The stillness of the early morning comforts the restless demons housed in my being. U-Me is as well as can be, given the ever changing landscape of my anorexia. These days I feel my edges being gnawed by the ghosts of addiction still haunting me after two months. Impatient? Yes- I say with a neurotic aura sweeping around my soul.
It would come to be that my two monsters, anorexia and addiction would clasp hands to do a dance of sorts within my psyche. I struggle with a recent weight gain of ten pounds which still leaves me underweight but my pant size has gone up from a zero to a three. Feeling like a jelly fish with rolls of unwanted fat is for me, one of the worst feelings I could experience in this world.
Stephanie is sad beyond reproach, I have begun restricting to immediately lose the extra weight and insure this abomination does not happen again. I wanted to get healthy, I thought putting on ten pounds would not make me feel different. However when new medication met inactivity the result was the feeling of a beached whale on the Fourth of July.
Nothing short of tragic is how I would describe my descent into a living hell I am experiencing with my mind falling prisoner to the scale and most of all, the naked eye. I am restricting more than I did when I first got sick with my ED. Stephanie is innately worried I will restrict past the scale's vigilance and propel myself into an active episode of anorexia.
I know I am unwell with my crooked thoughts and skewed desires for a thin, skeletal like frame again that so cruelly eludes me in my current state. Stephanie is concerned my restriction will send me into an new phase of anorexia that I will not recover from given the past wreckage I created at the mercy of my disease.
My addictive personality runs rampant as it oozes my blood in the darkness of the sunlight, shadowed by my obsession. Relapse is too much for me to bear, I am not strong enough or well enough to endure the winds of perseverance required to maintain a heathy perspective.
Today I am sensing the prevalence of disease permeating my life like beads of water on my nervous chin. I promised Stephanie we would go grocery shopping today thinking if I control the shopping, I can control my weight even further. Actively participating in my food preparation is a new found desire I display in the imprisonment of my psyche.
Addiction and anorexia are one in the same, not needing a separation of distinction by name. I feed off both and have only a slight preference for the addiction which bequeaths me the bounty of pills and the ecstasy of escape only better than the high of anorexia. Either way I wallow in the obsession of self preoccupation that only an anorexic junkie could ever grasp.
When I wander to the mirror to reconcile my feelings, a sense of dread twinned with panic envelops me as my eyes adjust and do lie like the words of others. Body dysmorphia lends its lying hands to the collage of mental health illness peppered in my diagnosis.
I cry for Stephanie as her fears are cruelly my hoped reality. I have not eaten since 4 pm yesterday and my mouth is parched for nutrients of any sort. I punish my body for being gluttonous with food. I can no longer trust my body's wants to fulfill my nutritional requirements. I surely do not warrant this additional ten pounds that catapulted me out of my acceptable size ones to the obese size three now snug on my hips.
I am awake with mania, the first sign of anorexia for me. I realize this is not the same for most people but it has precipitated all my bouts of anorexia.
I long for gaunt and hollow to return to my face and for "slight" to bed my frame again like long separated mittens on a winter's day. Stephanie is my fiancé and bestfriend, I want to cause her pain by wearing my truth cruelly leaving her to weep. How could I want something so bad for her to experience? I desire at all costs the comforting sight of jutting hips and boney fingers a fragility only another anorexic understands.
This morning I will share with my bare truths written within this post. She will not be surprised as our realities are antithetical emotions on a traffic light leading to nowhere. My journey is without a destination, I just want to be travelling on the road of my scale and the assurance of my eyes.
Corey
BORTH THIS WAY-2017
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
U-Me Thursday Morning-Recovery Cracks
It is early Thursday morning and I am getting through this week with a lot more normal in my life. For the first time since before I was hospitalized in early March U-Me is returning to our own sense of normal.
This week has been marked with nightly dinners followed by movie nights and later bed times. Stephanie is much happier as I come into my own space of recovery. I have tried really hard to make a concerted effort.
I have been trying to get back to the me I used to know prior to all the withdrawals. The space I occupied then was marked by mood-altering chemicals. Suffice it say that Corey doesn't exist without the drugs. It is both good and bad. I am much more suspect to anxiety and all its ills. However I am not trying to mask my reality or alter my sense of being.
I miss both the Xanax and the Adderall as well. They were different drugs for me as each held its own term of endearment in my daily life. The start of the day was shrouded in Adderall and the rest of the day was cloaked in Xanax. No matter how you look at it I was dripping in the fumes of pharmaceuticals. I was calm when I wasn't on Adderall but my calm was a dazed and confused sort of twisted calm. My calm was marked by fits of rebound anxiety which required I take another Xanax to quell that storm. It was a vicious cycle and one that five 2 mg Xanax could barely keep up with. My Adderall was to quell the natural high I maintain when not crunching Xanax
Living without these two contrasting drugs is a new mental health picture for me to display. I must now live with my two-sided mirror of my personality. Acknowledging my organic manic high is hard in its own right. Sometimes I fly on top of the ceiling with my moods. I wake up every day with this predisposition. Waking up on the hyper-alert side of life is beneficial to my schoolwork and my overall efficiency as a human being. I am capable as I am now of long stretches of concentration and work output. My crash is not low or sad it is anxiety. The anxiety is partly brought on by the mania. My body can not sustain the mania and as a result my systems get taxed and rebel in the form of anxiety and panic. This is the my first attempt to explain my full circuit of mental states I visit in the course of the day. My extremely early rising is a result of the mania I organically produce. My hard afternoons are a result of insidious anxiety which riddles me at my soul and suffocates my breath.
In this early morning I recall last night and a conversation I had with Stephanie. We were having dinner and got talking about the lack of pills in my life. It wasn't the easiest part of the day for me so I was susceptible to the romantic winds of yesterday's Xanax. I spoke out loud as I recalled many a dinner accompanied by a bottle of champagne. On top of the Xanax we were likely to share a bottle of Perrier Jouet with whatever dinner consisted of that night. Food as always was a distant second as I imbibed on the alcohol and felt the fusion of Xanax and champagne. The softening of my anxious edges was ebbed into smooth curves of intoxication. Usually the night followed with a movie or watching a series of some sort. I always awakened without a clear knowledge of what had happened in the later part of the evening. Stephanie mentioned last night how much more present I am at dinner. We talked about how preoccupied I used to be with the end of my pills for the day. I usually wanted to go to sleep when my Xanax were done for the day. However until now I have never admitted it. Lots of truths spoken now for the first time. I am unedited like nothing I have ever experienced before.
I reflect of the number of pills I had in one month at my disposal: one hundred and fifty 2mg Xanax and 90 30mg tablets of Adderall. Enough ingredients for my own pharmaceutical version of a eight ball. You know, the cocaine type. Seriously some lethal combination of push-pull going on in my system at any given time. I would be remiss to say I don't miss it at this vulnerable hour. Heck, every hour is vulnerable in this brave new world I am not sure I want to explore. No other choices at the present and with my recovery. It would be too great a mind fuck to go back to the pharmaceutical path I journeyed for twelve years. Why would I ever think of giving up this constant state of high alert and anxiety that flows through my veins like blood? Yes THOSE days are history now and looking back is a bad idea sort of like getting pregnant in high school. I can't dwell in the past for it is not my current state of affairs and not one I would or could change at this time. See I am too far in recovery to entertain the use of chemicals but not far enough in to not let myself really fuck my head up.
Dark waters without a solid grounding is my current reality. It hurts. Some days the pain sends me to bed for hours. I chase sleep to make myself go away. What is different now then on Xanax? Not much seriously. I work to escape either way I live. However, now I am rewarded in an odd sort of way for doing the right thing and getting clean. Because drugs are bad right? I wonder this question every moment I am awake. I suffer and hurt these days like never before. I feel more- I am alive- but is this all worth it? The answers I seek are not in now but in years of recovery.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
This week has been marked with nightly dinners followed by movie nights and later bed times. Stephanie is much happier as I come into my own space of recovery. I have tried really hard to make a concerted effort.
I have been trying to get back to the me I used to know prior to all the withdrawals. The space I occupied then was marked by mood-altering chemicals. Suffice it say that Corey doesn't exist without the drugs. It is both good and bad. I am much more suspect to anxiety and all its ills. However I am not trying to mask my reality or alter my sense of being.
I miss both the Xanax and the Adderall as well. They were different drugs for me as each held its own term of endearment in my daily life. The start of the day was shrouded in Adderall and the rest of the day was cloaked in Xanax. No matter how you look at it I was dripping in the fumes of pharmaceuticals. I was calm when I wasn't on Adderall but my calm was a dazed and confused sort of twisted calm. My calm was marked by fits of rebound anxiety which required I take another Xanax to quell that storm. It was a vicious cycle and one that five 2 mg Xanax could barely keep up with. My Adderall was to quell the natural high I maintain when not crunching Xanax
Living without these two contrasting drugs is a new mental health picture for me to display. I must now live with my two-sided mirror of my personality. Acknowledging my organic manic high is hard in its own right. Sometimes I fly on top of the ceiling with my moods. I wake up every day with this predisposition. Waking up on the hyper-alert side of life is beneficial to my schoolwork and my overall efficiency as a human being. I am capable as I am now of long stretches of concentration and work output. My crash is not low or sad it is anxiety. The anxiety is partly brought on by the mania. My body can not sustain the mania and as a result my systems get taxed and rebel in the form of anxiety and panic. This is the my first attempt to explain my full circuit of mental states I visit in the course of the day. My extremely early rising is a result of the mania I organically produce. My hard afternoons are a result of insidious anxiety which riddles me at my soul and suffocates my breath.
In this early morning I recall last night and a conversation I had with Stephanie. We were having dinner and got talking about the lack of pills in my life. It wasn't the easiest part of the day for me so I was susceptible to the romantic winds of yesterday's Xanax. I spoke out loud as I recalled many a dinner accompanied by a bottle of champagne. On top of the Xanax we were likely to share a bottle of Perrier Jouet with whatever dinner consisted of that night. Food as always was a distant second as I imbibed on the alcohol and felt the fusion of Xanax and champagne. The softening of my anxious edges was ebbed into smooth curves of intoxication. Usually the night followed with a movie or watching a series of some sort. I always awakened without a clear knowledge of what had happened in the later part of the evening. Stephanie mentioned last night how much more present I am at dinner. We talked about how preoccupied I used to be with the end of my pills for the day. I usually wanted to go to sleep when my Xanax were done for the day. However until now I have never admitted it. Lots of truths spoken now for the first time. I am unedited like nothing I have ever experienced before.
I reflect of the number of pills I had in one month at my disposal: one hundred and fifty 2mg Xanax and 90 30mg tablets of Adderall. Enough ingredients for my own pharmaceutical version of a eight ball. You know, the cocaine type. Seriously some lethal combination of push-pull going on in my system at any given time. I would be remiss to say I don't miss it at this vulnerable hour. Heck, every hour is vulnerable in this brave new world I am not sure I want to explore. No other choices at the present and with my recovery. It would be too great a mind fuck to go back to the pharmaceutical path I journeyed for twelve years. Why would I ever think of giving up this constant state of high alert and anxiety that flows through my veins like blood? Yes THOSE days are history now and looking back is a bad idea sort of like getting pregnant in high school. I can't dwell in the past for it is not my current state of affairs and not one I would or could change at this time. See I am too far in recovery to entertain the use of chemicals but not far enough in to not let myself really fuck my head up.
