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Lost Human Black hole

soccerfocus05

Greenlighter
Joined
Dec 20, 2008
Messages
29
I feel like a human black hole. Intentionally or inadvertently, I have ruined every friendship, relationship or potential for any kind of future for myself.
There seems to be a near epidemic of people like me, inherently susceptible to both narcissistic grandiosity and depression- always variations on a common motif of "once smart, popular, athletic, etc" to "drugs/mental illness" and finally clinging to an idea that the outside world has failed me/us in some regard. Is this a disease of the heart, the mind, the soul? Ive heard it labelled many things- ADHD, bipolar, various personality disorders,depression... but the song remains the same.

Despite a generally unhappy, neurotic childhood of social isolation and overwhelming pressure from my parents, I made it into a prestigious college, w/ scholarship $ for sports & academics while looking pretty good on paper- Captain of 2 state champion sports teams, 1600 sat, national merit scholar, 164 iq etc. Turned around my social life, frat star(quit promptly, too much creepy chauvinism+ lack of time).
Worked nearly full time as a pt while caring a full courseload, guilty that i wasnt fulfilling my imagined potential. Started seeing a shrink at parents behest, eventually prescribed d-amp which i supplemented with (responsible, well researched) use of anabolic steroids to keep myself going. 1 nervous break, followed by a a semester off, a new shrink and a prescribed recipe for disater of 60 mg d-amp,10 mg alprazolam and .5 mg halcion. Back to school, pt job, lab research ===> suicide attempt- 300 mg xanax, 15 triazolam, 160 oxycodone (gf at the time had a habit that later killed her) washed down w/ a fifth of tequila. Been up and down since then, on and off most every psych drug+ plenty of illicit ones i can think of, 2 more attempts, in and out of psych hospitals, programs, jobhopping for 3 years and im now living in my folks house, utterly numb and having seen too many glimmers of hope extinguished to bother opening my eyes anymore. My dad hates me and has a real talent for reminding me what a massive fuckup i am, my mom's been pretty mentally broken since my initial suicide and my little brother wont even talk to me (at one point I was a demigod in his eyes). I'm nowhere near the level of fitness, mental acuity or self discipline I once was, and have endless contigency (read: suicide) plans at any given moment.
Currently back on 60 adderall, 3mg clonazepam and some beta blockers, hate my current shrink (folks nixed the last ones i had any trust for, this guy is a sycophantic mouthpiece for my dad w/ a laughable knowledge of psychiatry who has never offered any useful advice).
got myself a referral for intranasal ketamine therapy next week (have had my finger on the trigger for ect but couldnt go through with it... my brain is my 2nd favorite organ). Not expecting any miracles. Feel like its just a matter of time before I override the instinct to survive and honestly feel like itd probably be the most utilitarian choice for all involved. My only other ideas are to hop back on the juice, nab some extra amps (pharm or meth) or other drugs to cheat my way out of this infinite abyss, or at least give me the ephemeral relief of feeling like im climbing up.
I've probably written more just now than ive spoken in total over the last month
 
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well i can relate to a lot of what you wrote. Don't you think the amphetamines are making things worse? What kind of Dr prescribes amps + benzos and beta blockers? I thought amps were contraindicated with betablockers. My best advice is just to keep working at it and things will change, don't look for the easy way out and don't amp yourself up to get through things, that's probably the biggest contributor to your problems. Get some downers and try that route, not great advice but if things are this grim, i'd do whatever i could to stay away from stims.
 
Reading your post made me really sad. You excelled at everything your generation is prodded and urged and harangued to excel at and then you hit the wall of WHY. Your parents couldn't answer because they never asked the question. The so-often empty machine of school>career>material wealth can't answer. It sounds to me like your spirit shriveled up and gave up ever being fed while your mind and body got all the attention. While I agree with you that it is pointless to blame the world for your own situation, it is also important to clearly see how our culture (which is not really the world) tears us from being aware of the spirit. Every kind of healing has to address mind, body and spirit. Charlatan 'doctors' that are nothing more than pill pushers are not healers.

When you say that you may "override the instinct to survive" I would plead with you to understand that this is not just a biological instinct that the body carries within, but a spiritual burning as well. We want, at our core, to enter our full consciousness. Maybe a way out of this mess that you find yourself in is to try to listen to your own knowledge. Staying in a house and being both dependent on and manipulated by an angry, vengeful father and a disappointed mother and brother is a toxic environment to say the least. Anything you can do to get yourself out of there is a step in the right direction. But once out, then what? Attend to your spirit. Listen to the voice that was so clear in your being when you were very small, when you could easily recognize the miracles all around you and felt connected and held by the world. That is always available as long as you have breath.

