#everywhere I’ve tried has been a no so I messaged my primary care doctor and asked him cause he originally treated my mental health

[raeathnos]

.

[sailorsilverladybug]

Now that it's all over, I wanted to let you in on the past couple of weeks of my life. It's been rather stressful and hectic, and some of it rather frightening, so please bear with me. I doubt this is a surprise to any of you, but we are living in the middle of a pandemic.

Unfortunately, it is not under control. Not even close. And while I won't go into politics in this venue, I will say that I am both angry with how this has been handled in my country, and afraid of what the future will bring.

So, here goes. Last week my sister-in-law convinced me to go with her into one of the nearby cities to shop and go to a local casino (which practices social distancing and refuses entry to anyone not wearing a mask). We had been out before, and I needed things for the house, so I went. And I had a blast. We had a lot of fun and just got to hang out and spend time doing girl things.

But this past Friday, the 14th, around mid-morning, I started feeling ill. I had a headache that was nothing like my migraines or a stress headache. It centered just behind my eyes. I started to have a runny nose and felt strangely out of touch with my surroundings. Worse, I started having trouble breathing. I told my husband, who called his work and warned them he might be infected. Then we started calling the local hospital to find out about testing.

We registered to get tested. The woman who registered us said there would be a sign on the side of the primary care physician's office that we should call when we got there Monday. Because we live in a tiny rural town, the hospital only does testing between 9:00 and 12:30, Monday through Friday.

We had to wait until Monday to get tested. An entire weekend, wondering if I was going to get sicker and sicker. With my pre-existing conditions I was sure if I had Covid-19, it would be a death sentence.

Added on top of that, my husband totally lost it when I tried to talk to him about my wishes if something happened to me. He absolutely refused to listen and for a moment I thought he was going to throw himself on the ground and throw a real fit like our son did once when he was small. So, I started putting everything in order, just in case. I spent most of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday putting together my own memorial service, just in case. I made written notes to doctors and made sure our life insurance was all set.

All of this took an even bigger toll on me than the continued headache and the congestion. Then, probably because of stress, I started feeling sick to my stomach. It wasn't pleasant. The stress got so overwhelming, and nothing wanted to go right, and I was just ready to tear my hair out and run down the street screaming. That would have been a rather embarrassing arrest, so I'm glad I had some self-control.

While we were waiting for the testing to start, I worked for several hours to put together a back-tracing list that had everywhere I had been for the last three weeks, where my husband had been, and even the places I knew my sister-in-law had gone. Then, on Monday morning, at just before eight, Steve and I left to go and get tested. Since we were afraid of exposing anyone else, we walked (and I walked up a very big hill almost completely without help!)

By this point, I firmly believed I didn't have Covid-19, but I wasn't about to take chances with anyone else's health and safety. So we got to the hospital, saw the sign on the side of the primary care physician's building, and made the call that we were there... except, we hadn't found the right sign. The one we were reading was the one ON the side of the building. Not AT the side of the building. So, after my husband discovered our mistake (forty minutes on hold later), we called the second number and waited for a response.

Now, I'll be honest here... by this time, I was hot, tired, afraid, and just plain mad. I held it together, but I'm pretty sure my diatribe on anyone refusing to wear masks was heard ten miles away. By the end of my rant, both the others waiting in their cars to be tested had rolled up their windows (it went on for a REALLY long time).

Then a nice gentleman came out. I turned to my husband in a panic and made him promise he wouldn't let me bite the poor guy (which is a tendency I have when I am in extreme pain and a doctor gets too close). He walked us through what would happen and I asked if he would let my husband hold my head, partly to avoid biting him, and partly because Steve just makes me feel better. The man agreed, Steve leaned my head against his chest, and I sat on my walker and waited with my eyes closed for the torture to begin.

I'll be honest, while it totally sucked, it wasn't quite as bad as I had made it in my head. It felt like he was trying to tickle my brain, and I think I begged him to stop and said "oh S***" A LOT, but in spite of the discomfort, I survived it. Watching Steve go through it a minute later was almost worse, because I knew how much it sucked. He had his hands fisted and was shaking the whole time. He was stoic about it, but afterwards, when I made the quip about tickling the brain, he said "more like drilling," and just shook his head.

The gentleman we had been speaking to (I call him a gentleman because he was incredibly kind and gentle) said we might have our results as early as today, which was both a surprise and a blessing, because without Steve going back to work, we weren't sure how we would even manage to get food next week, let alone pay our rent, electric, and other bills, or set money aside for winter heating.

We were on our way back when my sister-in-law (Steve's brother's wife) drove past. She yelled at us to stay where we were, and we did, because we were friggin' exhausted by this point. She picked us up and drove us home after taking her own test about ten minutes later.