Dark waters without a solid grounding is my current reality. It hurts. Some days the pain sends me to bed for hours. I chase sleep to make myself go away. What is different now then on Xanax? Not much seriously. I work to escape either way I live. However, now I am rewarded in an odd sort of way for doing the right thing and getting clean. Because drugs are bad right? I wonder this question every moment I am awake. I suffer and hurt these days like never before. I feel more- I am alive- but is this all worth it? The answers I seek are not in now but in years of recovery.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
New Dawn-A Fellow Addict's Words
I went to a new addiction center yesterday called SOS Recovery Organization. I attended their first inaugural meeting at 2 pm. I got to the center around 1 pm. A guy that I had met at the other center I attend came and sat down with me. We talked for the entire hour before for the meeting.
Mike is an older guy and as a result his words and depth run deeper than most addicts. I met Mike when I was fresh out of the hospital and struggling not to whirl right out of my seat. I was completely electrical and beside myself. At that particular meeting in mid-March I recalled Mike sat down next to me and kept his head down and his hands clasped.
He started by saying that at that meeting he felt so bad for me he prayed the entire meeting for me. I told him I used prescription drugs and had gone in the hospital for a detox. I shared with him that I gotten worse when I came out of the hospital and was only now starting to see improvement. Mike mentioned that he too went into the hospital for a 17 year addiction to prescription opiates as well as heroin. He shared that it took until day 51 until he began to feel human again.
I was surprised we shared such similar stories although his history was much longer and extensive than mine. What Mike did was give me, this suffering addict, HOPE.
I wanted to cry tears of gratitude for sure however, none would come. We went to the 2 pm meeting and the discussion topic was gratitude. Mike said he was grateful to help another suffering addict out as it was important for him to give away what he had. I knew that is how recovery works but I had yet to expeience it in this particular way.
I went home and waited for Stephanie to get out of work. I texted her that I had met someone really special . The kindred feelings that were evident between us two addicts was nothing short of a miracle. Neither of us had to go through detox and get clean however, we choose the road less travelled. We were both here to talk about it and in talking and sharing we both discovered the true magic and wonderment of recovery.
I was left propelled to start showing up and be there for my loved ones and family. I am indeed getting better and I have the knowledge now that another addict went through the living hell I am experiencing and that it does get better.
I prepared dinner for U-Me last night and surprised her when she got home. One of the messages I heard at my meeting on Sunday at noon was to get out of my comfort zone. My fellow meeting makers challenged me on Sunday to go to the Recovery event and dare to be uncomfortable. U-Me did just that and we were both so happy that we went. We partook in a raffle and yesterday at the new recovery center I learned we had actually won.
Last night I prepared a wonderful dinner that U-Me shared. Unlike every other weekday night since I have gotten out of the hospital we watched a movie on Netflix and stayed up like it was a Friday night. Stephanie was really happy and psyched to see me cooking and the color come back to my face.
Tonight I am going to a new recovery meeting at 5:30pm something I would never do since getting out of the hospital. I am looking forward to a productive day after my weekday morning meeting. I have set aside some household chores I want to tackle over the next few days and the weather is lousy so all is well.
I look forward to extending my discomfort zone and daring to step right in the middle of it.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Mike is an older guy and as a result his words and depth run deeper than most addicts. I met Mike when I was fresh out of the hospital and struggling not to whirl right out of my seat. I was completely electrical and beside myself. At that particular meeting in mid-March I recalled Mike sat down next to me and kept his head down and his hands clasped.
He started by saying that at that meeting he felt so bad for me he prayed the entire meeting for me. I told him I used prescription drugs and had gone in the hospital for a detox. I shared with him that I gotten worse when I came out of the hospital and was only now starting to see improvement. Mike mentioned that he too went into the hospital for a 17 year addiction to prescription opiates as well as heroin. He shared that it took until day 51 until he began to feel human again.
I was surprised we shared such similar stories although his history was much longer and extensive than mine. What Mike did was give me, this suffering addict, HOPE.
I wanted to cry tears of gratitude for sure however, none would come. We went to the 2 pm meeting and the discussion topic was gratitude. Mike said he was grateful to help another suffering addict out as it was important for him to give away what he had. I knew that is how recovery works but I had yet to expeience it in this particular way.
I went home and waited for Stephanie to get out of work. I texted her that I had met someone really special . The kindred feelings that were evident between us two addicts was nothing short of a miracle. Neither of us had to go through detox and get clean however, we choose the road less travelled. We were both here to talk about it and in talking and sharing we both discovered the true magic and wonderment of recovery.
I was left propelled to start showing up and be there for my loved ones and family. I am indeed getting better and I have the knowledge now that another addict went through the living hell I am experiencing and that it does get better.
I prepared dinner for U-Me last night and surprised her when she got home. One of the messages I heard at my meeting on Sunday at noon was to get out of my comfort zone. My fellow meeting makers challenged me on Sunday to go to the Recovery event and dare to be uncomfortable. U-Me did just that and we were both so happy that we went. We partook in a raffle and yesterday at the new recovery center I learned we had actually won.
Last night I prepared a wonderful dinner that U-Me shared. Unlike every other weekday night since I have gotten out of the hospital we watched a movie on Netflix and stayed up like it was a Friday night. Stephanie was really happy and psyched to see me cooking and the color come back to my face.
Tonight I am going to a new recovery meeting at 5:30pm something I would never do since getting out of the hospital. I am looking forward to a productive day after my weekday morning meeting. I have set aside some household chores I want to tackle over the next few days and the weather is lousy so all is well.
I look forward to extending my discomfort zone and daring to step right in the middle of it.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Monday, April 24, 2017
Speedsplatt
My body and mind are travelling to places I do not know. I speed through time with many new sensations which affect me both on a cerebral and anatomic plane. U-Me is adjusting as I experience trials and tribulations.
Today is the day after a rough episode which affected not only me but Stephanie as well. I know I am unstable with the homeostasis of my ever-changing body. Recovery in its second month is more dynamic than ever. We are trying really hard to establish a new normal. However, the landscape is always morphing into destinations we have yet to visit.
Recovery remains an unpredictable amoeba without constant shape or form. I experience new highs for a day or two and then slip into reverse for the next few days.
I an cautious with each new tribulation as it is always followed with a trial of new lows. Serenity and peace truly elude me. I seek what other people have and live silently in their shadows. I am less sure of myself than ever. I am not worried about a drug relapse as I only can get them through a doctor. My dealer comes in a sterile white coat. Turning to the streets is not my MO. The sanctity of absence is my one form of calm. I know not what it feels like to not yearn or desire that which I can not seek.
My life with Stephanie is in line for a lot of my change. I want to believe I am alone in the fate of U-Me but Stephanie will not allow me to shoulder this false truth. U-Me is even more enduring than myself. Stephanie remains the light in my dim hour of reckoning. I stand in awe at the brilliance of her love and compassion. The candle of our love burns ever so brightly because of her resilient flame.
In the gray of this day I seek shelter from the unforgiving sun. I sit in our house with a pallor that only a person in new-found recovery knows. We went to the grocery store this morning before Stephanie went to work. I am determined to participate in the future forward makings of U-Me.
I am at a noontime recovery meeting. It is my second of the day. I will attend a 2:00 pm meeting at the Sisters of Sobriety Center. It just opened and is located right near our house. U-Me will be getting involved with this recovery group. I will be talking to the staff regarding volunteering at SOS.
My plan is to lengthen my day so that U-ME might have a longer day. Making dinner is my plan followed by an evening of Netflix. Nothing crazy at all but it is a start. I seek progress before perfection.
I am hopeful that anxiety hasn't seeped into my soul. A night free of panic would be as gift to U-Me.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Today is the day after a rough episode which affected not only me but Stephanie as well. I know I am unstable with the homeostasis of my ever-changing body. Recovery in its second month is more dynamic than ever. We are trying really hard to establish a new normal. However, the landscape is always morphing into destinations we have yet to visit.
Recovery remains an unpredictable amoeba without constant shape or form. I experience new highs for a day or two and then slip into reverse for the next few days.
I an cautious with each new tribulation as it is always followed with a trial of new lows. Serenity and peace truly elude me. I seek what other people have and live silently in their shadows. I am less sure of myself than ever. I am not worried about a drug relapse as I only can get them through a doctor. My dealer comes in a sterile white coat. Turning to the streets is not my MO. The sanctity of absence is my one form of calm. I know not what it feels like to not yearn or desire that which I can not seek.
My life with Stephanie is in line for a lot of my change. I want to believe I am alone in the fate of U-Me but Stephanie will not allow me to shoulder this false truth. U-Me is even more enduring than myself. Stephanie remains the light in my dim hour of reckoning. I stand in awe at the brilliance of her love and compassion. The candle of our love burns ever so brightly because of her resilient flame.
In the gray of this day I seek shelter from the unforgiving sun. I sit in our house with a pallor that only a person in new-found recovery knows. We went to the grocery store this morning before Stephanie went to work. I am determined to participate in the future forward makings of U-Me.
I am at a noontime recovery meeting. It is my second of the day. I will attend a 2:00 pm meeting at the Sisters of Sobriety Center. It just opened and is located right near our house. U-Me will be getting involved with this recovery group. I will be talking to the staff regarding volunteering at SOS.
My plan is to lengthen my day so that U-ME might have a longer day. Making dinner is my plan followed by an evening of Netflix. Nothing crazy at all but it is a start. I seek progress before perfection.
I am hopeful that anxiety hasn't seeped into my soul. A night free of panic would be as gift to U-Me.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
U-Me Monday Morning
My fiancé, Stephanie, is truly a once in a lifetime person. This past weekend I had to attend an English tea with my daughter and ex-wife. Between that and my morning support meeting I was gone most of the day. When I got home on Saturday I was immediately stricken with anxiety and panic. It was a long Saturday night for both of us.
I woke up around 3am on Sunday. I was riddled with guilt and remorse for my needs which took up all of U-Me on Saturday. Stephanie was so gracious and did nothing but be supportive and understanding. I was once told by a therapist that in a relationship each person needs to be both the gardner and the flower.With Stephanie, she has always been the gardner with me.
My ongoing battles with anorexia started when we were just friends. She was the only one who I let come visit me when I was in the eating disorders hospital and had a feeding tube. We have basically been inseparable since then expect for my blatant dating which culminated with my worst experience ever. I dated a person who is an active junkie and I did not know it. She began her death spiral when I was dating her and did some unspeakable things. Stephanie as my friend intervened and at that time she made her romantic feelings known for me.
I never thought she could like me and I was caught way off guard with her love for me. Since we crossed the line from platonic to romantic she has shown me unbridled love and affection. However, the most amazing part is she still is my best friend. Through the changes in us she has given me the greatest gift of unconditional love.
U-Me began last June and we have only grown closer and more fond of one another. Our chemistry is off the charts and we both believe there is not another person for either one of us.
