February 1, 2022 #4

 February 1, 2022

As I trudge through my first days completely free of anti depressants, withdrawal symptoms are beginning to bubble up quite a bit more.  I knew this was going to be tough.

So yesterday, Monday, I attempted to take a shot at normalcy by actually trying for another normal day of sleep.  I'm not doing too badly, all things considered, as far as the sleep schedule goes.  Monday, I was actually awake in late morning,  I did my usual diary for withdrawal symptoms, and eventually got up and went into the basement and arranged my new-to-me drumkit, trying to get that 'just right' Goldilox arrangement, or configuration of the drums to get them in the right range of reach.  That's tougher than it sounds, at least for me it is.  I don't like drums being on my bass mount, what this set came with, and instead opted for those two toms to slip into an old stand I had and mounted the bass mount toms away to the left of the bass drum.  It's a trial and error kind of thing, but I have fun doing it.  I think I have it the way I want it, but being the fussy person I am, I'm sure that'll change almost every time I plunge into that rather cramped basement and go to play.  All said, I had some fun playing around with my kit.  I am so out of practice!  I need to go down there more and re-hone my skills a little more frequently.  Nothing to despair.  I'm enjoying that portion of the journey.  It's a hobby, after all, something that does my brain good.  It's great exercise, too.

Speaking of which, I was all dressed and ready to go when Janice got home from work, for once, to the gym for the first time since it closed due to the last round of Covid measures.  I also experienced how much I lost over that two week layoff.  Wow.  But it was to be expected, too.  Very quickly into that gym session with my wife, I noticed this blurry, shimmering sensation in the peripheral portion of my right eye.  It was challenging my balance a little bit, and I wondered what the hell was happening.  I explained this to my wife, and she told me that was what's called an 'ocular migraine'.  There was no real pain involved, but it was disorienting, and she explained that it's usually a precursor to an actual migraine.  Bah, I said!  I'll just ride it out.  She swears up and down that I actually am exhibiting more and more symptoms of fibromyalgia, that being one of them.  Bah, I said again.  I will not accept that idea unless an actual doctor tells me that's true, with all due respect to my wife, who has actual fibro.  Still, I'm forced to confront the fact that more and more symptoms are piling up over the last few months.  I'm not going to insult my wife and others that have fibro, whom I see suffer a lot, that I'm joining their ranks.  

The symptoms of this ocular migraine subsided after about an hour, but they were replaced by different symptoms.  Further disorientation persisted as the peripheral blurriness subsided, and I started stumbling a bit on the treadmill.  The way we work at the gym is this... 'Charms, Shack, and Labs'.  Or, Chest and shoulders one day, followed by Shoulders and back, followed by Legs and abs, with a dose of up to an hour of cardio thrown in.  This was "Charms" day.  Mild nausea started to set in in the middle of our weight training portion of the regimen.  This round we chose to use the lower weights/higher reps method; and the next cycle will be a lower reps/higher weights approach.  It works good for us.  Our workouts typically last at least two hours, between that and two and a half hours.  Yesterday, though, I had to cut it short to just over an hour and a half.  I just wasn't feeling it, but I rather expected it.  I resisted leaving before that; and stuck it out until we got some respectably alotted time in.  One of the reasons being that I want my wife to get an adequate amount of time put in.  She's doing so good with weight loss over the last several months, and is looking and feeling great as a result.  Her short term goal is to weigh less than me, and I currently am at 184.  I'm more than proud of her efforts and drive to get there.  After that, she'll aim for the 170's, and see where it goes from there.  Let me tell you, you don't want to mess with my wife.  She's tough and strong and determined, and she's a second degree taekwondo black belt, actually just about at third degree when the school we were attending folded.  This all contributes to her rising level of confidence that I'm really proud of.

We opted to have roast chicken, potatoes and vegetables for supper, getting a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store to simplify things.  When you spend the time at the gym like we do, you seek practical options like that.  It'll feed us for two or three days.  But when it came time to eat, I had to cut it short.  I ate my potato and veggie portions, had a little bit of chicken, and had to stop because of the queasiness.  The headache my wife warned me about post-ocular migraine began rearing its ugly head.  I headed upstairs to the bathroom to do my 'business' and decided to go right to bed and lie down, as this tidal surge of pain started to invade the left side of my neck and shoulder.  I get that a lot, but this time, it seemed a bit more severe.  This big friggin' knot in the left side of my neck was pulsing and growing right down into my shoulder and into my head, raising the degree of discomfort as time passed.  I figured if I lay flat and relaxed it'll subside eventually.

