A to Z Challenge 2024: Day 4: Drugs

 

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

I wanna be sedated, but for me, the cure is worse than the problem. The kinds of drugs that most people take for anxiety and depression fuck me up even worse than I already am.

Benzodiazepines have a severe rebound effect. Valium works a little differently than the others. Most of them take the edge off, and then about 20 minutes later, I get blasted with a panic attack from hell.

Valium makes me thick as a brick, except if I’m going to the dentist when adrenaline overrides it, so it doesn’t work at all. I’m already prone to nightmares, and while Valium helps me fall asleep nicely, it also intensifies my nightmares.

SSRIs make me manic and psychotic.

So, yeah. For me, the magic pills are bad magic.

Don’t get defensive if you take these medications and they work for you. I’m not passing judgment on you. I’m not you. You’re not me. That’s something you can be thanking whatever deity you worship or fate or the Universe or whatever for.

This post went over 100 words. So what? It’s my party, and I’ll go over 100 words if I want to.

Yeah, I agree; it’s a lame party.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by Greg Waskovich from Pixabay

Ornery Owl's coming in fast with a hot take.

A To Z Challenge 2024 Day 2: Bad Brains

Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

They say it’s best to believe in yourself, and I suppose that’s true.

But what if you haven’t had experiences that make believing easy to do?

Everyone has let me down, and I’ve let me down the most.

I wish I could still drink and smoke weed so I could turn my circuits to toast.

Was I born with a bad brain?

Rotten synapses, just insane?

Or was I driven mad by the pain

Of living in a world

Where people think an oddball like me

Makes a real nice punching bag, both verbally and physically?

Does it matter anyway?

Not the best poem I ever wrote, but I didn't intend it to be a poem in the first place. It just came out that way.

In fairness, nothing I write is the best.

Shit Just Got Real

Image by Square Frog from Pixabay

This post is going to be as real as it gets, which is something I haven't done for a long time. If the only words you can think of are critical and hateful, then don't say anything. In life, you are presented with times when you should speak up and other times when you should...

Now you know my situation may be sorry, but it isn't hopeless. If it were hopeless, I'd lose the ability to find the humor in something inappropriate and profane like the above image.

A couple more unhelpful suggestions (because believe me, I've heard and/or tried them numerous times)

"you should seek counseling."

Never helped. Don't trust them damn crooked vultures. I live in the middle of nowhere. I'm not making a 100-mile round trip once a week for nothing, which is exactly how much counseling has helped me in my life.

"You should get on medication."

I have paradoxical reactions to psych meds. I can deal with the black dog. I have a fragile peace with that bitch most of the time. Today she has the upper hand. We're lifelong companions, the black dog and me. What I can't deal with is being manic and psychotic, which is what psych meds make me.

Right, here it is.

I created Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Camp with the intent of talking about the mental health aspects of my life, but it’s never gotten the audience I hoped for. Sometimes I think I should just close it down. 

I feel like an outcast in the world of writers, particularly romance writers. I’ve never adapted very well to the promotion aspects of writing, which I feel take away from the, you know, WRITING aspects of writing. I'd leave the promotion stuff to my assistant if I could afford one. I suck at it.

I feel like I’m drowning or being crushed under a mountain of credit card debt. My credit score is below 500. I’m in the shit. I need to pay off and get rid of the cards that have annual fees. 

I always thought I’d be somewhat successful by now, but here I am approaching if not the ass end at least the lower back of my life and I am anything but successful.

I’m hungry, and I hate being hungry.

I wish I didn’t have to eat. In fact, right now, I kind of wish I was dead.

I’m so deeply ashamed of what I am. I can fool myself for a while, but the shame really never ends.

I’m a fuckup, a failure, a nothing nobody.

I can’t even tell anybody about it, because the fact of the matter is, nobody gives a fuck.

There’s nobody to hear my cries. It’s pull myself up by the bootstraps or die in the gutter.

There will never be a prince to ride along the sea and the mountain.

There will never be the roar of crowds.

There will only be a slow, plodding march to the grave. Or, in my case, a limp to the grave.

I still hate myself.

That's as real as it gets.

Free use image by Gordon Johnson on Pixabay

Give me silver, blue, and gold

The colors of the sky I'm told

My rainbow is overdue

--Bad Company

Friday Book Blog Hop: Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss

 

Content warning: Suicide ideation, adult situations, profanity

Genre

Autobiography, Memoir, Music

Buy Link

https://amzn.to/3fOFofh

Disclosures: 

I will earn a small commission from Amazon for every book purchased through the above link.

