I had a paragraph written. Inconsequential stuff. Lack of sleep due to nagging cough, blah blah blah.

You know what is fucking consequential? The fact that I just got fired by my psychologist. One of the few that wasn't a quack in psychologist's clothing. I went to Genessee on wednesday only to sit an hour to be told that i'd have to come off of my benzo in order to participate in the program, and I wasn't feeling anything about the entire visit. I politely declined, and accordingly, my shrink called today to tell me it wouldn't be ethical to see me without some kind of relapse prevention/rehab program.
How about I go to NA and maintain connections and a sober support network there? I'm four and a half months clean, for christ's sake. I'm not fresh in off the streets.
I am ridiculously frustrated. Actually i'm frustrated and angry and disappointed and I feel let down. But I'll get over that.

What the fuck ever.

This time, i'm really afraid to venture back into the world of eating. This past glutening -which thankfully seems to be winding down- taught me that even cross contamination can make me sick as a bitch. So what? I can't use the toaster or any teflon-coated pans in that case. I am reintroducing food very, very slowly because all I have to do is stretch my torso the wrong way and I can feel how raw everything is inside. I ate some potatoes yesterday and rice the day before, and today I ate some dry corn chex.

To add to the fun, i've also got the cold that the kids had at thanksgiving. I feel really horrible about it now that I have it, because it's not a fun one and when Rita-Pea was here on friday she sneezed a couple of times and instantly grabbed her ears and cried. Poor kid. She'll be three in just over a week, which blows my mind. I can't wait, but I also want my brand-new baby back. There were days where I literally held her the entire day unless I had to go to the bathroom or something. She was small enough to hold in the crook of my elbow and still use both hands to make a bottle. Bottles took forever because her heart was so weak, she'd exhaust herself feeding. Then she got her heart fixed and by eight months she was completely potty trained. And now she's three, which is fucking nuts. She is my inspiration and my favorite person on the planet, and I can't wait to share in her excitement. They are hiring a piano player to play for her party. She loves listening to and watching live music and claps and signs "music! more!" whenever it stops and starts.

She's going to change peoples' perception of down syndrome. She already has. I get emotional even talking about the fantastic stuff because she is so unbelievably important.

I am in so much effing discomfort. Bleh. Normally, when this happens, I knowingly ingest something glutinous and have nobody but myself to blame but this time it was completely accidental! This might be the worst flare-up to date, also. It's a toss-up between this one and the post NOFX beer extravaganza.
My intestines are so inflamed. I had a little bit of white rice yesterday and a little bit of potato the day before, both with clear fluids, and within fifteen minutes I could feel the food working its way through my system. I'm afraid, at least from the way it feels, that everything's all ulcerated.
I've been so adherent lately, too.
They make this stuff that you can take the second you realize you've been glutened. I definitely need to get me some of that.

For right now, i'm going to go mix up some powdered gatorade with alkaline artesian well water. Sounds fancypants but basically (ha! I crack myself up) it helps to neutralize the acid and i've noticed before it helps everything heal up.

I'm gonna straight up tell Fasanello tomorrow that he needs to talk to Useda and figure something else out. I'll go and look at Genesee, but that's not even where they wanted me to go. The whole plan was for me to go to Rochester Rehab and Rochester Rehab said I wasn't a good candidate for their program and recommended Genesee. Well, nobody at Genesee Mental Health Services knows me from Adam, so what the fuck. I could have just as easily opened the phone book and blindly picked a location.
Meanwhile, while everybody's been bouncing me back and forth and passing the buck, i've been staying clean. Now i'm four months clean and it seems to be lost on everybody that i'm looking for long term help staying clean. I can handle two years. I've done it before, more than once. Once I kick I can isolate and hold in place, but I want to work on the reason I can't live life sober, and nobody's giving me that opportunity because we're all focused on the drugs.
It sucks that Useda won't continue to see me, but I understand his reasoning and accept that. So put your damn heads together then and find me someone who will. And then it's the lottery all over again to see how the dynamic works and if it's a good match. I want a fucking shrink, not a dayhab program. Fasanello's got the meds under control, so for christ's sake, let's find me a shrink. I'm so bummed Arnold retired because that would have been ideal.

It's no surprise that so many people relapse.

A couple of things i've been wanting to touch on:

At some point a little spider decided to make my car her home. Initially she was living behind my driver's side mirror and would weave her webs at night and then crawl back behind the mirror once the car began moving. I must've left the windows open enough for her to get inside the actual car, though, because every morning I get behind the wheel to see a web spanning the length of the windshield. I feel guilty, turning on the defrosters or using the fan, because I ruin her hard work, but she doesn't seem to mind. Without fail, the next day, spring has sprung on the farm and Charlotte has woven her web anew. I think it's cute, and it's a daily reminder that I need to push on. I'll be in trouble if she lays eggs and I end up with thousands of spiders, but generally that requires two spiders to begin with, right?

On a not-so-cutesy note, i've obviously undergone significant changes over the past four months. The vast majority of them have been positive, but a few are bothering me. I have always been such a trusting person. I've always sought to help people out and make good on my word, and i've grown a little wary as result of my experiences the nine months before I cleaned up. I was lied to, stolen from, and straight-up stabbed in the back.
Obviously, as a drug addict, i've done things i'm not proud of, but i'm at a point now where I feel like I killed off some of my most redeeming qualities. I used to get myself in over my head trying to help people, but I think that's better than being so afraid of getting screwed over that you treat everybody as if they are guilty until proven innocent.
I feel less patient. I'm still patient as ever with kids, I don't think that'll ever change. I find it more difficult to stand in long lines without feeling stressed, for example, or to sit in traffic. Things that never used to bother me give me pause today, and I don't like it. I feel far more white-knuckled when I drive these days, like i'm always in a hurry to get somewhere, even though I never am. I get frustrated with other drivers when I always used to give them the benefit of the doubt. All of that stuff, the patience stuff at least, makes me wonder if the chill, laid-back facets of my personality were because I was a burnout and not actually the relaxed and understanding person I thought myself to be.
I also have to remember to give myself a break. I've been under significant stress, and that could easily be the cause of my lack of patience. I hope it is.

I'm nervous about thanksgiving coming up. I feel like my situation is the giant pink elephant in the corner and the tension i've caused among my mother's family is palpable. I'm ashamed and hurt and would much rather deal with everything by sticking my head in the sand, but i'll eat my gluten-free humble pie and sit at the table with knots in my stomach. I feel awful, but feelings don't put families back together. I'm not sure things will ever be the same again with some of my family members, and that truly causes me to ache in a way that not many things can. I am responsible for my behaviors, and I know that, but I also feel like there are a few among them who don't realize how sick I was/am. Hopefully they will see, especially as I continue to remain clean, that my behavior is changing.
My Dad's family has surprised me throughout all of this. I distanced from many of them when my dad died. It was painful to keep in touch and for a while, with my dad gone, I felt like maybe my presence was painful for them, so I kept my distance. I don't know exactly how many family members on my Dad's side know, but I assume the vast majority, and those who know have been exceptionally supportive. It's made me feel good. I don't have grandparents left, my brother and I do not get along and I know we won't really have much of a relationship once my mom's gone, and all I have left is my mom. I am lucky to have extended family to support me; I need to maintain relationships so that I wake up one day and realize I have no family.

I went to bed at nine last night and woke up at ten this morning. I ate breakfast and went back to bed until six this evening. It's possible I was exhausted from the events of the weekend and not having slept in my own bed, but it's more likely i'm depressed and avoidant. Tomorrow's a new day.

