Day One

Arrival. Wait. Move from front to inside. Off stretcher and into a plastic chair. Within a minute several patients come in (from what I would later learn was a cigartette break); I avert my eyes. Their shuffling gate is slow and dejected. The last in line is a long-haired, bearded man, flipping his legs up and down, sometimes sidewys — a haphazard, wobbling walk; he had a really crooked debarked stick for a cane — so crooked I felt is was a crutch for something in his mind more than a crutch for a leg. He had his shirt up to his chest, exposing a bulbous stomach; he was picking his teeth in his wide open mouth. “New fish,” he said to no one in particular, obviously refering to me.

“Fuck,” I thought. “Where the hell am I? What have I gotten myself into?”

After sitting for awhhile (while paperwork was readied for me) I called to “come with us for a Johnnie check. I was in a Jhonnie from the hospital, and they brought another with them as they lead me into an empty patient room. The had me put the second Johnnie on my back, and then they asked me to squat, which I did — the squat test. Satisfied that nothing fell to the floor (do people really hide shit under their balls when they come into a place like this?)

Then I was led back to were I came in, which was the main area of the unit and where the nurses did there chores (which, it turned out, was mainly filling out paperwork). While there this time they emptied the bag of my belongings from the hospital: shoes and shirt — can’t have my bloody pants (that is, pants with blood on them). “Save my poncho,” I tell them, “I can sew it.” (It was cut off of me while I was lying on the street when the EMTs picked me up.) They dug up a spare pair of pants for me; much to large and with a rubber band through two belt loops to hold them up.

Things did not happen too quickly there. Wander? Sit? “You’ll be in room seven,” someone says. “Can you make your own bed?” I do not recall answering that. I looked around and there is no room seven. They are numbered 401 to 411. “I am in room 407?” I asked. “No, 404,” someone said handing me linens. I go to room 404 — 2 beds both emply — what relief. I made the bed and then wandered about. I got some food — snacks — and then got some meds, Librium and Vitamins.

Then sleep.

My automobile journey to Burning Man–Massachusetts to Nevada, some 3000 miles of driving–started out okay. I left early feeling okay. I was okay. But little did I realize how precarious just being okay really is. I had several campgrounds mapped out and I made excellent progress and got to one in Eastern Ohio before the sun started to set. I was given a campground map and I drove around til I found a nice, secluded camp with a nice, big tree in the middle. I felt good, not just pokay then. Having picked a site I went back and paid the 15 dollar fee and then decided to drive back to a food store I passed on the way in.

It was hot. The black of the parking lot increased the heat. I went in the store and walked around for a bit, finding what I wanted; water, fruit for my evening meal.

During check out… WHAM! Like a psychic two by four whacking the inside of my head, I became paranoid and afraid.

All of the people working there were giving me the “evil eye” like I was Muslim or Black–I was looked at with suspicion, not to be trusted. These were not good people here I felt. I looked at them with disapointment and a suspicion of my own. But mostly, I looked at them with fear. I did not want to be there.

I am a tall, tattooed man, so mabye I was suspicious or scary in their eyes. But I felt fear at that level that PTSD gives you–little old ladies with sharpened knives are scary.

I got out of there quickly after buying my water and peaches and by the time I got into my car I was shaking and tearful with fear. I can’t do this. I can’t go. I am going crazy. I called my therapist and left a tear-filled message. I felt better for it but the ride back to my camp site was no fun–when I should have been enjoying a beautiful countryside I was shaking and crying with fear.

Setting up camp was no fun. Eating the peaches was no fun. Trying to sleep as the sun slipped way was no fun.

Early next morning I was feeling a bit better–almost “okay.” I felt as if I were sneaking away as the sun rose, quickly taking down the text and driving away to the nearest highway…

I have not updated this “blog” in awhile as I have been concentrating so hard on other things. I do, though, have much more to add.

Despite some positive results with the Trauma Center — PTSD is NOT uderstood by many doctors and having a specialist is crucial — I still feel anxious.

More later….

My posts on serotonin syndrome have been combined and is here Serotonin Syndrome.

(If you happen to have been following this blog, I hope you will understand the sporadicness of my posts. When it is difficult to just live day to day… Well, I hope you can imagine.)

The Medications

After a breakthough of sorts in therapy — The Trauma Center at JRI — involving the sources of my PTSD (see my post “I Dreamt that I Woke up” for some information in that regard), the incredible terror of dark forms coming at me in my mind whenever I neared other people^* has all but gone!

The ramifications of this release from bondage has been no panic attacks, and I no longer need these medications:

Propranalol (brand name Inderal)
Hydroxyzine (brand name Vistaril)

I had stopped taking the Geodon but am undecided about its efficacy (and how it works) — more on that later.