Blurb:

LEGENDARY founding KISS drummer Peter “Catman” Criss has lived an incredible life in music, from the streets of Brooklyn to the social clubs of New York City to the ultimate heights of rock ’n’ roll success and excess.

KISS formed in 1973 and broke new ground with their elaborate makeup, live theatrics, and powerful sound. The band emerged as one of the most iconic hard rock acts in music history. Peter Criss, the Catman, was the heartbeat of the group. From an elevated perch on his pyrotechnic drum riser, he had a unique vantage point on the greatest rock show of all time, with the KISS Army looking back at him night after night.

Peter Criscuola had come a long way from the homemade drum set he pounded on nonstop as a kid growing up in Brooklyn in the fifties. He endured lean years, street violence, and the rollercoaster music scene of the sixties, but he always knew he’d make it. Makeup to Breakup is Peter Criss’s eye-opening journey from the pledge to his ma that he’d one day play Madison Square Garden to doing just that. He conquered the rock world—composing and singing his band’s all-time biggest hit, “Beth” (1976)—but he also faced the perils of stardom and his own mortality, including drug abuse, treatment in 1982, near-suicides, two broken marriages, and a hard-won battle with breast cancer.

Criss opens up with a level of honesty and emotion previously unseen in any musician’s memoir. Makeup to Breakup is the definitive and heartfelt account of one of rock’s most iconic figures, and the importance of faith and family. Rock ’n’ roll has been chronicled many times, but never quite like this.

Ornery Owl's Mini Review

Rating: Five out of five stars

The book is easy to read and, oddly enough, Peter is a very down-to-earth guy. It was interesting reading about his time with Kiss, but what I really enjoyed was learning about him as a person. I'm not a fast reader, but I tore through this book in three days.

The First Line/Book Beginnings

Have you ever tasted the barrel of a .357 Magnum that’s halfway down your throat?

https://www.rosecityreader.com/

https://readingismysuperpower.org/

The Friday 56

The three of them were probably fucking each other in Jamaica.

http://www.fredasvoice.com/

Book Blogger Hop

10th -16th - Do you consider yourself a bookworm or a reader? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer)

I used to be a definite bookworm. Oddly enough, I feel like doing book reviews and being a writer myself has turned me into more of a reader. 

https://www.coffeeaddictedwriter.com/p/blog-page.html

Come As You Are Party: Breaking Down my Breakdown

 

Trigger warning for those who want or need it: Suicide Ideation

"The readers in the world - regardless of how much or how little writing talent they have - become the people who succeed in life."

Unless they're me. 

I am an abject failure.

I am burned out on reading, and on promoting other people's books.

I am discouraged about writing. Clearly, I can't cut it in the popular writing world, but I feel like I've been ousted from my own universe and can't get back in. 

Nobody wants to read what I write, but I can't give the people what they want because what they want doesn't interest me. 

52 Weeks of Writing encourages me to find an "accountability partner."

I'm already accountable. I am a fucking taskmaster. I won't cut myself a break. I'll sleep when I'm dead. And so on. 

This is what I need:

I think that Stephen, being the King of Horror, has forgotten what it's like to not know if anyone needs or wants what you write. He knows that someone out there needs his stories. 

Clearly, nobody needs or wants my stories. There will never be a single soul who says "boy, Story X by C.L. Hart really helped me through" or "wow, that poem by Ornery Owl really spoke to me," or even "that cheeky Lil DeVille's spicy stories cheered me up when I needed it." 

If I haven't made it by almost 60, I'm not going to make it. Honestly, it's discouraging rather than inspiring to be in the company of people who have made it to some degree. I'm going to have to resign myself to the fact that my stories are just a coping mechanism to keep me from topping myself. I wanted something more from them and I wanted something more for them. They deserve better.

I'm sick of myself. I'm sick of this breakdown. I'm sick of living in a world of broken-down things that I don't have the money to fix or replace. I'm sick of living in poverty. I'm sick of all my health problems. 

I've just spent over an hour trying to correct my whacked-out blood sugar. Having zombie organs floating around in my body doing jack shit is a fabulous adventure. Please do try it sometime.

On second thought, don't.

I considered shooting the moon with my insulin this morning. Just dialing the pen as far as it could go and saying goodbye to this failed existence. The only reason I didn't is that my son would be in dire circumstances without my help. It's strange how I can be indispensable and yet an utterly useless piece of shit all at the same time. Such a dichotomy I am. 

