In about 10 hours from now, something is going to happen. I know what will happen, but not sure how it will affect me. I should be worried or anxious about the uncertainty, but after a life of things not feeling right, you kind of lose that fear because anything is better than what currently exists.
I don’t know what normal is supposed to feel like, because mentally, I am not normal. I say this because about 24 years of taking over a dozen different medications and being diagnosed once with PTSD and twice as being Bipolar II say so. Reaching the end of my rope, I finally reached out about some different kind of treatment: Ketamine. No, this is not some back room or “woo woo” clinic somewhere, but actually through a hospital. How did I reach this point? I’m not sure I could really fit that all in with one post, but I can try to sum it up, though I’m far from reticent when I find a keyboard and blog site. I blame my emo period for that, which ran from about 2003-2008.
I’ve deleted multiple paragraphs since the second one you read because I keep going down a path that I’ve gone down so many times before. Dear reader, if you know me at all, then you know what I was writing and deleting. Let me try something else instead.
I make bad decisions. A lot of them. Some have gotten me fired from jobs when I was younger, many have hurt feelings, and unfortunately many have broken hearts (usually my own, but other people’s are often in the blast radius). On the surface and in a brief conversation, I would say that I don’t know why I make them, but gun to my head? I have a better idea. I live in this fantasy world created by all the music i’ve listened to, movies/shows i’ve watched, and books that I’ve read. I say and do things because I think that it will bring the right outcome, just like you dear reader, but my actions are less grounded in reality.
“All this pain will be worth it one day.”
Me
Suffering and abuse, be it self-inflicted or inflicted by others, is something that I am really used to and just kind of absorb. I would always tell myself, “All this pain will be worth it one day,” but now I don’t think so. Maybe this is just terrible character development by The Simulation, but it still is not an excuse.
A lot of the suffering I go through is by putting off things that probably need to be addressed. Not understanding something at work? Ask for help or just get in trouble eventually. No longer love your spouse? Probably should get a divorce if you’ve exhausted other options, instead of falling in love with someone else and giving your love to her while you’re still married. Pick one or the other, man. You know you’re miserable with your spouse and that there’s no way to make things right, but the longer you play house with the girl who you actually do love, the more pain you are putting that girl through. The fear cripples and paralyzes and what eventually happens is you lose the one you love and are even more miserable and resentful toward the spouse. Working a job that you hate? Start looking for a new one. Can you see bad things coming down the pike at your job and know that the clock is ticking? Ask for more work, look elsewhere internally, or find something outside the company because eventually you’re going to get laid off. That’s what happened to me and really started this path that led to this new treatment.
I was out of options and only had my checking account and 401k to support myself. The treatment is expensive, but the price I’ve paid living this life up until now and the price I would continue to pay without taking the risk is much greater. I don’t know how my mindset will change once this starts. I really don’t. I’d like to believe that some, if not all, of the parts about me that I don’t like, mentally/emotionally, will get fixed or go away. But what about some of the parts of me that I do like? Am I no longer going to find interest in some of the harmless things I liked before or will my personality change too drastically from who I have been my whole life? Is that really even a bad thing? I mean, I can count my friends on one hand, so maybe a personality recalibration wouldn’t be so bad after all. I still feel like I’m way too calm about something like this, but again, I really do not have anything to lose. I’m not able to do the things that I think I need to do in order to find a job, and a job that I would enjoy at that. Most things feel impossible or out of reach for me. The dwindling money should have me rattled 24 hours a day, but it doesn’t. I’m not sure exactly why, but part of me thinks it’s because I know that if nothing is better in my life by that point that I might just say screw it and do something desperate. Who knows if i would, but historically I have not done anything when I’ve had thoughts like that.
In a weird way, I’m counting on this protocol to save my life. The only way that it can do that is for me to just lie there and let it happen. That seems to be the way I’ve lived my life so far; lying there and letting whatever is going to happen, happen, so I guess that’s why I’m not nervous or afraid. All I know is the feeling of being helpless and at the mercy of something or someone else. Let’s see what today brings.
Happiness by the Milligram 