Day: 22

wrote this morning with the first inkling or trickle of genuine emotion--the feeling was slight and subtle but unmistakable and I held it in my mind as one would a lost heirloom found. A ray of sunshine though the cloud of meds--on perhaps a related note, I awoke this morning with a full erection, which is how I would always awake before meds--erections have not been a problem on Zoloft, only orgasm, but still, my mornings prior to this morning were different than before--yesterday, although the desire was not there, I listened to music and I felt there was some movement, some emotional movement, very slight, but noticeable that was not there before

sensation on crown of head is more intense today and is noticeable in and of itself, which is a change from the past several days, where, like the breath, one only notices it with attention--feels more like a bruise today and this is the first day I would use the word pain, albeit very lightly, with the sensation--the sense of physical dissociation (a sense of separation between body and mind) seems less today--when I look at my hand for example, it looks like my hand rather than a sense of me looking at a hand that happens to be mine--today has been the best day so far with regard to a sense of body/mind integrity--calmness in the face of adversity remains in place and I cannot tell exactly to what extent this is cognitive change as opposed to the med wall--it could be either or a combination--I seem not to be able to split the two

my mind appears to sit in neutral, largely thoughtless without prodding, as if I must engage it--I have had to actively ask myself questions in order to get thought moving and keep it moving--this is not an entirely new experience but what highlights this aspect of my mental wiring is the lack of keys I had before, which is to say, alcohol (which I've given up), music (not the same) and visual input (fractals and such)--without these keys, I'm left to the simple device of questions--on this same note, I continue to read at a pace not known before--in just a few days I've read over 400 pages of Bolano's 2666--something unheard of prior to meds--I was forced to read this way in grad school when one had to read a book a day--I developed a hatred, after three years, of this kind of reading--reading for plot, for information--as if the mind was nothing more than a hard drive--here is what has been interesting: prior to meds, I would read, sometimes even just a single paragraph and my mind would race with ideas as to my own writing and from this inspiration, a chapter would be written--not once on meds, with the hundreds and hundreds of pages I've read in the last three weeks has an idea caused me to stop and write--idea creation, to state the obvious, has changed--I refuse to label it as good or bad so that I might remain openminded to new ways of thinking, of embracing a new set of tools to accomplish the same task, but I would be less than honest if I didn't note the concern--experienced second orgasm with slightly less effort than two days ago--still not back to pre-med status but another small step in that direction--there is less of a drugged out feeling today than on any previous day, and I might cautiously add I don't feel drugged at all, which would be the very first day I can make that claim, although I'm not fully convinced of how I am processing my own self-awareness--I can say without any reservations: I feel good--for the record, days 1-4 were on 60mg of Sertraline (aka Zoloft)--I broke 100mg pills in half and took the larger half; every day since has been on 100mg--I've been given the leeway to drop back down to 50mg--which I will keep as an option depending on progression of side-effects--as of now, progress is being made on all fronts and I see no need to mess with dosage

there is an intuitive sense, and it may very well be pure imagination, but there is a very real sense of what might be called neuroplasticity--this may be happening in conjunction with the meds or it might simply be my own body creating workarounds with regard to the meds--then again, it might not be either or it could be a combination or I may have simply completely mislabeled what is occurring--let me record it this way: in the face of issues or problems or challenges not only is there a different emotional reaction but there is also a different cognitive reaction--a feeling that my own mind, outside of the meds, is asserting itself, trying to rewire itself in positive ways--of course I am fully aware that everything I've said in this paragraph could be pure imagination and fantasy--but I've seen the power of prophecy, especially as it relates to self-prophecy--sometimes the right question is not so much of truth but of skillfulness or usefulness

