My Head

It's been a few months since I started this here blog, and I've blogged on anything and everything ranging from computers to my battle with chronic non-cancer pain to the impressive array (for an 18-year-old) of prescription bottles lined up on my bed head.

What I've intentionally refrained from blogging about, however, are the problems with my head.  I don't mean headaches or tooth pain, either.  It seems that, historically, ever since the arrival of modern medicine, there has always been much more of an emphasis on the organs below the neckline.  Since the arrival of Dr Freud (and if anyone doesn't remember the name somewhere---go sign yourself into the nearest psych ward, pun intended) and the science of psychiatry, mental health care has improved, but those suffering from mental issues are either marginalised by society, or their problems are shrugged off as minor.

If someone has a broken arm, they're given morphine and aspirin and they get their arm put in a splint, which is then signed by their friends and family.  If someone has a broken leg, they're given Dilaudid IV and get their leg put in a splint, which is then signed by friends and family.

But God help someone who suffers from constant stress, or can't see any reason for continuing to live and is too chicken to pull the trigger.  I know---it's happened to me.  And those days are getting more and more frequent.  There are the days when everything seems like it's in a black-and-white movie, and then there's the days when I feel like I've gone into bullet time, complete with audible heart thumping and time stopping.

I used to carry around a few (like four to six) oxies for the former, and some Serax, Valium, or Nembutal for the latter. I still carry around the Valium, but I've come to have a love-hate relationship with the oxy.  Oxy helps me---it turns the storm clouds to sunshine.  It really does.  Within five minutes.  Try explaining that to my psychiatrist.  Oh, yeah, and after the last dose is taken and I sober up, I feel fine.  No hangover.  Trouble with oxy is (in addition to the addiction, which I haven't developed) you soon start feeling that the happiness, the calm, that it's actually normal.

Which is fine if your life actually feels happy and calm most days.  Mine doesn't.  I get the black-and-white thing once or twice a week, and it would be tolerable if people simply co-operated and figured that maybe I wasn't feeling my very best, etc. etc.  But people, especially at school, tend to think I'm their personal punching bag.

For instance, the vice principal, whom I'll call Sandy Drof on this blog, is widely known to be an alcoholic.  She berates me for something I didn't do, or overblows something I did do to almost comical proportion, and even worse---in public.  Or a friend of some of my friends.  She's a heavy drug abuser (mostly hallucinogens) and abuses alcohol as well.  Piercings all over her body, goes to raves, lesbian because it's the new thing nowadays, the works.  Not that going to raves and drinking is bad.

I go to socialise with cultured, intelligent people.  Most are occasional drug users, some go to raves, about half are model students, and I can discuss practically anything from alcoholism to the nutritional benefits of zinc, so I enjoy this group.  What I don't enjoy is, after a discussion on whether Stephen Harper runs the country poorly or well, or a discussion on the benefits of marijuana v. oxycodone for the psychobehavioural aspect, I hear, "SHUT UP, NOBODY CARES." Maybe you're too stupid to care.  That doesn't mean everybody else is.

The family isn't the most understanding, either.  And I include my mother in this, who deals with the same problems.  I've often said, "You know how you feel on your black days?" "Yeah, I know, sweetie." "Well, I'm sorta feeling it.  I've just about had it." "Do you want an oxy and a Serax?" (My mum hates pills!) "Yeah, I'll take an oxy and a Serax, but I also need some peace and quiet."  She goes on to criticise me about some matter or other, knowing that I feel like crap just sitting up.

My grandmother is worse.  She thinks that you can't be stressed as a teen ager.  Yes, God damn it, you can.  "So don't be stressed." That's like telling a madman to be sane.  Or telling the sky to turn green.  I got injured in a road accident.  That means that I can't operate modes of transportation without either going into bullet time or taking a Serax or a Valium (those work similarly).  Serax makes me sleepy.  So does Valium.  So those aren't options if I haven't had a lot of sleep.  So what I do is I take breaks driving or flying.  My grandmother now blames me that instead of the fifteen minute drive to the doctors' it took twenty.  Big fucking deal.  You could have arrived feet first if I didn't take that five-minute break.