My love affair with pharmaceuticals.

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It really IS that big.

by Clinton Rolen Gandy on Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 7:27am

Someone in the house was going through a junk drawer and found an old pill bottle of mine. It originally held a couple months of lithium I think. The bottle got moved from the draw to the counter top, in it's eventual trip to the garbage can. When I saw this GIANT pill bottle , to be truthful I felt an initial jolt of excitement. Kind of like when you see a good looking naked person for the first time. Just a tiny jolt of tititlation. It was a little like Pill Porn.
In my head I was suddenly back to being really little and I would carry sweet tarts in pill bottles and take "medicine" when I ate candy. I also love to carry coins/change in old pill bottles. Flintstones vitamins tasted like a slightly fucked up Sweet Tarts and I wanted to eat the whole bottle. If one a day was good then two or three--even better. At 4 or 5 I learned I was old enough for a headache and that meant asprin and attention. I don't think they make it but there was this Aspergum that was the best come I ever chewed.

Alice in Wonderland, the cartoon film, had the beautiful glowing liquid that said "Drink Me" and then the magic started.
I made the connection super super early (by 5) that pills were magic and they could do something for me that I couldn't do on my own. I had constant ear infections and I knew as day after I started taking the grey and purple antibiotic my ear ache would magically go away while I slept.
I was and am the product of the pill generation. They can save you from depression, relax you to the point you don't care if your own hair is on fire and it can make an 80 year old penis do tricks like it was a teenager.
But mostly what pills do for me is they treat symptoms without addressing the root causes. Pills mask the illness while they entertain the symptom.
I know today, just for today, there isn't a pill coming down the turn pike that will make me happy, pretty, thin or intellengent. Bradly Cooper has a new film coming out about a pill that makes you perfect and I laughed when I saw the trailer for it because the pill is very small and completely clear and it looks like something I would take ten of , because the dose was based on a normal person's size with the weight of 165lbs, and I'm nearly double that.lol (see what deal with daily)

So , this big ass amber/brown pill bottle has caused quite a little theatrical production in my head since I spotted it on the counter.. Is it wrong I want to fill it with skittles. LOL
I bought into my pill fascination long before I took what I would consider a "real Pill", like a pharmaceutical clairvoyant at 4 years old.....

I was a weird kid. I toted candy like pills and when no one was around I played "Alcoholic", "Mommy Needs a Drink". But that is another story for another day.

Keep passing the open windows!
Clinton.

You ready for this? Bump bump bump bump, Pure Energy Bump Bump Bump.

Frankly, I woke up at 4:30, and my brain was in the mood for generating thoughts. I'm pretty sure that is why I woke up early. I'm going to have to work extra hard today to focus. When I am bombarded my thoughts it is easy for me to focus on our differences and separate myself from the herd. Just like the animals on the Nature Show, once I get to far away from my herd I become way more vulnerable.

What is going on with me is I have a big desire to become more a part of the world again. I'd like my autonomy in my life and I would love to be in Longview to really make the most out of being around and close to the people in recovery. I'm really at the end of my rope with my sister's using and her constant stupor and when I had no choice but to move into my mother's home because of finances and my inability to cope with life and my all consuming fear, it made me feel safe to be here.

Now I don't need or want the constant caretaking, and I am of course starting a resentment, even though I know mom is part of the reason I lived through active addiction. Do you remember the pinching when you out grew shoes as a kid?

One dramatic difference in my life and my thinking that being clean for just under 11 months, is I now know there is a life out there fore me that will be satisfying and purposeful. It's up to me to do the footwork and I'm fine with that but I honestly just don't know how to start. I guess talking about it with men that have done it themselves last night was a good start. Going to a meeting is always a good start.

I'm ready for more. More recovery, more connection , more love, more understanding, more hope and more joy. I want to be fully self supporting through my own contributions.

You live in a house with people you have traumatized with your addiction and crazy addict ways and you find yourself tiptoeing and trying not to make noise because you might frighten them. I'd love to drop a fork on a hard wood floor and not have to fearful voices yell out from the back of the house "WHAT WAS THAT".