696. looking

She knew he was looking as she knew the warmth on her arm and her reading slowed down or perhaps idled in the thought of being watched, of letting the silence of his looking wash over her. She didn't look directly at him but kept steady on the page so as not to break the spell but from the corner of her eye she could see his shape, feel it somehow as if he had marshaled all the tenderness of the night before into what was not a stare, not something hard and direct or even something calling attention to itself. She could not explain the warmth. His look was not of lust, he was not undressing her, nor, she thought, was it a premeditated look, a look with an agenda or even a look to understand or comprehend. The look was as a mother looking at a sleeping child, which she thought was a strange thing to think since Trev was not a woman, not a mother, but there was something beyond gender, beyond role in how he was watching her. Even the word watch seemed wrong. He was doing something different than watching, doing something more, something other. Just what that was she could not say other than it felt like the gentle warmth of a placid ocean upon the shore. There was that peace about how he sat across the room, quietly, almost without movement, as invisible as an owl. She turned a page she had not read and again allowed her mind to focus on the warmth. This warmth, she decided, was not just her imagination, although surely her mind was spinning, but the warmth was real. It had started in her cheek, just above her dimple, the one he had brushed his lips upon as if she were canvas. It felt like sunshine. But then it began to move, to grow and she felt a lightness in the grasp of his eye. The feeling moved to her chest and she felt her nipples harden, become erect and the feeling was as she had never felt, a non-sexual sexual response and she wondered if this was love or something else and she wondered if he could see her chest blossom, bud, and if he could, what he thought. For what she felt was something more than physical desire, although her body was responding of its own accord and the feeling seemed more natural than manufactured. It seemed as if a part of nature, of the trees outside and the brook that ran nearby, as if in his looking there was a flow, a tapping into some rhythm that existed on a spiritual plane or a plane other than just the senses.

Day: 21

good visit with the doctor today--everything discussed openly--we both agreed that progress was occurring and, side-effects notwithstanding, that we would continue on the present course for four more weeks--I will continue to journal the day to day experiences and do my best to explore as openly and honestly as I can

physical sensation on the crown of head remains--as does an exaggerated drowsiness after eating--appetite slightly suppressed as before--slight numbness of nipples and penis continue although libido remains strong, and with the anorgasmic state, is perhaps fueled--sexual fantasy remains on subtle ground and arousal occurs not with the overt, not even as much with the visual as with touch and smell--it is as if what excites me has changed--not completely, not absolutely, but in the shadows, in the subtle ways of scent and memory, of textile and touch--the curve still remains the most beautiful thing I know--and I wonder if there is not some universal truth in the curve that supersedes any and all medical manipulation

sleep is not and has not been affected--levels of energy, outside of the episodes of drowsiness after eating have returned to normal, which is to say have increased from the depressed state--the feeling of detachment remains, however today the feeling was more a sense of calmness--still, my sense of sound is somewhat muted--music in stereo sounds as if in mono, which I can't tell whether this is an auditory issue or an issue where the emotional track is simply missing and therefore the experience is altered--either way, music remains changed for me and it fails to elicit the creative spark as it did before--my mind continues to function on an analytic plane and concerns itself primarily with issues of logic--I procrastinate less and when confronted with a task, and it feels even strange to me as I am in motion, I act immediately

with detachment and lack of emotional reactivity to stimuli, one has the oddest sense of being objective with the subjective self--as if one hears oneself as other when speaking and there appears, in experience, a separation between the thinking self and the acting self--the body becomes mechanical, an instrument, and the mind becomes free, unattached, as something other

on an interesting side note with regard to music, specifically movie scores--in this med induced relationship or lack thereof to the emotional qualities of music, unskillful use by a director is noticed--a feeling of intrusion--of manipulation--not always, but the use of music seems so poorly used so much of the time--like a clodding dance partner--something added that subtracts--the sense of poetry is the same--the mind penetrates, seeks, needs, and tolerates only authenticity--obtuse and abstract thought is eschewed in favor of what is simple and clear--as if everything could be just that--simple and clear--and that what is not simple and clear is somehow, in someway, false or if not false then not wholly true

695. like cream

She was reading by the window, knees pulled up, only natural light upon the page. And upon her hair. This is what he noticed first. Her hair glimmering, flowing from forehead to shoulder and in his mind he could smell the freshness as he had that morning when her smile rose above him as dawn upon day. She read without expression and there was a quiet in the room one experiences in a museum and he thought her skin looked as smooth as a statue, of polished marble, of an inscrutable visage. He thought of cream and how rich she moved upon the sheets, a decadent languor of purposeful confidence. She was like that, like cream pouring.

She turned a page and he watched. Her long fingers moving with grace, but not grace alone, something more of earth than heaven, of soil rather than sky, fingers like the sun upon his seed, bringing him forth and full, racing his heart in flow, like cream pouring into his eyes, deeper, into his mind, deeper still into those places only she had ever explored and he knew then, while she was reading and turning pages, bathed in natural light that what he was before her and what he was now was as a child that now knew happiness and joy and the interminable sadness of all things finite.

