So I missed a few days in my monthly goal of journaling. It is what it is.
In the past few days I have done some experimentation. Yesterday, I decided to experiment with Xanax. It was a failed experiment. After having a long, difficult week, being sick included, I was surprisingly fine overall. There was no visceral or emotional unease. I tried Xanax anyway. It could only make things better, right?
Initially, it just made me feel sleepy. However, when I realized Adora had both large bowls I use on a daily basis in her room, dirty, in spite of how many times I’ve asked that not to be the case, I calmly went to retrieve them. Then, we suddenly had no bowls I like. I broke them both. I cleaned up the mess in a state of shock and shame, rather than the self-perpetuated rage common with alcohol.
Thereafter, I sat down to eat and watch the walking dead, thinking I would most certainly regain my composure. Maybe I just needed to eat. Suzi and I began to argue. She said something that I obviously took great offense to as suddenly the coffee table was overturned (the same coffee table that has appeared in many previous journal entries. It has proved itself quite sturdy).
There was no space between the anger and the action, which was and is terrifying. It just happened. However, it wasn’t like a drunken rage in that it created a self-feeding system of destructive behavior. I immediately regretted it and cleaned up the mess (which was extensive). The complete Xanax induced disassociation was gone within a half hour, but I still felt as if I was in a haze the majority of today.
I decided to drink. I knew exactly where I was going to get vodka, though I was still deciding the volume. My plan was not set in stone, but there was a definite degree of rigid certitude and self-defeating satisfaction in it. But I did not drink. Instead, I decided that I would try pot.
The initial results were absolute terror. I took a shower and tried to reel my mind back from the horrifying insanity. I crawled under my covers and was afraid to move, as movement incurred panic. While lying there, I realized that I had forgotten my book bag across the street at a friend’s. I require that bag accomplish work things in the morning, but was willing to risk not having my bag if it meant I had to engage the dreadful trek to retrieve it. It’s about a minute walk to my friend’s house. Couldn’t do it. This lasted for approximately an hour.
However, now …. Approximately four hours after ingesting the plant, I feel amazing. I feel calm. I feel that not only is my potential for anger diminished, but that my capacity for empathy is stretching beyond the limits of my normal confines, or so it seems. The stress is gone. Rather than numbing out the preceding or coming day, which alcohol accomplishes terrifically, I am thinking about the following day with objectivity rather than resent. I have worked hard to reject the feeling of circumstance victimization on the rational level, but it is the first time I have felt it on a visceral level, at least with my faculties (mostly) intact. If there is a way to achieve this respite, without the initial terror, my deamon would be vanquished indefinitely.
I also understand Suzi’s stake and position in this far better than I did a few hours ago. Or at least I am much more open to rationalize a viewpoint outside my own that may or may not resonate with hers. I want to talk to her about it, but my faculties are present enough to realize that would be unfair to her. She deserves to be angry. She deserves to worry that my tragically failed experiment is a predictor of resurgent behavior. I cannot fix that with words and would only be trying to make myself feel better if I did. I can only show her, and myself, that this failed experiment is a prominent marker on my path to recovery.