So, we waited. Now, I'll be honest. By this point I was about 98% sure that none of us had Covid-19, but we didn't take chances. Steve works in a grocery store. Sometimes he is stocking shelves, sometimes running a register, and sometimes he is out at the fuel island (the store gas station) pumping gas for people, and taking their money. So we knew if he went to work he could expose a LOT of people. We were very careful.

At 9:00 on the dot this morning I received the phone call telling me that I was Covid-19 negative! I bounced in my seat through the whole call. She didn't have Steve's results yet, so we waited. Around eleven, my sister in-law got her results. And then around one Steve got his. None of us are infected, thankfully. Steve called his work and let them know he is free to return (not a moment too soon) and will be going back tomorrow.

In the meantime, all the things we couldn't do because we had to self-isolate need to be taken care of, including several errands like getting dog food. So he has been rushing around getting things done all afternoon. Then I sat down and started writing, because that is just how I process things. I put on some music and just let my fingers fly over the keyboard.

My week sort of sucked, but the bright side is, I don't have Covid-19. Now that you know that, it's time I got into a subject that has really been bothering me. If you don't want to read further, you don't have to, but I really wish you would, and that you would spread the message along.

Every single person who chooses to wear a mask in spite of the annoyance it causes, is a hero to me. Every one of you who has gone without going to the club, who hasn't been going to church, who hasn't done any of the other things that happen in big groups. All of you who have been frustrated, but who know that your actions can either protect or harm other people... You are all heroes. You make a difference. Just as much as necessary workers. Just as much as doctors and nurses. You are heroes.

For those of you who don't wear masks, social distance, or use proper protection procedures, I am begging you, don't let this disease take away what you hold dear. Be safe, be smart. Listen to the doctors and nurses. Listen to the people begging you to wear a mask. Don't put yourself (or your loved ones) through what I just experienced.

Each time you get out of your car to go in a store, put a fresh mask on. Each time you touch something that has been touched by other people, use hand sanitizer. Stay at LEAST six feet apart. Wash your hands constantly, and thoroughly, for at least 20 seconds. Avoid touching your face (or the outside of your used masks!) and be very careful.

You don't want to go through the worry and the fear that you might have been exposed. But more than that, you don't want to be worried that you gave Covid-19 to someone you love. Please, be careful, be kind, and be safe. I don't want to lose you from this world. Every single one of us is special and has a purpose. Don't let your light go out. Take care of yourselves, and the rest of us.

Now, I'm going to climb off my soap-box and go do something completely unrelated to death and dying for a few hours. I might play a video game, or write a funny story. I might blast some music and sing off-key (loudly). Who knows. All I know is, I've had enough of fear and death to last a lifetime.

I wish you all well. God bless you.

Tori

Sailor Silver Ladybug

[workingontravel]

Different places for different parts of me

(You can find this text in Swedish here.) Ofelia Jarl Ortega has for many years been part of dance contexts where I’ve also been moving. For a while, we toured with the same show in a group of twenty dancers, which is one of my strongest experiences of travelling internationally for performing arts. Ofelia has travelled a lot more than I have in this way: in many different roles and contexts. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to her. Another reason is her artistic interest in how identities transform through relationships and gazes. I think this interest gives her a specific perspective on how travelling organises intimacies and the other way around. This perspective on travelling that is Ofelia’s touches on both loneliness and togetherness, disorientation and belonging. Ofelia Jarl Ortega: My travelling started with working as a dancer and choreographer. I moved to Stockholm from Malmö to attend a ballet school when I was seventeen. In my twenties, I started working and travelling more and more. I now work with dance in dance contexts, with dance in music contexts, and with music in various contexts. I work in many more places than Sweden. For instance, I got a lot of gigs, appreciation, residencies and money in Berlin, Vienna and Switzerland.

