Arrested and Taken to Innercept's Prison

So, Innercept requires that I have 20 hours of scheduled work/school/volunteer activities. For awhile I only had about ten. Innercept recently found this out. They also knew that I had missed the psychiatrist appointment they had forced me to schedule at a time I knew I wouldn't remember, and that I had missed a therapist appointment because I had forgotten about it. Therefore, Innercept decided I should go to the Innercept prison.

It was Halloween a couple weeks ago on a Wednesday. I was headed toward the Kroc Center for a thrilling afternoon of working out and downloading music, and to drop off an application to be a Salvation Army bell ringer. I didn't make it even halfway there, however. My efforts were Innercepted by the Innercept prison vehicle. I saw them pull up in a parking lot, and Kurt motioned for me to come over. Not knowing what was going on, I went over. Kurt and Dave told me to that due to my recent slackings, I was going to stable, the Innercept prison, for a week.

This was horrible news, as I never in my life wanted to go back to the Innercept prison. At first, I was compliant, and I got in the vehicle and they drove me back to my apartment to pack my stuff. My head was swimming because I knew the next week was going to be horrible. I didn't know what to pack. I couldn't pack with my head swimming like that.

Once back in the car on my way to the Innercept prison, I knew that I couldn't just go along with this. I had to fight. So when we got up to the cabin out in the middle of nowhere, I told them that I wasn't getting out of the car. Kurt tried to intimidate me by using is intimidating "I'm not fucking around you better get out of the car voice" but I didn't let it get to me. They could do whatever. I wasn't getting out of the car.

Next, violence ensued. I was pushed out of the car and my face was slammed in the gravel, they pinned me down and removed my shoes and twisted my arms in odd painful positions and then carried me into the cabin. I tried to leave. They pinned me to the floor again. I tried to leave again. They pushed me to the floor again and pinned me down and told me they were going to drug me with a zyprexa shot. I started crying and I was lying there pinned to the floor crying for quite awhile.

See, it was written in my aftercare plan that if I miss twenty hours two weeks in a row I get a week's reboot at IT. The thing was, this was not IT, this was stable. Innercept tried to excuse it saying that IT was in the process of moving therefore I couldn't be sent there. But it doesn't work that way. The paper I signed said IT, not stable.

Eventually I calmed down, then one of the Innercept nurses who was there decided to piss me off by saying something and I got upset again and started crying again and after awhile I calmed down again.

What ensued after that was a week of feeling bored and restless and angry and pissed off at everyone and everything. I would wake up in the morning feeling angry and I would have to immediately take my meds and count on Adderall to give me a fake happy feeling that counteracted the anger, at least for a little while. Stable is such a therapeutic environment in that way. Sarcasm.

Anyway, they decided to keep me there for fucking ever and made me miss school and they wouldn't let me study for my physics test. I was absolutely shocked that I got a 72 on it. I mean, that I got a 72 instead of a 32 or something substantially lower. They had me raking pine needles and constantly complaining that I wasn't putting enough muscle in it when I was putting as much muscle as I could do that was sustainable.

Anyway, so I am out now, and my parents in their undying love for Innercept think that I am the problem so they moved me to a different place for the next couple months. They moved me to the Innercept girl's aftercare house, which is for people who just got out of transition and don't actually have an apartment to move into, not for people who need more "structure." There isn't any sort of structure. But my parents, especially my mother, love Innercept and think that their daughter owes her life to Innercept. That is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard, Beev. I would still be alive if it weren't for Innercept. You would not have kicked me out of the house. I would not have run away. Any suicide attempts would have been unsuccessful. I would be living at home and you would be a million dollars richer.

So instead, my parents decide to spend extra money to have me living in a different house where I have one housemate who is gone all day. And I don't want to say that I hate my parents, because that makes me sound like an immature teenager. But I am not exactly loving them right now.

Lucid Dreams and Novel Ideas

So I was awake for a period of time last night. I would blame withdrawal from the benzos again but I remember it was like this before I started going off Klonopin. So, after being awake for awhile, I drank some chamomile tea, ate a banana, and moved my pillows to the opposite end of the bed and lied the opposite direction. Eventually, I fell back asleep.

I actually think one of the careers I would find most rewarding would be to be a novelist. Like, a popular novelist like J. K. Rowling or Stephen King who write books that people are obsessed with. To be able to write a story that people found so compelling would be awesome. Except, as I've said before, I can't come up with fiction worth shit while I'm awake. I come up with what I think are compelling story lines in my dreams but never remember them once awake. Except for last night. I don't know if this concept is any good or not, but I was thinking it was in my dream and I remembered a lot of it once I woke up.

So I will just talk about the whole dream. It was lucid. It started out where I was at my parent's house and I wanted to leave. My parents would follow me once I left the house but I could escape them. Running away from my parents in my dreams is an exceptionally common theme for me. Actually being able to escape is not.