Thepiratebay is driving me to drink (this is my new favorite figure of speech. It may get old, but it hasn't yet!) at the moment. Since when does the search engine ever get overloaded? Don't risk losing my illegal business, TPB! I'm a longstanding customer.

I spent the weekend in buffalo with two of my cousins on my dad's side. Abbey is in tenth grade and Allison's in eighth grade. Allison's twin, Greg, qualified to swim in a meet in Cleveland and really wanted both his parents there, so I stayed with the girls and the dog. It was super fun. My uncle Dan brought his kids over and my aunt Karen brought two of her girls over. Every time i'm with my Gentry cousins I realize how much more I'd like to see them. I'm a grown-up now and I can visit whenever I want, so I think i'm going to start doing that more. It does make me sad to see everybody together and know that my dad's not around, and my uncle mark is gone now too so that's hard too. I talked with my cousin Carrie, who is Mark's youngest, about how we worry so much more about our moms now that we only have one parent. I don't worry as much as I used to, but she's still fresh in the process and I was pretty clingy with my mom the first few years.

It's fun to get to know all of my cousins as adults, even if we'll always sit at the kids' table.

I stayed up far later than I should have (and later than I wanted to, to be honest, but I was trying to be fun for the girls lol) and now I can't keep my eyes open.

I need to be reminded tomorrow to write about the spider.

If my psychologist weren't out of town until the first week of december (and it's fantastic that i'm his first appointment of his first day back, because nobody's invested or committed the first hour of their first day back from two weeks worth of vacation.) i'd at bare minimum have a telephone conversation with him. I feel like he pulled a big-time bait and switch, and now I have to go sit through a bullshit intake at Genessee where they're gonna try and sell me on a dayhab DBT-based program.
I'm pissed that he won't continue to see me until I complete this other treatment. I've got four months clean, i'm opening up in a way that i've never opened up before, and still, here I am. The shrink writes the scripts, and the psychologist passes the buck to the dual-diagnosis program where I go in with an open mind and come out feeling ever more jaded and angry. I pay him $500.00/month to see me for four hours. I don't see the problem.
Faster than anything right now, the thing that'll lead me right back out is not having the support system I need, and it's crumbling around me. I can't be the only one who sees that.

I am so fucking frustrated.

I actually intended to write a completely different entry, but this came out, so it stays. Tomorrow maybe i'll write the other.

Buffalo bedsheets on a Rochester bed. Up until now, all of my non-essentials were very clearly in two piles: Buffalo things and Rochester things. After almost three years of living in two places I have doubles of almost everything. Down comfortors, duvet covers, bedding, toiletries, computer-and-cellphone chargers, powerstrips, etc.
I decided to change my sheets tonight, and given the dropping temperatures at night and the fact that my brother is a norcal-at-altitude boy at heart, I took the fleece sheets out of my Buffalo pile. It's nothing, really. Nothing more than a regular task that I altered in the slightest way, but i'm feeling sad.

Obviously the symbolism is pretty evident. All of my furniture and books are stowed in the garage, where they will stay until I move them to their second temporary home in the basement to make room in the garage for my car during the winter months. I plan to move it all back to buffalo, but now isn't the time, even if I didn't have a commitment here until the end of the academic year.

I have to live in this very moment. I can't worry about keeping piles separate so they won't get mixed up when I move. I need to worry about today, so that tomorrow i'll have an opportunity to be clean and productive and eventually work my way toward being able to transition to wherever I want. Maybe i'll get on top of my shit and realize Buffalo isn't what I want after all. I can't worry about that right now.

Right now I have a warm bed and a thankful dog curled up beneath the covers.

Drugs aren't the problem. I've said this a million times...drugs are the symptom.
Life is the problem. My physiological makeup is the problem. My nature and my nurture joined forces long ago to ensure that life for me will be a continual struggle.
The truth? I'm really concerned that i'm impaired to a degree that will require some kind of human service intervention long-term. Makes me exceptionally hesitant to voluntarily enroll in an intensive dual-diagnosis program.

I am so exceptionally sick of this. I have sunday and monday off and I plan to pull the covers over my head and spend both days in bed.

Today was a little easier. I called a friend from my wednesday meetings. she's got some time, she doesn't bullshit, and she's a hardass. Exactly the type of sober support I need. It's weird, being in the rooms. Even if you don't share that often, you make a connection with people. Everybody's got the same story, and everybody knows your bullshit. You genuinely want everyone to succeed, and when they hurt you feel badly for them. You worry when they struggle, and you share in their celebrations. That said, a prolonged, unexplained absence from a member's homegroup is troublesome. Especially when word begins to spread that other meetings are being missed too. I can't be responsible for any addict other than myself, but I far prefer celebrating and witnessing success over relapse.

Not that i've been a terribly consistent presence in the rooms these past three weeks, myself. It's hard to have work expectations and not be able to explain that you really have to be somewhere else without saying where.

Rochester Rehab decided that, based on my preliminary intake information, I was in need of a more intensive program. WTFever so now i'm being bounced to Genessee Hospital and I can almost guarantee that'll be a "thank you but no" type of situation.

I fold. Somebody out there is doubling over with laughter when I open my eyes in the morning and realize I have to do it all over again. I have to hold in place until my mom's gone, at bare minimum. She's got at least fifteen years left. I'll consider it my own personal purgatory. I miss Rita and Henry so much it hurts, but i'm not gonna amount to any type of person who can be significant in their lives, and I don't want them to suffer any loss, so i've decided I shouldn't be around them. I love that little girl more than I thought I was even capable of loving, and yet I wish I could pull an eternal sunshine because it is so unbelievably painful.

I can hardly manage working the few hours I am, and the income isn't covering the expenses.

I feel like throwing up. I think tonight I crossed a line that I hadn't previously realized existed.

Waiting for klonopin to put me out.

101 days and i've still got the shakes. It's not a side-effect of any of my meds, because that'd be a gross tremor and not a fine tremor, and I haven't changed my meds since I got clean. I also still get jerks and fits right as i'm falling asleep that'll startle me back awake, but they're much less severe.
The shakes are only worth complaining about some of the time. I'm self-conscious about it when i'm talking to someone and i'll put my hands in my pockets, because I don't want people to think i'm nervous or strung out. My touch-screen phone has been another major frustration. Texting and dialing non-programmed numbers has become a real challenge. Other than that, it's mostly just a nuisance.

I see my shrink tomorrow. Should be a routine medicine maintenance visit since i'm peeing clean and we're not making any changes to my meds. La-te-da.

I had an awesome weekend, actually. I'll post about it tomorrow though, because now I sleep.

I took Ana to the library today to check out a few books. While there, we ran into one of my very favorite kids from the Y. Neal was in first grade when I met him, and he's in sixth grade now. He gasped and jumped up and was thrilled to see me. It made my day, because sixth grade boys walk that fine line between not wanting to show that they care, while still being children. I told him to say hi to his brother for me and he said "oh man, he'll never believe that I saw you. It's been like three years!" To say that he was one of my easier children is an understatement. He was also a love. He was the type of kid, at least as a little guy, who always held your sleeve or had some sort of physical contact whenever possible. Nobody ever had a problem with him, and he was sensitive and caring. It made my day to see him. and I have to say, it felt good that he was so excited to see me.

So Tod and Celi transfer planes in detroit and Jolene from Nitro Circus was on their plane, which was crazy exciting for my brother. She's about as badass as they come. Celi wouldn't let him talk to her, haha. As if that wasn't enough excitement, the plane scheduled to land before them on the runway in Santa Barbara didn't end up landing and crashed instead. According to my mother, who spoke to my brother upon landing, they didn't see the small craft actually crash, but they had an aerial view of the wreckage and the response teams and the passengers of my brother's plane were questioned by reporters and others upon disembarking. That kid has had so many crazy experiences.