I myself also create conditions to travel and work abroad by getting in touch with people there. I want to be where I feel a sense of belonging, both socially and workwise. Then I return here so I don’t lose Stockholm altogether. For example, I’ll attempt to spend more time at the new art and dance platform höjden, where the separatist dance organisation Insister Space is also based, so that I don’t always have to go away to come to my community. I try to make it clearer for everyone that I live here, that this is my base. Travelling a lot makes me tired. The last times I travelled, I had to talk on the phone all the way to the airport, to have the energy to get on a plane again. But I wouldn’t ever refrain from planning a trip just because the feeling of going away can be difficult. It’s not all bad being in another place. On the contrary, I really enjoy it. I travel between one and five times a month and I’m away between three and twenty days every time, to do gigs or longer residencies. I also have several partners living in Europe. I visit them regularly. I’ve met them through work-related stays, residencies or festivals. They also travel a lot and have jobs similar to mine. I have tried to organise my work so that I can meet them more. We’ve also tried working together, but that isn’t as fun. Polyamory and travel interconnect for me, but not in the sense that one follows on the other. I was polyamorous even before I began travelling this much. But it is nice having these specific relationships in different cities, for example, because there’s less friction with other partners. And we do completely different things when we meet, partly because the context around us is not the same. It’s like I have different places for different parts of me with them. If all my partners lived in Stockholm, everything would bein another way and maybe it wouldn’t have been as difficult and sacred to meet. But I don’t know if I would be capable of having three intense relationships so close to me at the same time. Right now, it’s in phases, and that works fairly well for me.

When I’m not at home I don’t have the same contact with friends, partly because they also go away quite often. Many of them work with approximately the same things as I do. You have to make sure to keep in touch then. Most people don’t. Many don’t even answer text messages. If you take turns travelling and miss out on the two days when you could have met, it can be tricky to feel close after six months. I think I’m good at keeping in touch, and it’s very important for me to do that. I’ve often had more than one love relationship and I know how important it is to take care in order to keep things going at a distance. I know where my friends are and what they’re doing. I call everyone in my family. I become the spider in the web, keeping track of everything. And that feels good, but it can also be a drag, when no one calls me or knows where I am. People stop contacting me because I’m away. I don’t get invited to things because people don’t count on me being in town. Everyone goes like, ”Do you live in Malmö? Or Berlin?” I haven’t lived in Malmö for twelve years. When I’ve been gone for long enough, I don’t know any more what is there, how to find the way to a certain bar or restaurant. I forget which underground station comes after which. I get the feeling: Shit, is this my home? I met an acquaintance at a show. We started talking about being sad when you come home and don’t feel at home. She said it was like that for her too. So, I’m not alone in these feelings, but it’s very rare for me to talk about them with others. I wish I could talk about it and handle it with my friends. That we don’t is probably because travel is such a huge obstacle in our friendships. It’s too sensitive, more sensitive than with someone you don’t know.

There is also a charm and freedom in coming to a new place where you have sporadic friends and relationships, someone you might not meet again for half a year. Maybe you gig together one night, or hang out for three weeks at a festival and have a great time together. You can be free from the expectations back home. It grows into a superficially close friendship: you confide in each other and hang out for days. Then maybe you happen to touch on a subject where you go, like: Right, we don’t share the same values at all.

Since I travel for work, it means I always work when I’m travelling, even if I’m at a party, for instance. I talk about my work, I say hello, I establish new contacts. I enjoy meeting new people, asking people what they do and telling others what I do. I like running around at festivals, mingling. This is nothing I have to force myself to do; it’s just there. In that respect, travelling is quite pleasurable for me.

Flying is my primary means of transport, sadly. It takes three hours to fly to Switzerland. It takes really long to go by train from Stockholm, because it’s so far north. Without airplanes, I would have to move to Brussels or Paris. This is something I’m already considering, though, because it would be convenient to be able to go by train everywhere, and I have friends there as well.

Once, I was on my way to move to PAF (Performing Arts Forum) in France. I brought a big bag and was supposed to stay there for at least six months. After a week, I got a phone call about a job in Berlin. So, I packed a small bag from the big bag and left my stuff in the PAF attic and said I would be back in a month. That month became six months. I took off on other travels: Berlin, Vienna, Stockholm. I went back when the period I was supposed to live at PAF was over, to pick up the big bag.

Another story that is very telling starts with one of my partners getting scabies and infesting her boyfriend, her best friend and me. Her boyfriend went to a big dance festival in Vienna. People there hang out in mosh piles all the time and are very physical with each other, which is typical for dancers. You know this precarious working situation, everyone travels, it’s summer, everyone shares beds, everyone sleeps with everyone, everyone has more than one partner… the risk that it would spread was enormous. I myself went to Berlin and slept in the bed of a friend, he got scabies too. And then he went to Vienna, and so on. We were travelling like crazy all over the place.

We got itches and met a thousand doctors who couldn’t believe we had scabies. I think it’s because it’s so associated with being a social outcast. It’s shameful, somehow. But it’s bugs eating our bodies; they don’t care who we are. Finally, we found out what it was and could get a treatment. But then the others who got it through us refused to understand that they also needed to get a treatment, so we got infested again, and had to go through the treatment again.

I heard rumours three weeks later that everyone at that festival that summer got scabies, and I laughed so hard since I knew we had all infested each other by travelling. Practically everyone on that scene must have had it on some occasion before this outbreak, but no one dares to mention it.