I think that I am gifted by the universe for my lack of desire of "things".. I have no drive to own or collect the trappings that an American is suppose to desire. I don't care about have "The Car", "The Clothes", "BIG TV". I'm not terrorized by the same demons that have always haunted my dad. Nothing ever was good enough for long and he has always looked for the next big thing to give him some sort of sense of fulfillment. Even when he switched lives and wives, he found out that it was a mistake.

I'm simple as far as needs and wants go. I've never been driven for things. I thought for along time is was related to having no self esteem and not feeling worthy of having things but I found out this year that is not the case. I'm just not interesting in excess. I've never NEVER met a generic I could grow to love. I was telling someone the other day that I keep a minimum of things and like clockwork I cull everything and through stuff away that I don't want or need. My philosophy has been never own more than I could get in the hatchback of a Chevy Chevette if I had to leave in a hurry.

As the plans start to be made for the April Camp out I'm more aware than ever that next month marks the end of my first year in recovery. I've worked a good chunk of steps, I am of service, my level of compassion has grown like crazy and I fear people much less. I'm grateful down to the cellular level of being and that tells the universe I am ready for more, now I am sharing with you that I am indeed ready for more.

I'm all in Mother Fucker , Still. And Mother Fuckers I want MORE>

sunday 3/6

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first do no harm.

by Clinton Rolen Gandy on Sunday, March 6, 2011 at 9:17am

Part of the physicians oath is "First do no harm". I know that for me, the things that I find I can no longer tolerate and have to be addressed in my recovery program of recovery must be tendered or carried out with the same cautiousness of a doctor who has taken the oath of doing no harm. As I grow and change there are dynamics of personalities that don't suit what I am trying to accomplish with my life and staying clean. My first instinct is to deliver an inventory of someone,"just in case" they have no clue they are doing it all wrong when it comes to being a part of my life. lol (hello ego). But when your spiritual progress runs smack into a person whose primary focus is F E A R and control, it's terribley uncomfortable and very hard to balance respect for where they are in their lives and your own growth and stability with matters of spirituality and sobriety. One of my all time favorite old sayings in the south is "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater". It's a favorite because I tend to through everything away when perhaps I just need to learn to upgrade somethings like relationships. It's easier to run than have awkward conversations where I state how I feel and you state how you feel and then we try to grow together (or not).

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Love hurts.....ohhhh ohhh Love hurts

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Love Hurts....ooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhoooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhh Love hurts.

by Clinton Rolen Gandy on Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 9:38am

Day before yesterday was my dads 75th birthday. I've only seen him once in 15 months and I wouldn't have seen him then but I didn't see how I could possibly get out of going to my grandma's memorial thing. My relationship with my dad is painful for me. I felt like 75 was a big enough number of years on the planet so I called his cell phone. I called the cell first because it was in the middle of the and figured he wouldn't be in the house and I did NOT want to have to fake pleasantries with his wife. He answers the cell, I say happy birthday and he says thank you and to call on the home phone next time, because this one cost money. So 2 days later ,my head has decided to take issue with that request not to call on the cell phone. I have waves of flashing rage at myself for making the call, and just plain hurt feelings over being told he didn't want to pay a dime a minute for a 3 minute phone call. My motive was simply to have one of his kids say happy birthday and it has turned into a "Dammit, this is what happens when I let myself be vulnerable. I'm sort of caught between not saying anything and stuffing it and finding a buffet to hump this weekend, or telling him he is such a miserable mutha fucka that I hope he gets trampled to death my the farm animals that he managed to take better care of than his kids.

Is Charlie Brown the idiot for thinking perhaps Lucy won't jerk the football away just as he runs to kick it or is he practicing spiritual principle by hoping and believing anything is possible. I have pulled some shit in my day regarding he and his wife, I certainly am not intentionally living in a glass house, but I don't know of anyone who I know the first and last name of that I would mind spending a dollar worth of time on a cell phone. He drives a 50 thousand dollar Avalanche but has a problem with sell phone charges. I just needed to get that out because I won't share it with my mom or sister, they know he is fucked up and selfish. I just am unwilling to carry this spiritual mucous around all day. If this doesn't help, I will hit the cell phone list, which as I have established my father's is no long on.