Your intelligence can work for you but it can only take you so far. You have been trained to listen to only one voice--your left brain voice. Harmony lies in listening to your right brain as well. I think you are right that there is an epidemic of people that feel exactly as you do, though they may manifest reactions to spiritual starvation in different ways. If you can step outside of the paradigm that says you failed to reach your potential and question the very narrow parameters that described that"potential" into one that says your true potential lies in compassion to yourself and everything else, life opens up again with a whole new sparkle. This bright world is always there. Figuring out what makes us, as individuals and as a group, blind to that is an interesting journey.

I hope that you can find a way to change your physical situation (your environment that sounds like a house but not a home as well as the soul killing coctail of drugs the psych has you on) but even if neither of those changes for a while, the change that you can make by shifting your focus to self acceptance and nurturing your spirit can yield huge change. Don't get discouraged. You were proactive to write, to put it down for yourself and to put it out there for others, inviting support. That took courage. Easier to curl in a ball and wait for death to come. I'm cheering for your courage. It's no small thing when you are in the situation you are in.<3
 
The idea of a 'human black hole' kind of puts into words what I've been feeling these past few months and I'm sorry life has treated you so unfairly.
People often say that the smarter you are, the more miserable you will be and quite frankly, I think that's very true in the majority of cases. You're brilliant enough to see the flaws in the world.
The important thing to remember is what has happened to you so far does not have to set the tone for the rest of your life. You still sound quite young, it's not because you've been through so much shit for the time being that it has to continue being this way. Considering your academic background it sounds like you could have a lot of options, and please just remmeber it's never too late to flip your life around.
My grandfather, now sadly deceased, really inspired me in that sense - when he was in his mid-20s he abandonned a promising business career to go spend 5 years on a fishing boat off the Spanish coast, just because he wanted to. Then he moved back to NYC and wrote television scripts - he was making a lot of money but decided he hated it, and he literally just packed his bags and him and my grandmother drove all the way from NYC to Seattle where he started off his own publishing company. It was obviously tough financially a lot of the time, but if there's one thing he told me the last time I saw him that I'll remember forever, it's that he had no regrets with what he'd done with his life - because when he wanted to do it, he did it, no matter how hard it was. Don't let yourself be boxed into a life you hate because of what's happened in your past.

Also, wouldn't it be possible for you to change shrinks if you don't get along with this one? I'm sure you know how important it is to have one who can really help you.
 
As for changing shrinks, i managed to maneuver (manipulate) meeting with an allegedly "big shot" psych at a prestigious mental health campus, specifically a consult for intranasal ketamine - sounds promising, the immediacy of ect without the cognitive risks and synchronizes well with my current meds (reducing tolerance to adderall resulting from abuse and klonopin(or other benzos) have been coadministered in ketamine trials ive read of).
To be clear, my scripts are the result of a complicated detente w/ shrink current, as ive swung from the extremes of seeking completely chemical solutions to literally convincing myself I had been scapegoating and my failings on a nonexistent, shadowy, furtive "disease", rationalizing a myriad of myopic and reprehensible choices. My schema in this context, the interpretation of "reality" was that I could, that I had to simply will my way back.
6 months off of anything, i slit my wrist on a barbed wire fence halfway through a fasting 96 hour "vision quest" as part of a bullshit organic gardening based program/scam (rehab/parole for affluent white kids ) in hawaii.
I still remember the instant I turned my palm up after violently pulling my left arm towards me, vaguely aware of the serrations only as frustrating turbulence in what should have elegant, precise manifestation ofthe inner turmoil temporarily breaking through. Any state of satori was completely annihilated as I turned my palm up, inspecting-no praying to any fof the force s or deities i cannot believe in.
God didnt create man, man created god to cope with the innate fear of mortality and other unknown elements of reality.
I focused intensely, waiting for the miraculous red eruption of an ulnar artery as a harbinger for the requiem i so desperately sought.
Only a pathetic, slow pour of blood came. I remember watching, captivated yet ashamed, the streams differentiated, arcing symmetrically around my forearm and inevitably gravity overcame the infinitesimal forces by which the sanguine stream clung to my flesh, tears of blood weeping as they fell to the barren field of dried lava- I have been too numb to cry for as long as i can recall, my blood wept for me as the crushing, inexorable realization settled in- I was overwhelmingly distraught that i my half measure to find a lasting solace had had failed.
I consider myself to have been dead in the days i was unconscious after
i pushed the boundaries of the term overdose- I remember nothing, I was a dreamless, thoughtless abyss, the collective entropy one might consider my soul had disappeared into an endless vacuum, much lil the virtual particles which are created and destroyed ubiquitously wink into and out of existence with no tangible impact on the infinite continuum of space and time. I had reached a state of truly absolute zero, void of the faintest vibrations mass and energy desperately, pathetically cling to.
I am trapped by my own weakness in a hell beneath the 9th circle, below absolute zero. I am convinced now that my time as zero, as nothingness is immeasurably better than the state I am now impressed in. I am negative one, and -1<0.
 