I’m very dependent on the international travel for my life to work out financially. My dance job is my only source of income. You have to play it cool. When you have zero in your account and no work you get a grant or something. But now, for the first time, I can pay myself half a salary, 9,000 SEK after taxes, via the cooperative production house that I’m working with. I have this monthly salary five months ahead, but if I keep on at this pace it could hopefully stay on for longer and maybe get a full salary.

I realise it’s absurd: Five months is no security. It’s the same with housing. Yay, now I have a place to stay in Stockholm for another six months, then I have to leave. My contract is renewed for six month at the time. Soon I’ve been living there for two years, but I can’t stay there forever, because I’m subletting. My life is not super sustainable, but it’s getting better and better. You have to be a pro to get by on so little. Everything except work has to stand aside constantly. The goal is to continue doing what I want and get money for it so that I don’t have to live with this insecurity. I’ve tried out a lot of things, worked short-term and sporadically, put energy into things that didn’t give much back. Now I long to be able to work for longer on one thing, to work with only one thing for a full year, to have time, not having to say yes to something just because I need the money. I already stopped doing that, actually. It has to feel right, otherwise it’s not worth flying for four hours and having a stomach ache.

When I go away, I live in residency apartments or with friends, but I actually don’t like staying with friends. It’s one thing living with your partner. That’s almost like being at home. But I’m not that comfortable in the private sphere, and staying with people you work with can be hard. Sometimes, I pay for a hotel room even though I can’t afford it. For example, I went to a festival in Switzerland recently. I didn’t get the travel grant I had applied for, so I paid my own trip since I also wanted to be there for strategic reasons. I got offered to stay at the home of an artistic director, but it felt too intimate. If I’m there to show my piece at that theatre, I don’t want to sleep in his guest room. It felt good staying in a hotel instead. It was worth it even though I was broke afterwards and Switzerland is dead expensive. For the same reason I never take the bus to the airport. Instead I have a punch-ticket for the Arlanda Express, the world’s most expensive transportation. It feels horrible: It’s like having a punch-ticket for the plane. But I can’t travel without it because I wouldn’t ever get going. I also put money on more expensive plane fares. Before, I had to book economy airlines and early morning flights. Now I can or have to choose not to. Otherwise, I can’t travel.

My dream travelling would be to spread it out a bit more: travelling less often, but staying longer in one place. I like to be in different rooms and contexts. The work looks so different in different cities. People don’t work the same, neither ethically nor aesthetically. I wouldn’t change that for having everything in the same place, in the same way.

[alexdmorgan30]