Letter To John the nurse at Brentwood Hospital.

Dear John,

This is Clinton Gandy from Texas. I was at Brentwood in April of last year. I just wanted to reach out and let you know that I am still clean and the kindness you showed me while I was there is still paying off. After I got home and processed my time and my re-awakening there at Brentwood I figured out the most important thing that you did for me and I now do for other people. You pointed out to me or directed my attention to the special attributes that I bring to the table when I come for recovery.
It was a lot like gently being awakened for a deep sleep. I now point out things to people both old and new in my NA hall about themselves that they may have never noticed or forgotten. I’ve told more than a view people that Nurse John helped me remember who I was after I went “COMA”.
Brentwood and whatever AA group you go to are really lucky to have a spirit like yours in the mix.
I’m closing in on 11 months and the colored plastic keytags are great, their fine, but the quality of my life and my recovery on a day to day basis and how it impacts others favorably is what I am most concerned with.
There are some tired little cliché’s that get truer every day, and one is “Recovery is not a Sprint, it is a marathon”.
It’s very interesting to see a life, my life evolving to something important to both myself and everyone I love.
I took a big step in order for my recover to get a little bigger and go a little deeper.
My Pdoc had told me that if I wanted to stop taking the antidepressant Paxil he would be all for it. I had repeatedly mentioned I didn’t understand how I could be in such a good place but be so removed from a connection. I haven’t really laughed til it hurt in a long time or been moved to tears by something that I know is touching my heart.
My doctor explained to me that with this SSRI, it keeps me from feeling the low lows, and I lose the high notes of laughter and the great feelings. He also said that it creates an apathy for some people like me where I am just “unmoved”.
I have to be honest it was a frightening process. The electrical “zaps” in the head were very disconcerting and the withdrawal info online mentions “Paxil Flu” where your skins is warm and nearly sweat but the room is cold.

I feel to the marrow of my bones that my recovery and the steps plus the group will be able to support me if I have a problem with depression again, and I also have 5 refills on my account at CVS so I don’t even have to go see the doc if it looks like I need them.

Yesterday was my first day feeling like the detox was over and I really did feel free. I laughed a lot and my eyes misted up when I was retelling a story that moved me. I felt like a human who was hitting on all the levels.
I’m still on my two other mental meds and I have no thoughts of ever going off Lithium because Charlie Sheen reminds me of what happens with bipolar people get hung in mania and can’t get out.
Years ago, I decided I was leaving and took everything I owned to the little local auction barn and I was leaving my name and persona behind. I ended up in the hospital (again) and I made 35 dollars on the auctioning of my things. Lol I still miss my stainless art deco coffee table. Ha

Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you again. All of this may have happened for me without your help, I don’t know. I do know that I am so much the better for spending a few hours a day with you, for a week in April last year.
You are very intuitive on how you approach the indivuals at Brentwood and I try very hard to model myself after you. I saw you at any given time speak 5 foreign languages of recovery to 10 different people at once, seamlessly weaving together a beginning our approach of a clean living program.

I had one a man who has many many years clean speak with me after the noon meeting yesterday for over 90 minutes. He and I sat on the air units in back of the building and just exchanged “experience, strength and Hope”. He told me that he gets a big kick and enjoys my particular perspective on things and that I always had a thoughtful take on all that is my life and my recovery
.
I told him thank you very much and I too adore the perspective that I have. For the first time, I really enjoy the fact that I don’t see what others see the way they see it, and I don’t hear necessarily what others hear. I just pick up on the off notes to make me go, hmmmm. That is big big growth me me.
My experience is what makes me valuable to people and I am luckily in a place I can share my experience. I’ve still got my training wheels on and one day they will cease to be necessary, but why make things harder for myself than they have to be right now.

You made it possible for me to re-enter a recovery program, with your small but methodical approach to waking me up to the really good parts of my self.

Because having a program of recovery is more important that an extra 4 or 5 days added to my clean time, I count the meeting on campus there where I picked up my white key tag as my official “Clean Date” and I would really like to come back in April and pick up a year tag at the big ass NA meeting they bring to your site. When the reading of “We do Recover” mentions the part where “We could no longer function as a human, with or with out drugs”, was read, I went from being a patient in a hospital made to go to a meeting, to a member of Narcotics Anonymous. The revolution had started and the revitalization had begun.

