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thisisabouta · 5 years

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This is About a... Downfall.

It’s happening. I’ve been taking Lamotrigine consistently for 8 months or so. Maybe longer. This is the longest i’ve consistently taken medication in a long time. It’s Lamotrigine along with Doxepin, Hydroxyzine and Gabapentin.

This is where my head has been during these last 8 or so months. I was driving on the freeway, about to merge and as I saw my car getting closer to the concrete barrier, I decided to go faster instead of slowing down for the car that had the right a way. I was about to crash into the side of this fucking car but I just kept going. The car to my right had to slam their brakes and I waited to hear the loud crash from the cars behind them because there was no way this wasn’t about to be a 5 car pile up.

God was there because nothing happened but that was way too fucking close to a catastrophe. The car that I cut off trailed me for awhile and pulled up next to me, I’m sure they were trying to cuss me out, flip me off, something... Whatever they did, I didn’t see it but it was justified. I would’ve been fucking heated if it had been the other way around. I cut people off all the time. I drive like an asshole, whatever. This was different.

I’ve been disassociating for weeks now. In that moment, I could see everything that was happening but my brain was not telling my body the correct way to react. I knew to slow down but I couldn’t. Everything i’ve been doing lately has had a delay. 1 minute. 5 minute. 10 minutes. My processing is delayed. My speech stumbles out of my mouth and doesn’t make sense. I’ve been blacking out and losing moments of time for years now but not to this severity. Now it’s like i’m blacking out and not fully coming back from it.

I’m around people constantly. I’m in a position of “leadership” at work so I have to direct and plan, be on alert at all times. My work day now consists of getting asked questions that I can’t comprehend fast enough so I stand there with a blank stare on my face, slowly losing my credibility. It’s worse because some of the things i’m being asked, I absolutely know the answer to but my brain just cannot get there. I can’t focus on ANYTHING. I know i’m walking around in circles (literally) and I know other people see it but I can’t stop. This circling shit happens a lot but it’s picked up in frequency. After I realize what i’m doing, it’s already done. People are trying to get my input and ideas and all I can do is squeeze my hands together and stare straight ahead, hoping my brain will figure out that I need it to work.

When I try to read, I can’t. This isn’t all the time but it happening occasionally is already too much. Words are not always making sense to me. I cant understand what i’m seeing and I have to go over things multiple times. It’s the same with counting. I shouldn’t have to use a calculator to add 30 and 20 or hold five $5 bills in front of me and stare at them until I realize what it is that i’m looking at. It’s embarrassing to even acknowledge that this is happening.

I’ve been losing things more and more everyday. I’ve had a habit of losing my keys. I lost my work keys at my last job, three times. My new job, i’ve already lost my keys once and it hasn’t even been 2 months that i’ve been working there. When my coworker texted me telling me that she found them, I just wanted to cry. That sounds ridiculous but having those keys is a huge fucking responsibility. I can get fired for losing them. Somehow I escaped that at my last job but it was a constant fear that I had. This last time, I hadn’t used the keys at all that day and I still managed to lose them. I retraced my steps and I had not taken them off of my keychain. Things like that don’t help me overcome this engrained idea I have that the universe is against me. Those keys represent me trying to do everything I can to keep it together while everything still managing to fall apart.

I’ve been forgetting to pay bills that i’ve been paying on the same day, every month for years. I’ve been forgetting people’s names. I can’t always comprehend what people are saying when they’re talking to me... that’s been a big one. I had a customer walk to my register at work. I was looking down at something when he asked if he could pay for his merchandise (I found out later on). That’s not what I heard. It came out as mumbling so I just assumed he was making a comment about something that was left on the counter. From what I remember, I said “Oh... yeah...” and went back to what I was doing. He looked at the Associate next to me and she told him that there were registers at the front where he could pay (she was already helping someone). He walked to the front and it took me about 2 or 3 minutes to realize that he was asking if I could ring him up. And to add to that awesome moment, he glared at me for the rest of the time he was in the fucking store. Yes, one small incident but that’s nowhere near how many times something like that has happened. Someone will be talking to me and i’m literally catching about every third word they’re saying. You can only ask “what?” so many times before that person looks at you like you’re the dumbest person they’ve ever met.