Ring of Shame: How Getting Ringworm Triggered My Alcoholism

So one day I see this pink round patch on my forearm. It itches. I immediately start Googling eczema and psoriasis. Nope, looks nothing like that. But it does have that distinctive red ring so I look up pictures of ringworm and voila, there it is, my new friend.When I was smoking meth and shooting cocaine, I never got sick. I never got staph or scabies despite lying around with a bunch of gutter punks. But at six years sober, out of nowhere, I get ringworm. I don’t deal with children. Colonel Puff Puff, my cat, doesn’t have it. What the fuck is going on?Despite its grotesque and misleading name, it has nothing to do with worms. Ringworm is a type of skin fungus akin to athlete’s foot and jock itch. Trying to make light of the situation, I tweeted: “I was super depressed and smoking again but suddenly I got ringworm and that cheered me right up.” I was hit with a bunch of questions like “Is that the one that makes you skinny?”No dear, that’s a tapeworm, but thanks for the concern.I’d heard ringworm was very contagious so I went straight to urgent care where they confirmed it was indeed ringworm. I was prescribed a cream that burned like the fires of damnation and told to “keep it covered” at night to protect the Colonel. (When the Colonel last got ringworm, it cost $2,500 for multiple lyme dips, shavings, and numerous vet visits to get rid of it. It's a persistent motherfucker.)I went to the pharmacy, pulled up my sleeve, and told the pharmacist I had ringworm. “I don’t know how I got it,” I said, annoyed.The pharmacist pulled up the leg of her capri pants and said, “I got it working here! I was really stressed out because I was getting married and my mom had a stroke and boom.”We both laughed and then I took my supplies home, hopeful things would soon return to normal.Once I informed my friends of my condition, nobody would touch me. Friends and neighbors wouldn’t come into my apartment nor let me into theirs. “We love you and your ringworm,” they’d chant from the other side of the door. I was beginning to feel very leper-like even though it was one fucking red ring. My sponsor told me I could still go to meetings but I didn’t want to take the chance of giving it to anybody…(except maybe a few specific people).Two nights after following the urgent care doc’s protocol, the ringworm seemed to be getting worse. I saw a new circle sprouting up and there was a clear red rectangular demarcation from the band-aid. Kill me.Panicked that I would soon be a walking petri dish of ringworm, I went to my primary care clinic as a walk-in patient. This clinic treats a lot of homeless people and has quite a few tents parked permanently outside with adjacent grocery carts packed with stuffed animals and recyclables and blankets. People are allowed to shower in the downstairs bathroom and it often gets crowded in the waiting area. But once I told the receptionist of my “condition,” I was quickly escorted to an empty room and quarantined. Four long hours I sat in that room, my phone dying, sneaking out to smoke and feeling more and more depleted and well, just gross. A triage nurse came in briefly and told me that the urgent care doctor had made a huge error by telling me to cover the ringworm. It had created a tiny greenhouse, capturing the moisture and providing the perfect breeding ground for the ringworm to reproduce. Perfect.Finally, I was taken to another area to see a doctor. As I waited, I looked at the white cabinets. Two were locked. Where were the syringes, I wondered. Wait, what? An enormous urge to use had come over me. I wanted to get high, call my ex, die…. It’s just ringworm, I tried to tell myself. Calm down. Why the sudden impulse to use? “You’re disgusting and poor and getting old and nobody loves you,” my head said. Thankfully interrupting my horrible inner dialogue, the doctor, a big ruddy guy in his mid-30’s who looked like an ex-linebacker, came in and shook my hand. I cringed inside.“I hear you have a rash,” he said.“I have ringworm,” I corrected him, hanging my head in shame.“Okay, let’s take a look.” He put on gloves initially but then took them off.“You have one ringworm,” he said. “The rest of the redness and that other circle is contact dermatitis from the bandage. You’re allergic to something in that bandage.” He touched the irritated area with an ungloved hand.“Oh.” I was near tears.“I’m going to give you another cream and just wear long sleeves if your cat sleeps with you. Better yet, take him to the vet to get him checked out. This stuff is everywhere. It’s really a reaction to your own flora. Do you do yoga?”“No.”“It’s very common among wrestlers because of the mats and sweat and body contact.”“No wrestling and unfortunately no body contact.”“You could have gotten it anywhere. If your immune system is compromised from stress or HIV or chemotherapy…”“Stress is my hobby these days,” I said. “Everything feels itchy, doc, like especially my head.”“Do you want me to check your scalp?” “Please.”I took down my bun and into my dirty hair he plunged with bare hands. I felt ashamed but grateful that somebody was touching me.“You’re good,” he said.“Thank you for making me feel like a human being. Really…”He smiled.But as I drove to the pharmacy, I still felt depressed and still felt like using. Why? The answer, as usual, came in a phone call from my friend, addictionologist and psychiatrist Dr. Howard Wetsman.“I understand people being scared about the ringworm because of its name and reputation. But what you’re experiencing is being shunned and isolated. People are treating you like your presence can hurt them. Even medical people are treating you like a second-class citizen. Is this really about a skin fungus or is this reminding you of what it’s like to be a person with addiction?” he asked.Whoa. “When we’re isolated or feel ‘less than,’ the dopamine receptors in the reward center actually stop being available. You can’t feel your own dopamine as well as before. We need those receptors to keep up dopamine tone, and without that we’re back to feeling restless, irritable, and discontented. And that only goes to one place, right?”“Yeah I really wanted to use and it freaked me out.”“When you’re an addict and your dopamine tone is lowered, your brain goes ‘we gotta fix this fast.’ It doesn’t care if it’s an éclair or heroin or death…”“That’s why I’ve been smoking…”“Nicotine will give you dopamine for sure. But let’s talk bigger picture. When we go to treatment and we’re told to sit down and shut up, when we’re treated like stupid people who abused a substance that everyone else was smart enough to stay away from, when we’re told to wait three hours sitting on broken plastic chairs for someone who doesn’t give a shit, the deck is stacked against the treatment working. No healthcare system that systematically lowers people’s dopamine, much less one that treats addiction, will succeed,” he told me.“It’s the same in the rooms,” he continued. “The reason the 12 steps work is because you don’t have to feel ‘better than’ to not be ‘less than.’ The two messages you should get from an AA meeting are that you are never alone again and you aren’t less than anyone. But when people don’t sponsor with love, when some old-timer wants to be the boss, when it’s all about some guy with more time being right instead of helping, you lose those messages. That’s not a problem with the message; that’s a problem with the messenger. Don’t let the messenger fuck up the message. You aren’t less than anyone!”I sign every copy of My Fair Junkie with “fuck shame” and I don’t think I really knew why until just now. For more on dopamine and feeling "less than," check out Dr. Wetsman's youtube talk.