I had stopped the Nardil, but I have re-started it at half the dosage — 30mg three times a day nearly killed me (see the next post, “Serotonin Syndrome”) — I am willing to try 15mg 3x day and so far so good.

More later because this is all so very important (but I am tired).

* Basically that is how it worked, it was actually a bit more complex, and, need I say, difficult to deal with.

I got out of the hospital today (Tuesday) and am to exhausted and slow of wit to disscuss the ordeal in as well as I should. I was in since last Wenesday. I should have been admitted Tuesday night went I went in totally strung-out and uncontrollaby cramping up due to the MAOI, but Dr. Rotten in the ER pre-judged me as some sort of addict just looking for a fix and sent me home as my vitals were not life-threatening (or something).

Anyway, things got much worse.

My legs were tensing up hard, I couldn’t move my bowels and hadn’t for four days. When I finally wasn’t able to urinate, and things started to hurt, I had to go back to the ER, practically yelling at the guy in triage (who I later apologized to, twice) that I was not an addict looking for fix, Dr. Simple, after looking at the previous night’s report, immediatly administered to me some Ativam (lorazepam) and started another round of testing. Lukily for me, they admitted me.

And a week later I ain’t got those MOAI blues no more.

I had this most incredible dream. It should have freaked me out — and pissed me off — but I have come to grips with it.

In my dream I woke up and I thought that I was awake. It was so vivid! I leaned out of bed and saw that the room was different. I was hallucinating I thought! What else could explain it. I was not scared though. It was interesting. The dresser over in the corner — in the wrong place. There was a sign on it, which I unfortunately did not read. There was a crib in the middle of the room. And toys. Lots or colorful toys. There were three children inthe room playing with the toys. They were happy. I wanted to talk to the dark-haired boy with glasses — I did not know him — but I’m not sure why I did not. I do not remember the faces of the other two children, a boy and a girl. I felt that there was a fourth person in the room and tried to look at him.

I was picked up than, lifted and moved side. Someone leaned against me, warm soft skin against my back. He whispered in my ear. It was my father, whispering some insincere reassurance, although I do not remember what he said. I felt then that warm soft feeling on my buttocks.

And my father proceded to rape me.

When I woke up then I did not feel too overwhelmed, or scared or angry. I am not sure that this was an actual memory. But it was relevatory — was that what I am terrified of? That that did happen to me? May happen again? Was that all?

If it happened there is nothing I can do about it. It was not my fault. I must move on with my life.

My terror of people has lessened. The dark, looming imagery I used to get about people is all but gone.

UPDATED — SEE END OF POST

Finally, a positive post!

I have been on these medications for awhile:

Ziprasidone (brand name Geodon)
Propranalol (brand name Inderal)
Hydroxyzine (brand name Vistaril)

No effect can be attributed to the Geodon, but the Inderal keeps my heart from pounding in my chest, with the side effect of the feeling like the circulation in my arms has been cut off and my arms are near to being hard to move, and the Vistaril spreads an additional sense of calm to my lungs and chest with the side effects that of the feeling that there is a ton of bricks on them and a kind of soreness in my lungs when I breath. These are decidedly effecting the symptoms, though and not the root causes of my fear. The Geodon was supposed to do that, I guess, messing with the dopamine and serotonin neurotransmitters of the brain, at least on paper. But so far no typical dopamine and serotonin neurotransmitter effecting drugs have had any effect on me — none.

But I still got panic attacks, twice of such magnitude that I went to the emergency room; the pain was horrific. I was given a benzodiazepine (Adivan) that made me fall asleep, which made the attacks subside — but I can’t spend the rest of my life sleeping or in a fatigued state.

So I went back to my doctor and said “I’m going crazy!” and he tried to reassure me that there are other medications to try. And the one he recommended this time was an MAOI (monoamine oxidase inhibitor) called Nardil (phenelzine sulphate).

Although it’s side effect are pretty strong (some fatigue and a sense of being “spaced out,” I have to remind myself to think) I am now quite relaxed and the background terror of my life is all but gone!

More later…

The Nardil took a few days longer to do its thing. It is a fucking nightmare! More when I am able.

I once quit a job because I did not make my sandwich right.

I had a job landscaping. It was pleasant, easy work. I got out in the weather, saw much of my town, got exercise. The guys I worked with, and the boss I worked for, were “good eggs” and I got along with them. I admired the foreman’s pride in his work, and it rubbed off on me.

But one day, I got so scared that I just called in and made up a story of “how I got in trouble and can’t make it in.” I called later in the day to quit. I was just scared. And I did not really know, nor dwelled upon, why.