I was living with this guy who was maybe in his early forties. He used me for sex but gave me a place to stay and I was okay with this. We were supposed to be having sex, but it wasn't really one of those hormonal type dreams so the sex wasn't real exciting, but the guy was naked. I saw his torso from the front and he was a little bit overweight but not by that much. Then he turned around. Attached to his back was this gigantic fetus. I found this so disturbing that I left this guy right away, despite the fact that I wasn't wearing a lot of clothing. It is common for me to walk around in public in dreams without a lot of clothing.

So my mom was after me again, and I had to escape her. I could do this by shooting straight up in the sky really high, up past layers of clouds, and then landing down somewhere on the ground completely different. I think I might have also been shooting at her with something or hitting her with a stick. I think I stayed with another guy for awhile and then had to leave.

So I shot straight up in the air again, and I was looking down at the city, deciding where to land. I decided to land in the seedy red light district part of town. I could tell it was the red light district because of all the red light radiating out from it. When I made this decision, I knew that it was probably a poor decision because I was likely in for more than I had bargained for. Cities in my dreams, real big dirty cities with crime and stuff, when they appear in my dreams, there is a strong feeling of evil associated with them, like this is where evil and the dark side of humanity dwells. And I had a sense that coming from a wealthy suburban family who loved me, I was sheltered from this side of humanity and perhaps not prepared to deal with it. But I made the decision to land there and did anyway.

The next thing you know I was woken up by policemen. I had apparently been unconscious. I had been knocked unconscious by a gang of men who had sexually assaulted me. But they had done more than just that. They had implanted a chip in me which recorded my sexual memories/sexual experiences and broadcasted them to the gang of guys somehow. Because I was some sort of prostitute or something, and I they knew I was going to have a lot of fucked up sexual experiences, and it brought them some sort of sick pleasure to see them, to be able to experience them themselves in vivid detail. Or maybe it was for them to make money somehow.

There was some sort of government operation going on regarding this and related incidents. I was placed with a group of people who had had similar experiences happen to them. But the government had to be careful what they told me because they didn't know what information the chip would broadcast to the gang of men. So I was in this elevator type thing with a bunch of other people and if I remember correctly they were mostly men, strangely enough. I don't watch a lot of comic book type movies but there was a sense of it being similar to this one movie which I don't remember what it was called where there were a group of superhuman beings with special powers. Anyway, I was informed that because of my incident, I had been given the name Thorazine. In real life, Thorazine is the name of an antipsychotic. However, it is not in the same class of drugs as the other antipsychotics I have mentioned on my blog. Those are Atypical Antipsychotics, so I guess Thorazine would be considered a typical antipsychotic. I'm not sure that's what they are called, but they are an older class of drugs. Thorazine is famous for making people do what's known as the Thorazine shuffle, where they walk like they are drugged because apparently Thorazine drugs you pretty bad. I have never taken Thorazine myself, unless that is what they gave me the night I drank too much seven years ago and was taken to the ER. They injected me with something to calm me down and later my mom told me it was some sort of antipsychotic. My friend who has taken Thorazine said that unlike the atypical antipsychotics Thorazine makes you feel good, and after I was injected with this drug at the ER I felt pretty good and nice and relaxed. Anyway, the people gave me a reason why I was named Thorazine but I don't know that it made any sense. There was a guy there name something like Lepitor. It was a name similar to Lipitor but it wasn't Lipitor. We had some sort of romantic thing going on. As this dream was progressing I was trying to commit to memory everything that was going on and I knew I wouldn't be able to. There was something going on with the elevator like it was falling or something, and I heard the sound of water really loud and I asked what that was but then I woke up because I was trying so hard to collect all this data without waking up that I woke myself up too much. That's the trouble with lucid dreams, I get so excited I wake myself up sometimes.

So anyway, that was pretty much it. It was supposed to be part of a novel in the genre of erotic sci fi or something. It was almost like the dream was purposely trying to give me an idea for writing a novel because right after the part where the police told me about the chip it was kind of like, "Remember this! This is an idea for a novel!" But I'm not really sure about this.

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]

My Own Path

Sometimes I think I must be immature for the way I resent my parents. If I were more mature, I would recognize that them sacrificing so much money to send me to Innercept was something they did with good intentions. Instead, what I hear them say is, "we are spending all our money to put you in prison because we really love you and you're worth it, Rachel."

What they don't realize is that when they do such things, it puts distance between myself and them. It makes their words have less weight and mean less to me. It lessens their psychological influence over me.

One thing I do appreciate though. That is the fact that my parents recognize that I will do what I will do and they can't change that. That when it comes down to it, the decisions in my life are up to me to make.

I also find it very annoying that there is no such thing as confidentiality in therapy at Innercept. Anything you say in session can be repeated to your parents. Anything, even something harmless.

