To Smoke or not to smoke...

So, I got sick and tired of feeling sick and tired--like one of Ozzie's lyrics, and I decided to go to Venice Beach to see if I could get ok'd for a medical marijuana card. I hadn't smoked in months, and I was missing the relaxing effects it has on my nervous system. I've been miserable since the holidays, dying from loneliness, and going slightly mad every night. Staying up all night and playing on the computer, rather than trying to sleep. My hours are all bass-ackwards these days. Hell, I've always been a night owl. I was born at 6pm, and haven't gotten past that yet. So, here it is, 4 am, jotting down some thoughts.

I took myself off Cymbalta last week without seeing my psychiatrist. I haven't seen him since early December, cuz he was out of town and still is. I won't be able to see him until the 20th this month--I'm supposed to see him every 4 weeks, and if I'm going through a crisis, more often. I had to take myself off that crap-it was killing me with dehydration. My skin burned and itched, and I was feeling ill. Dying of thirst constantly. I've noticed that my allergies have gotten worse too. Every time the Santa Ana winds blow hard and hot from the Mojave Desert, my allergies blow just as hard. I was feeling particulary bad from my dried up sinuses. Had two humidifiers going 24/7. Not much relief. Too bad, cuz at the very first, I was feeling a bit better on Cymbalta. I've been put on Cymbalta 3 different times since almost 2 years ago. Wow, I can't believe it's been that long! Year before last, in June or July, I was put on it. That made me totally manic, combined with Wellbutrin, and I went on my space oddyssey around LA . Keep reading below, and you'll come to that. Wrote a 37 page essay about it one night, on one of my creative bursts.

I'm trying in my hopeless way of setting up going to the beach for the card...bear with me. I haven't slept in 2 days. I have moments of creativity, but getting it out of me is hard, cuz my body can't keep up. Writing is hard to do, feeling like this. I have the look and feel of a run-over Barbie doll. Maybe have a skid mark or two--I see one on my forehead...

I've had some side effects going off Cymbalta, but not as bad as other drugs I've gone off. Particuarly Zoloft. I do have the weird eye movements and a little vertigo, but not to the degree of Zoloft. But going off Cymbalta takes me off the pain killer aspect of Cymbalta. It's mild effect on the pain neuro pathways, but not enough to warrant the thirst. That, and me looking like an Egyptian mummy. Sorry about the miss spellings here, but I have a hard time visualiizng words and how they're spelt when I feel gross like this. It's hard to keep my thought together to get anywhere. My mind wanders like the absent minded professor.. Oh yeah, this is what I was trying to come up with--I read on the net the other day that depression settles into your nervous system, and that people with bipolar depression or other mental illness are apt to die up to 25 years earlier than so called normals. I can see that. I certainly feel it. I was telling my mother the other day that I have no desire to get to be her age. She's 80. She says she never thinks about it. Her attitude has always been sunnier than me than a mile. I told her that the thought of living with depression and immobility and in pain for the next 30 years was not a good prospect for me. Check please! I also eye myself as the character that Edward G Robinson played in Soylent Green--just going to the local euthanasia center when it's time. It was a very nice experience. They played soothing music and put on beautiful videos of the mother earth on a big screen as they pumped the toxins in. If those places were legal, they'd have such business these days! I was quite upset to read that depression just settles into your nervous system. I mean, to take all these drugs over the years to correct my brain chemistry, and now knowing that it's in every nerve of my being---how the hell can it ever be cured?? I feel it in every cell-every blood vessel. I write this blog to get someone to read it, and maybe one day there will be not so much the stigma of mental illness. But then, I ramble... I'm going to have to come back later to finish this post. It's very tiring to write--I can't sleep. Been manic, trying to be creative. I feel god awful. B bak ltr..