Had another panic attack tonight. Seems to be related to too much drinking. I had 8 last night. The first one was following a night long vodka binge and the second one was following 7 drinks after three nights in a row of 4-5 hours sleep. I thought the sleep deprivation and dehydration were the problem but it seems to be too much booze. Fuck this, I'm going to see a doctor. No insurance but hopefully urgent care will be okay. Don't know what to do though if doc/RN says he can't help me. I reall
I looked to a doctor to make me whole, but a doctor cannot make a man whole. A doctor can only patch up what a doctor knows to patch up. In the 18th century doctors were using leeches and bloodletting. I think we've made progress, but is it so hard to believe the meds of today will be the leeches of tomorrow? All this while they said oh how courageous of you to ask for help. Help is, surprisingly, a cruel teacher. Courage and ignorance apparently resemble each other from a distance. The answer i
It hurts. I know I'm supposed to do something, but I can't remember what it is. Good frames won't save bad paintings, just like when beautiful people drive ugly cars. Beyond good and evil, exhaustion sets in. What is left but to hope nothing hits the paper thin.
For the first time used deep breathing technique to manage anxiety in a public situation. Mostly it was the distraction of focusing on my breath but I realized I was worrying about everything all at once and this is why I was getting worked up. I am experimenting with telling myself that I don't have to worry about it now. I'm great at procrastination so I can deal with it later. This is a big step; I used to avoid going shopping because I knew the multitude of choices to make in a store would
Think I found a reason why I can't be consistent in behavior. I have multiple different impulses and over time which impulses are strongest varies. When I'm stressed out, the rational me is less effective at controlling impulses so I do dumb things. Impulses I've identified so far are: Defiance - joy in pissing off people more powerful than myself Habit - joy in repetition Self destruction - I hate my life and I wanna die Escape - I can't stand myself Craving for enjoyment Masochism - I know so
Today has been all over the place. Felt OK in the morning, then got to work and my email access had been turned off because someone in HR changed my start date and the system cannot handle that so it just decided I don't exist, and the HR person went on vacation for the week. Gah. So I was totally frustrated but working on stuff and then at noon I got hit with a wave of depression. I think about suicide but then I decided not to do suicide and back and forth. It's not that I was going to kill my
Dunno why I'm so happy today. I'm bouncing off the walls with the glee of a tweaker stumbling upon a cache of electronics and an extensive set of specialized screwdrivers. Think somebody switched my wellbutrin with a tab of X. Might be that I took an abrupt break from drinking. Or that I'm getting stuff done today, the vitamin b shot I got on Thursday, starting meditation again, or starting to make peace with religion. Emphasis on the starting, still have a long way to go but talked to priest y
I think what I called panic attacks is related to drinking. I can't seem to enjoy getting drunk anymore because I start feeling my heart race/ dizziness/ think I'm dying/ labored breath before I can even get a decent buzz. Going to take some days off just to see. Feel like I need to do a better job of coping in that I found a single tool that worked but didn't manage the risk of that tool's effectiveness changing over time. I know that most ways of achieving good feelings in the short term wear
I think I'm getting panic attacks. I don't want to worry about it too much because that would obviously only make the problem worse. It's not fun though. Feels like I am on a double edged sword with alcohol. I get overwhelmed very easily when I'm not drinking, but I damage my physical health when I am. Sobriety terrifies me because last try I realized I don't know how to deal with life without chemical assistance. It's like emotions never pass through, they just all collect until I feel like do
Had some past memories come up today and I think that is where my self destructive thoughts are coming from. I still feel really good about my new job and getting up to speed there, even though there seem to be a lot of process inefficiencies. This is actually an opportunity for me as I have training and experience in process improvement. So far I don't see any low hanging fruit though do to heavy organizational inertia, which means I'll get some practice on persuasion/influence skills that have
Had a really good day today. It's sinking in that I actually have a job and I'm not going to be fired on my first week or something. I've been in limbo for so long I got used to that and having stability is almost too good to be true. Also my boyfriend is coming for a visit :D So excited about that. I'm paying attention to other people and noticing that others are nearly as messed up as I am. Some are worse. I still want and need to get better, since the self destructive behavior is a problem,
Death is the surname of sleep, but the surname unknown to us Sleep is the daily end of life; a small exercise in death Which is it's sister, but not every brother and sister are equally close, Giving to the enemy a small exercise in submission And holding onto nothing
Thursday scored a gram of coke impulsively. Friend who I did it with last time said he was getting a bag did I want one too. I weighed the pros and cons, and clearly this would not be a good idea. My response, "I'm in, how soon can I come over?" The whole time I'm waiting my conscience is like, don't do it don't do it don't do it... except I knew that if I didn't I would just be obsessing over it for weeks until I broke down. Shoved the whole bag up my nose over the course of the night and went