Enter one of the contributing culprits:  an older memory foam pillow.  When those things age, they seem to get harder.  Attempting to rest my head on this particular non-conforming headrest only heightened the pain, delivering even more headachy-ness, and subsequent nausea.  I have this vial of Percocet that I was prescribed when I got my last thoat surgery a little over a year ago.  I resist taking them because I know of their tendency for addiction, so being wary of it is a good thing, I think  I think I was prescribed a bottle of 30, and I've taken two of them maybe three times since I got them.  This day would be one of those times.  It did kind of work, but not completely.  It wore off, and I was confronted with the crazy pain as it was later into the night.  I was awake until probably at least 4 or 5 in the morning, trying not to wake up the wife.  I paced the floor trying in vain to cope with the throbbing originating from my neck area.  I wound up looking online for what I might be able to do to relieve it, and discovered that, yup, it's a fibro symptom.  All of the stuff I was experiencing.  But, I have to also bear in mind that I'm experiencing withdrawal symptoms from the absence of Zoloft and Wellbutrin, of which has been five days now without both of them.  Man, this was frustrating.  I tried Icy Hot on my neck and shoulder, then I tried Liv Relief, which had little effect.  The advice I got online was to try massaging the area that's sore.  I guess it worked a little, because I was able to go to sleep around 6 am or so.  I woke up around 11 this morning, feeling okay.  Still headachy, but nothing like it was yesterday.  But I acquired yet another sinus headache, which I took Sudafed Advance for, which is kind of a silver bullet for sinus headaches for me.  The wife advised I stay home from the gym today.  I won't resist that idea.  Getting my blood pumping today doesn't seem too appealing to me.

This winds up being a true 'withdrawal diary' this time out.  Although I have to note also that Trump put his foot in his mouth, more than normal, in a major way this news cycle, basically admitting that he intends to incite violence and rioting if he loses if and when he runs again.  This is the equivalent of handing him a shovel to bury himself and his party.  Props to Rachel Maddow for exposing certain senators in certain states for falsifying records stating the electoral college endorses Trump being the actual president.  Trump even actually wrote an Executive Order draft to acquire and withdraw voting machines in the '20 election in areas that he'd lost.  It'd be funny if it weren't scary (I've been saying that a lot, I've noticed).  I mean, what else will they uncover about that party down there?  Every day there's something.

Meanwhile in Canada... this 'trucker convoy' thing is getting uglier by the day.  All kinds of anti-Jewish, pro-Nazi sentiment is rising.  Not surprisingly, accompanied by Trump-style propaganda.  I've been warning folks up here about the infection of Trumpism, seeing as Canada is the beaver sleeping next to the elephant.  It isn't particularly hard to predict.  There are a lot of Trump-style politicians on the conservative right in this country, one of which we have to keep an eye on in PPC leader Maxime Bernier, not forgetting the likes of Pierre Polievre in the Conservatives.  PPC being the abbreviation for the People's Party of Canada.  What a joke that is.  If you're a minority, it makes less and less sense to be on the political right these days.  In fact, it makes it downright puzzling.  If you're hardcore white, however, the PPC is totally for you.  And you ought to be ashamed if it is.  This attitude is slowly but surely seeping into the Conservative wing.  It's downright ugly.  I'm sure there is still a 'progressive' wing still within the Conservatives, but they're dwindling.  And that's dangerous for everyone, including conservatives themselves.

Let me indulge something I've been pondering for quite a while now.  People seem to be forgetting Canada's geographical positioning relative to Russia, who are essentially right next door to us, and would be actually connected if it weren't for Alaska being part of the U.S.  (Remember, Sarah Palin likes to brag she can see Russia from her house.)  To which I say, THANK GOD, because Canadian politicians are pretty wishy-washy when it comes to military defense (see current defense minister Anita Anand, currently bungling that portfolio, fresh off of bungling her previous Procurement Minister job before it, in my opinion, with her constant "we are on the phones 24/7 with vaccine makers in getting them to our country" nonsense).  She's just one of the number of egregious appointments made by Justin Trudeau throughout his tenure as PM.  Now, with the Ukraine having Russia breathing down their necks militarily, and the whole of NATO offering military resistance, she's of the opinion that we have to have dialogue, not weapons.  Yes, Anita.  That's what Vladmir Putin wants... dialogue.  FFS.  Look, the Irish with their mere fishing boats are standing up to Russians off the Irish coast, flexing their mussels as it were, and in true David and Goliath fashion, are succeeding in pushing them back.  Putin is looking to reassemble the Soviet Union, one country at a time, starting with Crimea, and now Ukraine.  It makes me want to grab the Liberals in Canada and shake them violently to wake the hell up.  Anyway... if the States falls once more into Republican rule, with the Republicans being avid Putin sympathizers these days (see Fox News constantly waving the Putin flag), beware of the long-term game there.  Another Republican-run government would surely weaken the U.S. and divide it more.  Putin is watching.  He's sown the seeds.  I want Canadians to realize, if Alaska were to crumble, the Russians will weasle their way in, and who's next to Alaska?  The Russians have already infiltrated U.S. politics through Trump.  As justice closes in on Trump, I want to also suggest that whole Trump family becomes a flight risk.  And Moscow will be waiting with open arms.  If you're laughing at this prospect, you're probably Conservative.  And blind.  Remember what Nikita Krushchev said back in 1956.  It's happening RIGHT.  NOW.  And little is being done to prevent it from conservatives and republicans.  Canada will fall before the U.S. does, because we consistently and constantly display signs of weakness.

That's all I've got to say for today.  If you like this blog at all, feel free to share it, be it for my insights on mental illness or even the political climate.  No doubt I'll have detractors on the political front, though.  But I warned folks repeatedly about Trump before he came to power in '16.  I'm warning you know about what's in the near future, or even present.

May your God bless you and bring you peace.

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