Day: 20

playful flirtatiousness, virtually my calling card over the last five years, is gone--has been gone these last twenty days--this is not a conscious choice, a matter of not engaging but rather a change in neurochemistry that not only changes behavior but changes something more significant that I am at pains to clearly define--I have always enjoyed what I call the mental dancing of online flirting--it came to me naturally, easily, effortlessly--this desire or impulse or train of thought or whatever you want to call it, is simply not there--whatever that spark was, it is no more--I suppose this will get me in less trouble and offend fewer people but I can't help but feel that a fundamental aspect of my personality has been taken from me--now here is what is interesting, in person I am more playful than I have ever been but online that playfulness is just gone--I suspect that this playfulness is/was tied to the creative functions of the brain and as the meds have shut down one, so too the other--I have also noticed a change in my blogging comments--over the past five years, almost religiously, I have responded, almost immediately, to virtually every comment I ever received--in excess of twenty thousand--yet, in the last twenty days I have let comments go without a response or the response has come at a later time--why this change in attitude or behavior I cannot pinpoint, but this has been a consistent attitudinal change over the last three weeks--I also find that I do not follow other blogs as closely as I once did--again, a rather major change in my online behavior

I am reading faster than I have ever read before--almost skimming in the way one is taught with speed reading--where in the past I would stop and examine words I was unfamiliar with, now I just skip over them, or plow past them--again this speaks to what I find almost astounding, which is a hundred and eighty degree turn on the issue of plot--until three weeks ago I never cared about plot--I am at a loss to explain this change in mental outlook--and let it be noted, these are not conscious changes on my part--I have not decided to do anything differently--and it is in this way, this observing, of these changes that have occurred that I feel like a puppet pulled on the strings of pyschoactive drugs--what part of me is not capricious--what part is simply not biology and chemistry at work--and is personality simply the luck of the draw and we play the only hand we're given--or we take drugs to get a new deal

had my first post-med orgasm today--it required such a force of will, effort and concentration as to be virtually without pleasure--although when I ejaculated, the smile of victory, of the triumph of the will over the mind and the body, made my cheeks ache--I would like to think this is the first sign that my body may be adjusting to the meds and that my ability to be orgasmic is and will return

Day: 18-19

day eighteen:

nothing of interest to report--neither highs nor lows

watching impulse--and language--and the processing of events--the storification of impulse, language and event--the need for narrative--to construct meaning--to what end--the question is always to what end--by what code, story or narrative--upon what stage do we dance--can we feel the wood under our feet--


day nineteen:

emotional reactivity remains low--the meds give the ability to deal with frustration and irritation without becoming overly frustrated or irritated--this perhaps opens the door to rewire reactivity through experience, meds notwithstanding--poetry and ornate prose still fail to capture my interest as before--likewise music is all but missing in my life--I find no pleasure in it, which is probably related to emotional dullery--creative thought still lacking and some of my own writing, especially the 1944 series seems quite alien--libido remains high in spite of anorgasmia--perhaps as a byproduct, sexual fantasy has become much more subtle, more selective as the elements of touch deepen--I have become more light-hearted and playful

without the emotional reactivity and personalization, my ability to absorb and address conflict is greater--issues of pettiness are simply not acted upon--emotional reflection/mirroring is absent--the energy passes through me and neither harbors itself nor elicits engagement and the feeling is similar to watching a sporting event in which you have no vested interested in the teams playing and you are able to objectively follow the action--thoughts of the future are starting to emerge but remain fragile--the desire to workout has actually occurred

overall attitude is much improved--negative thoughts have become less sticky, less relentless--I cannot quite tell if I am feeling less drugged or whether I'm just getting used to the feeling--odd sensation on the crown of the head has remained consistent from the first day--appetite remains slightly suppressed, which is to say although I eat well when I eat, there is no desire to snack between meals--this was not the case before--there is still an odd drowsiness that occurs after eating--no issues with sleep--sound still has an eerie and subtle muted quality almost as if I am hearing myself hear

finished the first chapter/book of 2666--it was originally planned by the author to be published as five separate books over five years--his literary executor (Bolano was dying and would die before publication) decided otherwise--the writing is unlike anything I've read recently

Groboto