Stephanie has supported me through my anorexia as well as pharmaceutical detox. None of it has been easy on either one of us. Her unconditional love is like none other. She shows me everyday how important I and U-Me are to her. My challenge right now is to give her the same unrequited love she bestows on me. With just three weeks before I possibly return to school my object is to focus on her and our relationship. U-Me is finding our new normal as I continue to battle anorexia and slowly recover from detox.
It is remarkable that after all U-Me has gone through, Stephanie is standing brave in my trenches. I needn't not ever worry of her steadfast devotion. It is my time to do for her and be her gardener. I look forward to the change and hopefully new reciprocity for U-Me.
Today I Wwill start by having an early breakfast with Stephanie before I had to the support club at 6 am to set up and make the coffee for my 7:30 am recovery support group meeting. Today is about U-Me and I will head out later in the morning to pick up groceries for dinner to night. One if the most special attributes of U-Me is how we find the sacred in the ordinary daily. Dinners which are a hard time for me are always special and made with love. This is the first week I will be cooking for Stephnaie. I haven't told her yet and hopefully will surprise tonight. My contributes to the cooking and the household have been scant at best until yesterday. I will take each day as it comes and know anything I do will be appreciated for sure. It is one of Stephanie's brightest traits, and one I don't want to take for granted.
Overcoming anorexia is what she wants from me most so I am scheduling an appointment with my ED therapist today. Self-care is the one thing I need to do for both myself and U-Me. Getting well in recovery is something I will always be working on and sharing with Stephanie. We attended a Recovery Rocks event yesterday and both of us loved the supporting SOS organization. I plan to go to the SOS center today so that I can inquire about various programs and offer to volunteer. It is something U-Me wants to get involved with in the near future.
Looking forward to breakfast with my fancyface........
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
I woke up around 3am on Sunday. I was riddled with guilt and remorse for my needs which took up all of U-Me on Saturday. Stephanie was so gracious and did nothing but be supportive and understanding. I was once told by a therapist that in a relationship each person needs to be both the gardner and the flower.With Stephanie, she has always been the gardner with me.
My ongoing battles with anorexia started when we were just friends. She was the only one who I let come visit me when I was in the eating disorders hospital and had a feeding tube. We have basically been inseparable since then expect for my blatant dating which culminated with my worst experience ever. I dated a person who is an active junkie and I did not know it. She began her death spiral when I was dating her and did some unspeakable things. Stephanie as my friend intervened and at that time she made her romantic feelings known for me.
I never thought she could like me and I was caught way off guard with her love for me. Since we crossed the line from platonic to romantic she has shown me unbridled love and affection. However, the most amazing part is she still is my best friend. Through the changes in us she has given me the greatest gift of unconditional love.
U-Me began last June and we have only grown closer and more fond of one another. Our chemistry is off the charts and we both believe there is not another person for either one of us.
Stephanie has supported me through my anorexia as well as pharmaceutical detox. None of it has been easy on either one of us. Her unconditional love is like none other. She shows me everyday how important I and U-Me are to her. My challenge right now is to give her the same unrequited love she bestows on me. With just three weeks before I possibly return to school my object is to focus on her and our relationship. U-Me is finding our new normal as I continue to battle anorexia and slowly recover from detox.
It is remarkable that after all U-Me has gone through, Stephanie is standing brave in my trenches. I needn't not ever worry of her steadfast devotion. It is my time to do for her and be her gardener. I look forward to the change and hopefully new reciprocity for U-Me.
Today I Wwill start by having an early breakfast with Stephanie before I had to the support club at 6 am to set up and make the coffee for my 7:30 am recovery support group meeting. Today is about U-Me and I will head out later in the morning to pick up groceries for dinner to night. One if the most special attributes of U-Me is how we find the sacred in the ordinary daily. Dinners which are a hard time for me are always special and made with love. This is the first week I will be cooking for Stephnaie. I haven't told her yet and hopefully will surprise tonight. My contributes to the cooking and the household have been scant at best until yesterday. I will take each day as it comes and know anything I do will be appreciated for sure. It is one of Stephanie's brightest traits, and one I don't want to take for granted.
Overcoming anorexia is what she wants from me most so I am scheduling an appointment with my ED therapist today. Self-care is the one thing I need to do for both myself and U-Me. Getting well in recovery is something I will always be working on and sharing with Stephanie. We attended a Recovery Rocks event yesterday and both of us loved the supporting SOS organization. I plan to go to the SOS center today so that I can inquire about various programs and offer to volunteer. It is something U-Me wants to get involved with in the near future.
Looking forward to breakfast with my fancyface........
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Monday-Crooked Thoughts
It is Monday morning, U-Me attended our first Recovery Rocks event yesterday. It was a great opportunity to get involved in the recovery community.
A speaker mentioned finding God and I thought to myself these days I might not know how to find God but I know he knows how to find me,.....
It was a gorgeous April day. Finally I believe, it is safe to say we won't be getting anymore snow.
I learned and met people today affiliated with SOS recovery. The community is crazy friendly and filed with lots of programs at their center located right down the street from here. Stephanie really liked the community today and wants me to get involved with SOS. She is excited for us to participate in the organization.
This morning I am keeping the anxiety demons at bay.. Last night was very hard and causes me to fear today, particularly this afternoon. Panic is terrifying and when you mix in throat issues it is like a dream gone bad.
I thought yesterday about my plan to return to school. I am not quite sure I will be able to pull it off. My memory is slow to recall and I easily forget. Not the makings of a scholar for sure. I have this fucked up deadline in my head which gnaws at my psyche every minute of the day. My sense of accomplishment is directly tied to my return to school. I was only going to take two seminars however I might just take one programming class. I know I could do that and I would put off a full return to school until the Fall. I only have three weeks to decide so I will think on it and make the requite adjustments to my schedule.
Seriously my recovery is nothing short of amazing. Thinking back to six weeks ago when I got discharged from the hospital, I was a train wreck of huge proportions I recall a twirl of demonic experiences all centered in my acute Xanax withdrawals. I remember my psychiatrist explaining to me to me that my detox was like getting hit in the head with a baseball bat and my recovery was like recovering from a brain injury. I didn't understand what he meant but soon I was deep in Xanax withdrawals and longed to go back on Xanax and fuck this recovery bullshit. As I neared ten days into my recovery I reached the apex of physical and emotional side effects. The tremors and the electricity coupled with the constant waves of anxiety and panic made me seriously think I was OFF and not well enough to make it out of the hospital setting. I feared the absolute worst: I was going to be committed. My veins were constantly ice cold and my paranoia had me doubting my family's intentions. I will not say ever but my gut tells me I could not experience much worse.
Six weeks later I sit at my computer in breathless awe. I didn't think I was capable of such healing. My instincts tell me this is of Divine doing. You needn't believe to aknowledge my amazing comeback from toss of insanity. I worried in paranoia that everyone my life was colluding to admit me involuntarily. Nothing has frightened me more ever. The inate fear which seeped into my soul was crazy and just about unexplainable. Suffice it say,I am a firm believer in the healing properties of the human body. I used to doubt my bodily capabilities but not anymore.
I look forward with hope to each new day. Even this new bout of anxiety and panic does nothing to dim my shine. I accept this is my circus and my monkeys. I embrace my little monsters of crazy mixed with high intelligience. My mind might not be fast right now but I truly believe it will completely heal with time.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Seriously my recovery is nothing short of amazing. Thinking back to six weeks ago when I got discharged from the hospital, I was a train wreck of huge proportions I recall a twirl of demonic experiences all centered in my acute Xanax withdrawals. I remember my psychiatrist explaining to me to me that my detox was like getting hit in the head with a baseball bat and my recovery was like recovering from a brain injury. I didn't understand what he meant but soon I was deep in Xanax withdrawals and longed to go back on Xanax and fuck this recovery bullshit. As I neared ten days into my recovery I reached the apex of physical and emotional side effects. The tremors and the electricity coupled with the constant waves of anxiety and panic made me seriously think I was OFF and not well enough to make it out of the hospital setting. I feared the absolute worst: I was going to be committed. My veins were constantly ice cold and my paranoia had me doubting my family's intentions. I will not say ever but my gut tells me I could not experience much worse.
Six weeks later I sit at my computer in breathless awe. I didn't think I was capable of such healing. My instincts tell me this is of Divine doing. You needn't believe to aknowledge my amazing comeback from toss of insanity. I worried in paranoia that everyone my life was colluding to admit me involuntarily. Nothing has frightened me more ever. The inate fear which seeped into my soul was crazy and just about unexplainable. Suffice it say,I am a firm believer in the healing properties of the human body. I used to doubt my bodily capabilities but not anymore.
I look forward with hope to each new day. Even this new bout of anxiety and panic does nothing to dim my shine. I accept this is my circus and my monkeys. I embrace my little monsters of crazy mixed with high intelligience. My mind might not be fast right now but I truly believe it will completely heal with time.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Sunday, April 23, 2017
Sunday Morning Musings-Panic and Anxiety Return
With each day of recovery comes new surprises. Some are positive and well some I would rather not experience.
Yesterday I spent the day with my daughter and ex-wife. We went to our annual English Tea hosted by our church.
I had an unusually good day yesterday but come 4 pm when the tea was over, I began to feel really sick. I had a hard time swallowing and I couldn't catch my breath. I have experienced these issues earlier in my recovery but hadn't experienced them in over three weeks. I thought they were behind me but yet obviously they came back to haunt me. I think it was a neurological problem as I experienced panic as a result of not being able to swallow.
Stephanie was nervous and mostly scared as she watched me in distress. This episode lasted until I fell asleep When I fell asleep I slept like a rock until I got up for the day at 3:30 am. Whenever I experience recovery in it's ugly manifestations my mind is quick to forget and I awaken with little overt residual trauma. It is almost like my brain will not hold on to such debilitating thoughts and experiences.
However, when I experience an episode like late yesterday afternoon my mind does recall the fear and anxiety associated with earlier experiences and it is then, that there is no amount of Xanax ould ever help me get through to the other side. My throat is a susceptible area of my body which is usually affected first by distress or fatigue. I have forgotten the horrific experiences I once ago had with my esophagus. Before I went on Xanax over twelve years ago, I ended up in multiple ER's with what I felt was closing and tightening of my throat. It looked like to physicians that my throat was open and fine. It took me going to a world-class psychopharmacologist to get the right diagnosis of tardive dyskinesia of the mid-esophagus. It was a very rare diagnosis explained to me as needing a smooth muscle-relaxant like Valium for the rest of my life to treat the side-effects. Well when I came off of the Xanax I came off of Valium too. It has been since March 6th that I went cold turkey off of Xanax and Valium as well as Adderall.
Last night I worked myself into such a state of panic that I felt unable to get a deep breath along with the sensation that I couldn't speak very well because of the inability to move the muscles in my throat and neck. As I write this I see how crazy this appears but it is very real and lasts for hours when it comes over me. Right now twelve hours removed from the onset I feel cerebral and logical discussing my account. However, when I am in the midst of an attack, I lose all sense of intellect and my eyes dilate with panic as I brace myself for the horrific episode.