I'm headed to buffalo tomorrow morning. My uncle will be interred next to my father and my grandparents. I don't see my dad's side of the family very often, so i'm looking forward to it. Afterward, back in the roc, Ana's gonna come spend the night at my mom's house. Her mother, having been a single parent her entire life, could use a night off. Ana's an easy kid in a lot of ways, but to be her sole caretaker is a significant amount of work. We'll make a gluten free cake and rent movies and eat pizza, and I told her i'd take her to breakfast sunday morning.

The past few weeks, i've really been regretting the fact that I didn't finish my CDA that last year I was with the Y. I had completed all of the classes, and my portfolios were well underway. I am not making any additional commitments at this time, until i'm certain what my immediate treatment plan is going to be, but it'd definitely be an additional hook to hang my hat on, and I wouldn't have had to pay a cent. You live and learn, and I learn through my mistakes, almost without exception. So it goes.

Also, I am far more succeptable to slumber when I am cold. I think I will go to bed shortly.

Tod and Celi are going to Santa Barbara tomorrow to attend a wedding. Old friends from his seasons in the mountains are getting married, and it should be a great time. I hope they have fantastic weather. I expect them to return with terrible airline-colds at bare minimum, and maybe even swine flu. My only concern (other than being uninsured and having reactive airway disorder) is that domestic animals are starting to get it, and i'm not sure how well my older dog with respiratory issues would weather it, should it turn out to be transferable. No borrowing trouble. For now, I think extra blankets and heavier pajamas are in order.

I just got all cozied-up in bed with the dog only to realize I forgot to take my meds. Balls. It also dawned on me when I looked in the mirror whilst taking my medicine that I hadn't put pajamas on.

My brother got his acceptance letter from Cornell today. That's kind of a big deal, and i'm happy for my mom. Between the two of us, she's constantly wracked with worry, and I think having something positive to celebrate and to share with her friends and co-workers is going to be good for her. He's awaiting word from ESF, but if he got into Cornell, he's a shoe-in at ESF. Tuition at ESF is about a quarter of what it is at Cornell, but I totally don't think he should fixate on that. He's proven that, despite his problems, he can excel in his field of study and, combined with his seasons in the mountains and his associates in wildlife studies and environmental science, either school will land him a career. This news also guarantees that I have a place to live in rochester, because my brother will be moving either to Ithaca or Syracuse in January, thereby meeting my mother's demand that one of us leaves.

I saw my psychologist today. I told him that I wasn't going to commit to a program if I felt negatively about it going in, because it would be a waste of time and money. He told me that he thought that made sense. I agreed to go check out this place he and my shrink have recommended. I have to be open minded, so i'll look. Maybe i'll be pleasantly surprised. Either way, he won't see me until I complete treatment, at which point, he told me that his door is open. So basically, I won't be seen on a once-weekly therapeutic level. It's frustrating to me, because at least that was something. I was able to be more open with him than with every single other mental health professional except my current psychiatrist and one previous psychologist who has since retired. It sucks that I can't continue to be seen weekly throughout the process, but that's his decision. I get to decide whether or not i'm on board with the rehab thing, and nobody can force me, so i'll check it out. Just because i've had negative experiences doesn't mean that this one is guaranteed to suck. At least that's what I keep telling myself. My poor mother can't understand why they continue to push for more intensive treatment when i'm ninety days out. Basically I just told her that it's because I can't seem to get past the two-year mark, so obviously I need to re-learn some things.

Tomorrow, hopefully, a woman at my wednesday NA meeting is gonna hook me up with names of some of her friends who teach voice. She studies at eastman, and I can't afford private lessons at eastman at the moment, and I sort of was asked to stop studying at hochstein on account of being unable to pay and being inconsistent with attendance. I miss singing. More than that, I miss studying voice and pushing myself and learning pieces. I think that would be considered a positive activity, no? Maybe next fall i'll look into hockey, but I don't want to take on too much, and i'm horribly out of shape and might stroke out. Anyway, the thrill of the game is cheapened by sharing a locker room with women my mothers age once you play on an adult team.

I can't say i'm content, but I can say i'm not miserable at the moment, and for that i'm thankful. Actually, i'm closer to content than I have been in a little bit,, I think.

I'm excited for wednesday this week: i'm going to go visit an old friend (read: middle school) and meet her baby for the first time. He's eight months old, so she's had him for a while, but they just recently moved back into the area. She's fixing me a gluten-free lunch and we're gonna hang out and reminisce. Tomorrow, actually, i'm hoping to see another old friend and support him as he achieves a remarkably significant milestone. I shouldn't say i'm without friends in Rochester. I just don't reach out. Time elapses, people go their own ways, and I get crazier and more and more out of control while everybody else graduates, marries, and reproduces. Makes reconnecting a little awkward for me. I also have a very dear friend who makes every effort to touch base with me, knowing that I struggle to maintain friendships. We worked together at the Y and I see her a few times a month. Her parents won't let her live with me because they think i'm a bad influence (although they are wonderful to me) while my mother wants desperately for me to find someone just like her as a roommate because she's a great influence.

I can say for certain that I am without friends in Buffalo. I've lost every last one of them, except perhaps for one of my old roommates. I love her dearly but a steady friendship will be difficult as any contact we have will have to be on the 'low. I can always make friends through NA, slowly and painfully, but it's helpful to remember that i've actually got more going for me in the Roc than in Buffalo at the moment. I love Buffalo; Buffalo feels like home and I love the city and living in the city. I am really not a fan of suburban living and, while i'm thankful for the roof over my head, my mom is a big fan of the suburbs. I don't grieve the lost friendships, because they never were. The people who chose to befriend me in buffalo were great friends till the money or the drugs ran out. It's hurtful to realize, but not a new revelation by any means.

I've lost family in Buffalo, also. I don't see how our relationships will ever be the same, and that is actually something that pains me. When it's time i'll make my amends, but I did damage that can't be undone with words alone. I wish I could make them realize that it wasn't my intent to be ungrateful or harm them in any way. I see the way my aunt and uncle look at me, and I feel the tension between us, and it breaks my heart. They are my godparents. They took me in for a year and a half. They fed me and cared for me as their own. To them, it must have been such an enormous slap in the face.

I can pick up the pieces of my own life, but what about the wreckage i've left behind for others to deal with?

I'm grateful for the support I continue to recieve from my family, and I hope to get back into the good graces of those who are so disappointed and angry and upset that they can't even make eye contact with me. Only time will heal those wounds, I know.

Right now, I think reconnecting with friends who knew me when I was younger is a positive. I have to learn to venture out, and this is probably a safe starting point.

For several months I have had a gnawing suspicion that all is not well with the infamous Delilah Jones. She throws up fairly frequently (way more frequently than my mom's dog,) is desperate to go out at all hours of the night, and her breath smells different. I've taken her to both my Rochester vet and my Buffalo vet, and she's gotten a clean bill of health twice. In fact, they always talk about what a perfect pug she is. I dunno though. Call it mothers intuition, call it experience having smelled the breath of someone experiencing organ failure, I think her age is catching up to her.

Back in my mom's day, people didn't bring their dogs to the vet unless they got hit by cars or were in a dogfight. Dogs lived until they died, and what people may have assumed was simply old age was probably heart disease due to bad oral hygiene or some kind of malignant cancer. I've stopped giving D her revolution treatment because I can't justify putting a chemical on my dog's skin and allowing it to be absorbed into the bloodstream when there are warnings all over the place about not touching the stuff and making sure you wash thoroughly after applying. I'll use tea tree oil next year or find something along those lines. She's slowed down but she's got quality of life (there was a period when we were living at tweaker central where i'm fairly sure she was being mistreated in my absence, but she's back with my mom's dog and seems to have recovered.) I'm not willing to risk putting her under anasthesia to check her out (nor do I have the money for it, frankly.)

