#miracle fundamentally changed my brain chemistry i feel

[thysanniia]

Caravan Palace music videos sure are something else aren't they?

[ohnoitsjetster]

hiya jesse darlin!! i’ve got about a million questions for the ask game >:] these are all things i’m curious about, but it’s a lot. so feel free to pick just a few to answer <3

12, 13, 14, 42, 99, 100, 119, 127, 137, 142, 145, 146, 148, 149

i love you jesse beloved!! i hope you’re doing well <333

HIYA SOL!!! Ilyt <3, i hope you’re having a good day! I’m gonna answer all of these :]

12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now?

OGH okok. This changes constantly but lately:

- Sedona by Sir Chloe

- Thank God for Springtime by Levi Shrader

- Snowbank Blues by the Backseat Lovers

- Sex with a Ghost by Teddy Hyde

- Cool from West Side Story

Two of these were actually recommendations, Sedona was recommended to me by @specimen101 and Snowbank Blues was recommended to me by @ricky-mortis (Thank you guys! :D ). Also I found out about Thank God for Springtime at a student art showcase for my college. I met Levi Shrader and hung out with him and then he was like “alright :] im gonna go get ready for the show :] see ya :]” as if he wasn’t about to play music that fundamentally changed my brain chemistry. I also strongly recommend his songs Calvary Hill and St. Mary Amygdala to anyone that likes folk music.

13. Do you like it when people play with your hair?

I…. am a simple creature. (Head scratches 🔥 especially the back of my hair where its shortest)

14. Do you believe in luck and miracles?

Nope not really, I participate occasionally in superstition only for the sake of whimsy

42. If your being extremely quiet what does it mean?

It’s probably an anxiety attack

99. Have any pets?

A dog named Goldie. She’s a mutt that looks like a small pudgy black lab. She’s 14 but she’s acts like she’s just turned 1

100. How are you feeling?

Less anxious than normal, glad to finally have some free time this week, and kinda drowsy cause I just woke up

119. Favourite book?

I don’t read much but I like reading plays. I’d say my favorite is A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare

127. What makes you happy?

Talking about my favorite musicals, plays, and movies, preferably to someone who is equally insane

137. How tall are you?

5’9 I think

142. Favourite month?

Maybe June because of summer break and also gay month. But I also love March because it’s got my birthday and spring and its the right temperature to wear my jackets

145. Tea or Coffee?

Tea! Coffee’s nice too but I think caffeine might be bad for my anxiety

146. Was today a good day?

Just started, I think it will be, but Ive got work to do and I hope I can get it done

147. Mars or Snickers?

Snickers

148. What’s your favourite quote?

Ough, couldn’t possibly choose. I have a few main ones. Maybe ask me for a character or piece of media to narrow it down? For now I’ll go with the Blasphemy quote even though we all know I love that one: “I will not be Shackled by the failures of Your god. The only blasphemy is to wallow in Insignificance. I have taken the refuse of your god’s failures and I have Triumphed!!!”

149. Do you believe in ghosts?

For fun but not for reals

Thanks for the questions! These were fun to answer

[loud-whistling-yes]

Turns out arukara has the instrumental version of kaitou miracle shounen boy 2 on spotify, a fact I found by complete coincidence and accident. And I can sing the entire thing from memory despite not being in the fandom for years and I feel like that just shows how much this show has fundamentally changed my brain chemistry since I was a 10 year old

[wordsmiff-blog]

I take drugs every single day of my life.

I take drugs every single day of my life.

… and these days… it is very much EVERY single day without fail - if I can help it.

Truth is that my drug-taking has become so engrained in my routine and so normalized over time - that sometimes I forget to even take them.

I imagine that those statements above may sound a little shocking to some. To those lucky souls who don’t need drugs to improve their experience of life… but read on… I’ll clarify.

My drug of choice? Well these days - it’s 20mg of Paroxetine - once a day.

Yep.

After spending …. hmmmm… a fair amount of my time here on planet Earth self-medicating - I have finally stumbled upon something that sufficiently scratches my itch - so to speak… without any significant dire consequences.

The harsh truth is that the default setting of my brain appears to be pointed towards ‘Impending doom/fear/anxiety’ and things have always been that way since I can remember.

I cannot speak for other people, I certainly can’t speak for those that I imagine must wake up with a positive feeling of gratitude in the mornings (do those people actually exist?) because my experience of Life is certainly nothing like that.

