Unleash da Beast

Cuz this might be a long one.  Don’t feel guilty about snackin’ while reading.  A one-day-a-week splurge is great for the metabolism.  That said, I’m munching on deep-fried slices of pepper jack cheese.  I’m talkin’ cheese dipped in egg then breaded with crushed pork rinds and assorted seasonings, fried for one minute to a crispy golden goodness, and dunked in salsa.  I cannot even begin to tell y’all how great these things taste.  I won’t bore ya with a picture of ‘em though.  You can see just how impressed Sammie Sad Eyes was:

Puppy porn at its finest … I should be arrested.

I’ve wondered a bit lately if I reveal too much in my blog about my personal life.  I’ve thought about closing up da BeastShop here and just keeping a personal journal cuz the writing is, without a doubt, extremely therapeutic for me so I don’t want to give it up entirely.  Then I realized how many times in just as many years’ past I’ve tried to keep a journal; most handwritten attempts were thrown by the wayside after just one incredibly messy entry.  So then I downloaded a diary software program, thinking that being able to type my thoughts out would save me from my own illegible handwriting that I’d never be able to read again.  Also, typing would allow me to get my thoughts and ideas down much more quickly.  Again, just one entry into my “desktop diary” and I never went back.  Sharing my thoughts, however, just feels right.

While I can’t proclaim to know with any certainty why I was born, I still believe I was born for a very specific reason and that I am being led by a higher power.  Things have not, by any means, gone as I had planned or even hoped since I left my job last November and embarked on this Unleash da Beast kick.  While I realize some of the stuff I share might make me appear unstable and certainly does not always shed the best light on me, I just can’t shake the feeling that I am doing what I was called to do.  Hey, I’ve always said it was worth it if I was helping just one person.  Guess what?  I am helping one person … me!  Mission accomplished.

I got a message on my blog this week from someone I’m not terribly close to but who has been involved in my “recovery” from addiction in the past that said, “I know I”m Bipolar……..your blog really exposes your mood swings…just saying….”  I don’t disturb easily, but I was grateful for and at the same time disturbed by those words.

When I was treated at the Balsam Center in 2005, I was convinced I was bipolar and even managed to convince the doc I was too.  I don’t know if I am or not, but I do know one thing … like many who suffer from the disease, I stopped taking the meds once I felt better, which is absolutely NOT the right thing to do.  I reckon perhaps the same goes for depression, which is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain.  So why stop the antidepressant meds just cuz you feel better, when you only feel better cuz the meds helped bring the chemicals back into balance?!  I’m now realizing whatever meds I do need, I need to take them for the rest of my life.

Back in 2005, I committed myself to an institution to save my life … I had suicidal ideation with a clear-cut plan.  That is where my head was at.  The drinking was secondary and not a big a problem in my denying eyes.  My writings reveal that I had absolutely no desire to quit drinking alcohol. I just didn’t want to die.  I used to be a news junky, frequently visiting news websites throughout each day and always had a news channel on as background noise in the house.  I’d be damned if I was gonna off myself and miss out on what’s gonna happen in the world.  I needed HELP!

Things have really changed in da BeastHouse since 2005.  I don’t even have cable or satellite TV and can’t get the local channels here in the valley.  No live-streaming news on my supa-sized television.  One thing that hasn’t changed is my dependence on the drink.  But I have some good news and a ton of hope.  It’s a slow process, but I am finally realizing that if I don’t toss the sauce, it will be the end of me.  I say that I am realizing that and I am, slowly but surely, but this e-mail response from a friend to what I’m about to tell y’all caught me off guard.  She said, “So happy you are going to live.”

Live?!  That’s not what my e-mail to her said.  Hell, I’m a healthy, middle-aged woman who works out; of course I’m gonna live!  But she’s been around the addicted enough to know what she is talking about.  My e-mail to her simply said that I have been accepted into a 43-day inpatient rehabilitation program and that I believed it would provide the foundation I need on which to build a life of sobriety … ABSOLUTely no access to alcohol for 6 weeks as well as intensive counseling, group milieu, and more insight into the 12-step program, which is something that scares me but something I know I need to conquer.

Baby steps … the first step is hope … I got this.