So I'll watch her. I have put a dog to sleep before, I can do it again. Maybe I need something to worry about other than my future and this is how that need has manifested itself. I think there's time, I just want to be prepared.

For tonight, we cuddle, as always.

Tomorrow I have to update my sleep playlist, because the same four hours' worth of music is driving me crazy in my sleep, even. (I was going to say driving me to drink, thought better of it, but actually see the humor again because of the using dreams.)

I'm feeling tonight the way I felt -the way I have always felt- in the days before I realize my use is out of control again and i'll eventually need to kick: like i'm going to experience a huge social loss. Except this time, it's after the fact. I picked up my 90 day keytag this week, but as I look at everybody's facebook pictures or read the accounts of their halloween weekends, I realize i'll not have that again. I'll never have crazy parties or likely ever even attend another. My ninety-day was on tuesday, and for a few days I felt pretty great about it. The reality that this is the rest of my life keeps setting in, and that's a continual struggle.
My shrink (I should start being specific because i've been working with my psychologist for a couplea months now too: the psychologist, in this case) keeps pointing out that a sense of foreshortened future is one of the criterion for one of my diagnoses, and maybe I should take that into consideration, but i'm bummed. I think it's more than that. I don't think it's unrealistic to expect to be an unmarried catlady in a housedress or some variation thereof when I genuinely struggle to leave the house. Regardless of the cause. I suspect it's a combination of things and certainly I do have a sense of foreshortened future, but I don't think i'm off the mark.
Even though drug friends aren't friends, I feel less lonely when i'm stumbling around half cocked with other ne'er do-wells. I'm in Rochester and I don't want to be, but I don't think i'm ready to make Buffalo happen yet. I'm feeling out of place, like i'm just visiting. I go to one meeting a week and I make promises to myself that i'll go to more but then anxiety paralyzes me and I end up retreating to my bedroom.
I really need a commune. I need a wilderness rehab. I need some sort of suggestion that doesn't instantly put me on the defensive but will also help me save myself, because right now i'm just holding in place.
You can only do the dead man's float for so long.

So my mom just flipped out a little because, after folding and bringing up to his bedroom all of his bedding that he left in the dryer, I said "your son overloaded the wash so his duvet is still damp; I put it over the railing to dry." She told me she was sick to death of us trying to one-up eachother's asshole treatment (personally, I think I try to be nice, but whatever) and that if it were a contest to see who was a bigger asshole, i'd lose.

....? Ok, but her vitriol was intended for me, and yet I take that as a compliment. I'm the lesser asshole. My brother is a bigger asshole, that's what she was saying, right? I'm sure she'll realize she mispoke, but I consider it a win.
He goes out of his way to be nasty and I still remain civil because it's just not worth my time. He doesn't understand my problems and instead likes to tell me that i'm a worthless piece of shit. I'm not bothered by it mostly, because my brother is so rigid in his thinking that the littlest thing will get him so fired up that it takes an hour for him to calm down. I'd rather see the grey or the rainbow than have to live in black and white.

So i'm officially nannying three days a week. Just afternoons, and for a family that I consider to be extended family. I had this little girl in my program when she started kindergarten, and now she's in fifth grade. She's brilliant: funny, beyond intelligent, sensitive, athletically, musically and academically gifted, and just generally awesome. My mom loves her and she loves to hang out at my house. We do a lot of running here and there, what with her after school activities, but I think it's ideal for the time being.

Her mom needed someone who could commit consistently, I needed something fairly unstructured and familiar, and super-part time. Everybody wins.

I'll have to live at my mom's for the time being, but i'll be able to pay all of my other bills without having to worry month-to-month. I can continue to get clean and work with my shrinks, and maybe this is a good thing.

Today marks day 80. Miles to go before I sleep, but it's something.

Nightmares last night. I would say overall, sleep has been pretty great the last week and a half or two. Last night, however, I had pretty bad nightmares. As a result, i'm still in bed and not really able to start my day. A little William Fitzsimmons and an extra comforter might help, but i'm having some anxiety. Actually i'm thinking James Taylor might be an even better fit.

I'm babysitting tonight, so I doubt a meeting's gonna happen, but I need one. I didn't go to a single meeting last week because I seem to be getting busier and i'm a creature of habit. I'll make a meeting tomorrow and maybe monday. I should take a jumper dose of my benzo, so I think i'll do that right now rather than continue with this nonsense.

I just don't think i'm going to make it. I'm not talking about staying clean: i'm talking about life in general. I take medications that are supposed to enable me to leave the house without anxiety. Therefore, I should be able to do something like go to a NA meeting. More often than not, I drive to the meeting, get panicky, and waffle for a bit. I almost always end up going back home. Tonight I even had someone agree to wait for me and walk me in and sit with me.
I have to make some decisions in life, and I think I'm fairly certain it's time to reassess my goals. It breaks my heart to admit it, but I am not the Libby who will become a social worker, tend to refugees part-time while getting my batchelors in cultural and social anthropology and finish up with an MSW in social work. I might as well start training right now for an olympic sport, because i'd say the odds are about equal. I'm not self-deprecating. I'm being realistic. I need to go on SSI to pay my bills and see both of my doctors on a regular basis. I need to, for once in twenty-fucking-seven years, get a circadian sleep schedule set up.

I want to cry my eyes out, I want to yell and scream and fight, and I want to hurt myself. I want to curl up in bed and fail to exist.

Why is there never a fix?

I'm officially defeated. Next week i'll get myself hooked up with social services so my mom doesn't have to pay for me, and i'm fucking done.

So, the first position (my #1 choice because it dealt with refugee resettlement) with AmeriCorps didn't pan out because I was a little too fervently anti-proselyte for their liking. I was offered another position (my #2 choice: working with at-risk youth) but it turned out to be a grant-writing position, and that's about as hands-off as I could possibly imagine. I had put the idea of AmeriCorps to bed and figured i'd transition back to buffalo in the spring maybe, or maybe even next fall.

Today I got an E-mail from the AmeriCorps woman telling me to expect a call to set up an interview with another Refugee Resettlement organization and my stomach is in knots. Now I might have to relocate on the fly. I want to leave Rochester and get away from the stress of my brother but I am terrified.

I guess i'm counting my chickens before the eggs are even laid, but I almost want to decline the offer before the offer is presented, just beccause i'm so opposed to change at this particular juncture.

I'm going to let the addict in me talk for a little bit, but then the part of me that wants to get well will pop in here and there, so this may sound disjointed.

I switched last week or maybe the week before that from Klonopin (2mg tabs prn) to Xanax Er (2mg tabs 2x/day.) That decision was very clearly made by the part of me that wants badly to recover, because xanax is 1/2 as potent as klonopin and has a lower street value. In addition, the extended release formula means it's harder to abuse (although we all know how to get around the ER formulas.)

For a while I thought this was an accomplishment. My shrink agreed to it and said that my reasoning was sound. I've only regretted the decision once or twice, and fleetingly each time.

But now i'm afraid of it. I'm prescribed 2 tabs a day, but i've only been taking one at bedtime. My reasons for this are twofold: first, the extended release means there will be a steady stream of the benzo in my body, and there were times I would go days without taking the Klonopin. I DO feel more calm, but some of that could be because I'm clean and holed up in my bedroom reading books all day long. Second, I'm a drug addict, and I hoard drugs. I told on myself at a meeting but there really isn't anything left TO do. I haven't upped the dose, nor have I discussed it with either one of my shrinks. I probably should.