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[pitz182]

Ring of Shame: How Getting Ringworm Triggered My Alcoholism

So one day I see this pink round patch on my forearm. It itches. I immediately start Googling eczema and psoriasis. Nope, looks nothing like that. But it does have that distinctive red ring so I look up pictures of ringworm and voila, there it is, my new friend.When I was smoking meth and shooting cocaine, I never got sick. I never got staph or scabies despite lying around with a bunch of gutter punks. But at six years sober, out of nowhere, I get ringworm. I don’t deal with children. Colonel Puff Puff, my cat, doesn’t have it. What the fuck is going on?Despite its grotesque and misleading name, it has nothing to do with worms. Ringworm is a type of skin fungus akin to athlete’s foot and jock itch. Trying to make light of the situation, I tweeted: “I was super depressed and smoking again but suddenly I got ringworm and that cheered me right up.” I was hit with a bunch of questions like “Is that the one that makes you skinny?”No dear, that’s a tapeworm, but thanks for the concern.I’d heard ringworm was very contagious so I went straight to urgent care where they confirmed it was indeed ringworm. I was prescribed a cream that burned like the fires of damnation and told to “keep it covered” at night to protect the Colonel. (When the Colonel last got ringworm, it cost $2,500 for multiple lyme dips, shavings, and numerous vet visits to get rid of it. It's a persistent motherfucker.)I went to the pharmacy, pulled up my sleeve, and told the pharmacist I had ringworm. “I don’t know how I got it,” I said, annoyed.The pharmacist pulled up the leg of her capri pants and said, “I got it working here! I was really stressed out because I was getting married and my mom had a stroke and boom.”We both laughed and then I took my supplies home, hopeful things would soon return to normal.Once I informed my friends of my condition, nobody would touch me. Friends and neighbors wouldn’t come into my apartment nor let me into theirs. “We love you and your ringworm,” they’d chant from the other side of the door. I was beginning to feel very leper-like even though it was one fucking red ring. My sponsor told me I could still go to meetings but I didn’t want to take the chance of giving it to anybody…(except maybe a few specific people).Two nights after following the urgent care doc’s protocol, the ringworm seemed to be getting worse. I saw a new circle sprouting up and there was a clear red rectangular demarcation from the band-aid. Kill me.Panicked that I would soon be a walking petri dish of ringworm, I went to my primary care clinic as a walk-in patient. This clinic treats a lot of homeless people and has quite a few tents parked permanently outside with adjacent grocery carts packed with stuffed animals and recyclables and blankets. People are allowed to shower in the downstairs bathroom and it often gets crowded in the waiting area. But once I told the receptionist of my “condition,” I was quickly escorted to an empty room and quarantined. Four long hours I sat in that room, my phone dying, sneaking out to smoke and feeling more and more depleted and well, just gross. A triage nurse came in briefly and told me that the urgent care doctor had made a huge error by telling me to cover the ringworm. It had created a tiny greenhouse, capturing the moisture and providing the perfect breeding ground for the ringworm to reproduce. Perfect.Finally, I was taken to another area to see a doctor. As I waited, I looked at the white cabinets. Two were locked. Where were the syringes, I wondered. Wait, what? An enormous urge to use had come over me. I wanted to get high, call my ex, die…. It’s just ringworm, I tried to tell myself. Calm down. Why the sudden impulse to use? “You’re disgusting and poor and getting old and nobody loves you,” my head said. Thankfully interrupting my horrible inner dialogue, the doctor, a big ruddy guy in his mid-30’s who looked like an ex-linebacker, came in and shook my hand. I cringed inside.“I hear you have a rash,” he said.“I have ringworm,” I corrected him, hanging my head in shame.“Okay, let’s take a look.” He put on gloves initially but then took them off.“You have one ringworm,” he said. “The rest of the redness and that other circle is contact dermatitis from the bandage. You’re allergic to something in that bandage.” He touched the irritated area with an ungloved hand.“Oh.” I was near tears.“I’m going to give you another cream and just wear long sleeves if your cat sleeps with you. Better yet, take him to the vet to get him checked out. This stuff is everywhere. It’s really a reaction to your own flora. Do you do yoga?”“No.”“It’s very common among wrestlers because of the mats and sweat and body contact.”“No wrestling and unfortunately no body contact.”“You could have gotten it anywhere. If your immune system is compromised from stress or HIV or chemotherapy…”“Stress is my hobby these days,” I said. “Everything feels itchy, doc, like especially my head.”“Do you want me to check your scalp?” “Please.”I took down my bun and into my dirty hair he plunged with bare hands. I felt ashamed but grateful that somebody was touching me.“You’re good,” he said.“Thank you for making me feel like a human being. Really…”He smiled.But as I drove to the pharmacy, I still felt depressed and still felt like using. Why? The answer, as usual, came in a phone call from my friend, addictionologist and psychiatrist Dr. Howard Wetsman.“I understand people being scared about the ringworm because of its name and reputation. But what you’re experiencing is being shunned and isolated. People are treating you like your presence can hurt them. Even medical people are treating you like a second-class citizen. Is this really about a skin fungus or is this reminding you of what it’s like to be a person with addiction?” he asked.Whoa. “When we’re isolated or feel ‘less than,’ the dopamine receptors in the reward center actually stop being available. You can’t feel your own dopamine as well as before. We need those receptors to keep up dopamine tone, and without that we’re back to feeling restless, irritable, and discontented. And that only goes to one place, right?”“Yeah I really wanted to use and it freaked me out.”“When you’re an addict and your dopamine tone is lowered, your brain goes ‘we gotta fix this fast.’ It doesn’t care if it’s an éclair or heroin or death…”“That’s why I’ve been smoking…”“Nicotine will give you dopamine for sure. But let’s talk bigger picture. When we go to treatment and we’re told to sit down and shut up, when we’re treated like stupid people who abused a substance that everyone else was smart enough to stay away from, when we’re told to wait three hours sitting on broken plastic chairs for someone who doesn’t give a shit, the deck is stacked against the treatment working. No healthcare system that systematically lowers people’s dopamine, much less one that treats addiction, will succeed,” he told me.“It’s the same in the rooms,” he continued. “The reason the 12 steps work is because you don’t have to feel ‘better than’ to not be ‘less than.’ The two messages you should get from an AA meeting are that you are never alone again and you aren’t less than anyone. But when people don’t sponsor with love, when some old-timer wants to be the boss, when it’s all about some guy with more time being right instead of helping, you lose those messages. That’s not a problem with the message; that’s a problem with the messenger. Don’t let the messenger fuck up the message. You aren’t less than anyone!”I sign every copy of My Fair Junkie with “fuck shame” and I don’t think I really knew why until just now. For more on dopamine and feeling "less than," check out Dr. Wetsman's youtube talk.

