An Internal Monologue

Well.

I have such a tremendous amount of stuff going on right now emotionally, spiritually, physically, and mundanely that I honestly hope I don’t implode before I get it all out and dealt with. I’m going to try and be eloquent, but I’m dealing with probably the most internally and externally overfull five days of the last decade of my life in this one, so we’re playing catch-up of epic proportions. Here goes perhaps the longest blog entry I will ever post...

Recent Tim Events – The Halloweekend

The Halloween weekend is always a giant busy insane-fest for me. This year, I partied almost non-stop (breaks for sleep to maintain my health) from Friday to Sunday. On Friday, I took a trip down to Seattle to go to the very last Freak Night, a rave of massive proportions. While the party was immensely enjoyable, it had a few drawbacks.

First: The ride down was the sketchiest I’ve ever been involved in. The people in the back seat were doing mushrooms, and the driver was drinking red-bull and vodka. I don’t really know how I agreed to be involved in that kind of ridiculously stupid outing, but I’m never going to do it again. Something about watching someone throw the bag formerly full of shrooms out the window while you’re driving up to customs just rang as the most surreally stupid thing ever.

Second: Much less major but incredibly frustrating was the fact that Freak Night was only about 7 hours long, and boasted the largest DJ lineup I have ever seen at a party. This meant that I was doomed to miss some of my favourite DJs, people that I might never see again (like DJ Icey). I did, however, catch Supreme Beings of Leisure (much fun) and BT, who wowed me like I never expected anyone to.

After Freak Night, I was very fortunate to carry the prevailing opinion of “let’s just go home.” And this time, we actually had a sober, if pretty tired driver.

Twelve hours of sleep later, I wake up, get dressed, eat, run around and pick up costuming, and go to...

SKULLFUCK. Now there was the highlight of my last few years. Almost all of my friends (rave-friends, at least) in one big room listening to great hard music all night. I couldn’t have asked for a much better evening. Angus and I dressed as Raveonysus and Ravepollo, and danced around like idiots while the great local and semi-local DJs from the present and years long gone by spun kick-ass-pounding sets of doom. There was much loss of lucidity and altering of consciousness. Also, it was the last time I’m doing drugs for at least a year (more on the importance/implications of that later).

After that, cleanup, tea at Jenn’s, deep-fried Oreos, and about 5 hours of sleep, there was Sanctuary. Definitely the least fun part of my weekend, which was to say that I was tired and it was pretty good, except for the bad Rock 101.1 music. I spent a bunch of time in the Goa room with Nicki, and then came home and crashed hard.

Recent Tim Events – Health

Friday morning I woke up very early with a bad case of the dry heavings. I don’t know why, but this has been happening a lot. We had suspected acid reflux, but it’s exceptionally weird. Especially when you, like me, didn’t throw up for 12 years and then suddenly got a bad case of the vomiting-twice-or-more-a-weeks. I ended up missing all school on Friday, even my Theatre History midterm, but luckily my professor is a sweetheart who wants to make sure I’m alright, and ready to write it. That means I’ll probably be doing so on Thursday.

I went to the Doctor’s yesterday. He looked at me kind of weird when I told him what has been going on—random fevers, waking up and vomiting about 2 hours after I go to bed every night, etc. He sent me off to get some tests done today which required me to fast, drink some noxious liquid that made me feel all bloaty and awful, and blow into a tube. Apparently, I may have Ulcers, Ulcerative Colitis, a secondary Tuberculosis infection (which I’m not currently supposed to worry about being contagious), or even some gastrointestinal thing more serious. We won’t know for a while though, and I’m playing it nice until we figure out what’s going on. At least now he’s actually concerned; it’s been going on for long enough now that he wants to find out what it is and quash it. At first, both him and I were both thinking it was completely anxiety-based. Now we aren’t so sure. But I won’t know anything for a few days.

Now, if the rest of this entry sounds like adolescent sap, just know that I wrote it because I have a lot to say, and I really don’t care if anyone validates it or not. This is my internal monologue, and it can sound like a soap opera if I want it to.

Revelation: Tim, Anxiety & Addiction

So, a little back-story here: This summer, as of about May, I have been doing a lot of drugs. Maybe not a lot for some people, but more than a lot for me. Ecstasy & Ketamine were my substances of choice, with a healthy amount of Alcohol, Weed, Hash, and Mushrooms. Now, I’d like to say that I didn’t do anything patently stupid, like combine Ketamine and Alcohol, but I did mix freely anything that didn’t promise to have inevitable bad results. To this end, my summer was all about getting fucked up, escaping, having completely awe-inspiring experiences, and neglecting every iota of stress I came across.

