Monday, April 24, 2017

The Neverending Ending

Same. Same. Same.

I give up.

I am done.

Where do I get off this merry-go-round?

I am not suicidal.

Suicide would be redundant.

I am already long dead.

Or more precisely, my life story ended but I forgot to die.

God is not vengeful.

The Universe is not cruel.

They just forgot to kill me.

They forgot me completely.

All of the pain and regret and fear and disappointment are just a dull ache.

Is this done? 

Can I stop writing this now?


I should not have started.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Sins of Omission

...

Riding the Rollercoaster of Psychoactive Pharmaceuticals

This may be destined to join my pile of unfinished drafts.  I barely have enough motivation to start.  I feel some vague obligation to document my changes in drugs and dosages and give my impressions of net effect, but the current net effect makes it hard to care.

I am so weary of this process of trying to make me, or my life, better, through drugs or any other means.  I'm ready to settle for where I am and who I am, no matter how disappointing and diminished that may be.  I won't be sitting comfortably, but at least I won't continue building this resume of hopes and failures.  There is no room left for hope.  That isn't as bad as it sounds.  Hope is the great deceiver. I'm ready to be my version of real, no matter how bleak my reality may be.

For details, since the last posted update...  I think I was on 150mg/day of Sertraline (Zoloft), and the same 4 1mg doses per day of Clonazepam I have been on consistently for years.  When I had been on 100mg of Zoloft for a little while, I had a remarkable improvement in all aspects of my subjective mental well-being and ability to function socially (sorry if this duplicates previous posts), which lasted for about 3 months.  The increase to 150mg Zoloft seemed to make no difference, except perhaps to make worse some physical side effects.  The next strategy to address both effectiveness and side-effects, was a decrease of Zoloft to 100mg and the addition of 100mg of Bupropion (Wellbutrin).  This was given an adequate trial period and found to have made no difference to side-effects, and a subtly perceived worsening of intended primary effects.

Now, I am less than a week into being back on 150mg Zoloft and Zero Wellbutrin. I know it is early to judge, but I feel nearly as bad as I did before starting Zoloft the first time.  My Psychiatrist told me that there should be no withdrawals from dropping the Wellbutrin because it was a small dose for that drug.  So if these aren't withdrawals, what the fuck is going on?

My sleep is fragmentary, my attitude and mood are slightly unstable, my anxiety, and perhaps my untreated (untreatable?) ADHD are messing with my cognition and general ability to cope.  And, of course, I feel hopeless, worthless and unworthy.

I don't think I have manic episodes, but for some damned reason, I got this idea in my head that I wanted to enlist some musician friends in a project to put on at least one live performance of the full album "The Point!" by Harry Nilsson, consisting of both songs and narration with underscore.  I had this idea that it was a work largely unknown to most younger generations and that it had a message, in fact several possibly useful messages, that is relevant to their lives and the current state of things.
The initial response from my primary collaborator, the one who would be writing the charts for all the other musicians as well as performing, was very enthusiastic.  Then, when it came time to contact another important potential collaborator for the project, I found my self terrified by what I had set into motion.  To try to reassure myself, I have tried to sing along with the record several times, and I just can't sing worth a damn.  I used to sing all the time, when working or driving or just about any time.  And I used to sing karaoke, first the usual kind, and then with a live band.  Although I can't make myself believe that I was ever even marginally adequate at singing, I do remember getting positive responses from many people over the years.

Now it has been nearly 6 months since I have sung in public, and about 10 years since I have sung and believed that I was singing passably well.

At least it is early enough in the project that I can kill it, or at least remove myself from it, without having wasted a lot of other people's personal investment in it.

There was some other shit I was going to say, but I'm out of energy and motivation again.  When will I stop writing these pointless fucking things?  Soon.