Yesterday as I mentioned was a great day but I do recall having a lot of dread and unfounded fear crop up every so often as I was peppered with intermittently with fear starting around noon time.
I attended the 8:30 am support group meeting and then wore myself out as Stephanie and I cleaned and readied ourselves to shampoo the carpets in the house. It is a stress trigger as I ruminate over the the length since the carpets were last cleaned and needless worry invades my head over the fear of not getting the carpets clean. I read this and I feel like I need to run not walk to the psychiatrist and beg to be treated for panic disorder and anxiety. It is exactly what landed me on Xanax twelve years ago at ten milligrams day. It is the highest dosage allowed by the FDA and I worry ironically that I have organic panic which is so crippling it requires Xanax in a dosage of epic proportions.
I want and need to be clean and free of such mini mental mind fuckers but my deepest seeded fear is that my truth is not compliant with my desires to be clean. I am quickly drawn to my knees with such fears. God only knows if deep breathing and mediation worked I would have been cured of such ills long ago. Physicians who have treated me and evaluated my panic and anxiety have told me my symptoms are like something they have never experienced in a patient before.
In the hospital my psychiatrist who I saw for the last two days of my detox told me point blank that many psychiatrists would want to give me Xanax and that it was my job to avoid such prescribing as it was so wrong and equally debilitating. It is ironic that the doctors who treated me in detox were so matter of fact about not taking Xanax again but they had never treated my naked panic and anxiety. It is easy to sit back in an armchair and play the psychiatric quarterback regarding the non emotive treatment of my three-dimensional panic. None of the psychiatrists treating me in detox ever saw me in the midst of panic or anxiety. I am angry this morning that perhaps this was a very bad idea and that my panic is worse than any long-term effects of chronic Xanax medication use.
Most of all of course, I am scared and on the verge of being petrified. Now I have the history of voluntary detox and psychiatrists will be all the more less likely to prescribe medication that my mental illness may require. What does that mean? Bottom line is it means I will suffer dearly before a psychiatrist breaks down and prescribes what my condition may require. In detox, I was riddled with the onset of panic and anxiety. I asked for something efficacious to treat my anxiety and I was told without mincing words that nothing would compare to Xanax. I feared such words when they were spoken to me weeks ago, and I fear that mindset and lack of sensitivity for my panic and anxiety even more today. I am so far away from a doctor who would truthfully tell me that my situation unfortunately requires the use of anti-anxiety medication. It seems like a true cost benefit analysis is logically being forgotten in the narrow-minded and blind medicine which deems all use of Xanax unacceptable no matter how disabling my anxiety and panic truly is for me.
I, more than anyone, want to stay free from Xanax and all related drugs but I needn't suffer from much panic to understand and want my panic to be treated first and foremost -regardless of the medicinal price. It doesn't matter what the long-term effects of such medication are if the panic and anxiety is going to stress me out and cause high blood pressure and a heart attack first. I seriously am going to consider seeking treatment in Boston where specialists have a wider purview of the reality in which I live. Xanax is pretty benign compared to the stroke level high blood pressure I now live with which requires four anti-hyper intensives to treat it. Seriously the drug-induced liver damage caused by these four medications is worse than any long term side-effects from chronic Xanax use.
My mind is so malleable to the anxiety and fear that I AM and blinded by my demise for self-preservation.
I am \wired for anxiety and I feel electrical with energy. I pray today I am better able to manage my stress and bag of panic. \It is a brave new world without \Xanax and I still want it on some level. Now the hard work begins. I must devlelop a toolvbox of coping skills.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Yesterday I spent the day with my daughter and ex-wife. We went to our annual English Tea hosted by our church.
I had an unusually good day yesterday but come 4 pm when the tea was over, I began to feel really sick. I had a hard time swallowing and I couldn't catch my breath. I have experienced these issues earlier in my recovery but hadn't experienced them in over three weeks. I thought they were behind me but yet obviously they came back to haunt me. I think it was a neurological problem as I experienced panic as a result of not being able to swallow.
Stephanie was nervous and mostly scared as she watched me in distress. This episode lasted until I fell asleep When I fell asleep I slept like a rock until I got up for the day at 3:30 am. Whenever I experience recovery in it's ugly manifestations my mind is quick to forget and I awaken with little overt residual trauma. It is almost like my brain will not hold on to such debilitating thoughts and experiences.
However, when I experience an episode like late yesterday afternoon my mind does recall the fear and anxiety associated with earlier experiences and it is then, that there is no amount of Xanax ould ever help me get through to the other side. My throat is a susceptible area of my body which is usually affected first by distress or fatigue. I have forgotten the horrific experiences I once ago had with my esophagus. Before I went on Xanax over twelve years ago, I ended up in multiple ER's with what I felt was closing and tightening of my throat. It looked like to physicians that my throat was open and fine. It took me going to a world-class psychopharmacologist to get the right diagnosis of tardive dyskinesia of the mid-esophagus. It was a very rare diagnosis explained to me as needing a smooth muscle-relaxant like Valium for the rest of my life to treat the side-effects. Well when I came off of the Xanax I came off of Valium too. It has been since March 6th that I went cold turkey off of Xanax and Valium as well as Adderall.
Last night I worked myself into such a state of panic that I felt unable to get a deep breath along with the sensation that I couldn't speak very well because of the inability to move the muscles in my throat and neck. As I write this I see how crazy this appears but it is very real and lasts for hours when it comes over me. Right now twelve hours removed from the onset I feel cerebral and logical discussing my account. However, when I am in the midst of an attack, I lose all sense of intellect and my eyes dilate with panic as I brace myself for the horrific episode.
Yesterday as I mentioned was a great day but I do recall having a lot of dread and unfounded fear crop up every so often as I was peppered with intermittently with fear starting around noon time.
I attended the 8:30 am support group meeting and then wore myself out as Stephanie and I cleaned and readied ourselves to shampoo the carpets in the house. It is a stress trigger as I ruminate over the the length since the carpets were last cleaned and needless worry invades my head over the fear of not getting the carpets clean. I read this and I feel like I need to run not walk to the psychiatrist and beg to be treated for panic disorder and anxiety. It is exactly what landed me on Xanax twelve years ago at ten milligrams day. It is the highest dosage allowed by the FDA and I worry ironically that I have organic panic which is so crippling it requires Xanax in a dosage of epic proportions.
I want and need to be clean and free of such mini mental mind fuckers but my deepest seeded fear is that my truth is not compliant with my desires to be clean. I am quickly drawn to my knees with such fears. God only knows if deep breathing and mediation worked I would have been cured of such ills long ago. Physicians who have treated me and evaluated my panic and anxiety have told me my symptoms are like something they have never experienced in a patient before.
In the hospital my psychiatrist who I saw for the last two days of my detox told me point blank that many psychiatrists would want to give me Xanax and that it was my job to avoid such prescribing as it was so wrong and equally debilitating. It is ironic that the doctors who treated me in detox were so matter of fact about not taking Xanax again but they had never treated my naked panic and anxiety. It is easy to sit back in an armchair and play the psychiatric quarterback regarding the non emotive treatment of my three-dimensional panic. None of the psychiatrists treating me in detox ever saw me in the midst of panic or anxiety. I am angry this morning that perhaps this was a very bad idea and that my panic is worse than any long-term effects of chronic Xanax medication use.
Most of all of course, I am scared and on the verge of being petrified. Now I have the history of voluntary detox and psychiatrists will be all the more less likely to prescribe medication that my mental illness may require. What does that mean? Bottom line is it means I will suffer dearly before a psychiatrist breaks down and prescribes what my condition may require. In detox, I was riddled with the onset of panic and anxiety. I asked for something efficacious to treat my anxiety and I was told without mincing words that nothing would compare to Xanax. I feared such words when they were spoken to me weeks ago, and I fear that mindset and lack of sensitivity for my panic and anxiety even more today. I am so far away from a doctor who would truthfully tell me that my situation unfortunately requires the use of anti-anxiety medication. It seems like a true cost benefit analysis is logically being forgotten in the narrow-minded and blind medicine which deems all use of Xanax unacceptable no matter how disabling my anxiety and panic truly is for me.
I, more than anyone, want to stay free from Xanax and all related drugs but I needn't suffer from much panic to understand and want my panic to be treated first and foremost -regardless of the medicinal price. It doesn't matter what the long-term effects of such medication are if the panic and anxiety is going to stress me out and cause high blood pressure and a heart attack first. I seriously am going to consider seeking treatment in Boston where specialists have a wider purview of the reality in which I live. Xanax is pretty benign compared to the stroke level high blood pressure I now live with which requires four anti-hyper intensives to treat it. Seriously the drug-induced liver damage caused by these four medications is worse than any long term side-effects from chronic Xanax use.
My mind is so malleable to the anxiety and fear that I AM and blinded by my demise for self-preservation.
I am \wired for anxiety and I feel electrical with energy. I pray today I am better able to manage my stress and bag of panic. \It is a brave new world without \Xanax and I still want it on some level. Now the hard work begins. I must devlelop a toolvbox of coping skills.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Saturday, April 22, 2017
U-ME-- We Didn't Disappear
Lately the few times I have written has been about my addiction recovery from pharmaceutical drugs. There are other things going on in my life like my relationship with my fiancée Stephanie and my struggle with anorexia.
U-ME as we are called has had a new twist on things in my new world of recovery. Our entire lives have been uprooted and swiftly replanted in new soil free of alcohol and any pharmaceuticals. We were not big drinkers but enjoyed the occasional celebratory bottle of champagne. Those days are gone for the current moment but we still are living life and enjoying one another as we make our way in Love.
My anorexia has continued to be an addiction I am not free of in any shape or form. Haunted by the ghosts of recent healthy weight gain is a torturous reminder of how sick I remain after years of doing battle with this eating disorder.
U-Me is alive and well as ever. Stephanie and I are living life everyday and making the most out of my new found sobriety. Stephanie continues to work as a dentist as I continue to recover from my pharmaceutical addictions.
We have shelved any long term planning for the time being at my request. Stephanie was initially hurt but now understands the magnitude of my recovery and the fact that we will be spending or lives together. I must just focus on being the best person I can be to myself and to Stephanie right now. We are madly in love however my health and mind require me and us to focus on the smallest things right now as we prepare for the longer term and the plans we share ro make a life together. Nothing has changed about our desires to spend our lives together and settle down with a new house as well as get married.
We will get married first, hopefully sometime later this year when I am fully recovered and back in school as a full time student. Stephanie understands so anyone else who doesn't get it just doesn't know me and how important it is that I be able to be a whole partner to Stephanie and the marriage we hold so dear to our souls. Reciprocity is key to another marriage for me as it was missing from my first marriage and I wont make the same mistake twice.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I went to bed at 9:00pm and it is midnight now as I just went to the store with my pug to get a large French vanilla latte. Up with crazy hours sounds like the days of old when I was taking the golden elixir made with Adderall and coffee. Gone is the Adderall but the mania returns as the recovery and withdrawals vanish to days gratefully gone by. I couldn't take the withdrawals especially the shakes and tremors which have vanished to nil over the past couple of weeks. Stephane is much relieved as am I I ready to return to school which seems probable now.