I'm really scared that i'm going to be one of those addicts that doesn't recover. I've got 65 days clean but I just have this gnawing in the back of my mind. Beyond even just that urge to use...that gnawing that tells me it'll just be a fruitless endeavor. I didn't take my keytag this week because I had a negative week and even admitted that if I had to choose between picking up a neon green keytag or picking up, i'd pick up. I'll take it next week because I had an okay week and wasn't outright negative, but goddamn, this is the rest of my fucking life, and it will kill me unless I devote a hundred percent of myself to not letting that happen, and here I sit, 65 days later, still not entirely able to wrap my brain around the fact that there is no other way out. No loopholes here, no way to manipulate or wriggle my way free.

Even tonight, I found myself thinking 'well, if I hear from another addict and they want to pick up i'll take that as a sign that I should too and we'll do it.' That's flawed, bullshit behavior and I know better than that crap. I need to get back in the rooms and get more active and start working. I went from going to at least seven or eight meetings a week to maybe two. At 65 days, that's ridiculous.

Whatthefuck.

I have had what I've assumed to be a celiac's flare-up since wednesday or thursday of last week. I'm back on the GF wagon and being really strict about it, but i'm in a lot of pain. Since thursday, I have spent the majority of my day either in the bathtub letting the heat help relax me or doubled over in bed. A couple of minutes ago my chest started with the same aching pain. My purpose for writing this is threefold:
1. I don't have insurance so I need to be reminded that I can't afford to put myself in these situations and thus must be strict with my diet.
2. My refusal to go to doctors might actually someday seriously impact my health or my ability to stay alive.
3. (paramount) If I die in the middle of the night, somebody tell my mom that I didn't want to worry her by telling her about the sudden chest pain thing because ultimately i'd refuse to seek medical help because I don't do doctors, especially the type that touch me, and because we can't afford it. I knew she'd be up all night unable to sleep if I told her, so I took a calculated risk. Tell her I love her and that she's the best.

Oh, don't anybody go freaking out about this, either. It's likely just a bad celiac's flare and the fact that i've had major GERD symptoms and a possible ulcer for the past month is making everything more painful. It's no different than those times I accidentally took a double dose of my nighttime meds or a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon of a cough med. I just don't want my family wondering about these things.

When I was a little kid, my dad would sometimes let me be his typist. He was a stenographer, and he'd have to dictate his transcripts from steno to "english." He had a real typist, but if she was backed up or out of town, I got to play typist. As a result, I can touchtype and the other day, while helping Ana with a homework assignment, she asked if I would take a test on her Mavis Beacon typing software to see how fast I was. Depending on the subject, I type consistently between 70-80 words per minute.

I want a job right now, just right now where all I do is sit and do data entry. I know as a fact I can do better than the TV closed-captioners. I'm not ready yet to do reliable work with set hours, and my heart will always be with helping people, but maybe right now I could get lost in mindless typing.

My mom keeps showing me the state test openings for receptionist positions (state pension! Retirement! 401k!,) but i'd go mad. I can't sell myself out like that.

I just want somebody to hand me a stack of audiocassettes and say "I dictated these. Type them and I will pay you. I'll leave you alone for the entire day."

Too bad I think technology has sort of eliminated the need for that kind of data entry.

I have totally withdrawn from life. I don't answer my phone and I spend most of the day in bed. I go to the shrink once every ten days or so, and I read a lot.

I'm not going inpatient. That I have decided. Unless somebody can come up with an ultra-alternative wilderness program or something, I see no need because i'm already opposed to the idea.

I hate almost everything and I'm tired of being in Rochester but Buffalo holds nothing for me, either.

Wherever I go, Libby follows.

I had a remarkably good visit with my psychiatrist today. He's a good guy and I've been seeing him for years, but mostly we just meet every couplea months for fifteen minutes to talk about my meds and review my liver enzymes. Since I got clean, he's been seeing me every three weeks. I'm getting drug tested regularly (which is fucking costly when you don't have insurance, let me tell you. Fourty one dollars for each drug they test for, and I get a full chemical dependency tox screen. Amphetimines+Barbituates+Cocaine+Opiates+THC=$204.00 in addition to another $130.00 for venipuncture and liver enzymes and valproic acid level tests.) Today, after seven fucking weeks, I finally got my first completely negative results, so i'm back to passing drug tests.

I asked him about switching from my beloved klonopin to xanax er. As an addict, it was sort of a bittersweet decision. Klonopin is twice as strong as xanax, and the xanax er will deliver a smaller dose throughout the day, which is obviously less ideal from an addict's standpoint, but I felt it was a pretty responsible request, and he agreed. I took my first dose tonight, and I think I like it, at least at night time. I feel like I might be able to fall asleep in a reasonable amount of time, which would be a miracle. I'd be less surprised by stigmata at this point: crying tears or inexplicable holes in my hands, but i'd certainly welcome it. The sleep, not the stigmata.

My hair is locking up. I'm about 80% happy I made the commitment. I have some complaints. I have been blessed to never have to deal with dandruff, my whole life. Now that my scalp is no longer being brushed on a regular basis (or, actually, at all,) and now that I can no longer use conditioner of any kind, I do have a little bit of dandruff. I keep laughing because, although I have very coarse and curly hair, i've obviously never had any experience with weaves or cornrows or any more traditionally black hairstyles, and I see women at my meetings 'tapping' their weave and I think I can understand a bit. I can't really scratch the exact location of the itch anymore, so I have to tap now too. I can't wait till they thicken and tighten more. They'll get shorter too, as they continue to lock up, and then I can put a bead on one or two of them.

I am yawning and feeling deliciously tired, which bodes well for my evening, i'd say.

I loved Peter, Paul, and Mary as a child. I used to play 'Where Have All The Flowers Gone' for Rita all the time. My parents raised us on a lot of folk music, and I was saddened to hear of Mary Travers' passing.
I feel a twinge of guilt because, while watching a pete seeger documentary just the other night, I commented on how poorly she had aged.

I feel like any musician who leaves an indelible mark on the world should be granted immortality. I guess that's the beauty of music. We can sing along forever.

I haven't been doing so well these past few days. Sleeping around the clock again. The crazies are back in a biig way, and I want to isolate. This means that meetings aren't exactly my top priority.
Doctors are still pushing for a dual-diagnosis treatment program. I'm at the point where i'm willing to agree, if we can find the right one. I don't want a clinical program in a hospital. I want an alternative program, either holistic or wilderness-based, but I keep running into the same problems. Either they are outrageously expensive, religiously based, or geared toward the adolescent.

I'm just so tired. I don't want to do this anymore, but i'm not going to waste my time in a program that won't benefit me.

Tomorrow marks six weeks of cleantime for me. It's considerably more time than I originally imagined i'd be able to get this time around, but it still feels like an overwhelmingly trivial amount of time.
I still get nauseous from time to time and I have at least one debilitating migraine a week. I haven't suffered that many migraines in a long time, so there is a definite connection, but it could be easily explained as stress. I am very shaky still. My hands shake when I try to eat or drink or exercise any kind of fine-motor control. Nights are rough because i'm still not sleeping for more than three hours at a time, and then i'm awake for an hour or so, tossing and turning trying to fall back asleep. Maybe my biggest complaint of all is that my internal temperature seems to have changed. I still get the cold sweats, and other times i'm hot as balls. I bring a sweatshirt to most every meeting because fans blowing or air conditioning will set my teeth a-chattering. It's almost like when you're recovering from the flu how even the slightest temperature change feels drastic. I am eating antacids like candy, but that's the depakote's fault and as soon as I finish this script i'll switch back to the other formula.