. . . even if it lasted a li’l over 3 months?  Three months might not seem temporary considering the life of this blog, a mere 8 or 9 months’ young; however, over the span of my lifetime, I’m thinking it’s safe to say that temporary insanity is what I’ve been suffering from since the end of May.  It snuck up on me and has been slowly progressing, ever so gradually and discreetly that I did not even recognize the downward spiral I was carving until it was almost too late … or perhaps I was just ignoring it, knowing full well I was self-destructing.  It all came to a head over the past couple of days.  However, as a result, I started to feel an incredible sense of peace yesterday after what might even be considered a bit of a breakdown.

Today is a new day, and I cranked up this song just as soon as I crawled outta the bed …  ”I Musta Got Lost,” by the J. Geils band  …  come on, y’all, turn it up!

It is going to take me a few posts to get all this out out, so I’ll do one a day.  My writing has been very disorganized of late, so much so that I’ve deleted some blog posts.  Heck, my MIND has been very disorganized as well.  The bottom line is I haven’t been practicing what I’ve preached on my blog … I lost my focus and forgot the purpose of it … to promote the power of positive thinking despite how cruel life can be by sharing my own experiences and putting sort of a “fun” spin on it all.  It’s time to do this again:

I am guilty of this …

… and it’s time to end the nonsense (I would say stop the insanity, but the image of some loud-mouthed, spiky blonde-haired, fitness guru wearing heather gray spandex and yelling through the TV screen might come to mind and distract y’all).  Oh wait … well at least I didn’t post up a pic.  Really, though, time to walk the talk in regards to many things … most importantly the positive thinking, the daily affirmations, and the self-love (emotional self-love, not physical … ya pigs) that I’ve tried to promote and also the diet and exercise routine and just embracing a sense of well-being rather than one of self-pity, loathing, and excessive concern over holding grudges and fretting over people who don’t even know me judging me and speaking negatively about me.  Who the ‘frick cares who says what?  I know myself better than any of them do. They no longer matter to me.

So without going into TOO much detail about what has transpired over the last 3 months, I allowed myself to get back into a situation that ended very abruptly and painfully for me back in August of 2011, cuz, well, “This time will be different, right?!”  Famous last words.  Granted it was different … for a little while, but it certainly wasn’t ideal.  Don’t get me wrong, the situation brought me a lot of joy much of the time.  However, something was nagging at me; something just didn’t feel right.  In hindsight, I realize now that my brain was in a losing battle with my heart, and instead of dealing with it, I fell deeper into the drink and into the gauntlet of the depression monster.

Doh!  I beg to differ, Homer.  While it is the cause of many of life’s problems, it is without a doubt the solution to none.

Yea, this is kinda cliché, but oh so true.  I will talk more about friends tomorrow but just mention here that I never really thought I had any true friends (my own skewed perception).  I found out yesterday how wrong I was and how important it is to have peeps on your side.  The day got bunches better after a friend took me to breakfast and gave me a wonderful pep talk.  All I was hearing at the time was, “Blah, blah, blah” and thinking, “Will you just let me feel sorry for myself?!”  But her words spoke to my heart.  She suggested I start reading some of my older blog posts.

Later in the day, the publisher I have been working with called me to check on the progress of my writing.  I explained that I’d been dealing with some personal issues and hadn’t been terribly motivated.  She gave me another pep talk, so I dug out the “manuscript,” which is simply a printed version of all my blog posts:

I started marking it up and organizing it a bit, still uncertain exactly where I am gonna go with it.  I skimmed over several old posts, mostly the ones from before the UDB US Tour and during it.  Shazam!!!  I was one light-hearted and happy camper (no pun intended) on most of those days, which were just a few short months ago.  This might sound cocky, but reading some of my posts was infectious!  They made me feel silly and giggly all over, just like I had when I typed them.  They reminded me that I absolutely CAN be and HAVE been very a happy and confident woman.

As icing on the cake, I got an e-mail from the law student at Suffolk University Law School who is gonna help me put Monster Energy in their place with regard to the trademarking of my Unleash da Beast website and logo, at no cost to me save for court fees.  I’m looking forward to “meeting” him by telephone next week.

