So it’s been around 5-6 weeks since I wrote the post Undulled, talking about how hard some of these medication changes were hitting me. Since then, not a frigging peep. So much for my fight to keep a post coming out on a daily basis, or at least 3-4 times a week. In my defense, I have to say that I had absolutely no idea how difficult this medication change was going to be. Even after stabilizing at my new level, I’ve been completely off-balance by it. Settling down with my original/old conscious patterns and capabilities has not just been something I can sink into.
I struggled when writing that last sentence, at first writing ‘original emotional makeup’, and then trying to add other little bits to describe it better… I still don’t even know how to describe it, you see. It’s so much more than that. It’s like being a whole new person, in a way, or maybe an old person, transferred into a whole new brain, with new capabilities. Like an operating system, and its myriad of programs, being transferred to new computer hardware, with different amounts of memory, a different processor, etc… All of the original thoughts are still there, but they’re still pretty fresh, even alien, in the way that they express and come across.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to properly express it to the people that I talk to, though my group of ‘friends’ has now gone through serious pruning, thanks to my ability to discern things about the people around me that I’d been unable to make out for around a decade now. Here are some of the changes that I’ve been able to consciously take note of:
- Having a conversation is completely different. I don’t have any idea how it is even possible that such a massively influential change could sneak up on a person so gradually that they wouldn’t see it coming, or know that it’d happened, but it did. For the last 10 years, I’ve been unable to have anything like the animated, spontaneous exchanges that I used to have before. In that interim, I’ve had to spend my time, while the other person or people were talking, always frantically trying to come up with what I was going to say next, unable to devote my concentration in full to what they were saying. That’d left my ability to fully engage with other people severely limited. I simply had to do it this way, or else I’d be stuck in a conversation bound to have uncomfortable empty silences, while I let what they were saying sink in, and process, and finally came up with something to say that sounded like a decent response. Before, I’d very rarely ever had to deal with a conversation like this, only in the most intimidated or pressured situations did I ever need to expend serious, noticeably disabling, effort to comprehend and process what the other person was saying. As a result, my responses in just about any conversation had been limited, dull, unoriginal, and sometimes downright cliche. Just over the past few weeks have I come to remember that I used to be able to effortlessly engage in dialog with people; much more meaningful responses just come to me, as what they’re saying flows across my mind. I even remember now that I used to have a pretty decent ability to make people laugh without even trying. I have wit, whereas before, I was just a sounding board. Finally, my descriptive abilities are much less stunted than they have been during this medicated period; it doesn’t take me any effort at all to create vivid and colorful descriptions of whatever I’m trying to get across.
- I have confidence, maybe even a bit of charisma. I have seriously not had the slightest iota of it since not too long after my medication began. Maybe I was able to hold onto it through my first stretch through college, but that was only due to the accomplishments I was able to make, solely in academics, certainly not based on anything interpersonal. And why would that be a big surprise? I’ve always been a person that craved and needed, more than anything, a social network to be able to feel any sense of support, and dare I say, self worth. When my ability to have a decent conversation waned, I found myself unable to meet new people. My old friends from back in the day were rapidly becoming harder to find, as they became involved with friends, family, and careers, leaving their old circles behind. That left me high and dry. I found myself in a situation where I’d previously been able to find and meet some of the more non-conforming individuals; now, these people seemed to not have any interest in me. I guess I chalked it up to age, when in all reality, I’d simply become a person with less interesting qualities to offer. I was downright boring. Isolation began to eat at me, and my confidence dwindled even more, as the months and years progressed. Any attractive qualities that I had for any serious relationships were pretty much gone, too. I was just a lone wolf, wondering what had happened to me; I’d been a beacon, before, in situations where I was alone in a crowd. I forgot how I had ever been that person in my past that’d walked into a club and been able to talk to whoever I wanted, let alone end up getting a way to contact that person again.
- I feel actual joy, elation, and happiness again. Before, I think about the best I could hope for was contentment. As my confidence dwindled, and the isolation grew, I became Eeore, being melancholy again all of the time. Don’t get me wrong, this is definitely balanced by an ability to feel depression and heartache much more deeply, as well. It’s truly a double-edged sword deal; the magnitude of the highs are balanced by the lows. I can feel a bad day’s anxiety, loneliness, and depression like a hatchet wound to the chest. Yet after a day like yesterday, when I’ve reconnected with former old friends and even some family, I find that there may yet be something in this world to live for.
