September 10th, 2018
I’ve been reading about a lot of people dying lately. Of cancer, murder, suicide … whatever.
But still, I live doing nothing important in this life. Often wanting to die.
Why the fuck must I live when better people than me die? What the fuck is my purpose.
August 14th, 2018
I started new classes. With College Algebra behind me with a resounding “F”, I’m happy to report I got my first “A” in the current computer class for a paper I submitted. My work is going in on time, I feel good and life is back to normal.
That doesn’t mean I’m entirely safe. I was told the Algebra class would be coming back around soon so I have some choices: hire someone to do my work or actually “do” the math. At this time, there will be no way I can do it, but … but ….I am willing to start from scratch and learn Algebra while I have the time. Like from ground zero. Khan Academy has free lessons and I started with basic algebra. I think the class will come back around in September so I have a month to get my shit together.
I don’t want to cheat and hire anyone. Aside from the fact that I can’t afford it, I want to be successful by my own hand. Honestly.
So, I’m scheduling my life to make sure I’m doing more studying in that area.
Still haven’t found work yet, but truth be told, I feel like I’ve been through a raging storm lately mentally and it’s finally clearing up. I cut off watching the news again, so that’s been helpful. I’m telling you: there’s something going on and it wasn’t just affecting me. When last checked the news, it’s not just me. People are doing some crazy shit out there and I refused to either be part of it, kill myself or others. Considering I have been a suicidal mess, and I had every opportunity to end my own life, I made the decision not to and still feel good about it.
Which brings me to those Nootropic meds.
What I haven’t mentioned is I stopped taking them for a few days. About the only ones I’ve taken was the L-Theanine to help me sleep.
Why?
Because after the first doses — maybe after the third day of taking them — not only did they stop being effective, but I was focusing improperly on the wrong things. Evil thoughts that returned to the prospect of my dying and or killing others. It was a dark mood. Now, it was the end of the month so, like I observed, that ‘cycle’ was right on time and the pills did nothing but ENHANCE that darkness.
Not good.
So, I’ve been a few days (actually a week now) and the air has been clear.
But this is the beginning/mid month. Check back how I feel toward the end of the month.
I’m looking into the reality that it’s about the foods I do or don’t eat. A side note to that is I’ve decided to stop eating any and all McDonalds foods. By the end of August, it will be the first month I have not eaten any measure of the stuff because I usually get a quick meal at least once or twice a month at some point.
I can’t say for sure, but I suspect that my mood warps usually right after I eat from there and my body cycles out the material that creates those dark patches I usually get. Not a scientific result, but did a mental check last month between the last time I ate from there, when my mood went dark and how long since I stopped eating it till now. It doesn’t look good for McDonalds at all if I’m right.
Also highlights that I eat from there too much.
Here’s an article that reflects a little bit about what I’m saying:
August 3rd, 2018
I finally found a combination that works. A set of pills that handles energy, clarity and mood – with the right dosage for a full day, also.
It begins with Adrafinil. I established that it works.
A few months back, I documented my use of Alpha-GPC and Coluracetam. I called Coluracetam a ‘mood lightener’ that worked for a few hours and Alpha-GPC didn’t do shit. It honestly had no affect on me.
That is UNTIL it combined with Adrafinil.
Adrafnil by itself was okay, last four hours, but clarity/energy was not 100%.
Two days ago, I took all three and I was in motion. The first day, there was some sinus and headache issues but by the second day it was perfect. I guess my mind getting use to the change.
Clear headed, energy and desire to ‘do’ things when I thought about them and with a good attitude. Got a lot of chores and projects done. Wonderful stuff. I mean, on the first day of taking all three, I was stumbling over myself because my mind was racing. I was OVER thinking and doing. By day two of all three, I got better control of it and can focus on what I chose to focus on.
One of the key problems with adult ADD, depression, etc is the inability to focus on task and, often, not having the desire to do anything — then things get backed up, you feel messed up that you’re not doing anything and then the depression kicks in. But you still don’t feel like doing anything because of the cloudiness and so everything cancels out.
This mixture is killer: I feel like doing and, most importantly, accomplishing everything.
I’m getting a lot done — and it’s NOT adderall.
I’m no chemist or physicist, but I know when something is working in my body. Alpha-GPC actually works in combination with the Adrafinil. So much so, that when the combination of all three starts to fade off in four-five hours, I popped one more Alpha-GPC and that activated me for the rest of the day; as if I took all three again.
The timing is like this:
6:30 am – Take all three pills.
11-12pm – Effects start to wane. Take one (1) Alpha-GPC
8pm – effects start to wane again.