Gonna wrap this up for now … hope I still have some followers; I appreciate y’all.  Trying to link my blog to my new Facebook accounts has been a melluva hess … so much so that they think I am an imposter and have banned me for 30 days from posting … SHISH-KA-BOB!  I’m gonna try to fix that though.

Oh and I used to sign my blogs …

Because I care,

J (when and why did I stop saying that … did I stop caring?)  Ugh … til tomorrow!

Cool (yet old) tune by Reo Speedwagon.  I liked them way back when, still do.  The song doesn’t fit here perfectly, word for word, but I do know it is time for me to fly.

Y’all know it was my intent to leave this area of the country when I embarked on my US UDB Tour but that my house deal fell through, so I’ve been sorta sucking it up here … trying to make a life til the house sells.  As it stands right this second, it is for sale by owner (ME), hehe!  But I am going to hire another realtor to put it on the market this week.  While I realize the market is quite bad right now, I maintain hope that I can get out from under this mortgage.  I will always believe that everything happens for a reason, and I am doing what I need to do.

I am trying to responsible here and get my house sold, but the truth is, I can’t stay someplace that isn’t working for me and someplace where I am clearly not welcome.  I’m sinking into a major depressive episode, and I don’t want that.  I need to move on.  Trust me, I’ve reached out for help, but I messed up.  I blame no one but me.  I had what I thought was a grand (albeit crazy) idea to just pack up and go.  Instead, I was persuaded to do the responsible thing … start my new job and put off moving til my house sells.

That didn’t work out.  I found it too hard to concentrate on my work; depression truly is a monster … my mind was wandering, my thoughts completely confused.  The company I went back to is amazing and has been very understanding, but I just can’t seem to function as a medical transcriptionist again.

So I’ve been packing up stuff to store in the garage til the house sells and stuff to take with me.  Tried to recruit some help … no luck lol.  Can’t fit a whole lot in da Beastmobile, but that’s ok.  I am at peace with this plan.

Lotsa people here in Franklin think things about me that simply aren’t true, but I can’t seem to convince anyone of that.  I’m certainly not perfect by any means, but I’m not fake, I don’t lie intentionally, and I do have a good heart.  I don’t use people … it’s just not in my nature.  While it would probably suit me to just give up like my mother and grandmother before me, I just can’t bring myself to do that.  I am going to give myself every chance I possibly can.  I believe that I deserve that.

Not sure where I’m headed.  I will keep in touch with my brother and may keep the blog going.  I really enjoy writing, even if that girl was right … I really don’t have many followers lol.  I do appreciate the few I have.  Thank y’all so much.

Hang tough everyone … I promise I will.

J

Since I’ve posted in the Addiction and Depression section … I’ve even considered deleting it and adding a “love” section or something a little more cheery.  But here’s the real deal:

After all, I’m big into that power of positive thinking stuff, right?!

Truth is, I really was believing in the power of positive thinking.  Heck, I wanted, no needed, to believe in it.  It gave me hope.  I thought the tides had turned in my life, and I was gonna live my dream.  I started this blog and even hoped to help folks suffering from depression.  Instead, one of my friends, who used to read my posts, committed suicide … blew her dang brains out (brave girl).  Yikes … that was hard.  What was even harder was the ignorance shown to me by some of my former coworkers at the funeral home, but I was there to worship her memory, not play office politics.

No, I’m not looking for sympathy.  Writing just helps.  Like the first image says, I’m both happy and sad.  Unfortunately, the sadness usually wins out … that bastard!  Hehe.

Isn’t she so pretty?  WARNING!  Language … if the “F” word offends you, stop reading now.  I need to get this out.  That is my mom.  I always knew she would eventually kill herself.  I don’t think I could have prevented it.  That said, I left her when she needed me most.  Here’s what happened:

I got a phone call that Mimi (my mom) was found in a catatonic state.  She was supposed to be a hostess at some event and didn’t show up, so one of her friends went to check on her.  This person found her sitting in a chair in the living room just staring straight ahead.  I reckon the lady called for an ambulance … I dunno.