Writing things down... i’ll go back and read over my notes. They make no sense. Things are spelled incorrectly. Everything’s scattered. Like someone else wrote it. I walk around feeling like i’m not apart of my surroundings. My surroundings are not reality, like walking through a Fun House with no fun in sight. It’s like i’m seeing everything in those mirrors that make everything look distorted. All I can do is stare and try to figure it out. I can only imagine what that looks like from the outside. People walking around me while I just stare. Standing there trying not to cry because i’m in public.

I’ve been hallucinating. That comes and goes. I’m still forgetting why I picked certain things up, or why I walked to a certain room or what I was going to tell someone. Things a lot of people do but usually with somewhat immediate recall. I’m not remembering these things til days later, if at all. That’s the more frustrating part. Very small, seemingly insignificant things are happening over and over and over again. It’s no longer an insignificant mishap, this shit is snowballing and affecting everything. I can’t manage a store if I can’t function like a normal, fucking human being. I talked to my Probation Officer about some of the things that were happening and she asked me what medications I was taking and if any of them were used to treat seizures. Gave her the list and two of them just so happen to be used to treat seizures. I already knew that was the case but didn’t think that they would cause this long, intense stream of side effects. I know all about the side effects of medicine. You’ll basically die if you take it and die if you don’t.

I’ve experienced the lighter ones. Nausea, dizziness, dry mouth. The usual shit. Not forgetting how to read a fucking sentence. To my POs knowledge, those drugs do cause a lot of neurological problems, much that make it feel like i’m disassociating. Most of these things had been happening prior to taking the medications but it got much worse over time. I read up on the side effects in detail when I got home and everything aligned. So [because I will control this situation as much as I possibly can] I stopped taking the two that were the main issue. Should anyone ever just stop taking their medicine without consulting their physician first? No. Did I do it anyway? Yes. Now i’m going thru the withdrawal. Besides me losing my fucking mind, the Lamotrigine was actually working. It was the first medication I had taken for my Bipolar that has ever had that positive of an effect on me. But that was at the expense of me literally going insane. It’s not going to matter if I feel better when i’m dead because I crashed my car into a wall. The risk does not outweigh the reward. It did not cure anything. It did not solve even half of my problems but it did make me feel better. Not taking the Gabapentin doesn’t make a difference.

Now i’m going thru the withdrawal. I have 11 drafts on here that i’ve tried to complete and publish over the past few months and they’re just sitting in there. I know the only reason i’m able to write this one is because i’m not on the meds right now. Now my heart hasn’t felt off beat for the past few days (that’s a difficult feeling to describe) but in return, i’m the angriest i’ve been in awhile. I got in an argument with one of my employees this morning and did not feel bad at all. I got into it with another ASM a few days ago. I feel my temper coming back.

I made an appointment with a new MD for next week. I need to start over. I made an appointment to see my current Psychiatrist and cancelled it. I’m done with that guy. He keeps throwing these random pills at me and it’s not working. Not that the next doctor isn’t going to do the same, exact thing but I made an appointment at a facility that offers “Advanced Integrative Medical Care”. Basically, they’re on some new age shit. I’ve been reading up on Ketamine Therapy for over a year and even though it scares the shit out of me, i’m not completely against the idea. They also offer Medical Marijuana. I am officially now in my last 3 month stretch of my house arrest and this shit has finally gotten difficult. The first few weeks were hard because I was still trying to figure out what I could get away with and apparently it’s a lot but now, I just need this shit to end. I’m getting restless. I’m scared too tho.