Which is fine because it’s nearing time I go to bed. Here’s something that helped me the rest of the night: L-Theanine. People take that in combo to remove an edge to the jittery effects, but I don’t recommend taking it WITH your other pills because its just going to counter-act the purpose of having energy.
So, I take it to wind down from the day of using the other pills and I slept through the night. I tried it for the first time last night and finally stopped waking up at 3am. Yeah, I have been waking up at 3am for the past few days but that’s not because of the pills I’ve been taking. It was happening before the pills.
The L-Theanine is designed to promote relaxation and it did it’s job.
I’m happy with the results over the first two days. Today is the third and I’ll journal any downsides/effects moving forward. If you are interested in trying the exact set I’m on and where I bought it, here it is:
Adrafinil 300mg – Double Wood Supplements
Alpha GPC 300mg – Amazon
Coluracetam 20mg – Health by Naturals
L-Theanine 200mg – Amazon
July 1st, 2018
Happy Anniversary. This journal started exactly one year ago in July. Still in school. Still on track to graduate. Law school? It’s on the possible horizon and it’s something I still want. Getting there has been a lesson on early strategy. Like, I need to follow another path JUST to afford to follow another path.
What this journal also does for me is chart a pattern that I always kinda knew was there. I needed to understand when and why moments of depression happen and, through this journal, after looking back at each entry that I posted with a tag of #depressed purposely, it’s clear once a month, every month, there are a few days (average of 3-4) that the feeling of depression cycles through.
A feeling of lifelessness, drained, zero-desire to do anything (including live), emptiness of value. A moment where I feel nothing is going right, will ever go right, and I need to end it.
Then, almost miraculously, that feeling goes away. Like a cloud lifted. New ideas. New desires. I feel confident to accomplish something. I desire to do things. Even meet people.
Once a month.
A fucking cycle.
Christ —- I got a fucking period. A male menstrual cycle.
I got to fix this. But how? Chemically uncontrollable. Based on my record from this journal, it happens around the middle and end of the month. Depends on what I am doing kind of holds it off into the later part of the month.
Like now. I was feeling VERY depressed yesterday and into today. So call it the end of June, into July. But I am not working at the moment. When I was working last month, it came around, but I was too distracted by work and school work to really let it swallow me. I’m home at the moment, so it’s having its way with me.
Work, satisfying or not, seems to be enough to subdue its effects—but don’t get it twisted. It does come regardless.
Knowing its cycle helps in knowing how to balance life moving forward.
Do I think other people have the same issue? Of course. Without a doubt. Most people deny their issues. Do nothing about it and end up shooting up schools or businesses.
My growth toward better education wasn’t going to be linear. I’m learning about myself along the way. Who can say the same?
May 21st, 2018
Yeah, I know I just entered some writing for today, and I have a report to do, but I forgot to mention some things I found out last night.
I was looking up online the notion that some of our greatest leaders and scientists had equally great mental disorders and still carried on: Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Beethoven, Issac Newton. I usually spend time backtracking and confirming this information and it all seems legit. It made me feel better that, even at my small segment of space on this planet, greater men than I had issues under enormous pressure that should have crushed them. Who am I to be such a pussy?
A small list of names are here:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/12500/11-historical-geniuses-and-their-possible-mental-disorders
Then, there is this poem about suicide that supposedly Lincoln wrote. Let me know if any of this sounds familiar:
Here, where the lonely hooting owl
Sends forth his midnight moans,
Fierce wolves shall o’er my carcase growl,
Or buzzards pick my bones.
No fellow-man shall learn my fate,
Or where my ashes lie;
Unless by beasts drawn round their bait,
Or by the ravens’ cry.
Yes! I’ve resolved the deed to do,
And this the place to do it:
This heart I’ll rush a dagger through,
Though I in hell should rue it!
Hell! What is hell to one like me
Who pleasures never knew;
By friends consigned to misery,
By hope deserted too?
To ease me of this power to think,
That through my bosom raves,
I’ll headlong leap from hell’s high brink,
And wallow in its waves.
Though devils yell, and burning chains
May waken long regret;
Their frightful screams, and piercing pains,
Will help me to forget.
Yes! I’m prepared, through endless night,
To take that fiery berth!
Think not with tales of hell to fright
Me, who am damn’d on earth!
Sweet steel! come forth from your sheath,
And glist’ning, speak your powers;
Rip up the organs of my breath,
And draw my blood in showers!