I just know she ended up at a local hospital, where multiple medical tests were run.  It was determined that whatever was wrong was psychological and not physical.  So she was transferred to a psychiatric hospital.  If I recall correctly, late hubby and I drove up to NH right away with our dog, Crystal.  We brought my ‘puter so I could still work, as I was doing medical transcription at the time.

Ain’t she precious?!  Fast forward to our first visit with Mom. It was bizarre. She thought she’d been in a car accident and that her house had burned down and all kindsa crazy stuff. Nothing she said made sense, and my brother had to spoon feed her.  After a few days of being medicated, she seemed quite “normal” again. After just a week in the psychiatric ward, the doc let her go home and prescribed her a shit-ton of psychiatric medications.

OK fine.  I take her to the pharmacy to fill the prescriptions, and it turns out they are gonna cost her hundreds of dollars a month.  Naturally, she freaked out and worried about how she would pay for them.  I, being the selfish person that I am, just wanted to come back to NC.  Doing the transcription from her kitchen table rather than my $800 ergonomic chair was wreaking havoc on my body, wah wah wah.  So after she was home a day or two, we left.  I will never forget her watching us leave out her bedroom window.  I knew something wasn’t right, but I left anyway.

I’m sorry, Mama … I never meant to hurt you … I never meant to make you cry.  I messed up.

We drove part way back to NC and stayed in a hotel that night, in Maryland I think.  Soon as we got settled, I called my mom to check in.  She was upset with me cuz I had cable TV hooked up at her house, so we argued.  Heck, I was married to a man … men like their TV.  Not to mention there wasn’t much else for Don to do while I worked!  I told her I would pay the monthly bill.  Didn’t matter.  She hung up pissed at me.  That was the last time we spoke.  Awesome memory, huh?!

The next day, we were almost home, (we were renting the house above and LOVED it) like 45 minutes away, when Crystal decided it would be a wonderful idea to shit all over the backseat of my Toyota Tercel.  We stopped at the Waynesville rest area, where after cleaning up the mess, I tried to call my mom.  No answer.  I knew right then something was wrong.  I can’t drive by that rest area anymore without unpleasant memories.

We got home around 6ish in the evening.  I tried again to call my mom … and again no answer.  I called my brother and asked him to check on her.  I didn’t hear anything back from him, so I called her house again.  A female voice on the other end said, “Hampstead Police Department.”  OMG.  The female officer told me I need to call my brother.  I did and he said, “She did it.”  I felt awful that he had to find her like that.  Frickin’ surreal.

So I guess at that point, shock settled in.  I dunno.  I called some airline and secured an airplane ticket for me and da mutt to leave the next morning.  Don and I loaded up the Jeep Cherokee with my ‘puter so I could work up in NH.  I found some semblance of peace by going outside in the middle of the night and filling up the bird feeders, knowing full well they’d be long empty by the time we got back.

The next morning, I flew up to NH with my li’l dog Crystal, which was a freakin’ nightmare.  She took a dump in the middle of the Charlotte airport, and some guy yelled at me cuz he thought I was walking away when I was going to the bathroom to get some paper towels to clean it up.  He just kept yelling at me.  I wanted to say, “MOTHERFUCKER my mother committed suicide, give me a fucking break!”  But I couldn’t even get that out.  I simply said I was going to the bathroom for paper towels.

Then when we got to the airport in Manchester, NH, I let Crystal out of her carry-on bag as soon as we got outside.  Some really handsome airport security dude got on my ass saying she is not allowed outta the bag til we get to the parking lot.  He became ugly to me very quickly.  I really wasn’t trying to break the rules, but my curly-haired K-9 had “shat” all over the inside of the dang bag.  Late hubby arrived a day later with my computer and whatnot so I could still work.

I’m pretty sure it was the same day I got up there that we had a meeting at the funeral home.  The funeral dude gave us the death certificate and then left the room for some reason.  I read the certificate.  All I knew was that she had OD’d on all those expensive psychiatric meds, three bottles of them, but the death cert said she died of asphyxiation.  I looked at my brother and said, “So OD’ing causes asphyxiation?”  He said, “No, I didn’t want to tell you, but she also put a plastic bag over her head.”  Nice.  Well, she got what she truly wanted.  No cry for attention here.

