from our usage. It comes naturally, however, it is not in such great spikes of highs and lows.
Love always,
........................................

 

[Vastness]

Thanks PtahTek, always enjoy your input. Head-fuckery, yes indeed. The incontrovertible, seemingly undeniable fact is, that drugs are destabilising influences on the psychoemotional state of a human being.

I feel like (speaking for myself, anyway) that can be a difficult thing to acknowledge, even though on the face of it - it's a factual statement - and again, speaking for myself only although maybe some people identify - it's a difficult thing to acknowledge because those of us who consider ourselves to be at least partly responsible drug users, who feel that our drug use has a net positive effect on our lives, even is a part of who we are, and a world of otherworldly sensation and experience and mystique - hah, it's so easy for me to romanticise this stuff - that it's worth the risk, have probably also experienced a few times in our lives this harsh truth being thrown at us in the form of well meaning advice, from people who just don't comprehend this world... "Why would you do this to yourself? You know that's bad for you. You know what you get like when you do this"... yadda yadda, or some variation thereof, if not directly then just abstractly from prohibitionist cultural pressures and the modern day cult of relentless self improvement as a means to happiness, which I'm not against entirely, but total abstinence is often included in many framings of that philosophy... so yeah, I guess there's a sense that (again - just speaking for myself!) there's some kind of pressure to present a good image externally of a functional drug user, to counter all the negativity surrounding drug use, and maybe it's also just kind of an ego thing, an instinctual "counterwill", and reaction to the frustration of relentless cultural or social pressure to be a certain way or behave a certain way... thus making it hard to discuss or properly deal with the downsides, for me, without allowing all that cultural negativity to creep in.

"Oh god, I guess everyone was right, why would I do this to myself, I'm such a drug addicted idiot"... my self-talk usually isn't quite that bad but that's the sentiment for sure...

Rather than the more rational, less emotionally charged - "Well, I did too many drugs and depleted some important neurotransmitters in my brain. The laws of physics, chemistry, and biology now dictate that I'm going to feel unhappier even though little to nothing has changed in my external reality to make me feel this unhappiness. My brain is going to execute it's pre-programmed sequence for this occurrence. This program is was once an optimal survival mechanism, fine tuned by billions of years of evolution.

It's going to ruminate excessively, searching through memories for things that are unpleasant, embarrassing, but now impossible to address and pointless to think about. It's going to apply a problem seeking filter to your perception of the external world, which will relentlessly scan for problems even where there are none, even where nothing has changed. These imaginary problems will be fed back into the rumination engine, a washing machine of dredged up pessimism, regrets, and dark thoughts which will keep on rumbling and accumulating psychological detritus, this unconscious and unpleasant subroutine of your evolved sense of mind looking for the problem, looking for a solution and a way out that it is no longer capable of finding.

There's no land with more fruits on the trees to migrate to. There's no cave lions prowling in the darkness that you need to sneak away from and find shelter. The problems of the modern world are not things that your higher brain can even bring itself to acknowledge as real problems, and as such the battered virtual washing machine running on the software of your consciousness just acts as an incessantly whirling negativity magnet, spitting stuff out which immediately gets rejected and thrown back in, all while your neural happiness pathways slowly recover, as you keep doing what you need to do, the sense of threat recedes, and the rumination spinner starts to gradually spin down. A calm is restored, and the detritus accumulated starts to drain, your higher brain functions are now calm enough to address these issues rationally if they need to be addressed, or discard them as irrelevant if one of the fragments of psychic detritus is an embarrassing way you said something 10 years ago or a weird look someone gave you as a child... and order is restored."


Hm, in actual fact that self talk might be a little heavy, a little too wordy to address given that we're trying to communicate with an essentially nonverbal part of ourselves... but. it was pretty fun to write. The lesson there I guess is it's necessary to just navigate the landscape of your mind like you would navigate any other landscape with a few potholes... or, in this case, ancient washing machines filled with photographs of embarrassing moments from your life or short novels telling your life story in the most insultingly belittling way possible.