No…

Since I was a child, it would seem that my brain has been programmed to constantly tell me … from the moment I open my eyes in the morning … that something terrible is about to happen, to try to convince me that an unspecified disaster is just around the corner - and that… because of that threat… perhaps I should just shy away from 'Life’ and not get involved.

After all, if you don’t sign up for The Army… you probably won’t have to hide in a trench and dodge bullets 24hrs a day … right?

Wrong.

The problem with Life - is that you cannot avoid it.

Try as you might, invariably, at certain points… it forces you to get involved.

As fearful and as timid as you may feel, Life gives no fucks about your emotional fragility and just mercilessly shoves you in the back … and pushes you out into the big wide World…

So … how does someone with anxiety, a sensitive nature and zero understanding of brain chemistry deal with that conundrum?

To summarize … the issue that presented itself to a young man full of fear, insecurity, and a severe lack of serotonin in his brain - was that - despite being shit scared… Life just refused to piss off and subsequently keep forcing me to get involved.

The main reason that this problem seemed impossible to solve at the time was that I did not realize or even understand that the balance of chemicals in my brain was totally fucked up.

Dopamine and serotonin are fundamental chemical building blocks for enjoying this experience of 'Life’.

These chemicals, amongst others, are responsible for making you feel 'happy’, 'excited’ and all that shit.

It since transpires that my brain produces the square root of fuck all in these particular departments.

I always suspected as a kid that my brain worked slightly differently to the people I knew… though back then I didn’t know how to communicate or express that concern… I just thought that I was 'weird’ or 'different’ - an outsider, doomed to a life of isolation and constant worry.

What I realize now is that even as a child, I was effectively… what would be diagnosed in an adult as … anxious and depressed.

Unfortunately at the age of 11, something happened - which at the time seemed like a complete miracle … but turned into something of a curse … I found a total cure for my symptoms - and it happened in an instant.

I smoked my first joint.

The only way I can describe it is … imagine when you were a kid and you were trying to trace a picture … if before the spliff … the tracing paper had been off center with the image below, I couldn’t hold the tracing paper still and the lines I wanted to follow were not in line with the image underneath… well - once I had taken two puffs of this joint… suddenly the tracing paper and the image underneath it were now perfectly matched and effortlessly in synch.

So whereas beforehand Life had always been a struggle and a huge effort to go along with, out of nowhere - after smoking this joint, (and what I now know to be the very first introduction of THC into my brain box), Life suddenly made sense. In fact, suddenly 'everything’ made sense.

Music sounded better, I was instantly more at ease inside my own skin and inside my own mind, colours were more vibrant, I understood more, my perception of time slowed down, my concentration levels were intensified and I had a more Spiritual understanding of the matrix of how life works … and on top of all of that… the absolute master key… I no longer felt sad, worried, fearful or anxious. At all.

Everything was completely as it should be, how it was always meant to be and I was filled with a surge of relief and a peace of mind that was so powerful and seductive - I recognized it as the feeling that had been missing from my existence for as long as I could recall.

Looking back now, I am able to recognize that the chemical imbalance in my brain has always been evident and had always been a huge barrier to my ability to enjoy Life… at 11 - I did not have the awareness to realize that there was a serious underlying mental health problem that I needed to address - I had only the very limited knowledge that if I smoke a joint, I felt normal.

… and so I did that.

A lot.

Fast forward to when I’m 18, even at the time, I am completely mindful as this experience unfolds - that I am boring a poor barmaid to death - as my skinny insecure, wiry human shell struggles without the required level of mental fortitude and self-confidence to pull myself up and out of that inevitable nose-dive into teen angst and awkwardness… it’s painful even now to think of that conversation.

I remember it vividly though, because moments later, I tried my first line of cocaine - and if smoking puff made me feel comfortable… then sniffing gear made me feel invincible…

You know the old telephone box scene where Clark Kent enters and exits seconds later as Superman… that’s what happened in that toilet cubicle on that particular evening in an empty bar in a foreign land. I might as well have fucking kicked the door off and stood there with chest expanded and my fists resting on my hips. Imaginary cape billowing in the wind.

I had seemingly stumbled upon the perfect prescription to successfully self-medicate … well enough to go forth and confidently battle with my mental dis-ease at just being alive, I self-medicated so well that I was even functioning to a rather high level for the most part…

This caused a host of problems… in fact more than I could ever even wish to list - but here are 3 important ones.