Going through her house was hard.  She had pictures of my brother’s boys propped up on the kitchen table.  She also had apparently left a note, but I never got to see it.  From what I was told, all it said was, “I’m sorry.”  She was found in her bed.  On the nightstand next to her was a crumpled up tissue.  That made me sad, thinking she was crying into it before she passed.  It really sucked.

I know this post is a huge bummer as well, but I needed to get it out.  I don’t really care what anybody thinks about me for posting this.  Hell, I don’t have many followers anyway.  I think a total of 5 of my “Facebook Friends” have signed my petition.  How funny is that?!

If you or anyone you know is thinking of suicide, please check out this website:  Suicide … read this first. It has saved me numerous times … well worth the read.

So now y’all know the truth.  I have a dark side.  Muh ha ha ha!  I still think life is good … just not MY life all the time, lol!

Send me a private message if you wish:

… since I’ve posted anything in this category (Tackling Addiction and Depression).  I’ve got the depression under control and have had so for quite a long time now … years.  Last time I “talked” online about my fondness for alcohol, I was on day 9 of sobriety.  On day 10, I got a very upsetting phone call informing me that a friend had taken her own life.  I started drinking again that day.  I was shocked she had done this.  She had actually offered to help ME if I needed anything after she had read some of my postings in this section about my past struggles with depression and alcohol; she even left a message or two on my blog.  You are missed, Suzanne, and I pray you are at peace:

I’ve always known drinking was no good for me.  It’s a freakin’ depressant, fer crying out loud!  I also knew, despite trying to convince myself otherwise, that I couldn’t stop after just one, or two, or three, or even five for that matter.  As a law enforcement officer, I would often try to counsel people about how nothing good comes from alcohol use … I would even admit that I knew that firsthand.  Most of the folks in jail ended up there as a result of something they did under the influence of drugs and/or booze.  I tried to convince myself that I could handle it, though, and that drinking was in my blood.  ”I’m a drunk; it’s who I am.”  That was:

I told a friend recently I would quit if I found someone worth quitting for.  Well how stupid is that?  It dawned on me that I’ve probably chased a few dudes away with my crazy, erratic, drunken behavior.  It was at that point my friend said and I realized that I had to quit for one person and one person only … ME!

I met a lady a few months back, and we somehow got on the topic of drinking.  She asked if she could pick me up the following Friday for an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, said she’d been sober for several years thanks to AA.  I never really answered her, and I hadn’t seen her in months.  I’d done the AA thing five or six years ago and quite frankly didn’t wanna do it again.  I didn’t want to quit.  Shortly after I got back from my UDB US Tour, I decided that I need to quit.  I e-mailed my lady friend and asked her to pick me up Friday for the meeting (yesterday), and she did; she was thrilled.

As most of us know, AA is a 12-step program and also a way of life for many recovering alcoholics.  I’ve had the AA Big Book downloaded on my Kindle for quite some time now, and I think I even own a hard copy from my last attempt at rehabilitation.

I’ve FINALLY accepted the 1st and 2nd steps.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

I am, unfortunately, terribly powerless over alcohol … that’s just a cold, hard fact.  I do believe a Power greater than myself can restore me to sanity (or sobriety … I’ll never be completely sane, hehe).  Seriously, though, I have mentioned many times that I feel led to do all I have been doing of late, like quitting my job, selling my belongings, traveling, and writing this blog.  All of this is part of a higher being’s plan, so it just makes sense that another piece of the puzzle is for me to stop drinking; only then will I be able to achieve my goals. 

The meeting yesterday was great; the people in AA are the most sincere, honest, and caring folks you could ever meet.  I expressed that I ABSOLUTely (pun intended) hate the thought of never taking another drink of alcohol again.  They all identified with me, and the bottom line is to not think of it like that … one day at a time.  I picked up my white chip at the end of the meeting, which signifies my desire to stop drinking.  The desire to stop drinking is the only requirement to join AA.

God grant me the SERENITY to
accept the things I cannot change;
COURAGE to change the things I can;
and WISDOM to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it:
Trusting that He will make all things
right if I surrender to His Will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen

PEACE OUT!