Obviously you'd just walk around the washing machines, regard them with "benign curiosity" to use that favoured phrase of psychological parlance. Just like you'd step over the potholes. But with either the potholes or this psychedelic bizarro mindscape I keep referring to, the obstacles are just objects, you wouldn't look at a pothole and start thinking, "I am so much less of a person because I have to step over this pothole rather than just never getting near a pothole in my life". You also wouldn't step into it deliberately to see what it was like inside.

Equally if you were walking through a field that you knew was actually a virtual representation of the inside of your own mind... well, there are many things you might do, but probably what you wouldn't do is start opening up all these ancient rumbling washing spinners to take a closer look at all the pictures or to have a little read of all the short books that just explain what a terrible person you are. You'd just look at them from a distance... and walk past them. Right? But for some reason because the landscape of mind is more difficult to navigate than the landscape of waking reality a lot of the time, all of us just keep walking right into these potholes of negativity and somehow thinking that that's just the correct way to walk through a field filled with potholes... just take a few moments or a few years to sit in them all and think about what an idiot you are for doing so.

Might have got a bit carried away with that analogy, yet again procrastination rears it's head, haha, but that habit too is just an object resting on the surface of my mind's path into the future. I know what it looks like, and I can step over it from time to time, but it's also easy to trip over it or fall into it, depending on it's shape... I'm only human, and the landscape and features of my own mind are things I have yet to properly map despite the fact I've spent my whole life wandering through them.

 

[PtahTek]

"Why would you do this to yourself? You know that's bad for you. You know what you get like when you do this"

Heard it all my life....
Gotdamn, Vastness. Your "name" is a great fit for the user behind it. Everything posted was mostly on point and appropriate to what my posting was about. Wish I had the ability to be more expressive as my usual curt responses lack the ability to express what I really mean sometimes and they may cause more confusion that was unintended.
Kinda suck as my brain cannot produce words of what I try to communicate fast enough and by the time they do arrive I am on a whole new subject... scatter brained. haha

The laws of physics, chemistry, and biology now dictate that I'm going to feel unhappier even though little to nothing has changed in my external reality to make me feel this unhappiness. My brain is going to execute it's pre-programmed sequence for this occurrence. This program is was once an optimal survival mechanism, fine tuned by billions of years of evolution.

I like this and may use it as encouragement sometime when someone joins and think life is over....
Nicely put.
Thanks again for a post of required reading.
Some homo,
Ptah

 

[on.my.way🌿]

Im so broken now. Got addicted to xanax. Withdrawals is awful, yeserday I was actually suicidal and I have no felt that bad since I stopped with lyrica. today was better though, probably bc of the 1400 mg lyrica, 1 mg xanax, a few ciders and beer. Gonna try to stop after today..

 

[Jabberwocky]

@on.my.way🌿 - it sounds like you're a wicked cool person, creative and sociable, for that zoom you set up. Would another one of those be cool? I didn't join the first one but i heard it wasn't bad.

Anyway wanting to stop is probably the first thing so just keep on making moves in the right direction. Nothing is unfixable.

 

[Vastness]

What's this? There was a Bluelight Zoom? I love that idea in theory although I dunno if I'd talk myself out of it due to my general anxieties in practice...

There is a local meetup group I used to go to sometimes before this pandemic situation and they have zooms basically every day - in theory, seems like the barriers to entry should be so much lower, all I gotta do is open my laptop, or click the link in zoom on my phone... in practice I've only made it to a couple of them. The thing with zoom though I find, if you have everyone on the screen at once - it tends to be that just a couple of people are talking about something and everyone else is just kind of sitting there listening in silence...with occasionally people talking at the same time and talking over each other, obviously I guess that might happen in real life group dynamics too but it's a bit different on zoom... The ones I do try to go to do a thing where everyone is paired up for like 10-15 minutes and you rotate like that with a group chat at the end... which I personally think is a really good way to do things, it's always easier to talk to people one on one and you get to know people a lot better that way.

Im so broken now. Got addicted to xanax. Withdrawals is awful, yeserday I was actually suicidal and I have no felt that bad since I stopped with lyrica. today was better though, probably bc of the 1400 mg lyrica, 1 mg xanax, a few ciders and beer. Gonna try to stop after today..