All of that aside, i'm a lot better physically. I'm not throwing up or shitting my brains out, and i'm not sleeping for nineteen hour stretches.

I have been having crazy post-apocalyptic nightmares, and a lot of nightmares involving domestic terrorism, oddly enough. I've been reading voraciously, so that could have something to do with it.

I've run out of things to say. A rarity!

My mom's up my ass in a major way. I babysat yesterday and today so I have a tiny amount of money. Enough to buy myself a copy of the NA basic text and pay a portion of my phone bill. Nothing extravagant. I was supposed to sit from 11-4 today and at 4:40 I got a text from her wanting to know why I wasn't home. When I arrived home at 5:10 she was full of snippy comments about the fact that I can't be trusted and now I have money burning a hole in my pocket. I double up on meetings some days so that when I don't feel like going to meetings sometimes, I don't have to go. Ninety in ninety, you know? I went to two meetings on monday and two on wednesday; I did not feel guilty when I opted out of a meeting yesterday, and I won't feel guilty if I do it again today.

This is my fucking sobriety and my fucking program. Shouldn't matter to her how I do it, and a little bit of positive support instead of nasty suspicion would be nice.

I saw the kids today for the first time since I left to get clean. I was very nervous and as we got closer, my anxiety mounted. I was really afraid they wouldn't remember me or would be slow to warm up. I was afraid they'd be mad at me.

They weren't.

It was wonderful. I walked in and Rita looked at me, did a double take, pointed and laughed this wonderful laugh as if she were saying "There you are!". She Rita-ran towards me and hugged me and I held her and cried without making a sound. For about half an hour she kept her hand on my shoulder.

Henry, being younger, was a little slower to warm up, but within minutes was his old self: asking for my help to open a toy and singing along to songs with me.

We played all of our old games and sang songs and laughed and hugged.

Nora let me take Rita and put her down for a nap. She fell asleep while I sang her Baby Beluga and I kissed her and promised her i'd see her next week for G-Love's baptism. I told her she was the singlemost important person in my life, and that I promised I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize our relationship ever again.

G-Love is huge. He is smiley and coos and studies everything. He rolls over and has almost complete control over his neck.

I know that getting sober is only half the battle, because this is all just a huge cycle on repeat. This is my fifth attempt in the last thirteen years. I've spent almost all of my adult life addicted, which means I don't know how to handle things like a normal person. Especially because i've got the mental health issues I've always struggled with. I have absolutely no idea how to handle being uncomfortable or nervous or afraid or sad or angry or frustrated. I can handle being happy, I can handle being high. Anything other than that and i'm pretty unsure, or I absolutely FREAK, and that's the absolute truth. I can't just address the addiction issue, because it'll keep coming back unless I address the emotional and psychological stuff, but I have to learn how to handle feelings first. I'm stuck in early adolescence as far as knowing how to respond to and appropriately express what i'm feeling, because ever since, i've just drugged myself until I didn't need to worry about whatever it was, anyway.

I am having a hard time because there are a lot of people in NA and AA who have fucked their shit up and have endured serious emotional shit. I know it does no good to compare situations, but I hear stories and think "well, if he did it by attending meetings and getting a sponsor and a service position, why can't I?" Do I really need a more intensive program? I've spent the last thirty one days rubbing elbows with straight up former homeless drunks and junkies who miraculously escaped death and found their way into the program. What sets me apart? Why is my situation so much more dire? I know I have years of work ahead of me. I will have to work the rest of my life to stay ahead of this disease, and I know, in a years time, i'll have to start on some of the emotional and mental shit that keeps me running back to the drugs. But do I need to institutionalize myself?

Am I in denial? I really can't tell. But it sucks to have mental health professionals tell you they can't help you because there's too much going on all at once, and i've heard that more than once.

I'm having some anxiety tonight also because i'm going to the beach tomorrow. It'll be the first time i'll have seen anybody since the day everything went down. I get to see my babies tomorrow for the first time in thirty-three days. I am afraid they'll be shy with me and i'm afraid they'll have forgotten me. I know the adults are mad at me, and I don't blame them, but i'm also afraid it'll be awkward. I fucked shit up, really fucked shit up, and I know that there's going to be a lot of strained relationships for me to try to and patch. I just really hope they believe me when I tell them I was never EVER high around those kids. I love them more than I love life itself. Part of me gets so angry when I think about this being a disease. I know it is: I'm sure as hell not in control. I'm sick and it's gotten really serious and it WILL kill me. But Mitch Hedberg put it perfectly: "Alcoholism is a disease, but it's the only one you can get yelled at for having. Dammit otto, you're an alcoholic! Dammit otto, you have Lupus. One of those doesn't sound right."

I've been moping around all day. I had a 9am with my new psychologist who told me that it'd be best if I committed to about a year of treatment in a dual-diagnosis treatment program to take care of the drug stuff before we started any work on my existing stuff. That's an awfully large commitment, and I gotta say, as committed as I am to staying sober, I really truly can't say for certain that that is the best course of treatment for me at this point. I have no insurance so i'd be limited to strong or genesee and I really just don't want to do that again. I bounced after four days of the partial program last time because it was such a time waster and I felt like I got nothing out of it. I saw my psychiatrist later on in the afternoon and left feeling sort of crappy. He used to ask me about my drug use and i'd tell him the truth and he'd prescribe me my klonopin. I never abuse that medication because when I need it I really need it. Now I have to get tested before he'll write me each script, and the fact that I have no insurance means that's $125.00 each time. I failed this last one but I knew I would. Only positive for THC and it's cause I took the test three weeks into my sobriety. I'd probably still fail it today, because the prolonged heavy use will mean there's more in my fat cells than there would be for the average user.

I could see how much a residential program is and use my Y retirement money on it, but I don't really want to go away. It's so hard to tell how much of this is excuses and how much of this is me saying "dammit, i'm 31 days clean and I should have a little bit of input on how we handle this since it's my life."

But it's evident that I can't handle things when i'm in control, so here I sit.

At least my liver looks good. I was worried about that, too.

I absolutely understand the need to fully treat the chemical dependency stuff first, I'm just being a whiny baby I guess. Time takes time, and I don't want to only be a month into this. I have so much work ahead of me and i'm tired and unsure.

/rant, at least temporarily.

For the past few anniversaries, i've read I carry your heart with me by ee cummings on the anniversary of my dad's death. Something about it simultaneously helps me feel and eases the ache, if that makes any sense.

I'm sad. Really, really sad. I didn't think I would be, I didn't think it'd be a big deal, but I think with everything that's happened it's all just finally coming out. I want my kids, I want to hug them and tell them I love them and that i'm sorry that my actions have caused them pain. It's my dad, it's how hard i'm trying, it's my brain still reeling from all of the changes, it's my body doing the exact same. It's wanting so badly to undo what i've done but obviously only being able to move forward.

My mom told me last week that she was more afraid watching me detox than when she found out my dad had no chance of surviving. I put her through that. I remember how scary those days were and how much we cried and I did it to her again, and this time she had nobody. She broke her leg and was home alone and depressed and unable to care for herself and my selfish disease kept me in buffalo thinking it was okay to just call and check in every evening. I need a guide dog or something who'll bite me whenever I go to make the wrong choice, because what the fuck.