1/ I now know that I am different to most people in that I suffer with a three fold illness known as 'addiction’. No ability to take it or leave it for Bob once he likes something.

2/ As I was doing so well at masking the genuine mental health issues that were the underlying cause of my reliance on drugs and other things I could use to change the way I felt, I could just ignore those really deep issues … for the most part. Ahhh… so you are scared of your own shadow… so what? Have a puff of this spliff…. feel better? Of course you do…

3/ Drugs stop working. Eventually. First though, you start to become a little more immune to them bit by bit - and so before they turn on you completely, you find yourself upping your dosage.

This knowledge and a million and one other things I have learnt so far in recovery has given me a different perception on things, it has taught me more than I could ever even express let alone hope to encapsulate in a single blog entry.

What I know about myself now, with the continued support and love of people around me, means that rather than getting half a gram or two on a Friday night or smoking two joints before work every day (which I maintain improved my performance, it was the crippling paranoid delusions and near on psychosis towards the end that really ruined weed for me) - I am now letting a trained medical professional diagnose my symptoms and decide on which medicine I should take.

The point of this post is this….

Drug addicts are everywhere… YOU are a drug addict … your Mum is a drug addict… as is your Nan… whether you change the chemical composition of your brain with a cheeky bar of cadburys fruit and nut… enjoy those couple of glasses of rosè when you get in from work… or treat yourself to a take-away on a Friday night… you are using chemicals/drugs to change the way you feel. That is no different to the man who smokes a joint or the kid slipping down the slippery slope into addiction.

The difference? Stigma.

We laugh about having a little sugary pick me up throughout the day… and we raise our eyes knowingly in collusion with someone else’s story telling tale at work about the half a bottle of wine the night before … that’s how they cope.

That’s okay though, because that’s socially acceptable.

Yet it’s not okay to say that you woke up feeling so scared you didn’t want to get out of bed.

It’s not humorous enough a subject to just nonchalantly mention that you never asked to be born - and truth be told - unless you have a line of gear, you’d rather put a bullet through your incessant mind, stop the fucking rollercoaster and clock out of this incomprehensible, overwhelming, seemingly futile existence - where the aim seems to be to try to see how much you can love other people - whilst all the time being simultaneously and completely aware that the unforgiving certainty of death for either you - or the people you would struggle to be without - is just around the corner.

No… you can’t say that.

Wine is okay. Drugs are bad.

The problem being - someone who is self-medicating with 'illegal’ drugs is clearly … if we are measuring by societies standards… mentally unwell. Yet, if they cannot talk about their reliance on their drug of choice in relation to how it helps them to cope with the magnitude of being alive, how can they receive the help they need to transfer themselves onto more manageable medication whilst they do the necessary work on themselves to hopefully… learn the cognitive behavioral tools that recovery teaches… to be able to one day live and even …God forbid … enjoy life … without any chemical assistance?

Mental health problems account for so many lives lost, so many lives shattered.

No one should be so unhappy that they decide to punch out early and take their own life.

No one should be walking around filled with so much fear and hate and rage that they use violence against another person - ruining families and costing themselves their own freedom.

No one should be so intimated by life and be so full of fear and insecurity and anxiety that they spend their entire lives trapped in a miserable solitary prison cell of addiction and lies, existing… but never really living.

Yet we do.

All of these things are a consequences of untreated mental health problems.

Drug addicts are not well… people in prison are not well… people who are suicidal are not well… and that will always be the case, until we stop fucking judging people and start finding it in our hearts to learn to love each other unconditionally, and allowing an environment amongst humanity to develop where it is okay not to be okay.. an environment where is it okay to tell people about the complete and utter madness that goes on inside your head.

Before I walked into a recovery meeting… I was certain that I was insane… and it turns out that yes.. I am… but so a lot of other people … and that means I am not alone. I have people who help me, and I have people who I try to help.

So yes… I am a drug addict. Happy to admit that: but I am a 'recovered’ drug addict… in the sense that I no longer take drugs that cause my life to become unmanageable and cause my soul to wither away and want to die.

Yes, I am a drug addict and I take drugs every single day of my life.

Fortunately, because of having people around me that I could openly talk to about this stuff and because I have maintained an honesty in my life since those dark times … these days… my drug of choice is 20mg of Paroxetine - once a day. Every single day without fail. If I can.