Today found a good coping mechanism in cleaning the house from top to bottom. The kind of cleaning that works up a sweat and requires a dust mask because of how many dust bunnies are being kicked up from behind major appliances. When I got into it, I was just getting sh*t done and completely stopped worrying or anything. I was single-mindedly removing dust from the house which was mindless, physical, and gave me a sense of accomplishing something. I was not feeling so hot when I started but whe
There’s a light and a dark side Standing at the crossroads, there we’ll meet There’s prophets and fools there The lies and the truth, will be at our feet I got a reason to turn my head and look the other way Its heaven and hell here, which one will I live today? -Social Distortion The competition between self destruct impulses and work to get better continues. Starting to get a feel for this, i.e., how to ride out the ups and downs without getting too self satisfied with the ups nor beating myse
Thinking about a couple things lately on positive vs. negative. Hoping that writing about it a bit will help clarify what is going on. Some of the below may be mistaken but that is part of the learning process. So I've noticed a few articles on positive vs. negative reinforcement and how positive is more effective at motivating behavior. Yet in the US we have a cultural bias towards negative reinforcements. We raise our children and our pets with almost entirely punishment based incentives, whi
Off the wagon again. Needed a break from willpower. Realized that I was doing it for my doctor, despite initially telling myself it was for my health. When doctor failed to demonstrate any understanding or wish to understand what I'm going through, motivation evaporated. I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. I thought I had problems concentrating, which led to anxiety and depression. That at least is how I experienced it. At that time I wasn't drinking too much, maybe 4-6 on the weekend, so
Past few days have been hard for depression. Had a less than satisfying visit with pdoc today. I don't know if she was trying to help me or not but she's transferring me to another pdoc who specializes in addiction. Yeah, because there couldn't possibly be anything else wrong. I wasn't even that bad as an alcoholic. I just drank too much. At AA I've met people who did far more than me. Anybody care why I was drinking in the first place? No. Slap a label on me and walk away. Maybe the new guy co
So last night was not my brightest moment and i was really flailing. I've been thinking about why that might be and I've noticed that lately I've been obsessed with doing what I'm "supposed to" you know eat right, exercise, brush your teeth don't talk to strangers, getting on better with associate contemporaries... as if being the most boring person on the planet would somehow ensure that I never have any problems. I wonder if it is not time to say to hell with that and embrace the fact that I
I'm having problems with rage lately. I hurt myself because I was so out of control that I couldn't feel pain. All I felt was the endorphins at first, which felt good, so I hurt myself worse instead of noticing that blood is generally not a good sign. I now have a new appreciation for lidocaine following my nervous system's return to homeostasis. My addiction is telling me I'll never truly enjoy anything while sober. I think I've done better as a person since laying off the sauce. I'm more drive
...but nobody said it would be this hard -Coldplay I'm happy that I have been able to overcome the urge to drink for half a month now. Today is day 16. I guess I'm counting days because I want to see how long I can go without a drink. Since I decided to quit on a weekend, as the first few days tend to be the easiest and weekends were when I failed before, I have almost made it through my third whole weekend without drinking. I'm worried about the fact that I'm thinking about it as "making it thr
Been working more to finish up my stuff before it's time to go. Yesterday I zoned out again for a good two hours at work where I just did about nothing and then got back to work. I hope my new job will be easier to stay on track. It's better if I have defined goals so that I can tell if I am being productive or not. Still staying sober, but feel like very little else has changed. I might not be drinking for the time yet I'm dissociating instead. Concerned this is what they mean by "dry drunk" -
Feeling good about making it 10 days so far without drinking. I feel more clear headed when I wake up and I can work out in the gym for a longer period of time. That's the good news. The challenge I have now is that anxiety is showing me why I was drinking in the first place. I'm disassociating for hours at a time, which really sucks when it happens at work because I have to explain that I can't deliver what I promised for the day. I also had a flashback so it looks like PTSD is back. I need to
Past few days have been hard but I'm bearing with it. Learning to relax, practicing but not often succeeding. Today has been bad because it is the weekend and almost 10 days. Emotional roller coaster. Working on changing habits. Know what I need to change but not what to do instead. Also have no idea how to make sober friends. I have none and the main way i know how to make friends is through drinking together.
Up to my past record. Tomorrow is new territory. I also see pdoc tomorrow and I think I'm going to come clean about feeling suicidal. God this makes no sense how can I feel suicidal if I am not going out and committing suicide? I've got this stupid moral qualm holding me back even when I feel like I've built up enough will to do it. The morality worry is what keeps me from buying a shotgun in my clearer states so that it will be available when I'm more emotional. Yet I can't just stop thinking