What my parents need to know is that I will always do what is right for me at the time. Any mistakes I make always ultimately lead to growth. And I will always move in the direction of bettering myself. I have been in some dark places but gotten out of them by myself. My parents talk about how well I am doing. I am the reason I am doing that way today, it doesn't have a damn thing to do with Innercept.

And I am sorry that my mom thinks so little of me.

Sheltered From the Way Most People Think

My bible study group took a break from meeting, but last night we met again. It was my first time back in bible study since July.

Not everyone was there, one of the ladies who has the most interesting personality was not there, nor was her husband. There are different people there every time actually, but the two of them are usually there. The people at bible study are very friendly towards me, and it kind of makes me feel bad because I wonder if they would be so friendly if they knew I didn't believe exactly what they believe about the bible. But going to this bible study is such a learning experience that it is worth it. I learn both from the part where we actually study the bible, and in listening to the stuff they say.

I'm trying to think of a word that describes how these people are. The word that comes to mind is sheltered. Not sheltered in the sense that they have never had real hard issues or problems in their lives, that's not what I mean. Sheltered in the sense that they don't understand what other people would think of the stuff they say.

For example, last night they were talking about belief in God. Now, those of you who read my blog regularly know that I believe in God. But it was this reason they had for believing in God. They said there had to be a god because Earth is just the right distance from the sun, and has just the right environment to support life. They said that even scientists are starting to recognize this necessity of a creator, but that they are being silly and some are saying aliens put us here. WTF? Who says that?

I probably don't even need to explain why the Earth thing is a crappy reason to believe in God. Obviously, life sprung up on Earth because it was a place that had the right conditions to support it. If the conditions hadn't been just right there would be no life. And the universe is so vast and huge, there has got to be some place, at least one place, with just the right conditions. And that is where life would be.

Other ways they don't understand what other people would think. One of the bible study's sons was at public school. I don't know what it was, but there was something that referred to "a god." The son made a huge fuss about it and insisted that it should say "the God." Apparently it turned into something that was like a big deal. Dude, you're at public school. You need to be open to the fact that not everyone has the same beliefs.

That's the thing about them, they don't understand this. They act like legalizing gay marriage is somehow infringing upon freedom of religion. If you are against gay marriage, don't marry someone of the same sex. That's what I think.

They feel the need to save people, and they don't seem to understand that a lot of people think that their attitudes and beliefs are kind of cooky. I don't know if it's because they don't realize this or because they just don't care, but I think it might be the former.

Anyway, I'm not trying to be mean to these people. I think they are nice people. All I am saying is that I don't think they understand certain things.

Leaving Your Comfort Zone Despite Crippling Anxiety

So I'm wondering why I decided to continue on to intermediate acting. Actually, I know why I decided to. It wasn't because I plan on making any sort of career out of acting. I know that I am fooling myself if I thought I could be good enough to make it like that. The reason I took the class was to get myself out of my comfort zone. It sounded like a good idea about three months before classes started.

We were assigned an assignment which involved us doing something in front of the class that we only did alone and makes us slightly uncomfortable. The trouble with this particular assignment is, it doesn't matter what the hell I'm doing, if I am in front of the class alone then I am uncomfortable. On top of that, we are supposed to make ourselves vulnerable in some emotional way through what we are doing.

So I decided to do something in front of the mirror. I kind of planned it out but didn't practice. I realized as I was preparing to do this in front of the class that there was no way in hell I was going to be able to do this. So I pretended to look in the mirror, which was actually the audience, and then I sighed and then put on some makeup. I was thinking that maybe I was pretending to think I was ugly or something, like this was a moment where I was insecure about my looks. I thought that might be an okay thing to do. Trouble is, I just got so damn nervous, I thought I was going to have a repeat of the near-faint I had during my speech last spring. I was shaking and I thought it might be visible. In the middle of the performance I suddenly said I was done. For some reason I think that maybe my shaking wasn't as obvious as I thought it was, but I don't know. The teacher seemed kind of surprised and said ok that was short but ok. Anyway.

So I felt like I failed. And now I'm wondering how I am going to pursue my destiny when I get so nervous in front of people. Like, how am I going to be a public figure. Because I am going to be a public figure.

I'm having trouble getting people to appreciate the parts of my book that I want them to appreciate. So, I rewrite it. It almost seems like a lost cause sometimes, but I persist because I know that it has something that if I succeed at making other people see it will be a big deal. Trouble is that I take for granted that I understand it so well, that it is not obvious to me what parts people might not understand, so I don't necessarily explain those parts.

One of the psychics at the holistic fair said it would happen, and that I would be a speaker at places bigger than that place, meaning bigger than the holistic fair. She told me something else that I think is going to happen, but that's something secret. She was also the one that advised me to meet literary agents in person. That was good advice, despite the fact that I have only heard back from one of them, and that was a no. But I didn't have high expectations for that particular literary agent.

Anyway, so for now I just have to deal with the horrible crippling anxiety.