Confession Time

hey me - it's been awhile. I know I've been avoiding you (and by you I mean my blog but more so my subconscious... spirit? I don't know but I won't write this unless I'm just talking to myself), but I'm finally back.

Weirdly enough, an accidental click on something called 'life works' in my work homepage is what started the journey to get me here. That's where the images will come from & I'll go into more detail later, but first, it's time to be honest with myself.

Ahh where to start...

I guess with the fact that since moving to Raleigh March 1st, I decided to quit the suboxone. March was a long brutal month, but I'm really glad I did it - I had felt like a zombie, and it was doing nothing to help me get work done. If not for the fact my bosses had been on paternity leave, I probably would have (should have) been fired. What sucks is that that's how being sober (i'm counting the suboxone as sober) felt - like a never ending detox. I never wanted to do anything besides lay in bed in read. Hell, I still struggle with wanting to do more than that, despite what I'm about to admit here, but without the suboxone (and potentially because of the substitutes...) I feel like I at least have a fighting chance at getting back to 'being myself' (whoever that is).

Alright so I quit the suboxone - yay me, wow, so impressive right!? sure, but also no - I quit it because during my panic about "how the fuck am I going to work sober" I ended up on Reddit and somehow managed to think that using Kratom to quit suboxone was a genius idea. To be fair, it worked - I struggled and felt shitty, but not nearly as bad as I would have without it.

So, what's the big deal? Why the confession? Because if I had been doing it the 'right' way, I'd have stopped taking the Kratom as soon as I didn't need it not to feel sick. Being me, I was so excited for the suboxone to be out of my system so that I could see what kratom felt like - my love for opiates clearly remains, even if it's a different form. On the bright side, I have not given in the urge to take the suboxone I keep as a 'safety net' or (god forbid) any actual painkillers. Also, being off of suboxone allowed me to be prescribed Vyvanse for work (which really is safer than adderall - I KNOW INNER ME, I thought I was just replacing adderall too, but luckily it doesn't work like that... small mercies). I really did hope that would be enough to get my ass back in gear and into the land of the living - clearly I need to try harder at making that work, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Okay, Kratom... what else?

Even before taking myself off suboxone, I had been frantically researching adderall alternatives - I ordered all sorts of things based on the advice of the reddit community: Modafinil, and 4f-MPH*. This was in early January - I remember being absolutely giddy when the package came in - without even trying it I just felt better knowing I had it. Hi, my name's Sammi and I'm a drug addict.

Naturally I also got some of my old favorite frenemy, etizolam. Thinking back, I'm not sure I ever truly quit that... I drastically reduced the amounts I was taking and didn't take it every day, but since I still felt so miserably sober I guess it didn't even cross my mind that I shouldn't be taking it.

Anyways, I tested out stimulants my favorite way: taking them with a little bit of a benzo (aka etizolam, it's similar to xanas/klonopin) with some of the stimulant to see if I could get myself back 'into the zone' ... what zone? I guess the one where the people living life reside. Anyways, neither did much for me - I fell asleep thanks to the etizolam, and despite trying to convince myself the 4f-MPH was similar to adderall I was still drowning trying to do anything. In hindsight, getting that package was the start of my impulsive (yet so far phenomenal) decision to move first to an AirBnB in Weldon while looking at apartments in Raleigh, then moving into one March 1st. Positive consequences from negative behavior (aka taking/having substances) has been a long-standing theme in my battle to sobriety.

why why why!?

Why couldn't I have done that before getting the pills? It's not like they even made a difference! I guess that's the addict in me? Plus, why wasn't I more proud of being able to up and move after so many months of apathy? I think because it took all my effort, I didn't want to talk to anyone, and still felt absolutely miserable... yeah that took away from the 'win' it should have been. Well that, and the fact I still spent a majority of my days reading in bed. I'll have to ask my new therapist (whoever he or she may be) if it's possible for reading to become a bad thing... because I'm pretty sure it's turned into an unhealthy addiction for me. ANYWAYS, focus Sammi! back on topic...

It didn't work? Now what's the problem then!?

Once I got prescribed the vyvanse, I was over the moon: just like when the 4f-mph arrived the first time, I thought for sure all my problems were solved. I knew I had some etizolam to help out if the crash was too much, and I was convinced I'd be able to be a regular functioning human only taking medicine as prescribed once I had that to take daily.

...clearly, I still don't know myself at all. First the vyvanse made me super sick a couple days in a row - I assume from mixing it with the Kratom I was taking (at this point still just to not feel suboxone-sick), but eventually the sickness subsided and I felt the slight 'high' I had been missing oh so much by still taking kratom. I felt guilty, but that guilt was over-powered by relief that I could live again. That's the problem with depression - when everything is a matter of trying not to want to kill yourself, things that normally wouldn't be okay suddenly seem logical. Anything to avoid committing suicide, right? Kind of, but my impatient ass could have gone about it another way: exercise, yoga, meditation - I KNOW I KNOW, I don't know why I'm so stuck on using pills to feel alive that it's clear I need a new therapist to figure out why.

So now at this point in my story it's April and I'm taking my daily vyvanse, but I discovered that also taking either the Modafinil or 4f-MPH made those formerly useless chemicals very useful. It's like they give me the alertness that the vyvanse should, but isn't powerful enough to (yes, that is a justification. damnit.) - and then of COURSE what's the best way to top off some stimulants that leave me feeling a bit too jittery? opiates! hellooo kratom! after initially being terrified to take vyvanse and kratom on the same day since getting so sick, I got over that real quick when I realized that taking some kratom an hour or so after the vyvanse+ (that's way easier to type than 'vyvanse and 4f-MPH and/or modafinil') resulted in me being... me again.

BUT YOU'RE NOT YOU IF YOU'RE NOT SOBER!

This is where I really struggle. How is it possible that the not-alive, constantly crying, depressed for no reason human that I was while sober could possibly be the real me? I want nothing to do with that girl - she still surfaces often enough to remind me that I have to do more than just take pills to get a grip on my depression, but that's why I'm writing this... to start doing something more.

In conclusion: I am finally admitting to myself that my Kratom usage is too high (tolerance builds so fast, and there's only so many damn capsules I can swallow) and likely should be eliminated - fine, not likely, it SHOULD be eliminated completely, and then the vyvanse+ needs to be just vyvanse. I'm honestly a little on the fence about the etizolam - common sense obviously says 'that's gotta go too', but I've been able to take such small amounts (particularly compared to california where I popped them like tic-tacs)... I'm talking 1/2 at a time, and only more at night to sleep. Why not take the prescribed sleeping med? Because I can't wake up the next day! Sigh. I'm all wrung out, but I'll update again (hopefully tomorrow...) with what the boundaries/goals I set through the program are.

*Wtf is 4f-MPH? A research chemical... I'm no stranger to this weird, grey area of the law due to my love of Etizolam dating back to 2014. It's not illegal to order them (yet) despite some being just as strong - if not stronger- than the drugs they're trying to simulate. Luckily, I'm not trying to get fucked up, I'm just trying to be a functioning human being. Is it possible they're killing me slowly from the inside since it says 'for research purposes only, not for human consumption' ? Sure, but that's a risk I've been willing to take to end the miserable existence I had made for myself in my head (in reality, I was living in paradise.. but I digress).