I’m still going to be on supervised probation for a year (based on good behavior) but I need to get back to... something. I can’t be sober and I don’t want to be. Weed has been fine. Good, enough. I’ve grown a liking to it and found some that actually relaxes me. Alcohol. I miss alcohol. I’ll forever miss alcohol. I’ll miss it even if (when) I start drinking again. It’s that important. Watching movies, seeing people drink to have fun, to relax, to be brave, to socialize. And yet, I shouldn’t engage in that. I know I can engage in good things but the drinking is what i’ve been told I should stay away from. I’m not going to stay away from it. Alcohol makes things better. I know it, the people who tell me not to drink know it. It’s there and I need it. Yes, the problem is that I abuse it. I don’t know if I can overcome that problem. I’m going to try. That sounds crazy and insane so... it’s just going to have to be crazy and insane.

There are other ways to deal with my problems and i’m trying to implement them and hang onto them. I need those things too but I can’t walk thru the world with this open wound that is my life, unarmed. Chemicals... drugs... my brain chemistry will never be right and if I know there’s something out there that will give me temporary relief, i’m taking it. I just have to put the recklessness aside. This time around was a lot. I pray that it was enough to set me straight. Or at least to keep me out of jail for the second time.

#depression #mental illness #bipolar disorder #mental health #pain #relate #disappointment #sadness #pills #prescriptions #psychiatry #ketamine #weed #marijuana #manic depressive #therapy #focus #crash #chemistry

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veryangryhedgehog · 5 years

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“God is Dog Spelled Backwards”, an Ede Valley story by Hedgehog.

Jilli felt like she was falling.

A week ago she’d been so confident in her plan, but now that it had finally been executed, an unwavering sense of unease began to linger in the air around her. This whole take-over plan had been to give Jilli control over her life, but now more than ever she felt like a rat trapped in a maze.

It was because the Director was missing. After discovering her office to be empty, and devoid of any clues or information, Abigail had brought her back to the girl’s bathroom, and decided to give Jilli some space. Quite of her own accord, Jilli’s legs took her wandering. Nearly the whole night she’s searched blindly for where the Director might be before Doug found her around three in the morning and took her back to her room.

“She… I think she’s watching me, Doug,” she’d confessed as she buried her head in his chest.

“Who?” he asked, confused.

“The Director. She could be anywhere, just waiting, watching to see what I do next. Where is she, Doug? Where is she??”

“Whoa, whoa, Jill, calm down,” he grabbed her shoulders as she began to scream. “Of course she’s watching you; she’s watching all of us. But now you’ve shown them that they can stand up to her. If she even lifts a finger at you, she’ll have a whole school to answer to.”

That helped, a little bit, but Jilli couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched for the rest of the night, and slept poorly. She kept wondering back and forth, over and over again in half-delirium, what would happen in the morning, when the student body would awaken to find itself alone? The gates were shut, the fence electrified. No one was getting in.

But with the morning sun came a newfound determination. She was the mastermind behind this coup, so now it was her job to lead the newly liberated sheep, right? It wouldn’t be too difficult. Jilli had watched Sakura lead the idol group for years.

When she entered the cafeteria, Doug to her left, Abigail to her right, the rest behind her, she witnessed growing insanity. The students were a hive of bees, humming incessantly to each other, glancing over at the vacant lunch lines. They were beginning to realize that something had changed.

They passed their normal lunch table, and Jilli motioned for the others to sit which she continued to the front. A queen had to address her subjects.

She jumped up on the platform at the far end of the room, the metal beams above her seeming to dangle over her head. The students gradually hushed and turned to her. They were looking for an answer, any answer, and she intended to give them one.

The microphone was dead, but it didn’t matter. Jilli had a voice that carried. “My name…” she began, and stopped as she caught the eye of a few hundred students and her voice hitched. “My name is Jilli Nakajima,” she began again, “and I am the new Director.”

Needless to say, the floor erupted into a flurry of confusion and panic. Jilli just stood there, and waited. Eventually, they realized that she was holding her explanation, and they hushed once more. And so Jilli began to speak.

Afterwards, she wouldn’t even remember what she’d said. She knew that she told them what they’d did, that now there were no adults at St. Adelaide’s, and the students were in charge. And Jilli would lead them.

