HighwayToHell
Bronze Member
You can hide all you want from society. The problem I always come up against time after time, is that no matter how much I drink, take jack and jills, indulge in promiscuous or high-risk-for-kicks sexualised behaviours, or pretend to Transcend-ally mediate when I am actually stoned, or indulging shamelessly in all of the above - I have never managed to hide successfully from myself.
It is not that you ARE better when you drink and drug, it's just that you FEEL better - until you start to detox again then you start off afraid you are going to die and by the time you get to mid-morning are so crook you begin to wish you would. Such is life as a self-medicating PTSD. Whenever I have been in that blissful, uplifting, don't-give-a-****, 10 foot tall and bulletproof mindset I get when I am half cut and high and doing high risk s*** I KNOW I should not be doing, I just don't NOTICE that I am acting out, self-destructing and generally trying to commit de-facto suicide. That kind of behaviour on my part can also do serious damage to other innocent people, and that is a no go zone.
When you have been sober for any length of time (I had 17 years up until May last year when I got triggered big time) when that happens, you haven't "failed" until you are six foot under. If you had 'failed' in any way, we would not be having this conversation. You are a living, breathing human being who is very articulate, amusing and obviously intelligent. We would all love to have a Tardis that can magically transport us to where we want to be (or need to go - rarely the same thing). But alas, ABC (our equivalent of BBC) props department won't answer my phone calls. Bastards!!
(I tried to get The Matrix black coat Keanu Reeves wore too but no luck there either - and here I was, all coked up, thinking I was truly "The One". Sigh. Let down.)
You re THIS COSE to commencing the treatment you have waited so long for and that you so desperately need. This is going to sound seriously mean and ridiculous, but in a lot of ways I envy you Edz. I have four scripts in my handbag - two for anti-depresssants, one for anti-psychotics and another for sleeping ills - yet I cannot get an hour with a decent shrink for love or money, have started 'secretly' drinking again (I am not the kind of drinker though who can keep it quiet for long) and have a desk drawer full of codeine just in case the already potentially lethal cocktail I regularly swallow isn't enough to calm my shattered nerves enough to function.
You are also so much braver than me, going through the assessment and treatment, waiting ages, reaching out to this forum. I have been around long enough and been on the mental health service-go-round often enough to know what I need to do, and to also know that I need to find the intestinal fortitude to do it. See, you are already ahead of some of us :).
At least you have an excuse - you have been trying and waiting to get into treatment. I have been avoiding it for nearly a year and am of course going down fast. If I don't do it soon, my life will yet again turn to s*** and I may well find myself yet again getting treated 'involuntarily'.
So - do not sabotage yourself as I do. Hang in there until you get in to treatment next week. Slowly you will make a friend who accepts you for who you are, then another, then still later another until you have a small but genuine circle of friends on whom you can utterly rely for honesty, support and a couch to crash on when you are too drunk or stoned or just plain out there to remember your own f***ing address.
In the mean time, keep putting your laptop to good use and keep us all well informed yeah? Because nothing in this world helps a head case like me more than concentrating on someone else for a change.
We need you Edz, we need you!!!
It is not that you ARE better when you drink and drug, it's just that you FEEL better - until you start to detox again then you start off afraid you are going to die and by the time you get to mid-morning are so crook you begin to wish you would. Such is life as a self-medicating PTSD. Whenever I have been in that blissful, uplifting, don't-give-a-****, 10 foot tall and bulletproof mindset I get when I am half cut and high and doing high risk s*** I KNOW I should not be doing, I just don't NOTICE that I am acting out, self-destructing and generally trying to commit de-facto suicide. That kind of behaviour on my part can also do serious damage to other innocent people, and that is a no go zone.
When you have been sober for any length of time (I had 17 years up until May last year when I got triggered big time) when that happens, you haven't "failed" until you are six foot under. If you had 'failed' in any way, we would not be having this conversation. You are a living, breathing human being who is very articulate, amusing and obviously intelligent. We would all love to have a Tardis that can magically transport us to where we want to be (or need to go - rarely the same thing). But alas, ABC (our equivalent of BBC) props department won't answer my phone calls. Bastards!!
(I tried to get The Matrix black coat Keanu Reeves wore too but no luck there either - and here I was, all coked up, thinking I was truly "The One". Sigh. Let down.)
You re THIS COSE to commencing the treatment you have waited so long for and that you so desperately need. This is going to sound seriously mean and ridiculous, but in a lot of ways I envy you Edz. I have four scripts in my handbag - two for anti-depresssants, one for anti-psychotics and another for sleeping ills - yet I cannot get an hour with a decent shrink for love or money, have started 'secretly' drinking again (I am not the kind of drinker though who can keep it quiet for long) and have a desk drawer full of codeine just in case the already potentially lethal cocktail I regularly swallow isn't enough to calm my shattered nerves enough to function.
You are also so much braver than me, going through the assessment and treatment, waiting ages, reaching out to this forum. I have been around long enough and been on the mental health service-go-round often enough to know what I need to do, and to also know that I need to find the intestinal fortitude to do it. See, you are already ahead of some of us :).
At least you have an excuse - you have been trying and waiting to get into treatment. I have been avoiding it for nearly a year and am of course going down fast. If I don't do it soon, my life will yet again turn to s*** and I may well find myself yet again getting treated 'involuntarily'.
So - do not sabotage yourself as I do. Hang in there until you get in to treatment next week. Slowly you will make a friend who accepts you for who you are, then another, then still later another until you have a small but genuine circle of friends on whom you can utterly rely for honesty, support and a couch to crash on when you are too drunk or stoned or just plain out there to remember your own f***ing address.
In the mean time, keep putting your laptop to good use and keep us all well informed yeah? Because nothing in this world helps a head case like me more than concentrating on someone else for a change.
We need you Edz, we need you!!!