[emlydunstan]

Ring of Shame: How Getting Ringworm Triggered My Alcoholism

So one day I see this pink round patch on my forearm. It itches. I immediately start Googling eczema and psoriasis. Nope, looks nothing like that. But it does have that distinctive red ring so I look up pictures of ringworm and voila, there it is, my new friend.When I was smoking meth and shooting cocaine, I never got sick. I never got staph or scabies despite lying around with a bunch of gutter punks. But at six years sober, out of nowhere, I get ringworm. I don’t deal with children. Colonel Puff Puff, my cat, doesn’t have it. What the fuck is going on?Despite its grotesque and misleading name, it has nothing to do with worms. Ringworm is a type of skin fungus akin to athlete’s foot and jock itch. Trying to make light of the situation, I tweeted: “I was super depressed and smoking again but suddenly I got ringworm and that cheered me right up.” I was hit with a bunch of questions like “Is that the one that makes you skinny?”No dear, that’s a tapeworm, but thanks for the concern.I’d heard ringworm was very contagious so I went straight to urgent care where they confirmed it was indeed ringworm. I was prescribed a cream that burned like the fires of damnation and told to “keep it covered” at night to protect the Colonel. (When the Colonel last got ringworm, it cost $2,500 for multiple lyme dips, shavings, and numerous vet visits to get rid of it. It's a persistent motherfucker.)I went to the pharmacy, pulled up my sleeve, and told the pharmacist I had ringworm. “I don’t know how I got it,” I said, annoyed.The pharmacist pulled up the leg of her capri pants and said, “I got it working here! I was really stressed out because I was getting married and my mom had a stroke and boom.”We both laughed and then I took my supplies home, hopeful things would soon return to normal.Once I informed my friends of my condition, nobody would touch me. Friends and neighbors wouldn’t come into my apartment nor let me into theirs. “We love you and your ringworm,” they’d chant from the other side of the door. I was beginning to feel very leper-like even though it was one fucking red ring. My sponsor told me I could still go to meetings but I didn’t want to take the chance of giving it to anybody…(except maybe a few specific people).Two nights after following the urgent care doc’s protocol, the ringworm seemed to be getting worse. I saw a new circle sprouting up and there was a clear red rectangular demarcation from the band-aid. Kill me.Panicked that I would soon be a walking petri dish of ringworm, I went to my primary care clinic as a walk-in patient. This clinic treats a lot of homeless people and has quite a few tents parked permanently outside with adjacent grocery carts packed with stuffed animals and recyclables and blankets. People are allowed to shower in the downstairs bathroom and it often gets crowded in the waiting area. But once I told the receptionist of my “condition,” I was quickly escorted to an empty room and quarantined. Four long hours I sat in that room, my phone dying, sneaking out to smoke and feeling more and more depleted and well, just gross. A triage nurse came in briefly and told me that the urgent care doctor had made a huge error by telling me to cover the ringworm. It had created a tiny greenhouse, capturing the moisture and providing the perfect breeding ground for the ringworm to reproduce. Perfect.Finally, I was taken to another area to see a doctor. As I waited, I looked at the white cabinets. Two were locked. Where were the syringes, I wondered. Wait, what? An enormous urge to use had come over me. I wanted to get high, call my ex, die…. It’s just ringworm, I tried to tell myself. Calm down. Why the sudden impulse to use? “You’re disgusting and poor and getting old and nobody loves you,” my head said. Thankfully interrupting my horrible inner dialogue, the doctor, a big ruddy guy in his mid-30’s who looked like an ex-linebacker, came in and shook my hand. I cringed inside.