John, I haven’t looked back. I walked across that giant circle in the NA meeting there with a mixture of surrender and steely determination. I haven’t had too many days where I haven’t maintained that resolve.

I just wanted to say thank you, thank you. I pass your compassionate treatment of me on to every new person that comes into my hall. I think the energy created from the sharing of kindness between us all, creates an energy a lot like stem cells. That energy can be plugged in , in a million places where hope is needed and kindness is called for.

Thank you for being a part of the foundation of my recovery and charter member of the club formed for my reclamation project to be a caring , vital part of humanity again.

Much Love,
Clinton R. Gandy

A footnote to the Pharmacy

Maybe not the best day of my life, but pretty damn close and I don't recall a better one. After a week of detox and withdrawal from an antidepressant I have been on for over 4 years, I woke up this morning without the electric zaps in my head and I had real enthusiasm about getting out and living. I'm not saying I am cured by any means, depression is cyclical and it will roll around again at some point but, the big BUT, I think the 12 steps of NA and my support team of recovering addicts can get me through, if not, I still have refills at the pharmacy for a year. I didn't know until Monday talking with my pdoc that apathy is a product SSRI's. They keep you from going low or high. I didn't know how much I missed laughing until today. I thought I was laughing all this time, but today I clearly felt the difference, it was laughter with thought, and heart and the freedom from care like a child has. I also told a story that I personally find lovely and touch and my eyes responded by misting up. Oh my god, it's great to be a freaking human. lol

I'm very thankful that the worst part of withdrawal has passed or seems to. My body has been at a pleasurable non sticky temp all day, the sweaty sticky feeling is termed Paxil Flu on the list of symptoms.

The biggest lesson of the week for me is , balanced by the sanity the program of NA has restored me to thus far, it is perfectly fine for me to make decisions about my life, my health and my treatment of various issues. I am my own best advocate and if I don't speak my mind, whose fault is it I don't get fulfilled.

All over today I witness people who were once broken and drugged, make responsible choices for themselves and their families, and they are getting up and getting on with a life of endless possibilities. They are all so capable and it makes me hopeful that I am capable of way more than I could dream in my wildest dreams.

Let me put the disclaimer for your health on here, don't mess with your meds unless you have talked it through with your doctor. This time in my life it is right for me, and another big but to add, I still take Lithium and have no plans to stop. It keeps me from acting like CHARLIE SHEEN. I am sooo not kidding.

The last corn plant on the planet.

I sent a note to a friend regarding a picture I found that she commented on. She jokingly said it seems like I wanted to have a little girl baby. I responded that I am the last living male in my family with the Gandy last name. I know many many gay men who desire to be fathers but I wasn't one of them. I love the fact the Gandy lineage dies with me, when I do. I am either a period at the end of the lineage for a fabulous giant EXCLAMATION point. Either way I haven't set some poor kid up with genes and memes that repeat and make it hard for us to be good humans. My father is a very good steward of the land and the animals but completely lousy with his family and terribly disconnected with himself to the point that nothing ever made him happy for long, and he was indeed his fathers son because grandpa S.R. was impossible to have any closeness with either.
If it was divine or chance the line of love lost and disconnection ends with me. No more Gandy boys.
Several years ago i watched a documentary on corn. For well over one hundred years corn has been so genetically modified that if man disappeared, in one years time there would never be another corn stalk grown on the planet because there is no naturally occuring wild corn anymore, we have bred the ability to self seed out of the plant. I thought about how that related to me and the fact that there will be know more from my gene pool.

I'm the last corn plant.

Day 5 or six of the detoxification from 4 years of paxil

It was what I needed to stay alive from depression until I got it together enough to get back into a 12 step for my substance abuse. I would never tell anyone not to use meds if they have need for them.

A really surprising thing happened today during the withdrawal process. I had real energy and felt like doing something. Not manic energy I just felt like moving some boxes around and finally charging the battery up on my car that i haven't cranked since before Christmas.