I strike! It quivers in that heart
Which drives me to this end;
I draw and kiss the bloody dart,
My last—my only friend!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Suicide%27s_Soliloquy
“ To ease me of this power to think,” …. “Will help me to forget”
Depression and what the mind projects into our consciousness have been going on for a very, very VERY long time. Even if Lincoln didn’t write this, SOMEBODY did and we’re talking a couple hundred years back. So, the idea of depression is brought on by the foods we eat is not the issue. For god’s sake, it’s not like they had cola back then or lots of other sugary things.
But there is a consistency. A connecting thread. Just not sure what it is yet. Or, the thoughts are part of our ‘strength’ as being human and we just don’t know how to control it. What would be the benefit of remembering painful things that torment a man to commit suicide? I have no idea.
I guess I’m saying, maybe … just maybe … we’re looking at how our brains think all wrong and due to the lack of control, we get depressed. A kitchen stove is great for cooking, but if you use it wrong or don’t know how to use it, you will always burn yourself. One thing you can guarantee about humans, we’re never really using our minds for what it was supposed to be used for. Killing others, ourselves and acting like assholes is NOT it.
Here’s to the power of writing: that poem gave us a frozen moment in time we would never have known about.
I hope the things I write here will help others too.
May 20th, 2018
Yesterday, I was a wreck.
It’s 3am right now. I was actually up since 2am. I thought I went to bed around 10pm. Maybe 10:30pm. Regardless, I’m up and, well, let me explain a few things.
My wife was nice enough to bring home some Zoloft. It’s an antidepressant. One of the perks of being married to a nurse.
I used to be on Lexapro, which took some time to get over being nauseous, then it would make me a zombie. The anxiety would go away and, if taken regularly, I would never get emotional about anything. Think of like a boiling pot. When the water gets to a certain temperature, the flame under the pot would shut off and the steam would mellow out. That was exactly how the medicine worked.
Unfortunately, it prevented me from getting an erection. Prevented me from doing anything creative (as emotion goes heavily into creative works).
These days, sex with my wife is spotty at best. That’s another story, but it’s what happens when you get married and you’re together for longer than 3-5 years. Either someone is going to cheat, is cheating and the sex between them will slow down. I can’t cheat if I’m not leaving the house and severely antisocial in real life and online. I honestly have no one but my wife. Not that I wouldn’t want it different, just no opportunities and, to be honest, it’s too much work.
My wife on the other hand, well, I’ve had suspicions. In the past, I would be hunting who she’s talking to/having sex with, but I’m distracted by school, at the time looking for work and my own depressive issues. One night she blatantly came home at around midnight from a job that was less than five minutes away from where we live. No calls. No texts until I started bitching about where she was. She eventually called me to say she was working late but that was after … forget it. That was weeks ago and I let it go.
I’m working now. See what happens if I work late.
So, these past few days I’ve been feeling worse and worse. I asked her to bring whatever she could home so I can get a grip before I start work Monday. She brought Zoloft and these are the results with one pill.
As I said, I’m up at 2am. I’m burning up and it’s not just the weather. I couldn’t sleep. My thoughts aren’t as random as they were for days, which is a good thing. However, I am sluggish, making me a touch focused on what I’m doing but slowly. Like typing this: I’m writing slowly like I was tired. But I’m not. But I should be.
There wasn’t ‘much’ of a nauseous feeling, but I’m wise to this stuff so took it at night after dinner. I felt it coming on and went to sleep.
But it wakes me up early. Hopefully, it’s just one night. We’ll see.
Which leads me to this story about a woman that seems to committed suicide recently. Her name was Stephanie Adams. Fell out of a hotel window with her son:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/19/us/new-york-mother-child-hotel-plunge/index.html
No, I don’t know her. I could have. Something familiar about her. The police haven’t ruled out foul play. All the same, it looks like she committed suicide and took her son with her.
As you know, I’ve gotten really low. Thoughts of suicide plague me weekly. Actually doing it — that is to say, doing it right so that it’s a guaranteed one-way trip — isn’t easy. For instance, 25-stories off a building ‘could’ conceivably do it, but what if she survived? People try to shoot themselves in the head, end up missing and living a painful life.
My first thoughts are usually how devastated my daughters would be. Then things change.
Looking over a swatch of Stephanie’s life (online profile, website, books she published), I can see she was a little ‘scattered’. I used to date women like that. Very pretty, into all sorts of spirituality and classic cases of ADHD.
But she was getting older. She married rich White men. She was going through another divorce and it was bitter. She had no money but like most women, like to give the impression she had a lot going on when she did not. She was drowning in debt, likely depressed and thought this was the way out.
