T.M. Shannon

Hi everyone,

Well, it’s another week of demented people playing with powerful toys over in you know where, and I gotta say perfect timing for Mental Health and Addiction week.

Health is gonna go after the threat and over-prescription of SSRI antidepressants and antipsychotics, they want to put people with mental illness into “wellness camps” to treat their “addiction to antidepressants.”

It goes without saying that a lot of people on BipolarSky are pissed and ready to riot.

And yeah, I diatribed last week, but I needed to say what I had to the way I believed. Does it mark me down going a little Letter to the Romans? Is it just a rant? I felt like I was speaking from my heart – the queer erasure gets me down.

But some don’t like emotive speaking. I present my next article, the erasure of the TQIA+ and trans involvement from the NPS’ Stonewall memorial page. Seeing this, these people really want me speaking in fair terms, the way theywant to hear and see it?

I don’t think I can roll that way.

But it does spotlight the issues I have to deal with now that I’ve solved the angry static under my thoughts – which I swear I could feel – with an off-script norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor that helps with ADHD.

And having gone through getting 4-day level 2 depression after a faux pas on my part, a long-term issue for me, and going through some past and present behaviours – given I was studious at school so long as I liked the subject (looking at you, French) – my psych diagnosed ADHD.

“Ahh, another visitor! Stay a while or stay forever!”

Facets of My Crazy

I wrote, way back when last year on the diagnosis that led my psych to put me on four meds. Pharmabro much? Well, not really, as each medication took care of a different thing.

Pristiq then Venlafaxine? SNRI antidepressant to stop dropping to a zero, it does a lot of work.

Olanzapine? Mood stabiliser. First time I got off you I had a manic episode, second time I made it to night three and couldn’t sleep, and as much as I hate the appetite, you kept me from zeroing out week before last.

Lamotrogine? Don’t know what you do, but I sleep well with you, takes the edge off the Olanzapine dreams.

Lurasidone? Well, been psychotic once (like the mania, once was enough), and it came with a lot of paranoia. Not sure if I need it need it, but I’m happy with it.

The clouded thoughts? Struggling at work? That static? Previous session with my psych, I brought up he mentioned about Ritalin once, but, sadly, with prior psychosis there’s risk of upping the dopamine setting me off again – and it’d probably be an addictive bender as well.

Another notion I entertained in general; the only thing stopping me really was not being bothered about it and desperate to stay sober.

So anyway, crazed out of my mind, it took me going to 5 pharmacies to actually get a pack of Reboxitine – everyone else was, “I can order it for tomorrow,” nope, I need that stuff today – and within an hour and a half it was just about gone.

Follow up was last week, and my psych was very happy to hear things had changed for the better. Just, not everything, because I have some serious problems and make serious mistakes vis-à-vis inability to walk from arguments, blurting things out, and mansplaining.

Case in point, I did it again this morning, like a veritable Ye without the Nazism. And discourse has been – mine included – responsibility for actions. Bipolar, Autism, ADHD, you name it, it might be an explanation, but it’s not an excuse (and completely unrelated to being a Nazi).

Granted, I still see that as pure manic behaviour to the get in treatment and take your meds bro level. This might be in character for the manic side, but not the character you can be when taking care of yourself

A Constant Source of Mistakes and Faux Pas

I went and said something you’d think innocuous based on someone’s appearance – this someone has a visible disability, and boy did I know I shoved my foot in my mouth up to the kneecap.

I did apologise properly, he ended up inviting me for coffee after our two-person 12-step meeting, we ended up connecting on spiritual and addictive grounds, a perfect positive to wipe out being an arse – or so you’d think.

This is the four-day level two bipolar mood (but would’ve been zero without my meds). I couldn’t place where it was coming from at first, but had my inkling about this incident, and mouthing off online – which I’ve seen myself do a lot of lately.

And that came with cerebral interludes that kept evolving and re-evolving, ritualistic behaviour I was neck deep in but couldn’t stop but managed to furtively because I didn’t want to sink into the addictive behaviours. Long story short, I was scared shitless of that.

Work became a hassle, and I spoke up asking for anyone to pop down to my office and say hi – two did, maybe the rest are worried I’m going to regale them with a horror story? Trust me, I don’t have the time to go through it all, I have a psych and a counsellor for a reason.

Thankfully, it lifted by Friday, but I blurted it out to my psych – probably the best blurt I’ve ever blurted in my life – and straight away, “That’s an ADHD thing.” The pieces fell in place, my entire life going into anxiety for being an arse, unable to let things go, always trying to fight.

Granted, it has real life reasons behind it, one of them my mother. I’ll spare the details but I’ve cut contact, and our two conversations have been me matter of fact, then hanging up when she attacks. She won’t learn, of course, everybody else has to do the changing. So, blunt it is.

