• Military Life

    My time in the military was simultaneously awesome and grueling. I excelled in basic training, earning squad leader for a time and exceeding standards on marksmanship, hand to hand combat, and attention to detail. This continued in AIT (advanced individual training) where I learned my job – signal corps. I was manning radios and using…

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  • First Journal Entries, Psychiatric Hospitalization 2023

    A crucial component of any psych ward stay – the composition notebook. I could not have my own hardback journal. I began to write the first day. I will detail in a future post the psychosis I experienced and the writing/doodling I did therein.

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  • Flashbacks Continued

    Flashbacks Continued

    I’m trying not to live in the past. I know I bring it up a lot, these flashbacks. I can’t help it. The memories are powerful and paralyzing. 10 years ago…even those memories are powerful and immobilizing. I’m not sure how to move on. I got out two months ago and sometimes it’s like it…

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  • Intensive Outpatient – Week 3, Emotion Regulation

    I’ve been experiencing an upswing, an increase in hypomanic symptoms. I am not lost in the sauce yet, but I am hearing voices every day if I don’t take a PRN seroquel for it, and my libido is insatiable despite meds commonly known to kill sex drive. In my psychologist appointment with Dr Black this…

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  • Loneliness

    Loneliness

    Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you,…

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  • Psychiatric Hospitalization, Fall 2023, Part 4

    My first few days in the hospital passed in a blur, a fog of medication adjustments, sluggish pacing, and intermittent crying. I felt most suicidal, yet safe. At least that’s what I reported in my daily nursing assessments. It’s a strange juxtaposition of feeling – that given the chance, I would kill myself, yet in…

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  • Freud’s Field Day

    Freud’s Field Day

    I visited my mother today. At my house. I am not living there. She was drunk. She is often drunk. And I just brought her more. More rum, more cigarettes. I visit at least every Saturday with another load of both. She’s been a smoker since she was a teenager. She’s a broke penniless widow…

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  • The Little Things

    The Little Things

    Sometimes all you can hang onto are the little things. I got up early despite my meds making me feel a little groggy. I went to bed at 1am and actually slept until 8am, only waking up twice in the night, but able to fall back asleep. This new sleeping med, Lunesta, is helping. I…

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  • Flashbacks

    Flashbacks

    Flashbacks are strong today. I can still feel the police grabbing me, pulling me out of my apartment and I can still feel the panic I felt in the ER, the overwhelming desire to run, and doing so. I can still feel the straps around my wrists and ankles when they strapped me down. It’s…

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  • Psychiatric Hospitalization, Fall 2023, Part 3

    I still remember quite clearly my first morning in the hospital. I woke up after restless, fitful sleep, in which I was frequently startled awake by room checks. I just wanted coffee, so I went to the dining room. The kitchen would bring a large carafe of coffee in the mornings and it would be…

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