It is weird to have a Friday night with Stephanie now and not ever be drinking or sharing a bottle of champagne. Life is new and exciting nonetheless as we acclimate ourselves to normalcy in this brave new world of normal. We are rewriting the book on our normal as we go into the light for the first time in a long time.
Last night was no exception as we had our own version of Friday night here at the house. We shared dinner and watched Netflix. Nothing too crazy but more normal than I have been up for in the past month or so that I have been home from the hospital.
I am enjoying the quiet of the early morning as the world is asleep and my fingers dance across the keyboard. I am ready to assume the nights as my own as the rest of the world sleeps.It has been a long time since I felt so manic, and this time it is all natural and without pills of any sort.
I am looking towards returning to school the middle of May. Less than a month to go and I still need to meet with my advisor and register for classes. I am returning part-time with a twp seminar load which is actually full-time however since I missed this current semester I must make up a couple of seminars to stay on track.
I am looking forward to more time with Stephanie as we ready ourselves for a busy weekend of activities. I will attend a support group meeting at 8:30 am and start my day off right. Later I will be attending an English Tea with Bella, my daughter, and my ex-wife as Stephanie will go to work and we will meet later to get our U-Me weekend going on.
I am happy but not with myself. My anorexia relapsed and that meant a ten pound gain which was much needed and should make me happy right? Nope, my eating disorder kicked right back into high gear and leaves me once again severely restricting and constantly exercising.
I have held off on starting my anorexia blog as I wasn't feeling all that well or healthy. Now I realize more than ever I need to start it and blog regularly as I need the interaction with fellow people who also are battling this crippling disease. My restricting since the ten pound weight gain is severe and drastic. I am myself surprised and saddened in the same breath.
I never thought two years after being hospitalized by this illness I would be blogging about further restrictions of my food intake. My concept of Radical Will needs to be presented to whomever will read it as I hope to gain an injection of Will myself to right my eating and spare my family fallout of yet another round of this active monster.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
U-ME as we are called has had a new twist on things in my new world of recovery. Our entire lives have been uprooted and swiftly replanted in new soil free of alcohol and any pharmaceuticals. We were not big drinkers but enjoyed the occasional celebratory bottle of champagne. Those days are gone for the current moment but we still are living life and enjoying one another as we make our way in Love.
My anorexia has continued to be an addiction I am not free of in any shape or form. Haunted by the ghosts of recent healthy weight gain is a torturous reminder of how sick I remain after years of doing battle with this eating disorder.
U-Me is alive and well as ever. Stephanie and I are living life everyday and making the most out of my new found sobriety. Stephanie continues to work as a dentist as I continue to recover from my pharmaceutical addictions.
We have shelved any long term planning for the time being at my request. Stephanie was initially hurt but now understands the magnitude of my recovery and the fact that we will be spending or lives together. I must just focus on being the best person I can be to myself and to Stephanie right now. We are madly in love however my health and mind require me and us to focus on the smallest things right now as we prepare for the longer term and the plans we share ro make a life together. Nothing has changed about our desires to spend our lives together and settle down with a new house as well as get married.
We will get married first, hopefully sometime later this year when I am fully recovered and back in school as a full time student. Stephanie understands so anyone else who doesn't get it just doesn't know me and how important it is that I be able to be a whole partner to Stephanie and the marriage we hold so dear to our souls. Reciprocity is key to another marriage for me as it was missing from my first marriage and I wont make the same mistake twice.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I went to bed at 9:00pm and it is midnight now as I just went to the store with my pug to get a large French vanilla latte. Up with crazy hours sounds like the days of old when I was taking the golden elixir made with Adderall and coffee. Gone is the Adderall but the mania returns as the recovery and withdrawals vanish to days gratefully gone by. I couldn't take the withdrawals especially the shakes and tremors which have vanished to nil over the past couple of weeks. Stephane is much relieved as am I I ready to return to school which seems probable now.
It is weird to have a Friday night with Stephanie now and not ever be drinking or sharing a bottle of champagne. Life is new and exciting nonetheless as we acclimate ourselves to normalcy in this brave new world of normal. We are rewriting the book on our normal as we go into the light for the first time in a long time.
Last night was no exception as we had our own version of Friday night here at the house. We shared dinner and watched Netflix. Nothing too crazy but more normal than I have been up for in the past month or so that I have been home from the hospital.
I am enjoying the quiet of the early morning as the world is asleep and my fingers dance across the keyboard. I am ready to assume the nights as my own as the rest of the world sleeps.It has been a long time since I felt so manic, and this time it is all natural and without pills of any sort.
I am looking towards returning to school the middle of May. Less than a month to go and I still need to meet with my advisor and register for classes. I am returning part-time with a twp seminar load which is actually full-time however since I missed this current semester I must make up a couple of seminars to stay on track.
I am looking forward to more time with Stephanie as we ready ourselves for a busy weekend of activities. I will attend a support group meeting at 8:30 am and start my day off right. Later I will be attending an English Tea with Bella, my daughter, and my ex-wife as Stephanie will go to work and we will meet later to get our U-Me weekend going on.
I am happy but not with myself. My anorexia relapsed and that meant a ten pound gain which was much needed and should make me happy right? Nope, my eating disorder kicked right back into high gear and leaves me once again severely restricting and constantly exercising.
I have held off on starting my anorexia blog as I wasn't feeling all that well or healthy. Now I realize more than ever I need to start it and blog regularly as I need the interaction with fellow people who also are battling this crippling disease. My restricting since the ten pound weight gain is severe and drastic. I am myself surprised and saddened in the same breath.
I never thought two years after being hospitalized by this illness I would be blogging about further restrictions of my food intake. My concept of Radical Will needs to be presented to whomever will read it as I hope to gain an injection of Will myself to right my eating and spare my family fallout of yet another round of this active monster.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Friday, April 21, 2017
Fear and Faith In My New Recovery
The day I decided to go inpatient for a medical detox from Xanax and Adderall I was enveloped by God's Love and serenity. I don't fancy myself a very religious person but I am quite spiritual.
My first few days in the hospital were okay and I managed for the most part. On day three the panic and fear entered my body and soul as I was tossed into the throws of withdrawals.
I was overcome with panic and fear and remained in this chaotic and dark space for the next four days. I was talking to a friend one day, and I mentioned that I had lost my way and lost My God.
I immediately told her I needed to go and pray, in order to find my God and restore my Faith. I am not going to make this post about God as I know most people do not want to be preached to.
I will say in finding Faith I lost fear. This is the litmus test I live by on a daily basis. When I am filled with fear I know I am without Faith.
I need not focus on God to have Faith. My Faith can be based on anything and quite often than not it is based on something other than God.
I identify as a Christian-Buddhist, but what has changed in my life in my new-found recovery is my use of daily prayer. Prayer is the foundation of my recovery after the physical dependence was addressed. I abstain easily from pharmaceuticals with my use of daily prayer and meditation. Actually there is nothing easy about recovery, but it more easier than not with the use of daily prayer.
My recovery is nothing short of amazing. I was a chronic user of Xanax for the past twelve years as well as the use of high doses of Adderall for the past six years. The physical dependence of Xanax as well as the seemingly anti-anxiety properties make the pill a dangerous mini-mental mind-fucker.
In my medical detox I was introduced to the panic and fear of withdrawals as well as the physical rebound anxiety of Xanax. On top of these physical manifestations I had the psychological manifestations of drug use for twelve years as well as the emotional dependence and vacuum of coping skills which grew and blossomed in the presence of tiny white pills ingested every few hours.
The addiction is vicious especially with Xanax and I romantically recall refill day of Xanax and the euphoria of picking up 150 2 mg pills every month. Serious emotional dependence was formed with that type of prescribing habit.
I don't like to allow my mind to go to these memories as I instantly miss my best-friend which constantly let me down and disappointed me with never being enough.
I recall getting ninety 30 mg pills of Adderall that I took in between popping the five Xanax pills I ate daily. I sorely miss the medication cabinet I maintained with the help of doctors who prescribed them.
I truly miss the idea of pills and the false security I gained with the pile of pills I purchased from the pharmacy on a monthly basis.
The world of recovery is in fact a brave new world I am slowly getting accustomed to.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Thursday, April 20, 2017
Thursday Musings In Recovery
This early morning I am happier than I have been as of late. My recovery is going much better with each passing day. My anxiety has ebbed and my moods of panic have dissipated.
I am at the club where I attend support meetings seven days a week. On Monday through Friday I attend a morning meeting at 7:30 am.
As part of my service to the group, I as the newest member, set up every morning at 6:00 am. I also make the coffee for everyone. I have nothing else to offer at this point so that is my service. I will do the set up, coffee and help with putting away until a newer comer shows up eager to take my position.
I haven't talked much about this weekday meeting which is my home group. It is a great group of individuals whom range in age from 25-60 of men and women with diverse educational backgrounds and professions. Most of the group is in long-term recovery.
I am heading back to school in May as the only current student in the group. One of my biggest challenges is to figure out a way to attend this morning meeting and return to school.
I would have laughed in your face if you ever told me that support groups would make a difference and be a part of my life seven days a week.
The power of the shared experience of recovery is extremely powerful and dynamic. It is intensified by the number of people in the group who show up every day to participate.
It is a meeting where we read a daily reflection then we go around the room and we each share either something relevant to the reading or what is good about our recovery today. I was never a "group" person in any way but this experience has changed everything.
I am watching cable news and the big story is the canning of Bill O'Reilly. Very surprised that the liberals got their way. Shows what advertisers and letter writing can do to a television personality.
I have been slow to write as my thoughts are still choppy and my flow of words not yet even. I have been promised that after only a month out of the hospital I can look forward to greater gains on the cerebral front. I look forward to it in my speech, my thoughts and most of all my writing.
I have experienced huge gains weekly in my recovery. When I got out of the hospital on March 18th I still hadn't reached my bottom of withdrawals. My recollection of that time is hauntingly dark and paralyzing both emotionally and physically.
I went through some dark times of stark paranoia and bone-chilling psychosis. I am proof that a psychotic person can somewhat pass in daily life. I thought for sure I was loosing my house and being put in an institution.
That did not happen but the state of my life and affairs was definitely in question. Just writing about it make me claustrophobic and white-knuckled scared.
I AM NOT that parent, friend, lover, or sibling anymore.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
I am at the club where I attend support meetings seven days a week. On Monday through Friday I attend a morning meeting at 7:30 am.
As part of my service to the group, I as the newest member, set up every morning at 6:00 am. I also make the coffee for everyone. I have nothing else to offer at this point so that is my service. I will do the set up, coffee and help with putting away until a newer comer shows up eager to take my position.
I haven't talked much about this weekday meeting which is my home group. It is a great group of individuals whom range in age from 25-60 of men and women with diverse educational backgrounds and professions. Most of the group is in long-term recovery.
I am heading back to school in May as the only current student in the group. One of my biggest challenges is to figure out a way to attend this morning meeting and return to school.
I would have laughed in your face if you ever told me that support groups would make a difference and be a part of my life seven days a week.
The power of the shared experience of recovery is extremely powerful and dynamic. It is intensified by the number of people in the group who show up every day to participate.
