Day: 77

writing is difficult--even these updates seem difficult--it is not the actual writing--but, and I think this is related to reading, my mind just has no patience for creating--I'm not sure that is right or accurate--why I can't/won't read is still a mystery to me--waves--sense of complete normalcy, which is to say, the normal drive to find work is clear and present--these moments are brief--very brief, but long enough to let me know something is not right--the rest of the day, in what appears to be med based, I just don't care--so I fiddle while Rome burns--and there is just no drive or desire to do what I know needs to be done--I know logically what I should do, but some internal process is disconnected by the medication and I seek to spend my time in mindless FB games and avoid anything, avoid is not the right word, but things of the adult world, and that is not quite accurate either, but many of the things (like finding work) that should be of extreme importance to me, on meds, just don't matter--logically, my mind is clear and I know what I should be doing (looking for work), but internally/mentally, I am like a child that either doesn't understand/comprehend duty and obligation and work or I am fuddled with meds such to make me act as if intoxicated, which is to say, just don't care--tied to this is a complete lack of vision--I seem not to be able to see or think beyond the present moment--what is ironic is I have worked for years to live in the present moment and now that I am here, in this med induced state, I find I am like the guy who jumped from a building and at each floor he passed on the way down said he was feeling just fine and the breeze was very nice

bookstore yesterday, first time in about six weeks--unheard of for me--the experience was nothing short of surreal--I had no desire to be there--had to force myself to browse, pick up books and read even a paragraph

riding as a passenger in the car yesterday, I felt like I did in second grade when my mother was taking me to LSU for speech lessons--just being carried away, a sense of wonder at a med based world as seen through eyes that understand and comprehend so little--I am like that child that will play until his parents tell him he has chores to do--when told, I do them very well and I do them right away and I have a good attitude about doing them--but without someone directing me, I will wile/piss away the hours--my days have a wave-like quality--still, the lack of emotion, the lack of that energy that comes from fight or flight, leaves me like a engine running in neutral

the one side-effect that has remained with me and perhaps even grown stronger is drowsiness--it is hard, very hard not to nap--let me explain how powerful this drowsiness is: I slept through the LSU/Penn State game--I slept through the second half of the Saints/Vikings game--I slept through most of the Packers/Cardinals game, even the exciting and thrilling final quarter--when I drive, I start yawning, strong, almost unnatural yawning that I can't stop--even when exercising (walking, uphill) there is the yawning

I do not feel insane or crazy, but when I project my own behavior on to others, assuming they were in the same position I was, there is not doubt I would reach the conclusion that something is wrong--and this is what is strange, perhaps, about madness--to be mad and know it seems so difficult--one never feels one has lost one's mind

the unnatural giddiness remains, but it comes and goes--it is the kind of giddiness that wants to dance and sing and takes nothing serious in the way a child takes nothing serious, which makes me nice to be around, because very little upsets me, but the other side of the coin is lack of ambition or drive to do anything of any consequence--not because I am lazy--or maybe I am--but it seems to my addled brain that the meds, in making me "happy," also make me just not care about much of anything other than the moment--as if I have lost the ability to understand that present actions lead to a future result

saw a movie two days ago--Sherlock Holmes--the soundtrack was not as bad as Avatar, bad for my medicated ears and brain--but there were still moments when the music was just too heavy-handed and I could not enjoy the visuals because the score was as fingernails on a chalkboard--music too remains frustratingly elusive--I can listen, but without the emotional response, it is just so much sound, of architectural interest--still, there is some vestige of emotional movement within me--just enough to remind me of what I am missing

I suppose the gift, and this occurred to me yesterday in the bookstore as I felt within the skin of a different person, completely dumbfounded as to my total lack of interest in being in the most sacred place I know, the feeling I suppose akin to a religious person walking into a chapel after they have lost their religion and the inside is nothing but stone and mortar and a few statues and candles, but no more--the gift is to have lived as another--not in the idea of it, but in the skin and mind of it--I sat in the bookstore and I thought, this is what it feels like to have no interest in books or bookstores--and I imagined there are people who have always been that way, who don't buy books and don't read and for the first time in my life I felt what that would be like, not thought it, but lived it, as me--I was that person--the same goes for music and I wonder how many people who don't listen to music and never have, are simply chemical inclined not to feel it--and then I wonder how many things I am chemically inclined not to know, to experience

make no mistake, on meds, you become a different person--cognition, perception, drive, philosophy, attitude and inclination all change--these are not conscious changes, changes of habit or will--these are internal, chemical based changes--and you are as different as if you went to sleep with brown eyes and woke up with blue

I went to the bookstore to purchase Bright Star on DVD--you see, I didn't even go to buy a book although I did pick up Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar--I saw Bright Star three times at the theater within a two week period (pre-med) and all three times had a rather strong (tears) reaction--I want to watch again, while on meds, as a way to further understand pre-med me versus med me--my fear is that I will only confirm how much I hate this emotional blunting, how much I feel as a chef that has lost the ability to taste

pre-med, I was in hell and knew it, felt it--on meds, I know I am still in hell, I just don't care, not because I don't want to care, but because the wires of caring about such things are simply not connected, except for a few minutes a couple times a day and it is then and only then that I know that I am not right, yet I feel powerless to do anything about it--like an inebriated person powerless to walk a straight line