She has books on Amazon and there is like ZERO reviews on any of her work. Mostly horoscope things and self-important stories about her own life. Even I know nobody gives a damn about you individually to read a book about you unless you did something outstanding.
Still, I definitely could relate to the zero attention to the writing material.
Some of her work was up on Amazon since 2009. Christ, at least I got some reviews.
The point is, I understood this empty feeling she may have had toward the end. The difference was she HAD attention and success in her past. She was a model so you know how that goes. You find out exactly how important you are when you get old.
90% of these Instagram Models are in for a rude awakening.
Likely, the gas ran out on her value and you turn around and realize you might not have much talent for anything else. You keep trying to regain a level of success you had before, but it was just a face and body … and that face and body are worn out from depression, stress, divorce. That’s when the mind starts coming up with outlandish creative things that just won’t work.
I wasn’t a model. I had an ounce of success with my first book and I’m constantly trying to snatch at that glimmer of readership. I’m underwater in debt. Slightly drowning.
I could have killed myself.
Instead, what keeps me alive? My children? This law school career path?
She had a son. Hell, she took her son with her. Or at least, we’ll find out soon enough if the ex did it or not. The x probably had a prenup. She wasn’t getting any money whatsoever.
I look at her picture and think she is someone I could have known. It’s in her eyes. Desperate to obtain something. Struggling to keep it together to get there. It’s a look I am familiar with.
Last week, when I was at a low point, my concern was if I killed myself, I had to make sure my homework was in on time. That shows you the level of commitment I had in doing it.
It’s 3:34 AM. I’m getting tired. I’m not mad or distressed. No angry thoughts. Just overheating.
Oh, and I’m alive, an ‘A’ student working toward my bachelor’s degree, got a job I start tomorrow, happily married with the usual manageable suspicions, my son graduated high school and I’m proud of him, I love my children and I’ll be taking the paralegal certification courses soon.
Looks like the Zoloft is working.
April 23, 2018
https://www.simplypsychology.org/depression.html
“Depressed people usually become much less socially active. In addition depression can also be caused through inadvertent reinforcement of depressed behavior by others.
For example, when a loved one is lost, an important source of positive reinforcement has lost as well. This leads to inactivity. The main source of reinforcement is now the sympathy and attention of friends and relatives.
However this tends to reinforce maladaptive behavior i.e. weeping, complaining, talking of suicide. This eventually alienates even close friends leading to even less reinforcement, increasing social isolation and unhappiness. In other words depression is a vicious cycle in which the person is driven further and further down.
Also if the person lacks social skills or has a very rigid personality structure they may find it difficult to make the adjustments needed to look for new and alternative sources of reinforcement (Lewinsohn, 1974). So they get locked into a negative downward spiral.”
April 22, 2018
What’s happening right now? Nothing.
I have classwork to do, a novella to finish, JavaScript to study, employment to seek but I can’t focus on any of it.
Is it what I’m eating? Not eating?
I think I solved the problem by exercising so I think I’ll have to get back on that.
My GPA dipped to 3.92 … after that damn environmental science class. I got a final grade of B+. The issue was her petty demands in my reports. At first, I was angry, but knowing I’ll do better moving forward, it will climb back to 4.0 status by the end of the psychology class.
But right now. This moment. It’s a cross between depression and cloudiness in my brain. The inability to really concentrate and no desire to do anything.
I hate this.
February 19th 2018
I have all this work to do and for some reason I just can’t sit still.
The mood has been swinging back and forth up until today — where I feel fine, just the idea of sitting to do this paper on genetically modified organisms has me bouncing from one thing to another when I need to get it done. I mean, here I am writing this journal entry — not writing the paper.
It’s like I have energy and it’s not from anything out of the ordinary. Lord knows, I don’t go anywhere but with this energy to ‘do’ would have been helpful if I did.
The problem is I’m bouncing from one project to another assignment to another task and not completing anything. It’s like my brain created its own Adderall and I’m just driving without a destination.
Then, watch tomorrow I’ll be tired and not interested in doing anything. Go figure.
So, what did I do within the past 8-24 hours different that can get me to this state of broadened awareness when I need it?
I slept well. Ate well. Took my Metformin (diabetes type II meds) for today. I had McDonald’s last night, so maybe thats not considered eating well, but it sure tasted good. Maybe it’s that ‘happy’ feeling noted in the ‘Supersize me’ when he ate McDonald’s as opposed to when he stopped.
My wife made some Sangria the day before.
Yesterday, I had a little more than my usual intake of alcohol. That would have to be the singular difference in my usual routine. Not enough to say I was drunk. Slightly dizzy — what they called ‘buzzed’.