But a memory, it was right before I quit, had always been nagging at me about that job. It is, as in the pride in the foreman’s work, so clear. It was lunch time — we always stopped at noon for about a half hour, no matter what — and I found myself looking down at my ill-prepared lunch of some dry and hard french bread with just a couple of slices of roast beef in the middle and some snack to go with it that was so insignificant that I do not remember what it was.

I remember, sitting comfortably on a porch, they guys all eating their lunches of carefully made sandwiches and fruit and drinks; someone had milk. They had all done this before, in fact for a very long time, and they seemed so comfortable with what they were doing… they seemed content.

And I remember looking down at my dry, hastily thrown together sandwich and felt — knew — that I was not one of them. I was different. I did not belong. I was not part of them. I could not even make a sandwich right.

Only now do I realize that…

The sandwich was why I could not go back.

It is you are in a world that is a cross between H. P. Lovecraft and Phillip K. Dick, it is everything you have ever believed in is not true, it is do not touch that or we will all be blown the smithereens, it is your family is out to get you, it is that guy over there is working with the guy other there to cheat you, it is that people can not be trusted and if you interact with them something bad, something horrible, something terrible, something so violent and of such terror is going to happen that there is no way that you are going to move, no way are you going to draw attention to yourself, no way are you going to make a sound, you are not even going to breathe it is so fucking scary.

And logic does not make it go away.

And the one thing you need, the only thing that will save you, you can’t have — a friend.

There is a sort of pain associated with loss. Loss of a valuable possession, a sum of money, etc., can cause a painful feeling. Similarly, the making of a major mistake can cause a painful feeling. The two feelings are quite the same.

Related too is the painful feeling of fear of such events, the fear of such pain. I fear leaving my camera on the front seat of my car. I fear certain type of crowds, such as cocktail parties.

Memories can trigger these painful feelings; memories of such painful events. Thinking can trigger these painful feelings; thinking that you might make a mistake.

Those two things, remembering and thinking, can turn into a vicious cycle that interferes with life. One wants to do something and upon the thinking of the doing one is hit by the painful feeling that one may make a mistake which gets reinforced by the memory of an event which resulted in a painful feeling.

The problem — the problem of PTSD — is when a painful feeling comes with seemingly no reason, with no associated event or memory; the pain just comes. Sometimes there are triggers. A person walks into a room and you are in pain; a dog barks and you are in pain; there is a vague smell and you are in pain; there is a look on someone’s face — even a friend’s — and you are in pain.

Even worse is when there are no discernible triggers. You are in pain and there is no reason. You are in pain and there is no one to talk to.

You are in pain and there is no way out.

[I wrote this some time ago, but I think it should be posted here today as it explains so much about how I still feel to this day.]

There is something that frightens me and I know not what it is. It is not fear of the unknown but an unknown fear.

The closest I have come to meeting this fear was in a dream. In a typical childhood fear-dream, I was laying in bed in my room at the top of the stairs and someone, some dark form, was coming, sneaking, up the stairs toward me. Paralyzed with fear I could do nothing but wait as this unknown form slowly came closer, closer… up the stairs it came. All I knew was that something with bad intent had me as it’s goal.

However, that fear was nothing. It disappeared. Or rather, got trumped, overridden, forgotten. For something else was coming. Something else, beyond form, beyond human, was coming. Coming from above, from outside. More terrifying than anything ever I had experienced before or since, this unknown thing was coming from outside my dream.

Suddenly I was aware I was dreaming. The fear on the stairs evaporated as if it were nothing. The ceiling of the room I was dreaming in began to morph. From the ceiling emerged a tunnel out of the netherworld, and out of it something was entering my dream. Something was entering my dream! And the fear of this was overwhelming. This fear was… exquisitely painful.

This fear was of an unknown source. I woke up screaming. Luckily, I woke up screaming.

I have had a similar dreams — nightmares — before, but then, all I remember was waking up in a scream. My childhood dreams was fraught with dark, scary visions, of shadows of people watching and whispering…

But this unknown fear overshadows all — and I never know when it may return.

I feel that people must see it on me, or in me, my fear of this fear. Do they notice that I am always looking over my shoulder? Looking up at the ceiling? Do they notice that I am always jumpy? Jumping at shadows and quick movements? Is that why people look at me so strangely?

It’s a feeling that I just can’t shake. I just can’t shake it.

I have two direct experiences with suicide: me and my brother.

My brother is dead.

Dead by his own hand — technically not by hand but by mouth via the ingestion of a lethal combination of drugs and alcohol. He left a note, his handwriting deteriorating as he penned his last words at the end of the paper…

I am still alive.