Many positives to take from this. Yesterday (when you posted this) was better than the day before and (hopefully) today will be better than yesterday. But even if it isn't remember bad days always end. Broken is a strong word, wouldn't say that personally, as tempting as negative self talk is. You didn't put your brain through a windshield. It's not broken, it's just somewhat dependent on GABAergics right now. And you didn't do it, not really. You are not the person you were yesterday, you just find yourself in this moment. The past is no longer really ours, but a morally neutral story to inform us about how to navigate the present. It's hard to see that you could be navigating it any differently than you are right now - so good job, you should be proud of yourself. Any addiction is a difficult story to be dropped into by the machinations of fate. The limitations of language prevent me from conveying what I really want to say in a way that is coherent and not just too obscure to be at all helpful, but just remember that's what happened here, you were dropped into this moment. The past isn't real, not really, not anymore.

 

[on.my.way🌿]

Thanks guys for making me smile.
gonna try the zoom thing again soon been wanting to but life gets in the way. if there aren't too many people the format works i think


Todays a little better. Felt suicidal for a day or two and everything is quite overwhelming. slowly getting better from the benso and mdma abuse but running out of weed and reality is closing in on me each day. If I start thinking about anything it spirals out of control, everything seems quite meaningless, the wihdrawals and stuff i can handle but not life + ruined brain chemistry
writing this took like and hour ugh, probably will do me good to be without weed though, haven't rreally been of it more than two weeks since like 5-6 years now?? oops

 

[Jabberwocky]

Heh, that's a lot of weed.

I imagine that's real tough to deal with all at once, but you'll feel so much better once your brain chemistry levels out from the MDMA and benzos.

One day at a time. Glad today's better. It's going to be like that. Maybe a couple hickups but that's totally natural.

 

[on.my.way🌿]

Yeah money not well spent lol..
Exactly.. Today is better than yesterday. A small step every day. Very small but still.

How are you @madness00 ?

 

[Jabberwocky]

I'm at that post-stim binge can't move or think for lack of energy stage. It feels like I will be stuck in this bed forever. I couldn't even get out of bed to walk the dog which is a bad sign - I've never been that beaten down after a bender. Generally this only lasts 2 days. I'm praying that's the case, cause if its not I'll be needing something to get my energy and motivation back to a minimally productive level (i.e. get out of bed before the dog starves or destroys the place).

Seeing my psychiatrist on Thursday: not sure what to tell him or what to ask him for besides benzos and seroquel to stockpile against future relapses.

 

[Vastness]

Aight y'all, hope you all are doing well. I just flushed my last 30-40g of kratom, woop. No doubt I will come to regret that at some point in the next few days... been up for over 24 hours now doing progressively larger doses of fairly mediocre amphetamine so am a little scattered myself. Woke up ready to face the day but a brief conversation about something that probably was not really a big deal in reality - but for some reason really pissed me off - I actually went back and edited that sentence so as to be a little kinder and not spread negative karma around... On the flipside... I've been up for over 24 hours doing amphetamine and am a little highly strung, no doubt. I've been dosing 1mg clonazepam every 4-6 hours since maybe midday yesterday too... Kratom at some point just stopped doing anything good for me, no doubt if I increased dose, redosed frequently, I could wring some more temporary goodness out of that drier and drier opiatesque brain sponge... but recently, since basically picking up the habit again but on a kinda weak 2 days on, one days off, 8-10g / day average, 12g max, I'm somehow getting all the bad effects of withdrawal again and barely any of the good. I initially thought I would try to taper this time... but tapering is fucking pointless, there is no dose that eliminates the pain of withdrawal and is even worth doing.

I thought amphet could be an answer to the soul crushing fatigue that is the main hallmark of withdrawal for me, even beyond actual depression, in my head this time I've felt kinda alright but incapable of making myself concentrate on anything. Actually the only thing that enabled me to finally knuckle down and do some important stuff I actually do need to get done within the next few days was 1mg clonazepam...

I'm very wary of developing a benzo additction in place of kratom... but, GABAergics have always been fairly kind to me, I feel... maybe a week or so of 1-2mg klonopin a day with a more forgiving stimulant like (ar)modafinil should be enough to ride out the badness... and I can probably switch back to phenibut easily enough... although phenibut has become pretty pointless and dull to me recently too.