Don't tell me to "get help." There isn't any. I don't trust counselors. 

Don't tell me to "take medication." Psych meds make me psychotic. I don't enjoy being psychotic.

Don't tell me to "go to the ER." This isn't an emergency. This is suicide ideation. If I went to the ER every time I experienced suicide ideation, I'd have to live there. Being placed on a psych hold wouldn't help me, it would make things worse. I know what's wrong with me. I'm fucking discouraged and I'm sick of it all. I need a win and I'm not going to get one.

I'm going to have to do something else with my writing. Pursuing fame and money makes me depressed. Well, more depressed. 

I'm going to have to go back to writing what I like to write.

I need to find the key to the gate of dreams again.

Lead on, Mr. Lovecraft.

The line about the key to my dreams is a reference to the story "The Silver Key" by H. P. Lovecraft. You can read the story here if you are so inclined.

https://cthulhu.fandom.com/wiki/The_Silver_Key

The first few lines go a little bit something like this:

When Randolph Carter was thirty he lost the key of the gate of dreams. Prior to that time he had made up for the prosiness of life by nightly excursions to strange and ancient cities beyond space, and lovely, unbelievable garden lands across ethereal seas; but as middle age hardened upon him he felt those liberties slipping away little by little, until at last he was cut off altogether.

Lovecraft was writing about himself when he penned this story. He struggled with depression including suicide ideation just like yours truly. 

The story's protagonist, Randolph Carter, is actually a bit of a dick. He brings misery to the life of the hapless Yaddithian wizard Zkauba. My yet-to-be-edited novel "The Wizard's Key" includes a sympathetic account of Zkauba's plight, which led him to call on Nyarlathotep to free him from Carter's influence.

I hope it isn't too late to re-open the gate.

Perhaps it would be best if I slept for another couple of hours. We're going to try the journey to my mother's house once again today.

Spirit of the Universe, please help me recapture the joy that writing once gave me. Please help me remember what's important. It isn't validation. Still, it hurts seeing so many other people winning when I seem to do nothing but lose.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Free use image from Pixabay

Resource Books:

52 Weeks of Writing

https://amzn.to/33sESxd

Self-Help Sucks

https://amzn.to/3sCWA9q

The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)

Creative Commons License

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Blow Your Stack Saturday: The Truth Must Be Told

 

This is a response to a post by Mubashshira. The image is their work.

https://musingsbymubashshira.com/2021/04/01/saving-myself-poem/

My usual spring depression was mercifully brief this year, but I'm having really messed-up dreams.

The doodle is a real work of art. My doodles look like a pre-schooler stuck a crayon between the toes of their non-dominant foot.

I appreciate it when people tell their truth. I think it's wretched the way society shames people for being honest like we're always supposed to be giddy with glee and the sky is filled with unicorns farting rainbows and pooping ice cream cones.

A lot of my poetry tends to be pretty dark. Hence, I don't have much of an audience. I've tried to give the people what they want, but that always ends up feeling like a lie. So I always end up going back to being my old salty, snarky, and melancholic self.

Rainbow: a model office worker

Rainbow: a model office worker:                                                                                 Author: Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken 

My neurological makeup made me a poor candidate for office work. I would become severely clinically depressed after a couple of weeks having to adhere to a schedule that necessitated being awake at 4:30 in the morning. The years that I worked in an office setting were among the worst in my life. I always did much better working evening or night shifts, which generally meant doing physically demanding jobs.

Mes crazy expériences: WeWriWar 342: The House at the Crossing 50

Mes crazy expériences: WeWriWar 342: The House at the Crossing 50:   Hello everybody and welcome for a new Sunday of writing with Weekend Writing Warrior and Snippet Sunday !   How are you doing?   ...

Oh my gosh, if I had to deal with three crying babies plus seeing me from alternate universes appearing and disappearing, I think I'd lose what I have left of "it."

I live in a big old house in the middle of nowhere, which I really love. Unfortunately, the parts of myself and memories of my past that I don't really love followed me here, and I've been having nightmares.

About Me Monday: To Sleep Perchance?

 

Image by jay Clarke from Pixabay

This is a response to a post by Kendra about writers and sleep.

https://taintedtrinity.ddns.net/wordpress/2021/02/03/iwsg-sleep-and-writing/

Sleep and I have never seen eye to eye. 

My mother delights in telling people what an awful baby I was because I would, apparently, never sleep for more than two hours at a time. 

I learned much later in life that I had ADHD, which accounted for my being "scatterbrained," a "space cadet," and "flaky". 