There is a stigma attached to suicide: it is unlawful; it is a sin; it is a sign of cowardice. This stigma causes families members to hide, suppress and deny it — I know all too painfully of this.

Lost, among the glowing “anti-depressant” ads (even with their warning labels), the journalistic triviality of suicide reports, the movie portrayals of suicide victims, and the quite neurotic treatment of suicide victims by many, the overwhelming, driving force behind suicide is searing pain.

Those of us who have died did not do so out of cowardice or of lack of empathy, but of a madness that is caused by constant pain.

Those of us who have died simply wanted their pain to cease.

It is like what makes me who I am — my core being — is, has been, broken into a thousand pieces; and having been so alone for so long, I am groping, grasping, in the dark trying to gather the pieces; and without help I am trying to figure out how the pieces should go together.

Anger is supposed to be okay according to my therapist. We have not yet gone into the subject too deeply, but I think she meant that anger is a normal human emotion and that that feeling is okay to have.

I was telling her of how I abhor anger.

I avoid anger. I run away from anger — literally and figuratively. Especially the anger in others.

First, an aside: When I was a young kid I had a bit of a mean streak in me (if three makes a streak). I don’t want to re-live those times again right now, but there were three instances when I bullied and hurt some other kids. I don’t want to recount exactly what happened as I am deeply pained and ashamed of what I did. Let me leave this thought with that I saw (and felt) the hurt I caused another boy in a disgusting act by the boy’s father against his own son.

But there are some times today when I get angry and let my anger overcome my reasoning powers (limited as that power is).

Part of "anger is okay" though, I believe, is that although the feeling of anger maybe okay, the lashing out at others in anger is not. I am not talking about anger at, say, someone who robs you. No. I mean anger at, say, a blog post or comment; anger at someone else’s attitude; anger at someone’s ethnicity, class, race, gender or sexual identity (luckily I am not plagued by this latter class).

When I look back at the (not too many but enough) times I have posted an angry comment, yelled at a slow driver, insulted someone, I think that I was really acting out some deep rooted anger that I have never dealt with — some internal turmoil never resolved.

There are too many, for me, now, as I look back, instances in my life about which I need to say…

I was wrong and I am sorry.

Abandonment. Disappointment. Fear of those prevents me from proper relationships. Fear of negative response to those — inevitable — instances of not hearing from, misunderstanding of, etc. It is painful. To the extreme.

It was a cut, a long time ago, on my cheek… I had this image in my head of it. Spirals. Spirals of images and memories and one of my cut cheek — one of the spirals — went forth from the past until now.

Or something.

I don’t know.

But now, I have a thought, turning into, the more I think of it, a compulsion, to cut my cheek. And underneath the thought is a reason: to remember a specific terror that could have been avoided if I where stronger or smarter or more experienced or had more wisdom.

So the cut, this cut, is a reminder of that. This cut is wisdom. Learned but not remembered other than by the cut. By that I mean that I did forget the pain I went though, suppressed, like many other times before, leading me to make the mistake yet again.

I cannot this time forget.

For if I do I shall repeat the pain.

Trauma teaches one to forget. Not remembering though, these little but painful social “mishaps,” means repeating behavior — painful behavior that ultimately leads to other self-destructing behaviors.

The first cut this time was lame. Funny I think now to use that word: “lame.” For I hate machismo crap. One does not cut to be macho in any sense of the word. Fuck no.

I cut to scar. Which is to remind. Which is to remember.

A small cut will heal quickly and not leave a scar. My first cut would not scar. My second would not either. But the third…

Blood drips and trickles and then flows down my neck and immediately I feel relief.

It is like a drug.

I am, now, as I write, somewhat content. Yet…

Logically, I know that I am wrong in my thinking. But physically I am, at least for now, willing to be wrong.

I have before me an ample supply of some good anti-pasto, a good stick of pepperoni and some good pita bread. I have also a case of Tsingtao. And, equally important to all the above, I am watching the Battlestar Galactica marathon on the SciFi channel and I eagerly await the next new episode tonight.

I am wrong to isolate and especially to drink, but even though I just might drink too much and do something wrong late in tonight’s wee hours if I become too drunk, it is a chance I am willing to take.

For now and today and into tonight I am somewhat at peace and my pain has receded.

I know my pain will return.

But for now my pain has gone.

Sometimes it is the little traumas that are the worse.

“How?” people, I am sure, will ask, does a childhood trauma cause PTSD in an adult?

Well, it is complex, but one aspect is what I call, Unknown Fear. That is, the feeling of fear without any reason or of any apparent cause. It is just fear. A fear of an unknown source, triggered by an unknown entity.