Drinking??? God, no. Let’s hope that doesn’t become a regular habit. Bad enough I go nowhere, get depressed and wallow in my anger and sorrows — and now drinking?
But what if the sangria produced this result? Shit, I’m getting a lot of things done (albeit, some of this and some of that and some of the other thing, circling back to the first to finish that up, etc). Not depressed. No foggy head.
Only one way to test things: Go without for 24 hours. Maybe 48 to purge the system. Try again. Today is Monday. Wednesday night I’ll drink the stuff and see how I feel the next day. Watch it work and I’ll be forced to face the values of being an alcoholic in order to get more things done.
Academics are still in the GPA of 4.0.
All reports and assignments are going just fine and on time. The change in degree program was officially entered today and I’ll be in information technology march 3rd. My job search for IT has been a little short of a trainwreck as no one responds to me or my resume. I have been using the university resources to improve my resume but the fact is, I’m likely unemployable.
So you know why I’m also getting back into artwork/animation. I’m still calling it a hobby. But if I were to be able to make a couple of bucks along the way to assist supporting the household, that would be a good thing until I’m actually working. My current fear is not being able to get a good IT job until I actually have my degree.
My next fear is not getting work even WITH a degree. So, the idea of keeping a few different fires burning ‘just in case’ doesn’t hurt.
The only negative thing that happened over the weekend was the Post Office successfully mis-delivered a drawing tablet I purchased the other week.
A Wacom. I bought it on Amazon ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010LHRFM2/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and it was to be shipped to me on Saturday.
I got the alert that told me it was “delivered to a mail room”. As I don’t have a mail room, and I went to the leasing office to see if it was there (it wasn’t), they apparently dropped it off elsewhere.
It pissed me off for about an hour. I mean, I bought this art tablet for my own personal pleasure. It wasn’t for the kids. Not for the wife. Not for school. I’ve been digging further into art for animation and just because it’s been calming me down (another thing to consider with the latest mood balancing act). To have this missing bothered me; like how could I be so consistently unlucky with things I consider a ‘passion’?
Additionally, my graphics board in my computer finally gave up the ghost and I was almost without a fix. Bought a cheap but workable grahic card from Best buy. But both negative issues gave me a momentary amount of stress.
So, naturally I drank more sangria to ease the pain. LOL.
Today is a holiday, so I have to deal with this post office business on Tuesday. The local post office is a hive of lazy assholes, but the plan is to get there early, get them working on where my package is and be calm about it.
In continuing with my renaissance man mystique, the man is doing well as a scholar, I actually like my artwork, plan to actually like my animation and I really need to figure out how to go get some archery in without actually going places where other people will be. Difficult to say the least. Like trying to find a shooting range that no one will be at.
Oh! One other thing. I saw “Black Panther” last week. Phenomenal movie. Very inspiring. If I weren’t going to college now, this film would have inspired me to do/be/have more and apply. For the Black community, that’s such an encouraging thought.
UPDATE: My Wacom arrived today to the leasing office. All is well. They fixed whatever blunder they made.
January 21st 2018
Nothing much to report. These have been very ‘basic’ days. Again, no drama. No muss-no fuss. Probably just the way I like them to be.
I’m proactively working on the ‘project’ and I’m running into road blocks. Call it ‘limited’ knowledge of mechanical engineering, but I won’t let that stop me.If I stopped to studying engineering, this project won’t be done for another 5 years.
So, it’s learning along the way. One thing that must be noted here: I’ve been learning a lot of things rapidly. It shows in my grades, as well.
Interesting thing: I have ALWAYS self-taught myself many things but with no grading system to judge me by until now.
I’ve started the LSAT study process. Digging deep into the methods to understand logic questions and such. I practice on a weekly basis.
Freecodcamp is still going well as well as the IT job hunt (help desk support, really). Funny thing: If I could go back to Apple, I certainly would. I don’t want to go over that previous meltdown I had there. LOL. No, I don’t want to go over that at all.
Suffice to say, I’m managing my depression so much better OFF medication than I was trying to stay on it.
My secret: Purpose.
I have a defined purpose and my depression isn’t a priority anymore. Oh, don’t get me wrong — it haunts me in the background like a shadow in the corner, but my purpose: the ‘project’, my grades, my new career in IT … all these things keep me centered, or at best, I know where to center myself if I get a little low. Keep in mind: the majority of my issue is chemical. I don’t control when it comes — but I control how to tuck it the side, sort of speak.
So today’s entry is all about moving forward. Nothing to report except forward motion.
And I am grateful.
myJournal 