Ah, christ, it's a bad sign when the drugs stop working.

That said, it's a good thing I don't have a more serious opiate addiction like, to an actual real opiate, given how much I bitch about kratom.

The main thing someone said to me today which really fucking pissed me off - because I know it's fucking true - is that I complain a lot recently. It's taken another mg of klonopin and a half bottle of some weird schnapps in mint tea to get past my ego enough to admit that that's the main thing that bothered me.

I'm at that post-stim binge can't move or think for lack of energy stage. It feels like I will be stuck in this bed forever. I couldn't even get out of bed to walk the dog which is a bad sign - I've never been that beaten down after a bender. Generally this only lasts 2 days. I'm praying that's the case, cause if its not I'll be needing something to get my energy and motivation back to a minimally productive level (i.e. get out of bed before the dog starves or destroys the place).

Seeing my psychiatrist on Thursday: not sure what to tell him or what to ask him for besides benzos and seroquel to stockpile against future relapses.

I would tentatively say (not suggest or advise) that NSI-189 is something I have found to be surprisingly and understatedly effective for countering post-stim apathy and lethargy. It's "subtle" to the point that taken sober it's easy to pass it off as one of those placeboey nootropics that maybe is doing something maybe not so much, but I first noticed the obvious benefits a week after a major weekend bender involving MDMA, Metocin, 3-mephedrone, and methamphetamine (for only the second time in my life I've indulged in that one). Week prior was the suicide Tuesday to end all suicide Tuesdays... but, yeah, a little NSI-189 seems to some kind of weird brain normalising effect which for some reason I never see anyone else talking about here so perhaps I am the only one.


I'm "seeing" my psychotherapist at some point this week also ("seeing" as it's currently online only)... although tbh I'm getting somewhat disillusioned, I feel like we just retraces the same old ground a lot, cycles of productivity and sensible behaviour interspersed with lapses, minor binges and depression... I sometimes feel she is maybe a bit too kind of understanding of me... but, I know I just would not respond to anything else. She doesn't have the power to prescribe me anything but I'm honest about what i prescribe myself and we've discussed it fairly extensively... kratom seems an obvious no. Amphetamine I am very prone to binging and missing nights of sleep. Modafinil and phenibut tentatively seem to be the ones with the lowest downside to upside ratio but I feel like more and more they fuck with my mind in more subtle ways... ~afinils from the long ass duration and sleep deprivation, phenibut from the "subtle" but definitely doing something GABA activity which barely feels worth doing half the time... except when I don't do it for a long enough period. Considering trying again to just go completely drug free, but the problem is I won't be able to work barely at all during this time which might be a problem. Or maybe it might not, everything will work out in the end I'm sure.

My sister's cat is probably gonna die soon... I'm feeling weirdly guilty about not going over there right now but I can't get myself together enough to travel anywhere just yet.

When I was at uni I had another cat that died while I was doing exams. My Dad called me to let me know about it in case I wanted to come back but I was kinda like eh... it's just a cat and I'm busy... but I've always regretted that for some reason, coz it was a cool cat and was fond of me, so was apparently sad while I was away. LOL, I know I'm feeling melancholy when I start lamenting about missed opportunities with dead pets... Feels kinda silly to even think about it. In a way I did the same thing with my Dad, I knew he was dying slowly but I didn't have nearly as much time for him as I should. But I feel like I never learn lessons about how temporary everything in life is, and what a gift every moment is, and jsut continue to waste them...



That's enough amped up melancholy narcicissm from me! :D Dunno if I'll feel embarrassed about sharing all this shit later or not but, fuck it, it's an honest reflection of my mindstate right now, I'd like to think that just open sharing of mindstates has it's own value in showing all you inhabitants of those countless other holographic universes where you're at the center of them what it's like to be at the center of another... :D

 

[Kara Kava]

I don't know if it's from quitting smoking or down to single digits on methadone but i just can't stop thinking of how i messed my life up
I started using 10 years ago and I'm now almost 40 starting over. My career is over due criminal charges , most of my family want nothing to do with me, not because I stole from them just because I used drugs and got arrested.
The people i went to college with and their weddings and old neighbors are like strangers to me now and the friends from the past few years i don't talk to because they use.
I made a bit of money when I had to sell my house and rent an apartment so I am fine that way but I feel like a complete failure and embarrassment.
I have always been good at being my own support system but I miss people and don't know how to get out of this mess