But it’s not the only thing I’m fighting. There’s my three child sexual abusers, schoolyard bullying, getting moved around 3 times before high school, and walking me into an argument to kick me out for year 12 – just about to start coding. Guess who bombed out of their HSC?

Opportunities lost. My inability to keep stable in a job. All the addiction side. The abuse in the way of making genuine connections and even the chance at relationships with guys. Being poorly educated, unable to keep attention on study. The list goes on and on.

I can tell you all this, and you may say, “Survivor.” But that’s by the skin of my teeth, and exhibiting Bipolar, ADHD, and addictive symptoms.

And I hate it. I don’t want to be this way. I don’t want to keep deleting posts, have to take things back, apologise. I want to let the fight go before it starts. And I know I certainly can’t beat it with my own willpower – that I don’t have.

For that, though, there’s been the things I’ve deleted before posting, and it can be done more often. Plus, there’s hiding posts before I reply. But for the bulk of it, it’ll have to be surrender to the Higher Power.

How’s the Addiction Going?

Today, I’m 30 days off my critical behaviours since 08:30 Sydney time. And it hasn’t been dumb luck or white-knuckling it. Apart from that 4-day depression, it’s been in relative early serenity, not because I’m working my backside off to get through 30 questions in 30 days.

It’s part of what I don’t like about the particular way of working the program the fellowship demands – go at a fever pitch to get to Step 3, then you’re off on your own, good luck – that’s often people taking a year to go through it, falling through slips and withdrawals.

In fact, my sponsor kept saying, “Wait to be sober, wait to be sober” when I knew I wanted work to get done. As it happened, they cut me loose. And I floundered and floundered before I worked up the guts to organise my week, and start answering the initial Step 4 questions.

The schedule is great, BTW. I’ve allotted time for meetings, time for work or reading from the literature, time for Church, time for writing, time for blogging, time for Morrowind (yeah, I’ve got BG3, but I’m just not gelling with it), time to spend with my partner, and of course work.

I’ve gotten in touch with my Higher Power, the guy in the sky, by reading the daily lectionary, watching reflection videos, because prayer isn’t my strong point. There’s being involved in meetings, the groups another Higher Power to which we try to exhibit raw honesty.

But it’s in answering those questions, adding more to my Resentments list, willing to look at my abuses and identify what I hate about them, that helps. And there’s the want to add the ADHD, Bipolar stuff, but one thing at a time, I’m not on the clock. That might be the real help.

I’d like to say I’m at least 3 meetings a week – I bombed out Monday getting dehydrated watching Superbowl that I called quits on the meeting the night I volunteered to be lead share (I only realised yesterday).

Three phone calls a day? Usually on my day off I don’t like to reach out, those are my days off from the world. And I’m not sure it’s going to be an every day thing, that doesn’t work for me, as much as I’m sure a sponsor would kick my backside about that.

That’s an assumption, I don’t really know. I just know, being in positions where relationships are a one-way street when it’s meant to be two, I need something to work with me as I work with it. But minds can be changed, even mine.

All in all, I’m in a better place than slips and withdrawals, and in a monumentally healthier place than active addiction. I feel things are falling into place, and they’re happening but because God is allowing these things to happen when they need to, and I’m grateful for that.

Where to from Here?

I don’t know, it’s a long road.

Coming soon, at least, a manuscript assessment – so long as something doesn’t tie me up, but it’s something I’m sure I can get a credit for to use later.

At some point, solving the financial stress. I need an editor and a cover design, and I need to be able to advertise. And for that, I need money in the account and the credit card paid off. But I don’t think I’m up for KoFi, Patreon, and I’m getting into fan fiction and you can’t sell those.

I don’t know, my power has been to keep trudging on when I’m not dragging myself through. Those footsteps on the sand are going to be crawl and wriggle marks as I keep throwing God off to do it myself. Force of habit.

But if I can break addictive habits, if I can find the meds mix to keep me functioning (not normal, I’ll never be normal), if I can organise myself at last, and if I have the guts to look at my poor behaviour and seek to do something about it, I can achieve my goals.

So, three cheers for my psych’s recommendations and the end result. I’m a different person to December ’24, and to August ’18 when, two days out from the manic episode’s acute moment, I walked in to my local Catholic Church to sign up for the Eucharist.

And, well, that’s all I have to say.

I know a certain country is going down the toilet and its affecting minorities now and putting them through the wringer, and it hurts me to see it (and fear the leader of the Liberal Party would gladly import, rather than Culvers and Raising Cane’s).

And I know there are a lot of people there who are getting screwed on their meds, those who can’t afford insurance and don’t qualify for assistance, who are doing it without care and support and somehow making it though.

And I know I’m incredibly lucky where I am and with the care I’ve got, though also doing it tough yet again.

You’re the people I wish I could help, and wish I could save, and I’m sorry I can only speak. But stay strong, stay safe, stay in contact, find your communities, and help each other out.

Take all the care you can
T. M.