Kicking Benzos an Energy Onslaughts

So, I am trying to kick the benzos again.

I was put back on Ativan back several months ago when I was at the hospital. After I had worked so hard going off Klonopin. Two milligrams Ativan. Whew, that's a lot. And back at the hospital that wasn't per day, that was every four hours as needed.

Out of the hospital, I only took two a day. Still, two is a shitload.

Why did I decide to go off Ativan? Because Ativan is a horrible, addictive, lessening drug, which lessens your psychic abilities.

Yes, that was the reason I chose to go off it. To get back my psychic abilities.

There was a time back last spring when I was developing my psychic abilities. I could practice by doing picture readings on people. There is this website for psychic abilities where you can post a picture of yourself, and people will read you by looking at your picture. So I was reading people there, and the people told me the stuff I told them was accurate.

Also, I was often times hit by other people's energy. If someone has a strong emotion directed at me, I felt the energy hit me. I wasn't sure who it was, unless there was some sort of logical explanation why it was a particular person.

Actually, it was kind of annoying, because I'd be working on something and it would be like, "Hey! Someone's talking about you right now!" I'm sure I wouldn't feel it every time someone talked about me, only if it was someone who was a particularly loud thinker. Whatever it means to be a loud thinker.

I'm down to a half a milligram of Ativan per night. Once off, I will also need to do some tai chi to strengthen my aura.

Actually, I've been trying to do tai chi, but I can't get up early enough. I sleep too late. Tai chi is at eleven. I can't get up in time to go to an eleven o'clock tai chi class.

Maybe when I am off Ativan and doing tai chi, I can take some like psychic development classes or something, to learn all the tricks behind telepathic communication.

A Balance of Chemicals

So I have been trying to get into the ways of the exercise freak again. I worked out early in the morning most of last week and I was reminded that I actually love it, as funny as that sounds. I get up at 5:30 and walk to the gym which is really close by and do the elliptical for 30 minutes. Then, I eat something. Then I have this bad habit of buying an energy drink and drinking that, so I feel all pumped while I do weights. Last week I lost almost 5 pounds.

Trouble is the Klonopin withdrawal has prevented me from working out this week. I worked out Monday but that's it. I've been eating differently, not perfectly but differently, but that's okay because in recent times slight changes in my eating habits cause me to lose weight pretty quickly. But then, for some reason, when I go home to Oregon I don't even necessarily eat more but the weight comes back. Or maybe I do eat more and I just don't realize it.

Klonopin withdrawal has set me slightly off balance chemically. Not to the point where it would be hard to get me back, actually I am sure I will balance out by myself if I just give it time. How it feels though, I don't do the rapid cycling thing but I get a little bit of the low feeling I used to experience before during my downs. And I am reminded what that was like. God, that was like the most horrible thing ever. Not really, I'm sure there are worse things, but it was pretty bad. It is the feeling of being extremely emotionally vulnerable. Someone says something to you, or looks at you the wrong way or something, and you interpret it to mean that they hate you. And then you start thinking, God, everyone hates me, hardly anyone likes me. And rightfully so because I am just a horrible obnoxious person. I never felt this way before I took these medications.

And so I think God, what I have gone through. I have gone through a lot. I didn't even realize that I've gone through so much. Being put in a chemical state where I was emotionally vulnerable at a time when I had so much to be insecure about. It is no wonder I was so fucking suicidal. I thought I had just been being immature. I realized that I don't give myself enough credit.

And then I think about the way that Innercept is and I get so annoyed by how they prescribe prescription drugs like they are nothing. Especially antipsychotics. Now abilify is one thing, I have experience with it and I know it works quite well at pulling you out of a severe emotional funk. But then there is Geodon. I never knew emotional insecurity until I took Geodon. WORST DRUG EVER. No, actually, Seroquel is the worst drug ever. I think it is so weird that they prescribe it for depression. When I took it for a short period of time, it made me feel like absolute shit. But that's not the reason I think it's not good for depression. The reason is because I know that it makes people gain massive amounts of weight. Sure, it might work for depression, if you think that suddenly becoming really heavy is going to help your self esteem.

Anyway, that's all for now.

Kicking the Benzos

So I have decided to kick my benzodiazopine habit. See, I take Klonopin. I used to take 1 mg at night. So I told my doctor I wanted to quit, following the success of me kicking my nicotine gum addiction, so now the doctor has me down to a half a milligram.

