Originally uploaded by jayfherron
I’m worn out!
It was only 1998 when I was out on the open roads driving my semi truck. My crazy bride was with me and things seemed fair. Then it all came to a halt-I had a stroke.
Then-coming home and trying to get well I began to really see how crazy the woman I was married to was!
Then-walking out in the forest behind my place I meet Rose.
Then-my crazy wife leaves….forever!
Then Rose tells me her past-and present…she is wanted by the FBI for murder and escape.
That turns into a long fiasco!
Then the veterans hospital asks me if I’m ever depressed??
Damned right I am! That’s what I tell them…would’nt you be? I’ve had a stroke and lost my livelihood and my wife was crazy and stole us blind and disappeared and my neighbor slays men and flees from the consequences and tries to convince me to help her-which ends up with me pointing the finger at her to the FBI…and that puts her in prison for life!! This was before-and leading up to my exposing my MST.
And that was just 1998.
So…the VA prescribes a drug…they called it a medicine.
I’m not naive. I’ve most likely met them all in my life-the illegal drugs! My nose has shined many a glass plate! So I know what ‘getting high’ feels like. The pills the VA gave me made me feel high.
By this time I had remained relatively sober! I certainly had not done street drugs for many years-the hardest thing there was in life was to shed myself of that!
After the night Rose was arrested-I had cold stone quit drinking. That lasted five years until my pal and I found Ed Gardner…that’s another story for some other place-but dang did he stink and the circumstance was so nasty that having a few drinks to splash the past-and wash the nasty taste of Mr.Gardners stink out of my mouth. Well-an alcoholic can’t drink just one drink,even after five years.
My point? Sobriety is an every day challenge-which I often fall from…worse more lately the other night it took ten long neck beers before I could find a blank spot. Not sleep-no one sleeps when drunk…they just pass out.
So the battle of staying sober has still been lost.
Todays paper has an article about a traffic stop netted the officers a large drug bust. A portion of the stash…by the way,we are talking hundreds of pills-was Xanax.
I’ve heard before that a Xanax pill is a costly little morsel on the street-that folks use them to get high…I’ve heard they actually grind them into a powder and snort the stuff like cocaine.
Well…this bottle here-from the VA was prescribed to me-and it is called Alprazolam. The generic Xanax. They made me high. After a while-they made me think strange things like how interesting it might be to see brain matter flinging across a restaurant if someone was to open fire with a shotgun!
I had a few other kind of thoughts like that…and my real mind said “whoa??”
Interesting thing! In my entire past history of drug abuse and alcohol abuse…the only person I ever thought of killing was me! The prescribed medicine from the VA had my mind going crazy and thinking alarming thoughts-and began thinking of massacres.
I wrote about this-I looked the stuff up on the web and read several interesting notes-one is that the drug is ment to calm down horses and vicious dogs. Another-that no one should take them full life span-but only 14 should be administered in ones entire life?? I had like 120??
I wrote about how two days after I dumped them down the commode I fell on the floor and lay there suffering for 8 plus hours-going through withdraws. I was so sick and the pain was like getting teeth pulled with out sedative.
I had been through that with cocaine years before…but not nearly as bad!
I admit-this past crixmix season I fell on my duff…crixmix is the time of year my impacted memory comes out-my rapes were on new years eve…so the season of jolly jolly does not work to make me feel any better.
Worse things too.
My surrounding issues…and crixmix I fall and seek the ‘comfort’ of ‘damage control’….my wagon tossed me!
It seems that is what is causing me trouble with the VA…and appears to possibly cause them to stop paying me a disability for PTSD. The doctor feeling my being unable to remain sober is obvious my mental health is improving??
Why not take this drug? It will help…ex aye en aye ex Xanax?
Get me a six-pack!
I really cannot control it. I try. I even do good at it…sometimes it is weeks before the moment comes that self medication is the prescription. It is usually not a premeditated thing…it is what is hitting you at the time. At least-that is-with me!
I don’t suppose I am very encouraging here-and I’m not lifting anyones spirits. That is what truth is. Blunt. Sometimes good-sometimes not so good.
Peace
a males life after rape 
June 29, 2010 at 7:07 pm |
UN-Believable! Why is it that the very people who are supposed to HELP us with our PTSD are usually the one’s that end up messing us over!?
I would definately appeal – although that process in and of itself is a reason to drink. Having problems with addiction is one of the hallmarks of PTSD/MST. Mine just happens to be smoking.
I take Paxil Controlled Release – any other medications make me sick when it comes to antidepressants and anti-anxiety. Of course, the VA doesn’t carry CR Paxil in it’s formulary. If I want that drug from the VA I have to take a drug the VA carries.
One of the drugs they tried made me want to kill myself. The other drug they tried made me want to kill other people. Homicidal to the point that I locked myself in my bedroom and told the kids NOT to open the door. Your brain knows that it is just the drug – but your brain also knows it wants to do something drastic. I called in to talk to the shrink and their response was…”how does it make you feel manic?” “how does it make you want to kill people?” “how does it make you want to kill yourself?” Okay – I thought words like kill, manic and die were all pretty self-explanatory. My bad.
Needless to say – I get my CR Paxil from my private MD.
Hang in there! I know that it is easier to say than to do. As for “uplifting” and “encouragement” – I suppose if we want to uplift and encourage maybe we should just find a way to make sure than no one else ever gets to live life the way we have to.
Joan
June 29, 2010 at 9:57 pm |
I suppose if we want to uplift and encourage maybe we should just find a way to make sure than no one else ever gets to live life the way we have to.
Joan
…well said Joan!!
Thank you!
You are correct-ours is a mission to change the future-and for future survivors!
July 7, 2010 at 8:43 am |
My husband cannot take Xanax. He told me himself it makes him violent. (Thank heavens I’ve never known him on the stuff.) Some people do react to it that way. People react differently to different medications!
My doctor gave me some Cymbalta samples because he thought it might help with the depression AND the fibromyalgia. Don’t know if it helped any with the fibromyalgia…but it did give me a very short fuse and made me suicidal. I agree with Joan. Your brain knows it’s the drug but your brain really can’t protect itself since it’s being affected BY THE DRUG.
I now have a new neurologist because all my old neuro wanted to do was give me prescriptions of hydrocodone, flexeril, and neurontin. The hydrocodone (a narcotic painkiller which really doesn’t do much for pain), and the flexeril (muscle relaxant) were useless to me. The neurontin made me stupid. Yup, you read that right. I nearly got fired from my job I was making so many silly mistakes. I finally asked my husband, “Have I been different since starting this prescription?” and his response was “Haven’t you noticed that your 4 year old is finishing sentences for you?” The neuro didn’t believe me, told me that my symptoms were not possible. Oh really? She was also willing to get me signed up for an epidural injection in my spine (which did help some the last time, but not worth going through the stress and pain of the procedure for the short time of relief.), but didn’t want to give me physical therapy.
To make a long story, well, less long…I have a new neuro. And I’m now getting physical therapy. As far as the depression goes, I’m taking Zoloft. Not working wonderfully right now but that’s mainly because my life has (temporarily) become a living hell.
I realize this was going around China to get two blocks down the road, but I just wanted to let you know, I hear you, I understand what you are saying, and keep fighting for proper treatment. You DO NOT DESERVE TO BE TREATED THIS POORLY.