“I will not pull strings from the shadows, but be forward and honest,” she said, hoping that the Director could hear her. “I will also not keep you here. If anyone wishes to leave. I will be opening the gates on Friday for five minutes.”

After that, she thanked the crowd and got down. She could feel all their eyes on her. They all probably thought she was insane. But everything was fine now. It was all fine. No one, not the Director, or her manager, or her mother, or Kyoko could hurt her now. She was in control.

Jilli sat down at the usual table with all her friends around her. Abigail was discussing who-knew-what with Victor, highly animated as the rims of her round glasses glowed in the harsh light, Sonia was staring off into space while Gil studied her, mildly concerned, and Doug… Doug was only picking at his food.

“Are you okay?” she asked. Why wasn’t he happy? His torture was over.

“It’s just…” he looked at her, as if he wanted to say something, then he shook his head, and said something different instead. “Mike never came back to the room last night.”

“He didn’t?” Jilli leaned forward, concerned. “Come to think of it, where is he now?”

The others at the table began to take an interest. “Who was the last to see the lad?” Gil asked.

“Well, he was at the Director’s office with Abby and I,” Jilli said. “But I had to leave and I haven’t seen him since. Abby?”

“I went back after I dropped you off but he had already left.” Abigail thought for a second. “Oh, but you know, I left the library unlocked. He’s been spending an awful lot of time there. I bet he just fell asleep.”

Mike had been getting a little strange lately, like an undertone she hadn’t noticed before taken the forefront of his personality.

Doug sighed heavily. “I’m gonna have to be the one to drag his ass out of the creep zone, aren’t I?”

“Hey,” Victor frowned. “She’s sitting right here, you know.”

“I didn’t name any names,” Doug raised his hands in surrender.

“It’s alright, Victor. I take it as a compliment,” Abigail cut in, her smile shark-like.

“It was not meant as one.”

“I don’t care.”

For an instant, it seemed just like everything was normal. But still, the tight lump in Jilli’s gut remained. She couldn’t help feeling numb, unreal, disassociated, like she was floated two feet above her own head.

She hoped Mike was okay.

~~ o ~~

Mike was not okay.

The world returned to him slowly, gradually. First as light, then color, then shape. One by one these elements came together to form coherency. He felt numb, unreal, disassociated, like he was floating two feet above his own head.

For an instant, it seemed just like everything was normal. He was lying in his bed in the dorm. But slowly, he began to feel the cold metal on his wrists. It was that cold that brought him back to himself, a least a little. And he didn’t like what he saw.

He was strapped to some sort of table by his wrists and ankles. It was at a forty-five degree angle so if he turned his head he could see a little to the sides.

This room was small and dark, more like a cell than anything. One light shown down from above him, striking him directly in the eye, which made the rest of the room harder to make out. But from what he could see, the wall were padded.

That was somewhat worrying, but he didn’t begin to panic until he saw the IV in his arm. Then he freaked. First he tried to scream, but the best he could manage was a little whimper. Then he struggled against the restraints but his limbs wouldn’t quite obey him and his movements were sluggish.

Where? Why…? Mike couldn’t think clearly enough to form a coherent question.

“He… hel…p,” he managed with intense concentration.

“Even if you managed to scream, no one would ever hear you all the way down here.”

The harsh familiarity of her voice sent shivers down his spine. It was undeniably Abigail, but there was something wrong with it; an undertone he hadn’t noticed before taken to the forefront of her personality.

He stopped struggling. He was too weak to do so anyway.

“There’s a good boy,” her converse made a squeaking sound against the concrete floor as she came around to stare at him, the rims of her round glasses glowing in the harsh light.

“Wh… wha…”

Abigail tilted her head in mock concern. “Do you have something to say?” she asked. “It’s okay, take your time. That tranquilizer I stabbed you with was meant for horses, I think. Sometimes I get so confused.” He could tell by her shark-like grin that she hadn’t been confused at all.

“W… who are you?”