Anyway, my mom says when she realized I was in trouble, big trouble, this last time, she asked my dad to help me. I'm under her roof and nearing thirty days sober. My dad has been gone seven years and I miss him, but I think this is the first year that I can say and maybe even feel like it's okay to say that some days I don't think about him. Is that bad? I don't know. It probably just is. I can't judge my thoughts right now. For the last nine months i've kept myself so anesthetized that I can't tell you if that plays a role or not. I've never been a believer. I can tell you that our bodies decay but I think energy is a forever thing, and if in any way my dad helped me to get here, i'm really grateful.

I was thinking about Robert Hunter's Ode to Jerry. That's another one that gets me thinking about my dad. We were so lucky to be exposed to great music and my dad was so like jerry and even sounded like him a little when he'd sing. Obviously i'm waxing nostalgic here but still, that's another one I read today. These things get me feeling and today I think I needed to feel maybe.

I don't readily cry. I'm capable, i'm just not really a crier. I've cried a little here and there and the reality of not being able to see my babies is really starting to hurt. Like really hurt. I deserve it, I know. My actions caused it, and I know that and I know I have to redeem myself and i'm minute by minute getting sober so I can change my life.

Tonight i've cried a lot. I'm learning these days that I can't make plans because i'll fuck it up or life will intervene. I can do the next right thing i'm presented with and hope to grow a little every day.
My dad would not be proud of me today. He would be sad and scared and very, very angry at my disease for allowing me to abandon my mother the way I have this past year. My dad would love me though, and he would want me to continue going to meetings and I think, at least I hope, he would see that i'm genuinely putting forth effort this time. I have to get better because my dad didn't. He tried so hard to live, so hard. It would be so disrespectful for me to sit back and let this disease take me quietly. He was so afraid to die and leave his family, and all this time i've been putting myself in exactly that situation willingly.

Every day people are diagnosed with awful diseases that will require terrible treatments to give them even an outside chance of continuing to live. All I have to do is follow a program that's been set before me and be open and willing? To really commit to getting to a better place with my mental health, i'm gonna have to do a little bit of work, but people every day, just like my dad, are getting pumped full of poison and radioactivity so that they can watch their children grow or stay with their spouses or just watch the sun set another day.

Relapsing is saying ''fuck you, don't bother'' to everybody who fights to survive when the chips are down. My dad wanted to survive and looked at us with fear in his eyes when he realized that wasn't going to happen, and I sat for nine months (and before that for thirteen years) with incredible odds, allowing myself to get sicker and sicker.

Twelve step programs are notorious for their sayings and I thought yesterday if I heard one more person tell me to tie a knot and hold on I was going to scream, but today i've said it at least half a dozen times. I'm going to live, even if it's hard and scary and a little uncomfortable. Or a lot uncomfortable. My dad wanted to and couldn't. I have every opportunity, so I have no choice but to pony up.

Earlier in the week I was asked on a scale from one to ten how serious I was about getting clean this time. I said I couldn't lie, I wasn't a ten, but that I was a nine and a half. I'm a ten now. I may get itchy and I'm going to have to fight my brain but I just have to do what i'm told and I will be okay. If you told me today that I have cancer and am looking at six months to live, i'd be devastated. So i'm a ten. I'll treat this just like it's a cancer, and this is the treatment I have to put up with to save my life.

Without experiencing my father's death seven years ago tonight, I would not be able to have sat down and come to these (however convoluted) conclusions.

So thank you dad. Whether or not you brought me home to mom, you have helped me in ways immeasurable, and I carry your heart with me(I carry it in my heart)

I'm two weeks clean today. Still struggling, obviously, but things are starting to clear. I'll get overwhelmed about something and just try to remember that I can handle that another time. Right now, my focus is sobriety and right now, i'm sober. I've met a lot of fantastic people who have made me feel welcome, no questions asked.
I'm cautiously optimistic that I can make this happen, with help from people who know where i've been.

Still detoxing a bit. I slept about fifteen hours last night and then took a four hour nap before I finally made it to my meeting. I always walk out of my meeting with something to think about...whether it's a perspective i've never before considered or a new contact that I have something in common with.

It's funny because I have avoided 12-step programs like the plague since I was fourteen. Here I am, grateful that i've found a few that have been so welcoming.

There are worse things than sobriety. I grieved the loss of my one true friend the day I realized I had to be done with drugs and alcohol for good, but i'm only now starting to realize that my future is wide open. I want to get involved in this program and give back, once i've got some cleantime. I hope everyone feels as welcome as i've been made to feel these past few weeks.

There are really, really good people out there, and my experiences with them this week greatly outweigh the shitty people that hide in the shadows.

Two meetings, three bikerides, a hike with Laura and the dogs, and arguably the finest grilled cheese sandwich I have ever made. Yesterday I was not feeling so positive. Today's a different story.

I'm restless today. I went to my homegroup and from the get-go felt anxious, which I've yet to experience there. I had planned on heading to an NA meeting after my homegroup but ended up just coming home. Now I wish I had gone. I don't like knowing i've got the weekend ahead of me, even though my days are really all the same. I'll go to an earlier meeting tomorrow or maybe go to two. Laura and I are gonna walk the dogs, which'll be fun. I want to be back in Buffalo, but I don't have anywhere to live, so that presents a problem. I have to make some pretty big decisions soon.

I'm looking very seriously at living at one of the housing cooperatives. Had I made that decision the first time I might not be in that mess in the first place. I need to find some good meetings in buffalo and make sure I can an established support system.

blablablabla. My mom's talking about me in the next room, and her tone is not rainbows and sprinkles so I know i oughta lay low.

I went to two meetings today and felt really welcomed at both. The first is my 5:30 aa homegroup. I like it there. The second was a thursday na meeting literally a stone's throw from my mom's house. They were super nice too. I'm gonna make it a habit.

I think everybody's so welcoming because they all know how it feels to be new and scared and sick and afraid that they aren't going to actually be able to get clean. Maybe i'll make some sober friends, and I could definitely use some sober friends.

I'm still afraid about what'll happen when I return to buffalo, as i'll need to get a new homegroup and maybe a new sponsor if I end up getting one here in the meantime, but I think I can do this. I'm excited to be putting effort into this.

Every other time i've gotten clean it's been because i've had to. This time, it's because in the past seven months i've sufficiently scared the shit out of myself. I've been dopesick more times than I can recall, i've dopenodded and gone into functional blackouts, i've overdosed, messed with hard and heavy drugs that I SWORE i'd never touch, and i've gotten into big financial trouble. I bitch about the quality of life when I have no friends, but honestly where's the quality of life when i'm using?

I can get quality of life back, but only one of the roads'll lead me in that direction.
I'm trying not to dwell on anger and resentment towards my former roommate. Yes, she behaved in a very un-friendlike way and stabbed me square in the back. But had I been clean and sober, I could have stood tall and proven her a liar. She was lying, but how do you prove it with a pinnochio nose?

She's a sad soul and I wish her well. I hope someday she'll find the peace i've begun to seek for myself. I'm worrying about my shit right now and that's enough for today. I am nine days clean and sober, and the rest of my life to live.

Side note: I promise I won't turn into an NA proselyte and preach about my higher power. I'm a humanist. Humanity is my higher power. My kids are my higher power. My dog is my higher power. You can be my higher power, as long as your intentions are good.

Nights are way too hard.
I want a reverse partial program. I've got the daytime under control, but when i'm six days sober and my body doesn't know the meaning of sleep and the whole world's disappeared and gone quiet, i'd like someone to tell me what to do.

FUCK

My bike's in buffalo and my brother just told me that the bike he was gonna hook me up with here needs more than just pedals, so I can't even go for a middle of the night bikeride. I really am actually stuck.