It is a meeting where we read a daily reflection then we go around the room and we each share either something relevant to the reading or what is good about our recovery today. I was never a "group" person in any way but this experience has changed everything.
I am watching cable news and the big story is the canning of Bill O'Reilly. Very surprised that the liberals got their way. Shows what advertisers and letter writing can do to a television personality.
I have been slow to write as my thoughts are still choppy and my flow of words not yet even. I have been promised that after only a month out of the hospital I can look forward to greater gains on the cerebral front. I look forward to it in my speech, my thoughts and most of all my writing.
I have experienced huge gains weekly in my recovery. When I got out of the hospital on March 18th I still hadn't reached my bottom of withdrawals. My recollection of that time is hauntingly dark and paralyzing both emotionally and physically.
I went through some dark times of stark paranoia and bone-chilling psychosis. I am proof that a psychotic person can somewhat pass in daily life. I thought for sure I was loosing my house and being put in an institution.
That did not happen but the state of my life and affairs was definitely in question. Just writing about it make me claustrophobic and white-knuckled scared.
I AM NOT that parent, friend, lover, or sibling anymore.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Monday, April 17, 2017
Easter Musings
Watching the news with 90 days in recovery, I see an ad for opiate addiction. I laugh as I didn't seek help with my opiate addiction. I went cold turkey into withdrawals. Three weeks of unharnessed hell. I wandered without knowledge. Probably better I was ignorant to my path.
Coming out the other side I must have been mad. Right into a pharmaceutical detox. Knocked out Xanax, Adderall and caffeine. Badass warrior- it is not fiction. With help from the medical community, I conquered my demons once and for all.
Today I am free with shaky legs and hands. A hurricane ran through my mind and body for weeks. I was electrical with dilated eyes that gave me a vacant stare which spooked other people as well as my dog. I feared I would have that "off" look forever. It was a look that made other people shy away from me and treat me different. My puglet, Julia Bleu, was skittish and filled with anxiety. Finally that "look" is gone.
******************************************************************************************************************************************************************
I spent Easter with Stephanie and my ex-wife and daughter. We did an Easter egg hunt at the beach and went out for ice cream followed with dinner in a restaurant. Stephanie and I followed up with an Easter dinner we made at home after I was done with my ex-wife and daughter.
It was a lot of food as my anorexia wrecked havoc on the day. I didn't eat my ice cream, I pushed my food around at the restaurant, and I picked at dinner with Stephanie. My body dysmorphia is raging as I fight to stop this run away train of anorexia. I am not even back in school yet and my anorexia is showing signs of a full-blown episode.
I have fought this eating disorder for three years and stayed out of the eating disorders hospital since December of 2014. I experienced brief periods of recovery where my weight stabilized at a low weight but I was able to maintain it for months at a time. These periods were always followed by dips of relapse of five to ten pounds of weight loss.
Once again I am feeling like a prisoner to my own psyche and body. I have even gone as far as re-reading my favorite anorexia story about a guy who is radical and sickly inspires me to adjust my exercise higher and restrict my food intake even sharper. I read the book daily as Stephanie looks on in sadness. I am aware of my sickness but like a true addict I still swallow the pills and ills of this monster called anorexia.
I am drowning this morning in a huge wave of mental madness that only another sick person would understand.
I am going to start my first blog entry in the Cake Is Now domain I set up the other day. My concept of Radical Will is on the tip of my tongue and oozes for attention in the most cerebral sense.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Coming out the other side I must have been mad. Right into a pharmaceutical detox. Knocked out Xanax, Adderall and caffeine. Badass warrior- it is not fiction. With help from the medical community, I conquered my demons once and for all.
Today I am free with shaky legs and hands. A hurricane ran through my mind and body for weeks. I was electrical with dilated eyes that gave me a vacant stare which spooked other people as well as my dog. I feared I would have that "off" look forever. It was a look that made other people shy away from me and treat me different. My puglet, Julia Bleu, was skittish and filled with anxiety. Finally that "look" is gone.
******************************************************************************************************************************************************************
I spent Easter with Stephanie and my ex-wife and daughter. We did an Easter egg hunt at the beach and went out for ice cream followed with dinner in a restaurant. Stephanie and I followed up with an Easter dinner we made at home after I was done with my ex-wife and daughter.
It was a lot of food as my anorexia wrecked havoc on the day. I didn't eat my ice cream, I pushed my food around at the restaurant, and I picked at dinner with Stephanie. My body dysmorphia is raging as I fight to stop this run away train of anorexia. I am not even back in school yet and my anorexia is showing signs of a full-blown episode.
I have fought this eating disorder for three years and stayed out of the eating disorders hospital since December of 2014. I experienced brief periods of recovery where my weight stabilized at a low weight but I was able to maintain it for months at a time. These periods were always followed by dips of relapse of five to ten pounds of weight loss.
Once again I am feeling like a prisoner to my own psyche and body. I have even gone as far as re-reading my favorite anorexia story about a guy who is radical and sickly inspires me to adjust my exercise higher and restrict my food intake even sharper. I read the book daily as Stephanie looks on in sadness. I am aware of my sickness but like a true addict I still swallow the pills and ills of this monster called anorexia.
I am drowning this morning in a huge wave of mental madness that only another sick person would understand.
I am going to start my first blog entry in the Cake Is Now domain I set up the other day. My concept of Radical Will is on the tip of my tongue and oozes for attention in the most cerebral sense.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Sunday, April 16, 2017
Second Thoughts-Easter Morning
It is the early morning and I am wide awake like I just sipped my golden elixir except I really didn't. I realize it is a falsehood to believe I need such a drink to propel my inner beast forward into the next day.
Creeping up on ninety days off of opiates and alcohol is like a hazy and blurry dream-like fissure in my imagination.
Obsession on second thoughts and guessing wear my soul dry in the rain of my existence. I doubt the sanctity of coming clean of all pharmaceuticals.
I awakened at 3:00 am realizing another day was granted to me. It is my work to make sense of life in the moonlight of the early morning.
Stephanie is sound asleep with my puglet, Julia Bleu. I sip a French vanilla latte at my desk in my study. I watch the trains pass on their way to everywhere. I often think and dream if I might, of taking a train to somewhere I have yet to determine. It is good to be back in these early morning hours, my body and mind forbid me to entertain for over six weeks.
This morning I will go to my early morning support group. The meeting starts at 7:30 am but I get their at 6:30 am to set up and make the coffee. Service is a big part of recovery and right now my service to the group is in my daily set up and java making I bequeath to the group. I am the second newest person in recovery, and I will do the coffee until someone else steps up and offers to make it daily. As I approach three months clean, I am grounded in my recovery. I am no longer blinded by the sea of withdrawals. My body and mind are settling, I feel less and less like an alien to myself.
I breath deeply as words are still jagged in my mind. I am not moving as fast or pushing forward in a straight line as I wish.
I am too smart for my own good. Humility reins me in to right size where I can accept my God as I understand Him. Praying does not come easy although I find solace in the act. I am still too new to this life without pills.
Today I make an appointment with my adviser to return to school in May for Summer semester. I am excited and nervous about using my brain in such a manner that I rely on it more than I am comfortable doing.
The hours have passed and I look at the clock in hesitation with the thoughts of a new bright day upon me. People will be infiltrating my quiet safe place I choose to live in. Julia Bleu is snoring on the couch as my fingers dance on the keyboard. I will walk her this morning after my support group meeting. We have already gone to the twenty-four hour store down the street.
I will walk to the support group and assume my duties. I am one day closer in recovery.
********************************************************************************
It is Easter Sunday and I have arrived at 90 days clean! Bliss is becoming me. Life without pills feels naked but so good.
I long to write long novellas with my soul on my sleeve.
Today looks to be a marvelous day. Spending this Easter with my daughter and Stephanie. Haven't written much about U-ME but WE are strong and flourishing in a new galaxy we are delighted to star-gaze.
Night brings a new magic without much sleep for this warrior maniac. Happiness oozes from my soul as I take in the early hours of the day in my study with my computer. I am just starting to speak as my fingers pass gingerly with hesitation on the keyboard. I long to sing with my words but I am bound by the awkward unknowing of my best friend; my laptop. We are meeting anew like lovers long separated.
I am pushing through the fog of my thoughts. Everyday I get better and more of me returns. I look forward to the day and the return of Corey.
I am heading to the Triangle Club, the home of support meetings. Today and tomorrow I will receive my ninety day chips of recovery.
Humbled with grace I pray is my station. Stephanie is up and preparing for breakfast. This is the first holiday we will attend at the club. We will not be there long as my daughter awaits me. A day with my family means so much more. I cherish each moment with my daughter and family. Gratitude centers me for the day granted before me.
I have changed, I am chemically altered. Without pills I brave this world one moment at a time.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Creeping up on ninety days off of opiates and alcohol is like a hazy and blurry dream-like fissure in my imagination.
Obsession on second thoughts and guessing wear my soul dry in the rain of my existence. I doubt the sanctity of coming clean of all pharmaceuticals.
I awakened at 3:00 am realizing another day was granted to me. It is my work to make sense of life in the moonlight of the early morning.
Stephanie is sound asleep with my puglet, Julia Bleu. I sip a French vanilla latte at my desk in my study. I watch the trains pass on their way to everywhere. I often think and dream if I might, of taking a train to somewhere I have yet to determine. It is good to be back in these early morning hours, my body and mind forbid me to entertain for over six weeks.
This morning I will go to my early morning support group. The meeting starts at 7:30 am but I get their at 6:30 am to set up and make the coffee. Service is a big part of recovery and right now my service to the group is in my daily set up and java making I bequeath to the group. I am the second newest person in recovery, and I will do the coffee until someone else steps up and offers to make it daily. As I approach three months clean, I am grounded in my recovery. I am no longer blinded by the sea of withdrawals. My body and mind are settling, I feel less and less like an alien to myself.
I breath deeply as words are still jagged in my mind. I am not moving as fast or pushing forward in a straight line as I wish.
I am too smart for my own good. Humility reins me in to right size where I can accept my God as I understand Him. Praying does not come easy although I find solace in the act. I am still too new to this life without pills.
Today I make an appointment with my adviser to return to school in May for Summer semester. I am excited and nervous about using my brain in such a manner that I rely on it more than I am comfortable doing.
The hours have passed and I look at the clock in hesitation with the thoughts of a new bright day upon me. People will be infiltrating my quiet safe place I choose to live in. Julia Bleu is snoring on the couch as my fingers dance on the keyboard. I will walk her this morning after my support group meeting. We have already gone to the twenty-four hour store down the street.
I will walk to the support group and assume my duties. I am one day closer in recovery.
********************************************************************************
It is Easter Sunday and I have arrived at 90 days clean! Bliss is becoming me. Life without pills feels naked but so good.
I long to write long novellas with my soul on my sleeve.
Today looks to be a marvelous day. Spending this Easter with my daughter and Stephanie. Haven't written much about U-ME but WE are strong and flourishing in a new galaxy we are delighted to star-gaze.