“Oh Mike, please,” she tittered, the sound practically filling the small cell. “I know you’re not that much of a dumb shit. I already told you who I am. Oh, wait, I know what it is. You just can’t believe that I’m the one who put your dear friends through so much suffering. I seemed like such a good girl. Unfortunately, people just aren’t as good as you’d like to think they are. I didn’t lie to you, Mike.” And here she put a small receiver to her mouth and spoke into it. “I’m the one who pulls strings from the shadows,” he wondered what was so funny about that as she began to chuckle. “I am the Director.”

As much as he wished he could, even Mike couldn’t deny it now. That right there was the voice he’d grown to dread over the last month, right in front of his eyes. But even addled though he was, something still nagged at him.

“Bu…” he tried, his words slurring. “The Director has… dir…ected the school since…”

“1976. That’s right!” she beamed. “I see all that research paid off. Yes, I am, in fact, much older than I appear. Well, mentally, at least. By my calculations, I am physically about nineteen years old, give or take a few months.”

“How?”

She shrugged. “Well, I had to test the Project’s theories on someone, and at the time, the only someone I had was myself.”

Mike’s eyes widened. “The Project.”

“I’m sure you know the story by heart now,” Abigail waved him off. “It was the Cold War, there were rumors that the Russians had created the perfect soldier so the government opened up St. Adelaide’s Research Facility to experiment on children and—” she paused, grinning gleefully as Mike’s eyes widened. “Oh, but you didn’t know that last part, did you?”

Mike shook his head. “No… no.”

“Oh, Mike. Did you really think ‘Buttercup’ was a flower? You can be awfully dumb for someone so smart. Buttercup was a nine-year-old girl. Many of the scientists almost balked at the idea of using children, but it was necessary, you know.”

“How is… something like that… necessary?” Mike couldn’t think straight. Everything was wrong now, it was all wrong.

“Project Paragon works in three stages,” she held the requisite number of fingers in front of his nose and they blurred across his vision. “Mind, body, and soul. The mind element in particular requires… extensive surgery. You see, adult minds are already well formed, in control. But a child’s—or a teenager’s—mind is incredibly spongy. It can change its ways. Thusly, children. Thusly, you.

Mike’s stomach did a somersault, and the metaphorical motion nearly made him puke. He strained against his restraints. “No.”

“Yes.” Abigail’s eyes gleamed. “I know I won’t fail this time. Your mind is the spongiest I’ve seen in years. It adapted remarkably well to the large amounts of antihistamines that I slipped into your Red Bull.”

So it wasn’t Red Bull that gave you wings. It was just drugs.

“The process will take maybe a week, and most of that will be devoted to altering your biology form this inside out. This time… it will be perfect. You will be perfect. I’ve learned from the original Project’s mistakes, oh yes.”

Mike pulled so hard at the restraints that he nearly dislocated his shoulder.

“You see, I’ve discovered the problem with the first paragon, Paragon Alpha. They let her keep her memories. She remembered who she had been. She mourned the loss of her own innocence and proved uncontrollable. Now, I can’t ‘erase’ your memories, per se, that’s impossible. But I can put them somewhere you’ll never find them.”

“You’re… you’re insane.”

All she did in response was stare at him, a curious smile plastered on her face.

“I never said I wasn’t.”

Skipping, she fiddled with the IV on his arm, despite his struggling. After a second, a strange, green liquid began to flow through the IV and into his arm. “Now, to do a little altering to that DNA of yours. I won’t lie, it’s going to be quite painful. Essentially, your whole body is going to die and be replaced, one small bit at a time.”

She gave him a pat on the cheek before she turned and opened the door to his cell. “I’ll be back in a few hours to check up on you. Don’t go anywhere.” Her cackle echoed down the hall.

The silence was deafening as Mike waited for unconsciousness to claim him again. But as the seconds passed, his stomach fell. He realized that there would be no mercy. Whatever future that green liquid was bringing, he would feel every second of it.

The pain started slowly, just a tingling and slight numbness of his extremities, but with growing horror he knew that it was only going to get worse.

Mike felt like he was falling.

#Ede Valley #Mike Miller #Abigail Hodge #Jilli Nakajima #Doug Bailey #writing

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