However, my son also has ADHD, and while his sleep patterns are all over the place (sometimes he goes to bed around 6 PM, sometimes at midnight, sometimes not till the wee hours of the morning) he always slept well as a baby. In fact, I had to wake him up every 2 hours to feed him because his blood sugar was prone to crashing.

My son thinks that he may have a 25-hour circadian rhythm. It makes sense to me. He's high-functioning autistic, which may affect his sleep as well. Outside of his issues with anxiety and depression, his sleep issues are a key factor in why he has never been able to hold a "normal" job.

Back when I was still working, I had problems with not being able to fall asleep at night and, conversely, falling asleep during the day. Unless, of course, I wanted to. I had trouble falling asleep when I got home after working a night shift. However, I had to fight to stay awake while driving home. I would roll the window down to let the cold air blast me in the face. I would pinch and punch myself. I would blast music and sing at the top of my lungs.

The inability to sleep if I had to work in the morning may have been partly due to anxiety. I didn't really want to go to work and was afraid of fucking up. I got sent home from one temp job for being sleepy. Even now that I'm on disability and am usually able to fall asleep by midnight, I still have issues with daytime sleepiness, which was one of the issues that led to my being approved for disability. 

There is a huge stigma on people who aren't the "early to bed, early to rise" type. All you have to do is get to bed earlier like the Good and Saintly do. Easy enough, unless you just aren't wired that way.

~Sleepy Cie~

Madly-in-Verse: Write...Edit...Publish... + IWSG October 2020 : G...

Madly-in-Verse: Write...Edit...Publish... + IWSG October 2020 : G...:   Cutting straight to the chase without the usual preliminaries, in keeping with the spirit of WEP Lite ... Blind Mole in a Black Hole To be...

As someone who struggles with suicide ideation (the planning part is pretty haphazard and so completion is not likely to be imminent) and has finally started figuring myself out (wish I could have done that 25 years ago), I have some thoughts on the matter.

People like me--depressive and not able to remain cheerful despite others' best efforts any more than I'm able to remain thin despite others' best efforts to shame me into being so--are inconvenient and uncomfortable because we tell it like it is rather than lying with a smile. 

It's likely that I'd always have been a depressive personality. I think some of it is hard-wired, just like my ADHD is hard-wired. But a great part of my suicidal tendencies and self-loathing are due to trauma. I honestly didn't realize this until just this year, and then I started looking at some incidents in my life that I really preferred not to. I opened some old wounds. 

The truth is, I'm no more mentally ill than the next person who has been abused in various ways for much of their life and then had their pain minimized by others. After being sexually assaulted in 1997 and struggling with panic attacks that came one after the other, my own family said to me, "well, you got over this before, you'll get over it again."

In other words, I'm not as crazy as people like to label me, and I talk about my truth. People don't like that. I'll never be popular because I'm not willing to paste a smile over a gaping wound and give the people what they want.

Ornery Poetry Sunday: Bully Is As Bully Does

Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay

I don't know who needs to hear this today

But if you are bullying a bully

The way the bully bullies his victims

Using the same cruel words as he uses

You have just become a bully yourself

~Cie the Ornery Old Lady~

Ornery Owl

Free Use Image from Open Clipart Vectors on Pixabay

I am feeling quite heartbroken today, close to suicidal. I feel that my work is worthless as am I. But I will try to believe and will keep going just in case things can improve somehow.

I wish you all the best.

The Icky, Sticky, Nit-picky Legalese If You Please (or Don't Please)

Copyright 2020 by The Ornery Old Lady

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Quoting portions of the post for educational or review purposes is acceptable if proper credit is given.

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Heeding Haiku: Senryu for Sadness

Image Source

never leaving me

I carry you in my heart

sadness, my partner

~cie~

Suspending Literary Services

Howdy Solks...I mean Folks.

Due to recent changes in my health, including my cognition, I have opted to suspend my literary services except for those I do for Online Book Club. I make a small amount of money working with them. It was a grand total of about $5000 last year, but it's better than nothing.

Diabetes is a garbage disease. Just when you think it's done fucking you up, it will fuck you up some more. 

My guess would be that my time on this scuzzy ball of dirt will be terminated by something relating to diabetes unless I decide it isn't worth it to keep fighting the tide and decide to punch my own ticket.

That being said, I want to spend the remaining time I may have to work on my own writing and helping my son prepare for the time when I won't be around to assist him anymore, which may be sooner than I have anticipated. I worry about this because although there are some things he does very well, he will not do well being completely on his own.