Night brings a new magic without much sleep for this warrior maniac. Happiness oozes from my soul as I take in the early hours of the day in my study with my computer. I am just starting to speak as my fingers pass gingerly with hesitation on the keyboard. I long to sing with my words but I am bound by the awkward unknowing of my best friend; my laptop. We are meeting anew like lovers long separated.
I am pushing through the fog of my thoughts. Everyday I get better and more of me returns. I look forward to the day and the return of Corey.
I am heading to the Triangle Club, the home of support meetings. Today and tomorrow I will receive my ninety day chips of recovery.
Humbled with grace I pray is my station. Stephanie is up and preparing for breakfast. This is the first holiday we will attend at the club. We will not be there long as my daughter awaits me. A day with my family means so much more. I cherish each moment with my daughter and family. Gratitude centers me for the day granted before me.
I have changed, I am chemically altered. Without pills I brave this world one moment at a time.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Friday, April 14, 2017
The Object of My Dejection
Anorexia plagues me to my inner-most voice of dejection. Crowded thoughts of make believe happiness infiltrate my soul's conscience.
Having just survived the brutal after-effects of prescription detox, my mind wanders quickly to my next and last addiction. Anorexia is a clouded mystery of crippling thoughts; a skewed conscience with deadly consequences.
As I begin year three of this disease I am all to aware of my predisposition for the severe manifestations of this eating disorder. I live in fear of the after effects and revel in the madness of my mind. I am not crazy for being anorexic, I am crazy in spite of it. I look at people and I see them for what they are and not what oblivion makes us want to see or believe. That is one of the silent gifts of anorexia which no one wants to believe.
I am getting ready to return to school. It is the culprit of the ignition of anorexia in my life. Although the disease always laid dormant in my psyche, the centrix of my anorexia is found in my latent conscience. Going back to my late teens and early twenties I see the manifestations of this monster in the web of thought processes I adapted in my everyday life. The seeds of this illness carried forward and flowered as I readied myself to return to the classroom.
Since my detox I have noticed my mind searching and grasping at anything related to weight and body image. I have on top of that a distorted image of time which wrecks havoc on my mind's critical eyes viewing my body.
I am but a month away from returning to school. Already my thoughts are skewed and my obsession with my body is hyper-amped up beyond logical sound.
Stephanie, my fiancée, is very aware and vocal about my tendencies towards the critical and self-loathing I partake in on a daily basis.
She came home last night and asked what I wanted for dinner. I told her I had already eaten a fat-free 100 calorie Greek yogurt. We talked at length about it and decided it would be best for me to return to my eating disorders therapist. I agreed with her that I needed to get ahead of my disease or this time I was going to become my disease.
I don't have much room for error as far as weight loss goes. I have been exercising a lot; walking and doing core exercises. I joined the gym as well. I have plans to return to the gym this weekend, and start running 3-5 miles a day along with doing free weights. I would like to get into the Spartan Obstacle Course Racing or the Tough Mudder Obstacle Course Racing series which I would start racing next Spring. I want to train hard for a solid year and build up my core stamina so I can participate at the high level of fitness I am capable of achieving in less than a year's time.
We bought a new Bullet blender so we can add smoothies to our food intake. Stephanie is not really athletic but she will go to the gym and walk on the treadmill and do core exercises to maintain her weight.
When I return to school in May, I will be able to work out at the fitness center on campus. School unveils many pitfalls in my recovery from anorexia. I wonder what does my life without school look like? Would I be healthier and perhaps over anorexia? I have given this quite a bit of thought, as well as talked to Stephanie at length about the fate of my anorexia. I don't believe after the onset of this disease was brought on by the perfectionism that school gifted me, I would be any less susceptible to the demons of my anorexia if I didn't return to school at this point.
I have set up my new blog called The Cake is Now. It is my blog dedicated to anorexia and includes my struggles eighteen months out since I was last hospitalized at Walden Eating Disorders Hospital.
I will include personal essays regarding my concept of Radical Will as well as the lack of medical paradigms to facilitate the therapeutic alliance between the anorexic patient and their health care professionals.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Having just survived the brutal after-effects of prescription detox, my mind wanders quickly to my next and last addiction. Anorexia is a clouded mystery of crippling thoughts; a skewed conscience with deadly consequences.
As I begin year three of this disease I am all to aware of my predisposition for the severe manifestations of this eating disorder. I live in fear of the after effects and revel in the madness of my mind. I am not crazy for being anorexic, I am crazy in spite of it. I look at people and I see them for what they are and not what oblivion makes us want to see or believe. That is one of the silent gifts of anorexia which no one wants to believe.
I am getting ready to return to school. It is the culprit of the ignition of anorexia in my life. Although the disease always laid dormant in my psyche, the centrix of my anorexia is found in my latent conscience. Going back to my late teens and early twenties I see the manifestations of this monster in the web of thought processes I adapted in my everyday life. The seeds of this illness carried forward and flowered as I readied myself to return to the classroom.
Since my detox I have noticed my mind searching and grasping at anything related to weight and body image. I have on top of that a distorted image of time which wrecks havoc on my mind's critical eyes viewing my body.
I am but a month away from returning to school. Already my thoughts are skewed and my obsession with my body is hyper-amped up beyond logical sound.
Stephanie, my fiancée, is very aware and vocal about my tendencies towards the critical and self-loathing I partake in on a daily basis.
She came home last night and asked what I wanted for dinner. I told her I had already eaten a fat-free 100 calorie Greek yogurt. We talked at length about it and decided it would be best for me to return to my eating disorders therapist. I agreed with her that I needed to get ahead of my disease or this time I was going to become my disease.
I don't have much room for error as far as weight loss goes. I have been exercising a lot; walking and doing core exercises. I joined the gym as well. I have plans to return to the gym this weekend, and start running 3-5 miles a day along with doing free weights. I would like to get into the Spartan Obstacle Course Racing or the Tough Mudder Obstacle Course Racing series which I would start racing next Spring. I want to train hard for a solid year and build up my core stamina so I can participate at the high level of fitness I am capable of achieving in less than a year's time.
We bought a new Bullet blender so we can add smoothies to our food intake. Stephanie is not really athletic but she will go to the gym and walk on the treadmill and do core exercises to maintain her weight.
When I return to school in May, I will be able to work out at the fitness center on campus. School unveils many pitfalls in my recovery from anorexia. I wonder what does my life without school look like? Would I be healthier and perhaps over anorexia? I have given this quite a bit of thought, as well as talked to Stephanie at length about the fate of my anorexia. I don't believe after the onset of this disease was brought on by the perfectionism that school gifted me, I would be any less susceptible to the demons of my anorexia if I didn't return to school at this point.
I have set up my new blog called The Cake is Now. It is my blog dedicated to anorexia and includes my struggles eighteen months out since I was last hospitalized at Walden Eating Disorders Hospital.
I will include personal essays regarding my concept of Radical Will as well as the lack of medical paradigms to facilitate the therapeutic alliance between the anorexic patient and their health care professionals.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Tuesday Musings
It has been over six weeks since I last posted. Stephanie and I have been through a hailstorm of discovery. As I got myself clean from all mind-altering chemicals I have become a newly awakened individual.
My chemical and spiritual transformation has happened right before her eyes. The self-inflicted pain caused many changes in me and in us. U-Me is stronger and more fortified than before. I realized a new independence free of pharmaceutical dependence. Living life without Adderall and Xanax is a road trip less travelled.
I was forced to go in-patient and deal with my pharmacological demons. I spent sixteen days undoing twelve years of dependence and crippling imprisonment. Nothing short of a medical miracle. I take no credit as I let detox happen to me as I braced through the moments of sheer terror brought on by the absence of Xanax.
I am here to say I am a badass now like never before. I thought the maniacal manic had something going on with my golden Adderall elixir but nothing compares to this state of mayhem where I choose to live drug-free and unedited. My life and our life was frozen in time in suspended animation like tonic water in a glass filled with ice and vodka.
I forgot to mention that I am also free of opiates and alcohol. I tackled both of those crazies back in January. My senses are still recovering as I rebuild my nerve endings slowly day by day. I am less a prisoner to my surroundings as stimuli rage a less than commendable war on my psyche.
I have recently taken to posting on Instagram and still have yet to return to Facebook. My social media Presence has taken a big hit in the last six weeks. Stephanie and I have slowly risen to partake in the real world. I am retaking my position as a parent and student.
My anorexia did not get lost and I can not claim that I beat it like so much other junk. Prescription drugs were one demon I did conquer but my eating disorder was ravaging throughout my hospital stay and in my first month of recovery. I am strong but it is stronger than I am. I have met my match and unlike the prescription drugs, I do not have a medical intervention that will work on this monster. I am Corey and I am clean but I am still an anorexic........why I wonder can I not get better from it? The medical profession has worked magic on me but is no challenger to my anorexic mindset.
I look in amazement at the sheer strength of my anorexia. It has marched forward since May 2014. Going on three years of this imprisonment and addiction. Yes addiction. I have learnt enough about addictions to know eating disorders are another form of addiction. As I ponder writing more about my concept of Radical Will in anorexic recovery I am bolstered to add to my commentary on addiction.
In the warmth of unseasonably high temperatures I was fast-forwarded to this summer and my weight which I most desperately want to decrease by July. I will be returning to school to in May and will hopefully pick up my anorexia right where I left off.
Pending any radical changes in my life I believe it is safe to think I will be back in my skinny anorexic jeans by August.
Stephanie is dismayed by my attitude however I know it is par for my course and I don't worry at all. Stephanie has seen it enough to know she doesn't want to deal with it again but the reality of my life and Corey is written in the blood and tears of anorexia.
My writing and my work are steeply entrenched in the shadows of the night which anorexia casts on my future and everything I dream and hope to aspire.
My plans in the coming weeks include writing a weekly blog dedicated to anorexia and my life as I live it.
My anorexia blog is going to be called The Cake Is Now and I will write my first post tonight or early tomorrow morning while everyone is still asleep.
The mania that precedes an anorexic burst of weight loss is here and ready for the next round. It goes without notice that even now at 109 pounds I feel heavy and in fact I am 19 pounds heavier than a year ago. Everything is relative but the net gain is tremendous and frightening.
Stephanie and I are heading out for a walk in the dusk of this beautiful day. A four mile walk with my dog, Julia Bleu is before us next.
Have a wonderful night and look for my blog: The Cake is Now.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
My chemical and spiritual transformation has happened right before her eyes. The self-inflicted pain caused many changes in me and in us. U-Me is stronger and more fortified than before. I realized a new independence free of pharmaceutical dependence. Living life without Adderall and Xanax is a road trip less travelled.
I was forced to go in-patient and deal with my pharmacological demons. I spent sixteen days undoing twelve years of dependence and crippling imprisonment. Nothing short of a medical miracle. I take no credit as I let detox happen to me as I braced through the moments of sheer terror brought on by the absence of Xanax.
I am here to say I am a badass now like never before. I thought the maniacal manic had something going on with my golden Adderall elixir but nothing compares to this state of mayhem where I choose to live drug-free and unedited. My life and our life was frozen in time in suspended animation like tonic water in a glass filled with ice and vodka.