Their idols are silver and gold
made by the hands of man
they have mouths but cannot speak
eyes but cannot see
ears but cannot hear
hands but cannot feel
those who make these idols,will become like them-PSALM116:3


If your path is one you have chosen,and you have strayed from your purpose...God will heavy your heart until you find the right path.There are huge things going on for you my friend.Please do not take these trials as forces against you,but see them as guides to lead you home
 
while not tradtionally religious, that passage is one of the most apt, insightful things I've ever heard-
truly profound, are you a jedi?
 
herbavore, another simply amazing post by you <3 Reading that reminded me for a moment to just be, to look out the window and be grateful for the blue sky and the eucalyptus trees, and the joy they bring. Thank you <3
 
^aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Smile. Sob. Smile. thank you for that, jivebunny. I'm going to copy this over to the inspiration thread and give you credit, OK?
 
I'm excited to think of more people experiencing that piece of work by Louis Schwartzberg :D Thank you Herbavore for wanting to spread the love! My 'credit' is sharing it here ; in this thread. You're sharing so credit be due to you there :) I hope it has helped the OP too...
 
Reading your post made me really sad. You excelled at everything your generation is prodded and urged and harangued to excel at and then you hit the wall of WHY. Your parents couldn't answer because they never asked the question. The so-often empty machine of school>career>material wealth can't answer. It sounds to me like your spirit shriveled up and gave up ever being fed while your mind and body got all the attention. While I agree with you that it is pointless to blame the world for your own situation, it is also important to clearly see how our culture (which is not really the world) tears us from being aware of the spirit. Every kind of healing has to address mind, body and spirit. Charlatan 'doctors' that are nothing more than pill pushers are not healers.

When you say that you may "override the instinct to survive" I would plead with you to understand that this is not just a biological instinct that the body carries within, but a spiritual burning as well. We want, at our core, to enter our full consciousness. Maybe a way out of this mess that you find yourself in is to try to listen to your own knowledge. Staying in a house and being both dependent on and manipulated by an angry, vengeful father and a disappointed mother and brother is a toxic environment to say the least. Anything you can do to get yourself out of there is a step in the right direction. But once out, then what? Attend to your spirit. Listen to the voice that was so clear in your being when you were very small, when you could easily recognize the miracles all around you and felt connected and held by the world. That is always available as long as you have breath.

Your intelligence can work for you but it can only take you so far. You have been trained to listen to only one voice--your left brain voice. Harmony lies in listening to your right brain as well. I think you are right that there is an epidemic of people that feel exactly as you do, though they may manifest reactions to spiritual starvation in different ways. If you can step outside of the paradigm that says you failed to reach your potential and question the very narrow parameters that described that"potential" into one that says your true potential lies in compassion to yourself and everything else, life opens up again with a whole new sparkle. This bright world is always there. Figuring out what makes us, as individuals and as a group, blind to that is an interesting journey.

I hope that you can find a way to change your physical situation (your environment that sounds like a house but not a home as well as the soul killing coctail of drugs the psych has you on) but even if neither of those changes for a while, the change that you can make by shifting your focus to self acceptance and nurturing your spirit can yield huge change. Don't get discouraged. You were proactive to write, to put it down for yourself and to put it out there for others, inviting support. That took courage. Easier to curl in a ball and wait for death to come. I'm cheering for your courage. It's no small thing when you are in the situation you are in.<3
wonderfully spoken. indeed insight and wisdom. thanks . needed to read that just now
 
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