Nights are hard. I'll get a text or two from someone pretending to be my friend but really looking to score, and that'll start me thinking. I wish there were midnight meetings. I don't sleep until I take my seroquel so all I do is fidget and panic and pace.
No fun. How quickly everything fell apart, but not really. I saw it allll unravel before my eyes.

I have to find a place to live in buffalo, and needing it to be a sober living situation is going to make it that much harder now.

Okay so now that i've taken a seroquel, a bath, and calmed myself a little...lemme backtrack.

This is my fault. I am responsible. This is my doing. I am the maker of my own discontent.

I never should have continued living with her, but I knew that and did it anyway.
I never should have touched the drugs, but I knew that and did it anyway.
Even after I touched the drugs, I never should have touched the adderall or the coke. But I knew that, and I did it anyway.
I never should have started spending hundreds a week on drugs, but I knew that and did it anyway.
I never should have started mixing. Leopards don't change their spots.

Nobody's fault but mine. You play with dirt, you get dirty. I was playing with the worst kind of dirt, and this is the price I pay.
I'm gonna recover but I can't keep going through this.
I have to make changes that stick.

I'm going to let myself be sick a little while longer. Cause I really am sick. My body still isn't digesting food, i'm heavy-lidded and dizzy, I have no equilibrium, and i'm exhausted all the time. I'm making small outings and getting out of bed little by little. Once I get my strength back I gotta start walking the dog. And biking. I'm not going to make any progress getting healthier unless I take control and help my metabolism and energy levels get back to where they need to be.

I gotta make sober friends. This is going to be the hardest, but i'll figure it out.

What do you do when it's nearing one in the morning, you've got the itch and your only friend in the program is unavailable because he's a normal human being and normal human beings sleep at one in the morning?
I don't know what to do. I thought I was done crying. I thought I had accepted that Rochester is my temporary home and that I have some work to do before I can return to Buffalo. I was so fucking wrong. I just want to lay in bed and sob and sob.
I have to feel now. I have to feel sad and scared and ashamed and these are not things i'm okay with feeling and that's why i've used drugs for the past thirteen years. I don't know what to do at one in the morning. My shrink is on vacation for two weeks, my mom is so upset about my latest "relapse" that she spent all of yesterday vomiting (not to mention the fact that she had to pay my landlord two grand to get me out of my lease..) and my brother won't talk to me. I am in rochester so even if I were to get lucky and have a friend still be awake, they'll be in buffalo and under the influence.
I am homeless. I am jobless. I am more scared than I ever have been before, and yet right now all I want to do is use.
What the fuck is wrong with me?

On the plus side, my face has cleared up. The itching from the opiates left me pretty scabbed and then I picked like I had methbugs. That's not really a plus though. Whatever, I can deal with being sober; I just want to be six months out. I want to find a homegroup and start making sober friends. Everything is complicated by my mental health.

I miss buffalo. I am afraid to go out here because i'll run into someone I know. I love buffalo. I have nothing to return to.

I've applied to a few things. Mostly I need to go. I want to go go go go go. I need a commune, an intentional living community, a farm, a study abroad situation, something. But i'm not stable enough yet. So what now?

My body still hasn't managed digesting food without drugs. I'm shitting my brains out which is a blast.

This'll be the last time I get sober. I'm going to let it kill me next time, mark my words.

I know I owe a proper update, but for now, a quickie.

My dog deserves a shrine. Since i've been home she hasn't left my side. I've slept for nineteen hour stretches and she won't leave me. I go shit my brains out and she's by the bathroom door. I sit staring aimlessly and there she is. How did I get so lucky? She has taken such remarkable care of me, without saying a word or delivering a thing. She just sidles up alongside me and breathes with me and I know i'll get through it.

So I don't know when last I updated...I guess i'll assume it was when I was first switching meds? We moved into our new place and I noticed I was pretty withdrawn. I sat on the roof outside my window or laid in bed and that was pretty much it. I called my shrink after a bit because i'd wake up unhappy, and that's not me, at all. He upped my cymbalta to 60 and decided to keep me at 150 of the effexor to see how that would work. For a couple of weeks, it worked really well. I think I need to tweak it again because I see myself cycling really rapidly. Typically i'm a pretty happy person. I'd say i'm more content and easygoing than the average bear, actually. Not at the moment though. Little things irritate me and before I know it i've worked myself into a frenzy and want to set myself on fire for really no reason.

Tomorrow's my dad's birthday. I think that probably explains why I stayed in bed until after four today and have had a sinking feeling in my stomach. We'll see how the day goes; I may go to the cemetary or I may just chill and do my thing. Maybe i'll take D to the dog park. It's an odd thing to not know you're experiencing an emotion until you identify the trigger, but nonetheless here we are.

It's odd, switching meds. I see the potential to find a better combination, and that's why i'll give it another month or so before I switch back to the effexor. It's difficult to be medicated mostly for my anxiety and have to deal with side effects from the medications and medication adjustments that cause me to be depressed and self-destructive.

If there was a guarantee with deep brain stimulation that i'd be cured i'd probably let them cut my skull open and stick probes in my brain while I was conscious. There's not a whole lot of quality of life when things go haywire, and who knows what the long-term data looks like for people like me.

Spent some quality time with G-love up at the beach this weekend. My big babies, too. I really hope the weather holds for tomorrow because I could benefit from another nice day on the beach with my kids.

Things have been hectic. i'm doing better with the med switch, but things only started improving once i decided to stay at one fifty of effexor and up my cymbalta to sixty. i love the new place and our neighborhood is fun as hell.

I'm up entirely too late. I feel like my interpersonal communication has improved drastically between having to take communication in helping relationships and sharing close quarters with another strong personality. I'm able to talk to people who are on the defensive or frustrated or talking about a delicate subject better, and that's helped a lot with keeping the peace in my living environment. I've also improved a whole lot in being able to communicate effectively when feeling angry or upset, which I think is a HUGE asset.

I had a go-around with the pharmacy tech at my pharmacy today. My shrink switched me from depakote ER to the immediate release version, both to save me some money and to see if the immediate release would help me feel sleepy at night. The tech filled it as depakote ER. I called and asked and she told me that because the doctor wants me to take the entire fifteen hundred milligrams at once and consequently wrote it that way on my script, she HAS to fill it with the ER version because the FDA hasn't approved taking the medication that way. I tried to explain to her that my dosing is off-label sort of and that my DOCTOR wrote it that way because there would be therapeutic benefit in taking it that way, and she honestly would not back down, insisting that she couldn't fill it that way, so I have to wait for the doctor to straighten it all out. I'm gonna look like an ass if it actually turns out to be legit and she caught some kind of error, but i'm feeling pretty confident that she just can't understand what my doctor is intending.

A man just walked down my street saying 'motherfucker what you lookin at motherfuckin damn skateboard' and then got in his car in the lot across from my house and drove, in reverse, through the lawn and almost into a car parked in the street and a fire hydrant before driving away. And now when I stick my head out the window it smells like my brother's bedroom, which smells like completely-wasted drunk. This is why allentown is amazing. That's the part of allentown i'll miss. The bubbleman, the drunks, the eccentrics.

Starting tomorrow, i'm tapering off the effexor.
This has been my biggest fear for the past five years, but it's time. I'll be titrating onto cymbalta at the same time, so hopefully that'll help with the withdrawal. Unfortunately, i'm also moving right in the midst of all of it, so it may be a rocky month for me. I don't know what else to say about it, really. I trust my shrink and i'm gonna give it a try. The cymbalta is WAY cheaper, so my medication costs every month are going to decrease significantly, which is a pleasant bonus.

We have a trampoline and a hot tub at my new house. To say i'm excited is an understatement. It's been difficult to sleep. We should be in by next weekend.

G-Love!