I forgot to mention that I am also free of opiates and alcohol. I tackled both of those crazies back in January. My senses are still recovering as I rebuild my nerve endings slowly day by day. I am less a prisoner to my surroundings as stimuli rage a less than commendable war on my psyche.
I have recently taken to posting on Instagram and still have yet to return to Facebook. My social media Presence has taken a big hit in the last six weeks. Stephanie and I have slowly risen to partake in the real world. I am retaking my position as a parent and student.
My anorexia did not get lost and I can not claim that I beat it like so much other junk. Prescription drugs were one demon I did conquer but my eating disorder was ravaging throughout my hospital stay and in my first month of recovery. I am strong but it is stronger than I am. I have met my match and unlike the prescription drugs, I do not have a medical intervention that will work on this monster. I am Corey and I am clean but I am still an anorexic........why I wonder can I not get better from it? The medical profession has worked magic on me but is no challenger to my anorexic mindset.
I look in amazement at the sheer strength of my anorexia. It has marched forward since May 2014. Going on three years of this imprisonment and addiction. Yes addiction. I have learnt enough about addictions to know eating disorders are another form of addiction. As I ponder writing more about my concept of Radical Will in anorexic recovery I am bolstered to add to my commentary on addiction.
In the warmth of unseasonably high temperatures I was fast-forwarded to this summer and my weight which I most desperately want to decrease by July. I will be returning to school to in May and will hopefully pick up my anorexia right where I left off.
Pending any radical changes in my life I believe it is safe to think I will be back in my skinny anorexic jeans by August.
Stephanie is dismayed by my attitude however I know it is par for my course and I don't worry at all. Stephanie has seen it enough to know she doesn't want to deal with it again but the reality of my life and Corey is written in the blood and tears of anorexia.
My writing and my work are steeply entrenched in the shadows of the night which anorexia casts on my future and everything I dream and hope to aspire.
My plans in the coming weeks include writing a weekly blog dedicated to anorexia and my life as I live it.
My anorexia blog is going to be called The Cake Is Now and I will write my first post tonight or early tomorrow morning while everyone is still asleep.
The mania that precedes an anorexic burst of weight loss is here and ready for the next round. It goes without notice that even now at 109 pounds I feel heavy and in fact I am 19 pounds heavier than a year ago. Everything is relative but the net gain is tremendous and frightening.
Stephanie and I are heading out for a walk in the dusk of this beautiful day. A four mile walk with my dog, Julia Bleu is before us next.
Have a wonderful night and look for my blog: The Cake is Now.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Monday, April 10, 2017
The Last Pill
I entered the hospital on March 6th, 2017 for help with the Xanax taper I had been put on by my provider. The action was punitive as a result of me using ten extra Xanax pills to help with opiate withdrawals. I went cold turkey off of opiates in January as most of you already know as a result of being concurrently prescribed opiates and Xanax which come to find out was black-boxed by the FDA in 2016. It specifically bans the concurrent use of opiates and Xanax. My two doctors who shared an office and who both accessed my prescription list were both aware of my concurrent use of Xanax with opiates. I realized today that my pharmacy, Rite Aide was also aware of the concurrent prescribing and never said a word to me about the severity of such prescribing. The pharmacy had before warned me of taking doses that were deemed higher than the FDA approved amount and warned me about another drug and the cardiac and the adverse side-effects panel.
Anyway I found myself in a hole with nowhere to turn. I turned to the hospital and sought medical intervention.
It was deemed appropriate for me to go on a Phenobarbital taper off of Xanax. I went cold turkey off of Xanax with never even a good-bye to my best friend of 12 years. On Monday night after receiving my next dose of Xanax in the Emergency Room I was brought to the Behavioral Health Unit and told to have a seat. Everything seemed like it was going well. I was eventually called over to the medication dispensing window and I cautiously walked over. I wasn't due for my next Xanax and I took my nighttime medication at 8pm so I was perplexed. I got to the window at 5:30pm on Monday March 6th, 2017 and I given my first dose of phenobarbital. I asked about my Xanax with s tightening in my chest and I was told I had taken my last Xanax. Just like that it was gone, from my life forever or at least for right now.
I was dazed and confused but I did like the phenobarbital so I wasn't complaining. I went to bed without any incident as I was told I would be getting phenobarbital every six hours for the time being.
I was given a dose at midnight and woke up wanting something. At six am I was given my next phenobarbital and with that I was okay. Breakfast came and to my surprise, I was given decaffeinated coffee and my Adderall was no longer prescribed. This was some serious hard-core, bad-ass detox!
I righted my sails and adjusted my mindset and continued on with my morning. I was fine except for somewhat moderate discomfort until Thursday morning. Day 3 of my taper things started to get a lot worse. I hit the wall as far as being strung out and out of my mind. Also, my blood pressure began to get dangerously high. The nurses called the doctor for the unit and she increased my blood pressure medication. I had come in on two blood pressure medications to treat uncontrolled blood pressure before I got admitted. It wasn't working and my withdrawals from the Xanax were reaching what I thought were epic proportions. Thursday continued with extremely high blood pressure and no luck by the staff to bring it down. By Thursday night it was decided by Cardiac and Psychiatry that I needed to be admitted to the Cardiac Unit.
I remember being wheeled over to the Cardiac Unit and thinking to myself not so quietly that I was not going back to the Behavioral Health Unit. I got to my room which was a private room with big windows where I could see the stars! I know the stars? Yes, at this point I was truly appreciating the small things in life! A technician came into my room and placed 8 electrodes on various parts of my body. The electrodes were attached to a small device which transmitted cardiac incidents to 6 cardiologists who monitored my heart 24/7. It was 8pm by this point and I was tired and wanted to go to bed. My nurse came in with my nighttime medications which I gratefully took and passed out until the early hours of the morning.
The next few days were challenging at best. I had a multitude of tests run on my heart as well as blood work done daily. I had an echo stress test, an MRI on the vessels in my kidneys, and a CAT scan looking for blockages in my brain. I had hit the black wall and was loosing myself as each moment passed.
At some point my phenobarbital taper got steeper and my doses were cut to every eight hours. I adjusted as quickly as possibly and did no let the walls closing in on me get the better of myself. I had never known anxiety or panic like this in my life. Everything was making my blood pressure rise. I was now on three blood pressure medications with a fourth medication given in my IV for emergencies.
Within a few more days my dosage of phenobarbital got cut to two doses a day. Beside myself in fear and a world dripping in withdrawals my family called a meeting with psychiatry and cardiology. I was crying to my family daily that I was not okay and that my body was breaking. My voice changed to this high pitched stressed out sound and my eyes began to dilate, popping out of my head without blinking. I looked scary and felt scarier. I had this off centered look that only truly crazy people wear.
On Thursday March 165h, I swallowed my last phenobarbital pill. I took a picture of my last tiny white pill. I was then evaluated for the next twenty four hours. It was now that my fear of leaving the safety of the hospital settled into my bones.
On Saturday March 16th, 2017 I was discharged from the hospital and met the real world for the first time in twelve years without Xanax.
This is the beginning of my story from Xanax and other mind altering substances. It is my first time trying to write as all other attempts were met with a futile effort of blankness and writer's block. I plan to get the rest of my story out to bring it to date, and then go back and fill in the psychological gaps.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
Anyway I found myself in a hole with nowhere to turn. I turned to the hospital and sought medical intervention.
It was deemed appropriate for me to go on a Phenobarbital taper off of Xanax. I went cold turkey off of Xanax with never even a good-bye to my best friend of 12 years. On Monday night after receiving my next dose of Xanax in the Emergency Room I was brought to the Behavioral Health Unit and told to have a seat. Everything seemed like it was going well. I was eventually called over to the medication dispensing window and I cautiously walked over. I wasn't due for my next Xanax and I took my nighttime medication at 8pm so I was perplexed. I got to the window at 5:30pm on Monday March 6th, 2017 and I given my first dose of phenobarbital. I asked about my Xanax with s tightening in my chest and I was told I had taken my last Xanax. Just like that it was gone, from my life forever or at least for right now.
I was dazed and confused but I did like the phenobarbital so I wasn't complaining. I went to bed without any incident as I was told I would be getting phenobarbital every six hours for the time being.
I was given a dose at midnight and woke up wanting something. At six am I was given my next phenobarbital and with that I was okay. Breakfast came and to my surprise, I was given decaffeinated coffee and my Adderall was no longer prescribed. This was some serious hard-core, bad-ass detox!
I righted my sails and adjusted my mindset and continued on with my morning. I was fine except for somewhat moderate discomfort until Thursday morning. Day 3 of my taper things started to get a lot worse. I hit the wall as far as being strung out and out of my mind. Also, my blood pressure began to get dangerously high. The nurses called the doctor for the unit and she increased my blood pressure medication. I had come in on two blood pressure medications to treat uncontrolled blood pressure before I got admitted. It wasn't working and my withdrawals from the Xanax were reaching what I thought were epic proportions. Thursday continued with extremely high blood pressure and no luck by the staff to bring it down. By Thursday night it was decided by Cardiac and Psychiatry that I needed to be admitted to the Cardiac Unit.
I remember being wheeled over to the Cardiac Unit and thinking to myself not so quietly that I was not going back to the Behavioral Health Unit. I got to my room which was a private room with big windows where I could see the stars! I know the stars? Yes, at this point I was truly appreciating the small things in life! A technician came into my room and placed 8 electrodes on various parts of my body. The electrodes were attached to a small device which transmitted cardiac incidents to 6 cardiologists who monitored my heart 24/7. It was 8pm by this point and I was tired and wanted to go to bed. My nurse came in with my nighttime medications which I gratefully took and passed out until the early hours of the morning.
The next few days were challenging at best. I had a multitude of tests run on my heart as well as blood work done daily. I had an echo stress test, an MRI on the vessels in my kidneys, and a CAT scan looking for blockages in my brain. I had hit the black wall and was loosing myself as each moment passed.
At some point my phenobarbital taper got steeper and my doses were cut to every eight hours. I adjusted as quickly as possibly and did no let the walls closing in on me get the better of myself. I had never known anxiety or panic like this in my life. Everything was making my blood pressure rise. I was now on three blood pressure medications with a fourth medication given in my IV for emergencies.
Within a few more days my dosage of phenobarbital got cut to two doses a day. Beside myself in fear and a world dripping in withdrawals my family called a meeting with psychiatry and cardiology. I was crying to my family daily that I was not okay and that my body was breaking. My voice changed to this high pitched stressed out sound and my eyes began to dilate, popping out of my head without blinking. I looked scary and felt scarier. I had this off centered look that only truly crazy people wear.
On Thursday March 165h, I swallowed my last phenobarbital pill. I took a picture of my last tiny white pill. I was then evaluated for the next twenty four hours. It was now that my fear of leaving the safety of the hospital settled into my bones.
On Saturday March 16th, 2017 I was discharged from the hospital and met the real world for the first time in twelve years without Xanax.
This is the beginning of my story from Xanax and other mind altering substances. It is my first time trying to write as all other attempts were met with a futile effort of blankness and writer's block. I plan to get the rest of my story out to bring it to date, and then go back and fill in the psychological gaps.
Corey
BORN THIS WAY-2017
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