CAPTAIN'S BLOG
This is introducing my first post in a segment I'd like to call "The Thing". So I've been thinking a lot, these days, as I find is often my most important job right now. Searching for whatever it is that remains that is holding me back - and the undeniable tether is on feeling good. Now I know how that sounds - but you have to remember, I was a depressed and anxious kid too. I used to have to watch America's Funniest Home Videos or something else that was funny and relaxing unless I'd be too... energetic was how it felt back then. It's easy to look back and change the meanings and memories of things, but I remember the feeling I would get when the show was preempted, or I'd be sleeping at another person's house, and I would just feel so awful - but home was safe. Many times my mother had to come get me in the middle of the night because I just felt... awful. Like, really bad. I didn't know why until, honestly, just a few moments ago, as I thought about the context of when I started to feel bad. I had... an experience, when I was younger. With an older friend. And I mean, it wasn't unwarranted. I was curious. I don't know how old I was, but I must have been older than 8. So I guess 9 or 10. Or maybe 12-14. I really can't remember. And, I can't remember if I felt bad before then or after then. And it wasn't a bad experience - it felt pretty good. And I was curious.
I read about these kinds of experiences online sometimes. What I read is not... generally encouraging. I've read studies about underage sex in kids can accelerate puberty and have other effects - but I do know that I found a way to feel good whenever I wanted. I don't know if my brain was already different, or if that experience made it different, or if knowing about orgasms made it different - but suddenly, I didn't have much trouble falling asleep, apart from the guilt and shame associated with a Christian sensibility that rubbed off on me from my friends. I was definitely young and impressionable. I was quick to detect enemies, but friends were always really hard to read. Girls were easy to read until I fell in love with them, which happened swiftly and often - another way to feel good. And I found ways to feel good other than orgasms, of course - but the desire, the pull, the need, was always there. But friends and school were great distractions, video games at home and music to get me through the times when I couldn't don't do any of those things. I was never without my music. I am very lucky to have grown so attached to it, as it has informed a great deal of my moral compass - otherwise I definitely would have drifted truly aimlessly for a long time. Eventually a lot of thinking permanently broke God's hold on my resistance to orgasms - but I was able to fill my life with enough other distractions for it to remain a reasonably low priority. Love interests fueled me, causing it to wither away from the intensity of my need to feel better. As my desire to feel better kept taking things away from me, I tried to find some way to feel better all the time. The long road of the future loomed ahead like a tombstone - there is no way I can make it alone, and to find someone I have to fix myself. After being convinced that ADHD medication wouldn't help due to a mostly-irrational fear, I started smoking weed, and I was very pleased to find that it seemed to really help. Whatever it was that was miring my mind - so tired during the day, so hard to focus - was alleviated when I smoked weed. This was surprising to me, and to a lot of other people - most of my friends can hardly talk when they toke up, but I can't stop talking. It's like, finally, the gears in my mind are free - and, ultimately, that is what drives my 'addiction' to weed. I use quotes there to indicate that, because I waited such a long time to figure out a solution to my problem, and marijuana worked so well, it feels less like an addiction and more like an insulin shot. If I could get the effect without highness, that would be fantastic. And I've tried - small amounts of baked goods worked pretty well, actually, but eventually, the effect would wear off and the effect would return. Certain strains of marijuana seemed to be quite a bit more helpful than another, and it wasn't until one particular strain that I was able to really discern the effects - but due to the illegal nature of marijuana, I was restricted to whatever I could get from my dealer, instead of the well-labeled and tracked packages available today. I think that may have led down a longer corridor than I originally intended. But I do feel better than I used to - I no longer feel the ticking of the clock as I'm waiting for the day to end. I have a wonderful girlfriend who I am, like, seriously in love with - all of the things in my life are things that are wonderful and great and amazing. I have potential, I just seem unable to capitalize on it reliably - it's always in fits and starts, forcing myself like someone moving robot arms and a robot mouth and a robot brain - at one job, where I had no customers and no other employees - it was bad. And when things get bad, I do everything I can to feel better - like a gravity well, I put weight on the people closest to me. Like binary stars, my lover and I orbit each other, consuming one another until one of us runs out of energy. But while I don't have much energy, I am persistent (surprising even myself sometimes), and my intentions are pure, if selfish. I just want to feel better. And then I was prescribed Strattera. It really helped me in a time when I desperately needed its help, but over time it stopped working for me. This was a rather terrifying prospect - I probably could have switched my 'addiction' to Strattera if it worked as consistently as marijuana does - which is pretty ironic, but then again, we're in the stone age of pharmaceuticals still. There's lots of work to do still. But it felt like the Strattera left a lasting impact. While on it, I had discovered Sam Harris' book Free Will, and it was like reading "The Beginner's Guide To Your Brain". The way he talked about how thoughts and feelings bubble up from the subconscious, and how we cannot control those thoughts, my mind was lain asunder - the concept of mindfulness, and how to watch those thoughts and feelings arise gave rise to a new understanding: my brain often felt bad. Sometimes, bad thoughts would just pop up. That's really normal, but the impact those thoughts would have on my mood was always intense - I would switch from emotion to emotion throughout the day, rampaging around in my mind looking for a middle ground. Know how to frame those emotions keeps them much more in check. Sometimes when I feel anxiety mindfully, it feels more like a staticky fire than it does the electric pull in the center of the chest - like I'm a few steps removed from a fire in a fireplace giving off an intense static charge. So I did what I could using the three together - mindfulness to monitor my responses, strattera to help me concentrate and the marijuana to help me relax and manage the side effects of the strattera. And while I still felt better, over time something my mother has said has stuck out: "Don't you feel good after accomplishing something? And doesn't that build up over time into confidence, as you do more things well?" And my answer is always... no, not really. Because I know that just because I did something once, doesn't mean I can do it again. I could get anxious and be unable to do my job. Which always happens. It either manifests itself in chronic lateness, chronic tiredness, chronic disinterest, or a slavish reliance on routine. Any change could be disasterous. It requires manual effort to maintain each of these problems to an acceptable level, and eventually, I burn out. Routine never happens. Days never go by fast. If they do, it's because I'm working really hard - which isn't so bad, so long as I can take breaks - but you can't take as many breaks as I feel like I need to take, not just during the day, but also over the course of a year. Unless you're really great at your job, which I could do once I got there, but the disproportionate amount of energy I have to put in is simply unsustainable. To maintain it, I have no time for hobbies, girlfriends, interests, video games, friends, parties, anything. Every moment is a desperate struggle to recharge my batteries before the next or week begins - like a rock on the shore of a beach, my resistance slowly whittled away by the passage of time - and my electrical (heh) and authoritative resistance increases significantly. Time becomes my most precious, desperate commodity. Normal people are weirded out by my isolationism, and I don't have the energy to socialize and adventure with my friends, family, and loved ones.
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AuthorChristina Hitchens is a trans female writer living in BC, Canada. She loves computers, animals, and a good argument. Archives
March 2022
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