We live in a society where the showing, or admitting, of fear is, shall we say, “frowned upon.”

So, one may (as I) go through childhood, through school, through “life,” generally avoiding and isolating oneself from one’s unknown fears. We are (I am) very good at hiding fear. A child can generally find ways to avoid most activities.

What happens over time though, is that avoidance and isolation takes a toll. We are social beings; we need love. But this too, this need for love, is, unfortunately, also “frowned upon.” Showing signs of empathy? Ah, nope. Showing that you care? Um, never. Just simply talking about your feelings? Oh please! In our society the word love has few and limited meanings: personal love is (as we are witnessing to the extreme today) between one man and one woman; love of family is similarly a case of only within an isolated, narrowly defined household; love of country (and of God) simply (as we are witnessing to the extreme today) obedience to a narrowly defined ideology. Love is, as anyone who loves art, literature, science, history, and nature knows, so much more.

So, later in life, one feels the need for love and makes attempts to share it. Yet, and this is how it plays out for me in particular, attempting toward “love” usually results in painful misunderstandings.

A life of isolation allows for little learning. A made the awkward attempts at love, not during my childhood, or my teens or shortly thereafter, but only during adulthood. For me, each mistake made was fraught with pain, with little traumas.

The more I tried to insulate myself from pain that seemingly nobody else around me felt, the more I did not learn how to cope with the vagaries of social interactions. These little traumas repeat themselves, and the only coping mechanism learned, ever, was avoidence.

But, the more one isolates, the more intense is one’s need for love.

The more one isolates, the more unable is one to love or to be loved.

‘It is funny that…’ I began to write. No. It is sad, terrible, horrible even, that mental illness is so hard to diagnose. Since our body’s nervous system is so complex, understanding how to treat an illness that effects it is very important — medications have side-effects and can effect more or less of our body than even doctors understand (and we now live in a society where pharmaceutical companies display far too much influence over treatment).

Here are the medications that are of no help in relieving me of my PTSD related pain.

fluoxetine (brand names such as Prozac, Fontex, Ladose)
buspirone (brand names such as Bespar, Buspar, Buspimen, Buspinol)
paroxetine (brand names such as Seroxat, Paxil, Parotin)
escitalopram (brand names Lexapro, Cipralex)
aripiprazole (brand name Abilify)
clonazepam (brand name Klonopin)
benzodiazepine
amphetamine

There were others that I do not even recall the names of.

For my diagnosis of PTSD these medications are of no help whatsoever. In fact, according to my own research it is obvious that these medications would be of no help!

Basically, PTSD (and, in my opinion, many phobic and anxiety disorders) are far too often mis-diagnosed as “depression” when, in fact, “depression” is a merely a symptom — phobic and anxiety disorders cause sufferers to avoid people, places and situations; the use of isolation, food, and other “distractions” such as television are symptoms; alcohol use is typical as its sedative properties are clear.

PTSD is the hyperarousal of catecholamines dopamine, epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline); an excess of neurotransmitters. One’s “fight-or-flight response” turns on and “gets stuck on.” I do not think that the neurotransmitter serotonin (and therefore SSRIs) has anything to do, directly, with PTSD.

What will work? I am still waiting!

I am currently investigating MAOIs and beta-blockers.

My fear is a mistake. That something happened to me is undeniable, but it was a mistake.

Driven by their own special fear-based madness my own parents fucked me over and left me scared/scarred for life. Not that they meant to. They probably had no clue what they were doing to me. It is very difficult to grasp that notion. My own home was not a safe place for me.

On top of all that I grew up (well, just existed really) in a society which has institutionalized instilling fear in its children; fear of of losing; fear of failing; fear of not being good enough; fear of God; fear of burning for all of eternity in the fires of Hell.

“Do you know how long eternity is?” a priest said to my mother when she was a child. “It is longer than it takes a little bird to pick one by one each grain of sand in all the beaches in the world and drop it in the ocean.”

Fear of “the wrong side of the track.” Fear of “the ghetto.” Fear of “those people.” Fear of “that kind of girl.”

Yeah, we got fear. Fear is a tool, a teaching device, without apology, without explanation. But a child, particularly the boy, is taught at the same time to not show fear, to “suck it up.” A boy who shows outward signs of fear is ridiculed by society and shamed and punished by fathers or other authority figures.

Men hold a fist over their children to instill fear of their (and God’s) wrath, followed up by a placing of the hand on the back of the neck with, “Be strong, don’t cry, show ‘em you can take it.”

It is repeated in many a generation, over and over.

Men always telling boys, “Don’t be a faggot!”