Then... crash. I fell down. I got really sick on August 9th. I ended up in the hospital with a fever of 102.5 virtually in shakes and seizures and panic attacks. I had to stop everything pretty much cold turkey, with the occasional incredibly stupid mild drug experience (Me + Mushrooms = 5 hours of Sick). I completely fell apart, with the catalyst being my ever mounting stress and the most altered night of my life (with the exception of this past Saturday), Apex Project on July 31st. I couldn’t face friends, problems, or really anything of seriousness without popping an Ativan to stop me from reeling and falling down. My body fell from a general malaise to a chronic illness that I still haven’t beat. I’ve heard of that really hard year that a lot of people have, that breaks them completely, where they “hit rock bottom.” This is definitely my year, and I’m just now starting to recover.

My Problem:
I am, and to some extent exist to be, a pillar of support for my friends. I offer the best advice I can, a shoulder to cry on, and a warm body and ears to listen. I empathize and sympathize as un-patronisingly as I can. This is something I consider key to my personality. However, I am a closed bottle as far as most of what I really feel is concerned. I have so much going on, and so many things close to or running around in my heart and head, that my outgoing, honest, expressive nature doesn’t even come close to revealing one fifth of what’s going on inside. I make the awful mistake of trying to take on other people’s stresses to mask my own. It sounds incredibly melodramatic, and it really is, but that’s how I’ve operated. The last time I let things build to this level of stress, I was twelve, dealing with the throes of puberty, and unable to fix things by any means other than destroying my previous life, image, social circle, and personality and going to find a new one. Now, eight years later, I’m not willing to do that, but I haven’t found a way to integrate or redirect my stresses and problems in to any sort of productive endeavour. So I hang out, sit on my computer, and go out and get high.

Now, I’m not saying that I’ve had a period of complete irresponsibility, but I sure as hell haven’t been able to fix my problems in any sort of lasting fashion. I haven’t done nothing but drugs, or not gotten any work done, but things just aren’t working at a level that they need to. I’ve either built up crutches to deal with things, or simply resorted to freaking out and needing to remove myself when problems arise. And when it makes me avoid my closest friends, or start shaking when I think about them, I know it has to change.

So what if my solutions read like some mildly convoluted twelve step program. I’ve dropped all drugs, and most alcohol indefinitely, for at least a year. I need some perspective, without the ability to so easily escape, distancing myself with an incredibly psychologically addictive coping mechanism. I’ve got to sit down and say some things that I’ve been sitting on, that I’ve needed to say so badly to people that just thinking about them makes my head spin. I’ve got to at least start sorting things out in some sort of real lasting way as quickly, clearly, and non-crudely as I can. My greatest fear is that I’ll end up fucking up a friendship somewhere along the line, but if it’s that or be perpetually messed up, then it’s a choice for the best.

Revelation: Reconciliation & Growing Out of Friends

I didn’t really understand it up to this point: Sometimes, people who are near-familial friends change. It’s not always a bad, intervention-worthy issue, either. They just become people different from who they were, grown into someone who is no longer the perfect jigsaw puzzle fit. Hell, sometimes, they even start rubbing you the wrong way. Where this gets contentious is when they remain good friends with people you are also good friends with. All of a sudden, the close-knit circle of three becomes two circles of two, with one common denominator. I always had a problem with this. But why the hell does me not particularly liking a friend’s friend have to inevitably cause some horrible secret stress. It’s not as if I’m really into feigning close friendships, nor have I ever been. I’m perfectly capable of being friendly acquaintances, decent buddies, etc. with almost anyone. So what kind of strange neurosis is it that makes my world so difficult when my closest friends’ friends aren’t also my closest friends. If that makes any sense to you, congratulations. You’ve probably glimpsed my biggest mindfuck of the last 2-4 years. Hooray for keeping my mouth shut and my smile too big when I should have been saying something.

What Now?

Well, things seem to be looking up right now. Yes, I’ve got school to catch up on, and an ailing body to take care of. I do have a lot of things to say to a lot of people very important to me, and that’s a daunting task. But there’s also a birthing coven that’s making me incredibly happy, a bunch of friends old and new that I still know I can count on. I’ve got Sickle coming up, Spring Mysteries on the Horizon, some great LARPS, and no insurmountable commitments in sight. And I’m finally at the end of what has been probably the hardest thing I’ve ever written.

By the way, Happy New Year.

w00t.