If I still believed in God, I would bargain with the fucker. But from what I have seen, if he exists, he enjoys being a dick. So I'm not even going to include him in the loop.

I am not in a great place psychologically and haven't been for a while. 

No unsolicited advice, please. Like the kid in the picture above says, I really don't believe that chewing seaweed covered in whale urine while standing on my head and reciting ancient mantras backward is going to lead to my diabetes going into remission, my thyroid healing itself, my hair reversing its grayness, and me suddenly being converted from a hideous old fat hag with a face that could destroy worlds to a Conventionally Attractive Hot Supermodel of a Socially Acceptable Size as drooling dudebros literally beat down my door to get a piece of this. I fucking wouldn't want that shit even if I could have it for the asking.

Okay, I would take the diabetes reversal and the thyroid healing. As for the appearance stuff, fuck you if you really think I'm less worthy of being treated with common courtesy because I'm not young, thin, and pretty, and the dudebros banging on my door sounds like something out of one of my nightmares.

I'm kind of thinking it would be better if I put the kibosh on comments for this post because I really don't have it in me to deal with that shit. If I want to interact with you regarding these thoughts, you already have my email address.

So...yeah. Now you know what's going on with me, for what it's worth.

Come As You Are Party: Wired Differently or Just a Flake?

Image by Wolfgang Eckert from Pixabay

This is my response(s) to a post on The Mighty.

It is my hope to back away from apologizing for who I am and instead explain about myself so that those I interact with might develop an understanding of those of us who are wired differently.

I have type 2 bipolar disorder and ADD as well as complex PTSD and OCD. I wasn't properly diagnosed with bipolar disorder or OCD until I was almost 40. I didn't know I had ADD until I was in my 50s. I was just always scolded for being forgetful and distracted. I have always vacillated between being Ms. Wonderful and being that flakey a-hole that everyone hates. I understand why it happens now, but I can't change the past. I wish people would try to understand me a little better, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

My son will be 30 this year. He is high-functioning autistic and has ADHD as well as anxiety issues and major depression. He is very intelligent and has read the entire Amber series (Roger Zelazny), much of Tolkien's writing, The Count of Monte Cristo, the works of C.S. Lewis, and the list goes on, but he can't learn from a textbook to save his life. I think the current educational system does a very poor job of addressing the needs of those who are not neurotypical. 

I technically also have a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, but it is my opinion that borderline personality disorder is actually a form of complex PTSD and is an outdated and sexist diagnosis. It is almost exclusively applied to girls and women. Everyone who has it has endured some form of trauma, whether physical, psychological, sexual or a combination thereof. 

~Cie the Ornery Old Lady~

Image copyright Open Clipart Vectors

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation: Heart of Stone

Image by Frank Winkler from Pixabay

a stone for a pillow

me, just another cicada ...

so shrill, like crying

how this fits my current mood

sitting broken in the dark

~Bosha & cie~

notes

The Hokku was created by Kawabata Bosha (1897-1941). I am responsible for the Ageku.

Carpe Diem New Beginnings: Senryu: Rainbow

Image Source

it's long overdue

I've been waiting since my birth

where is my rainbow

~nobody~

Carpe Diem Tan Renga Wednesday on the Following Monday Because I Suck: Another Morning

Image by Hasty Words from Pixabay

New Year's morning

the first day begins

in the same dream

or perhaps the same nightmare

when your mind has been broken

~nobody~

notes from nobody

The Hokku stanza was written by Jane Reichhold (1937 - 2016). The Ageku stanza was written by nobody.

Carpe Diem New Beginnings: First Day of Spring Depression

Image by Claudia Peters from Pixabay

before the first bud

emerging from the cold ground

spring depression creeps

foolish butterfly flitting

in the garden of the damned

~nobody~

notes from a damned soul

I could not be more rubbish if I tried. I missed this prompt too. Again, not like anyone would miss me, so I don't know why I should care.

Carpe Diem New Beginnings: Blue Year's Day

Image by Herbert Brant from Pixabay

new year's day is here

another year to survive

just another day

~nobody~

Notes from a Living Ghost

I was unaware that these prompts were back and missed the opportunity to join in. Not that I'm missed. I am about as popular as toenail fungus. I swear I suck so much. I don't think I could be a bigger trash fire of a human being if I tried. I am pretty much garbage at everything.

Tawddgyrch Cadwynog: The Story of Me

Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay

left out, cast off

never let in

by friend and kin

misunderstood

never take off

never begin

never will win

she never could

~Cie~