Klonopin was something I would take not because I particularly liked it but because it altered my conscious state. I would take it for anxiety, which meant during one of my freakouts about my many issues. I am obsessive and insecure and get overly embarrassed about every single thing. Some of these things are actually embarrassing and some aren't really but I obsess anyway, because I get in these moods where I am just so god damn uncomfortable. And if I think you are judging me based on one of these things that I obsess over, you are going down on my enemies list.

Damn I hate withdrawal symptoms. Plus I realized the other day that adderall was the reason I get so god damned angry sometimes. My sister called me the other day to vent about the things she was angry about. She doesn't do drugs. It made me wonder what her excuse was.

So anyway, I would take this drugs when I was anxious, but by the time they took effect I had usually calmed down. Obviously, because the drugs make you calm. But you know I mean before they take effect.

Then I started taking Klonopin every single day. And it started to feel kind of nice. And then before you know it, I was a benzo addict.

But I thought this was going to be easy, just a minor adjustment to not getting that calm feeling every single night. But now I can't sleep. Or sometimes I sleep better.

I wake up all thoughty and thinking all strangely and funnily about things. I roll around and roll onto the floor with my pillow and lie on the floor. I wander around my apartment. Last night I realized that the common thread between the two nights I couldn't sleep on klonopin withdrawal was that I hadn't drank a lot of caffeine in the afternoon. So I had a few sips of coffee last night. I got tired. Then awake. I had several gulps of coffee. I became even more awake.

I feel all funny sometimes. Sometimes I feel a spiritual vibration.

But that might be the spirits.

[Abrupt Ending]

Upcoming Writer's Conference

The psychic at the holistic fair told me I should go to writer's conferences (actually, she said I should meet the literary agents in person, which means writer's conferences). I don't think I've mentioned it on here, but I was looking up writer's conferences and I found that there was one, IN PORTLAND, during a time I was already going to come home, August 3-5. How convenient!

So I wrote out my pitch and practiced it, both in my head and out loud, both in the living room and in front of the mirror in the bathroom. I did it in the bathroom so I could watch my expressions and connect with my little spiel to see what I should emphasize, what gestures I should make, etc. I wondered what the neighbors thought of me talking to myself about being the second coming of Christ.

My dad suggested I get an idea of the scope of the audience for my book is. I mentioned that you are supposed to assume 1% of the target audience will buy a copy. He said everyone who is bipolar, plus five to include people close to them.

I actually don't think that is the audience. I think the audience is people between the ages of 16 and 35, with people who have actually been delusional showing more interest. So, maybe people between those ages plus older people who have been delusional. When I saw the psychic, she mentioned I had written a children's book. I'm like, "No..." She said, "I meant, a book for younger people, not children." I can actually kind of see that, as the people who I have given my book to who have been younger have seemed to enjoy it more. By younger I mean late teens and twenties. The psychic said it would be popular amongst young people, and popularize some of the things I believe in amongst young people. By the things I believe in, I think she meant like spirits, tarot cards, and past lives.

So I've mentioned I revised the part where I explain my delusions. I think I mentioned that if I get people to understand my delusions, it takes it from being a pretty good memoir to something that is really memorable, because this story that I imagined happened is powerful. I was thinking about this a few weeks ago. I was really picturing this story in my head, and I realized that if it were a movie it's the kind of thing where people would be crying in the movie theater. People cry pretty easily during movies.

Anyway, so I printed my book off, thinking I would give it to someone to read. I used the equivalent of an entire package of paper, because I forgot that the last time I printed it off with my dad we used a two-sided printer, so it was twice as thick as last time. I divided it into two sections, three-whole-punched the first section one or two pages at a time and put it in a binder. I haven't done the second section yet. I realized I don't know who to give it to.

Actually, I have an idea of someone to give it to. It's this other guy who's in the program, in aftercare like me, who I see often. He believed he was the messiah at one time too. For some reason, I think that he would really appreciate my book, more than other people would. So I wanted to give it to him, even though I don't know him very well. I keep thinking I'm going to ask him to read it but every time I'm around him I don't. I was at school, talking to the staff who does study sessions when he came up and asked me if I had an off switch. He didn't mean it to be mean, I don't think. I think he just meant I was full of spunk. I don't really know what he meant. I told him my off switch gets flipped when I take Klonopin at night. Then he went to class. And I didn't ask him.