Back from the Dark
I know, I know....
I was supposed to be keeping this blog a little more up-to-date since last year. Turns out I wasn't as well as I had previously thought. I knew I was depressed but I didn't realize the extent of what was happening to me. Let me catch you up to date.
I had always heard voices since my pre-teens and would sometimes experience subtle hallucinations. Flashes.. pinpoints of light... shadows flitting across my peripherals.. stuff like that. I voiced these things to my parents but would always be told to forget about it... stop fooling around... it was all in my head. Turns out it WAS all in my head.
As I grew older these hallucinations progressed and became full blown psychotic episodes. Too afraid to tell my parents about this again... I turned to chemical control substances. Alcohol and drugs made the delusions easier to accept/ignore. And if I did end up talking to someone who wasn't there, my friends chalked it up to the drugs. This continued into college and university. My first real relationship with a woman was solidified due to the fact that she understood and accepted what I was seeing and hearing. She didn't necessarily like it and would often be become condescending and hurtful to me in order to banish the demons and get me to put up some semblance of normalty. She needed me to look normal even if I wasn't feeling it. Turns out this was not a healthy relationship (surprise, surprise) and it ended when I caught her cheating on me while she was away at school. Once again I turned to drugs and alcohol to dull my senses... only this time, I needed stronger drinks and harder drugs to achieve the desired effect. Cocaine ended up being what I needed in the end. The sense of confidence and energy it gave me made dealing with the hallucinations much easier.
All through University I continued to use drugs and alcohol until reaching a $1500 per month habit. The morning I woke up in my bed after a night of drinking and drugs, covered in my own vomit which was stained with blood, I knew I had a problem. I couldn't remember a thing about the night before and the $500 I had in my wallet was gone. My only concern at first was that I couldn't remember if I had a good time or not. Then reality set in and I realized that I could have been dead from choking on my own vomit.
I quit everything cold turkey that very minute. I emptied all my booze, flushed all my drugs (a very painful thing to do I realized when I was trying to reach my hand into the toilet and save the drowning drugs!), and began the long road to recovery. In the end I had to spend a week in Toronto with a good friend of mine form school who's wife was a drug and alcohol counselor. I think that week was what hell might feel like.
For the first while, everything seemed fine... but soon the hallucinations started again. I conditioned myself to ignore everything I didn't know for certain was real. I kept to myself. I slept long hours to avoid my own paranoia. But it wasn't until I met my wife that I found a real reason to manage my delusions.
Over the past years I have been fighting to sift the real form the hallucination and finally, last year, lost the battle. I underwent some therapy and began taking anti-depressants. I was still too scared to tell anyone about my condition.
I didn't want to tell my wife out of fear she would leave me.
I didn't want to tell my doctors out of fear they would not want to deal with a patient such as me.
I didn't want to tell my employers out of fear they would fire me.
So I did what I did best and hid it. Only this time I didn't have the chemical assistance I once did. Eventually it got the better of me. My therapist/psychologist tried to maintain my sanity. But eventually the hallucinations got the best of me.
And now.. as of today... I have been taking anti-psychotics and finally feeling fine. Well better than fine... good really. My mouth is dry as hell (one of the side effects) and my libido is not what it used to be (I was a once a day kinda guy), but I feel good. And this time around... I have a partner who cares more about my health than my appearance of health. I'm waiting to get into a hospital in Guelph that specializes in these kinds of things. But, as in all things, it comes down to money.
They need it. I don't have it. And my health insurance won't give it up.
So once again I find myself ready and excited to write something here again.
Hopefully this won't be a once a year posting event.
I was supposed to be keeping this blog a little more up-to-date since last year. Turns out I wasn't as well as I had previously thought. I knew I was depressed but I didn't realize the extent of what was happening to me. Let me catch you up to date.
I had always heard voices since my pre-teens and would sometimes experience subtle hallucinations. Flashes.. pinpoints of light... shadows flitting across my peripherals.. stuff like that. I voiced these things to my parents but would always be told to forget about it... stop fooling around... it was all in my head. Turns out it WAS all in my head.
As I grew older these hallucinations progressed and became full blown psychotic episodes. Too afraid to tell my parents about this again... I turned to chemical control substances. Alcohol and drugs made the delusions easier to accept/ignore. And if I did end up talking to someone who wasn't there, my friends chalked it up to the drugs. This continued into college and university. My first real relationship with a woman was solidified due to the fact that she understood and accepted what I was seeing and hearing. She didn't necessarily like it and would often be become condescending and hurtful to me in order to banish the demons and get me to put up some semblance of normalty. She needed me to look normal even if I wasn't feeling it. Turns out this was not a healthy relationship (surprise, surprise) and it ended when I caught her cheating on me while she was away at school. Once again I turned to drugs and alcohol to dull my senses... only this time, I needed stronger drinks and harder drugs to achieve the desired effect. Cocaine ended up being what I needed in the end. The sense of confidence and energy it gave me made dealing with the hallucinations much easier.
All through University I continued to use drugs and alcohol until reaching a $1500 per month habit. The morning I woke up in my bed after a night of drinking and drugs, covered in my own vomit which was stained with blood, I knew I had a problem. I couldn't remember a thing about the night before and the $500 I had in my wallet was gone. My only concern at first was that I couldn't remember if I had a good time or not. Then reality set in and I realized that I could have been dead from choking on my own vomit.
I quit everything cold turkey that very minute. I emptied all my booze, flushed all my drugs (a very painful thing to do I realized when I was trying to reach my hand into the toilet and save the drowning drugs!), and began the long road to recovery. In the end I had to spend a week in Toronto with a good friend of mine form school who's wife was a drug and alcohol counselor. I think that week was what hell might feel like.
For the first while, everything seemed fine... but soon the hallucinations started again. I conditioned myself to ignore everything I didn't know for certain was real. I kept to myself. I slept long hours to avoid my own paranoia. But it wasn't until I met my wife that I found a real reason to manage my delusions.
Over the past years I have been fighting to sift the real form the hallucination and finally, last year, lost the battle. I underwent some therapy and began taking anti-depressants. I was still too scared to tell anyone about my condition.
I didn't want to tell my wife out of fear she would leave me.
I didn't want to tell my doctors out of fear they would not want to deal with a patient such as me.
I didn't want to tell my employers out of fear they would fire me.
So I did what I did best and hid it. Only this time I didn't have the chemical assistance I once did. Eventually it got the better of me. My therapist/psychologist tried to maintain my sanity. But eventually the hallucinations got the best of me.
And now.. as of today... I have been taking anti-psychotics and finally feeling fine. Well better than fine... good really. My mouth is dry as hell (one of the side effects) and my libido is not what it used to be (I was a once a day kinda guy), but I feel good. And this time around... I have a partner who cares more about my health than my appearance of health. I'm waiting to get into a hospital in Guelph that specializes in these kinds of things. But, as in all things, it comes down to money.
They need it. I don't have it. And my health insurance won't give it up.
So once again I find myself ready and excited to write something here again.
Hopefully this won't be a once a year posting event.