Sunday, December 23rd, 2012 | Permalink
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
This is what slow death looks like; a mistake you can only make once in your lifetime. I happened to stumble upon this video and it nearly brought me to tears because I feel a connection to these people and what they have gone through with crystal meth.
Warning: contains disturbing images
When an addict looks in the mirror they (more…)
Wednesday, November 28th, 2012 | Permalink
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.” -Henry Ford
Are you still using drugs? You don’t have to be. Do you think your life is too far out of control to turn it around? You’re wrong. Do you think you can’t do it? Oh, but you can! You are so much more than you think you are and you’re capable of so much more than you realize!. (more…)
Thursday, February 16th, 2012 | Permalink
“For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, for love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I’ve been thinking about my recent self-diagnosis of psychological and emotional trauma and sure, I probably shouldn’t be self-diagnose myself and I also think I was having an unusually bad week! At the same time I still do think I suffered psychologically and emotionally from using meth with a bunch of A-holes ….that is a fact. (more…)
Friday, February 3rd, 2012 | Permalink
“The scars you can’t see are the hardest to heal.” ~Astrid Alauda
There was a time after I stopped using meth and began medication for bipolar disorder when I felt exceptionally well. I felt healed and I thought the worst was all behind me then that wave of regret kept coming at me at an alarming frequency and I thought it was just the anxiety of past mistakes.
I always realized I had suffered emotionally and psychologically but I never realized that it was yet another form of trauma that went much deeper than I originally thought. I now know that I have been seriously traumatized, emotionally and psychologically, by events from my past. The events during my meth use that connected me to people who were masters at psychological games and abuse. (more…)
Monday, January 23rd, 2012 | Permalink
“Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.” ~Sydney J. Harris
Living with bipolar disorder (undiagnosed) until my late 30′s is making my current life (diagnosed & medicated) far more difficult than I ever would have guessed.
Throughout my life I have made more than my share of bad decisions but they didn’t seem that bad while I was making them, but I had no idea there was a mental illness that was short circuiting my thoughts. When I made a bad decision it never completely registered that it was bad. On some level I knew I was doing something really bad but it had very, very little meaning. (more…)
Monday, October 31st, 2011 | Permalink
“I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.” ~Abraham Lincoln
Putting many of my experiences with bipolar disorder into an ebook was a little scary and slightly overwhelming. Those experiences ranged from the deep depression, to drugs, to prostitution and I didn’t know how it would be received. Would people think even less of me or would people understand bipolar disorder a little bit better? I was hoping for the latter.
I suffered through bipolar disorder for decades before a doctor finally recognized it in my late thirties. By that time I was like an old automobile that hadn’t been taken care of and had lost all re-sale value. In other words, no one wanted to hire me, I suffered from painful nerve damage (neuropathy), partial loss of vision, loss of energy, stamina, and many lingering bouts of depression even though I was medicated. (more…)
Sunday, September 25th, 2011 | Permalink
“The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness.“ ~Arthur Schopenhauer
Anyone living with HIV and using meth should ask themselves, “Do I want to live or do I want to die?” You can’t have both as I found out, I did many things in my life that would make it seem I had chosen to die and I nearly succeeded. I realized I really wanted to live!
I can’t think of anything worse for your health than doing crystal meth while living with HIV. Jumping into an active volcano would be better because it would be over quickly as opposed to the drawn out ugly death.
Sure, you feel invincible on meth but guess what? You are more vulnerable to …..shit, to everything and you’re really signing your own death certificate. (more…)
Sunday, August 7th, 2011 | Permalink
“The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.” ~Don Williams, Jr.
A story of extreme depression, self-sabotage, feelings of worthlessness, drug abuse and how I changed it.
When I began writing about my experiences with crystal meth I didn’t know where to begin because my memories were scattered in my head like a new jigsaw puzzle still in the box. I knew I had the pieces but didn’t know which piece to pick first. Over time I began to see a pattern form and was able to put a lot of it into a sensible order and then I saw a bigger picture. One where drugs were not the root of my problem – bipolar disorder was and still is.
This new understanding pushed me further into my past to explore more of what I did and why I did it. I never expected this site to be the amazing therapist it turned out to be! Imagine how much money it would have cost to be in therapy for one and a half years. (more…)
Monday, July 18th, 2011 | Permalink
“There is no Challenge more challenging than the challenge to improve yourself.” ~Michael F. Staley
After surviving my meth problem and after I did my time in the hospital I encountered an unexpected challenge. I began associating meth with sex, and sex with meth and it became very difficult to think of one without the other. They were two very different things that, over time, had become one. Fear made me hold on to both for a little while longer.
Being the social animals that we are, we all wish for a warm body to be close to at one time or another. Either you want sex or just crave some type of physical contact with another human being. It’s a natural yearning most of us have and there’s only so long you can go without. (more…)
Saturday, July 2nd, 2011 | Permalink
“Any existence deprived of freedom is a kind of death.” ~ Gen Michel Aoun
This Independence Day I will be having fun with friends all weekend. It’s planned but not too planned as we want to see fireworks, boat races, ride bikes, go out for drinks, enjoy the beach, have a clam bake, plus the stuff we haven’t thought of yet!
If I hadn’t quit meth, none of this would be possible. A few short years ago on July 4th I was confined to the sofa or the bed with only enough energy to roll off and crawl to the bathroom a couple times a day. Nearing my death, I was still in denial of what I did to myself with crystal meth. (more…)
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