I had qualities that I took pride in before. I had confidence before. I had a personality that was strikingly individual before. I guess I was somewhat edgy, had a sarcastic and cutting wit, and even drew people to me at times. I’ve had people tell me that I could light up a room, on occasion. I didn’t even know this any more. My memories were like looking back on a movie reel, with my character played by somebody I couldn’t comprehend, let alone identify with. All of the interesting and unique facets of my personality, which I’d always relied on to help me find my social support, were filed off, leaving a dull automaton in the wake.
So, for quite awhile, I found myself incapable of dealing with just about anything, as I reacquainted myself with my capabilities, and how to ride the emotional tides that I’d forgotten. I guess I just needed some time to get my sea legs back, in that sense. I’m sorry that I was incapable of keeping up with the schedule that I’d set, as far as updating this blog, and the others that have barely even been started. For a long time I was so horrified that I had started this journey in the public eye that I didn’t know if I could even continue. I mean I was so close to suicidal, when the emotional instability was peaking, after the Abilify was out of my system, that I started fearing that I might get a friendly official visit, due to having my son, while I was going through this. Anybody that knows me understands that no matter how bad things are, I would never resort to such an alternative, with my sole charge being to bring this man into the world in the best way that I can, and to ensure his capability to lead a fulfilling life on his own when it is time. While there may be friends or family reading this, it is a public blog, and the amount of strangers who’ve never met me, and don’t yet have a clue who I am, are likely to overrun those who know me personally.
I now find myself starting to make concrete steps towards the goal that I’ve set for reshaping myself in the form that I am pushing for in this blog. I’ve been running consistently now for over a week, which is usually enough to cement me into the habit. I’ve been lifting, as well, which is always a harder habit to maintain for me. My son has been coming with on these ventures, and I believe that he is as committed as I to making sure that these new patterns hold.
I’ll be straight: the state in which I now find myself, physically, horrifies me. Age is becoming a noticeable factor. I do not bounce back to my previous level of fitness as quickly, or as easily, as I have before. My son was tugging at what used to be my triceps about a week ago here, and I felt him pinch at the ‘bulk’ (if you could call it such) that was there, and his fingers met with a nauseating lack of resistance. I mentioned to him that I thought I’d lost more muscle tone than I ever had in the past, and that there was nothing there any more, and he simply said ‘yeah, you’re right’. Ah, the honesty and openness of a child. I’ve never felt my meat simply hanging from my bones like wet crepe paper before, there’s always been more consistency to it. I’ve had habits for the last 6-9 months that’ve eaten it away, as well as simple atrophy, as well. I’m noticing improvements in my run, though, so there’s some proof that I’m at least on the right track. If my heart and legs can still improve, so can the rest of me. I’ve successfully been staying away from the destructive habits that were so able to synthetically calm and soothe me, when I had nothing else to distract from the omnipresent failure, and I’m going to meetings to make sure that that continues.
I am optimistic for the future. I felt that way for a bit, when I first came off of the Abilify, then it disappeared into a tumultuous sea of chaos for awhile, but I’ve been able to pull myself back up on shore, and have a much tighter hold on it now. I’ve not been recording my workout stats for the blog here just yet, but that’s going to start posthaste. I don’t doubt that there will be dark days in the future, especially during the weekdays, when there is nobody for me to share with from my slowly rekindling relationships of old. Yet I have confidence that I will continue on this path. I have meetings where I can share what I need to during the week, even if my small group of IRL friends is unavailable. This area seriously lacks venues to meet people (apart from standard watering holes everywhere), and distractions from the everyday grind, but I can handle it. It also lacks people that I connect with easily; I have strikingly different values and ideals from the average Joe around here. Yet I’ve always been able to find the outliers in this area, it just takes a little time and digging. I’ll do it again. This is not the best area for me to be me in, it never has been; the coasts have always been far easier places for me to find people that I identify with. I’m not stuck here forever, though, and I will survive– maybe even thrive.
Positive note for the day: I asked my son the other day if he noticed any difference, now that I was off of the meds and stable. He remarked that I seemed more ‘vibrant’. Totally bonus! A few minutes after that, he spontaneously offered that I reminded him of Keanu Reeves, because of how calm & cool I always was. I can handle that. 🙂
More coming soon…
A Log of Drama, Success, and Epic Failure 