“I hear you have a rash,” he said.“I have ringworm,” I corrected him, hanging my head in shame.“Okay, let’s take a look.” He put on gloves initially but then took them off.“You have one ringworm,” he said. “The rest of the redness and that other circle is contact dermatitis from the bandage. You’re allergic to something in that bandage.” He touched the irritated area with an ungloved hand.“Oh.” I was near tears.“I’m going to give you another cream and just wear long sleeves if your cat sleeps with you. Better yet, take him to the vet to get him checked out. This stuff is everywhere. It’s really a reaction to your own flora. Do you do yoga?”“No.”“It’s very common among wrestlers because of the mats and sweat and body contact.”“No wrestling and unfortunately no body contact.”“You could have gotten it anywhere. If your immune system is compromised from stress or HIV or chemotherapy…”“Stress is my hobby these days,” I said. “Everything feels itchy, doc, like especially my head.”“Do you want me to check your scalp?” “Please.”I took down my bun and into my dirty hair he plunged with bare hands. I felt ashamed but grateful that somebody was touching me.“You’re good,” he said.“Thank you for making me feel like a human being. Really…”He smiled.But as I drove to the pharmacy, I still felt depressed and still felt like using. Why? The answer, as usual, came in a phone call from my friend, addictionologist and psychiatrist Dr. Howard Wetsman.“I understand people being scared about the ringworm because of its name and reputation. But what you’re experiencing is being shunned and isolated. People are treating you like your presence can hurt them. Even medical people are treating you like a second-class citizen. Is this really about a skin fungus or is this reminding you of what it’s like to be a person with addiction?” he asked.Whoa. “When we’re isolated or feel ‘less than,’ the dopamine receptors in the reward center actually stop being available. You can’t feel your own dopamine as well as before. We need those receptors to keep up dopamine tone, and without that we’re back to feeling restless, irritable, and discontented. And that only goes to one place, right?”“Yeah I really wanted to use and it freaked me out.”“When you’re an addict and your dopamine tone is lowered, your brain goes ‘we gotta fix this fast.’ It doesn’t care if it’s an éclair or heroin or death…”“That’s why I’ve been smoking…”“Nicotine will give you dopamine for sure. But let’s talk bigger picture. When we go to treatment and we’re told to sit down and shut up, when we’re treated like stupid people who abused a substance that everyone else was smart enough to stay away from, when we’re told to wait three hours sitting on broken plastic chairs for someone who doesn’t give a shit, the deck is stacked against the treatment working. No healthcare system that systematically lowers people’s dopamine, much less one that treats addiction, will succeed,” he told me.“It’s the same in the rooms,” he continued. “The reason the 12 steps work is because you don’t have to feel ‘better than’ to not be ‘less than.’ The two messages you should get from an AA meeting are that you are never alone again and you aren’t less than anyone. But when people don’t sponsor with love, when some old-timer wants to be the boss, when it’s all about some guy with more time being right instead of helping, you lose those messages. That’s not a problem with the message; that’s a problem with the messenger. Don’t let the messenger fuck up the message. You aren’t less than anyone!”I sign every copy of My Fair Junkie with “fuck shame” and I don’t think I really knew why until just now. For more on dopamine and feeling "less than," check out Dr. Wetsman's youtube talk.

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