My doctor told me yesterday that a deep since of apathy is one of the things that happens when you are on an SSRI. It chops off the highs as it balances the lows.

I have been having waves of being moved towards tears, which is scary but sort of nice because it is one of the good parts of being human with emotions.

I'm still willing to try for another day and see what it brings. I took a nap today and my new found human super powers of emotion were even activated in my dreams.

I'm ready for MORE>

I never thought I would be in the position to tell the universe that I was will to feel, MORE. I wouldn't dream taking the step towards more if I didn't have a group, a program a sponsor and a handful of people I know I can lean on when feeling human becomes too much. I had so much pain, fear and confusion really early in life that I shut down as much as possible then thankfully I discovered a "chemical" peace of mind which actually did help me survive, then that turned on me too. lol I mentioned over the weekend to some recovery folks that I landed with a deafening thud in a psych hospital then to a 12step group saying I don't want any MORE. Now several months later I am fortified by love and hope and I am saying I am ready for more. lol More love, more life and even more of those frightening things called feelings.
But you know, those early pioneers that took off out west full of hope and self assurance, well a lot of them were never heard from again. lol I hope in 10 years you don't stumble on a crudely made headstone that says, "Here lies Clinton Gandy, he unfortunately decided he didn't need an antidepressant after 4 years of taking it". Ha.
I just want to make one thing clear, that I absolutely believe in psych. meds. Some things cannot be addressed with steps, religion or "exercise". Chemical imbalances are 100% real and I have been to a lot of funerals due to the depression the steps couldn't touch for them. I just feel like by staying on a level where the bad stuff doesn't reach me emotionally, neither does the really high of the good stuff. I spoke with my doctor in depth about this yesterday and he said that medication produces an "apathy" in a lot of people and I feel like I fell into that category. I miss being deeply moved and I really miss getting so tickled that my stomach aches.
I know how John Travolta felt in the 70's TV Movie "The Boy In The Plastic Bubble", when he decides life inside that bubble may be safe but it isn't much of a life.
Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias says "I'd rather have 30 minutes of something wonderful that a life time of nothing special."
Now, I realized both those characters die, I totally relate to being willing to pay the price for the good things that come with being human. How much fun is it to laugh at a completely in appropriate time where the more you try to stop the more you laugh.
I'm in line and ready for more. I can't believe I am willingly asking for MORE feelings. Now that is cracking me up.
This is day six of withdrawal an detox, the electric head "zaps" were better yesterday and I look forward to day 9 when all the physical some subsides.

The zaps and the heat flashing are the pits

Paxil Withdrawal symptoms from ONLINE.

If I could impress upon you only one thing, it would be this: The symptoms of paxil withdrawal will end. They can't go on forever. They can't.

You will survive!

* * *

The paxil withdrawal symptoms include (but are not limited to):

• Dizziness, which can be quite extreme at times.
• Shocks, called the 'zaps'; usually starting in the mouth or head, and extending out through the body.
• Sensory sensitivity, especially sounds. Any noise can become a painful experience. Also, being under florescent lights can create discomfort. Touch, motion and even smell can be painful.
• Nausea, very common with paxil withdrawal.

  
  

• Confusion, memory problems, and difficulty with concentration.
• Severe insomnia and/or nightmares, (now there's a winning combination).
• Extreme mood swings, such as intense grief and intense anger. Plan for this in advance!
• Suicidal thoughts. If the urge to kill yourself becomes too strong and the argument becomes too logical, think of those who love you. Think of the thousands of others who have or who will go through a similar agony. Just don't give up!
• Headaches, sometimes quite severe.
• Reduced motor skills, such as difficulty walking or talking.
• Reduced or no appetite.
• Intense fear of losing your sanity.
• Depersonalization, where nothing seems real; it's like you are outside your body.
• Panic attacks, even if you've never had them before.
• Sweating, sometimes profusely.
• Blurred vision.
• Muscle cramps and stomach cramps.
• Diarrhea.
• Chills/hot flashes, part of the 'paxil-flu'.
• Fatigue.
• Painful, swollen eyes or mouth.
• Fainting.
• Hard to swallow.
• Grinding teeth.
• Numbness.
• Itching.
• Trembling.
• Hallucinations.