 

[on.my.way🌿]

I don't know if it's from quitting smoking or down to single digits on methadone but i just can't stop thinking of how i messed my life up
I started using 10 years ago and I'm now almost 40 starting over. My career is over due criminal charges , most of my family want nothing to do with me, not because I stole from them just because I used drugs and got arrested.
The people i went to college with and their weddings and old neighbors are like strangers to me now and the friends from the past few years i don't talk to because they use.
I made a bit of money when I had to sell my house and rent an apartment so I am fine that way but I feel like a complete failure and embarrassment.
I have always been good at being my own support system but I miss people and don't know how to get out of this mess

Are there any therapy groups or NA meetings you can attend? Maybe you can meet someone supportive there?
Good job on quitting smoking btw! Was is cigarettes or cannabis?

 

[on.my.way🌿]

Are you feeling any better today @Atelier3 ?

 

[Jabberwocky]

Are you feeling any better today @Atelier3 ?

Hello @on.my.way🌿 - thanks for checking in - I was feeling terrible this morning and foolishly took some stimulants and am now feeling pretty fantastic, although I still have the same worries and concerns at the back of my mind and know I have only delayed the required and absolutely necessary reckoning with my addiction. I am seeing my psychiatrist tomorrow - will maybe level with him and see what he recommends.

 

[on.my.way🌿]

Did you feel bad physically or mentally or both @Atelier3 ? Remember to eat some salt, and drink plenty of water. I don't know if it's as warm where you live as it is in sweden but I know I would die doing stimulants in this heat lol

And do you have something to sleep on later so that you don't miss your appointment tomorrow?

 

[Jabberwocky]

I'm feeling pretty shitty right now. I ate a lot of LSD 48 hours ago and I'm having a bit of HPPD and don't feel like sleeping. Hopefully the benzo kicks in soon..... but just feeling like shit in general, hating my actions, hating my addictions, hating myself really. Oh well, one day at a time. What kind of idiot somehow manages to get their cat high twice on serotonergic drugs? like fuck I'm no idiot, but it certainly ruined the last 6-18 hours of your my high. Glad he's ok. Maybe I should just fucking blog this. I'm no cat abuser. Who knew touching your cat after touching some tabs could dose him????

 

[Jabberwocky]

Did you feel bad physically or mentally or both @Atelier3 ? Remember to eat some salt, and drink plenty of water. I don't know if it's as warm where you live as it is in sweden but I know I would die doing stimulants in this heat lol

And do you have something to sleep on later so that you don't miss your appointment tomorrow?

Hi @on.my.way🌿 - thanks again for your considerate words. I’m feeling great physically but have some growing guilt and shame feelings about using again so quickly. Fortunately, the stims are blocking most of it out - but I know it’s there. It is freezing cold here in SYdney at the moment and there is a giant storm brewing so no danger of overheating. I;’m pretty good on self-care like drinking and eating when high. Fortunately also I have plenty of benzos to get some chill rest (or hopefully even sleep) before my appointment in the afternoon tomorrow. I definitely will not miss it. My psych charges $250 for missed appointments and makes you wait a month for re-booking!!

 

[Jabberwocky]

I'm feeling pretty shitty right now. I ate a lot of LSD 48 hours ago and I'm having a bit of HPPD and don't feel like sleeping. Hopefully the benzo kicks in soon..... but just feeling like shit in general, hating my actions, hating my addictions, hating myself really. Oh well, one day at a time. What kind of idiot somehow manages to get their cat high twice on serotonergic drugs? like fuck I'm no idiot, but it certainly ruined the last 6-18 hours of your my high. Glad he's ok. Maybe I should just fucking blog this. I'm no cat abuser. Who knew touching your cat after touching some tabs could dose him????

That's insane. (Not you)

Happy your cat is okay though - dont let it now take up too much RAM in your mind.

Recovery from any drug is very real.

Keep us updated.

 

[Jabberwocky]

72 hours and I'm still just really tired, not as bad as yesterday, just feel drained. My cat is 100% OK btw.