Well, I hit a wall last night. I was incredibly restless, and soda pop wasn’t working, and I ended up on the floor doing a yoga exercise for my back where I put my feet behind my head and rested them on a chair. The tension I was feeling, some sexual tension, but, I think, mostly just tension in general, was unbearable, and, around 9:20, I couldn’t stand to watch TV any longer, and I was forced to go to bed, and hope that I would be able to relax, and sleep. So what happened? Some things changed, but I don’t know how much of that had something to do with it, as the changes I made were intended to help. Anyhow, I thought, maybe a hot shower is waking me up, and, besides, I don’t know that I feel like going through the ordeal, so I just washed up with a rag. And I hadn’t taken any risperidone from the night before. But that was about it. So what was I going to do? Did I need to go back to taking a hot shower to get through the night? It seemed like I shouldn’t have to deal with it if it felt like work, which, last night, it did, so I felt that, in a way, I was still running from something, so, in a sense, you might say I was allowing other things to bubble to the surface. But come on! How long is this bubbling to the surface shit going to last? When am I going to finally be myself?
I was constantly waking up and left to my thoughts and my breathing last night—got out of bed around 7:30, both exhausted and restless, as if I needed a cigarette. Still incredibly restless right now—I just have the coffee and this activity to channel it, to make it bearable, for now. I even tried turning my TV down a little and listening to my clock while I watched TV last night, for about twenty minutes or so, but that really wasn’t helping. So it was an awful night comparable to a night when I had a physics problem I couldn’t understand—except I have to say I hate not being able to stop thinking about something even more, and that wasn’t what was happening on this occasion. It was pure restless energy and misdirected libido energy going haywire. So, because it wasn’t a persistent thought, I figured the absence of the risperidone, which was just a tiny amount, wasn’t a problem—it might have meant more libido, and, because my libido seems to be directly related to my anxiety and restlessness . . . but, again, it was such a small amount—other factors must have been at play. I don’t know. I was fine until after dinner. Then a combination of a boring TV episode and my physical, mental, and emotional state ended up being a train wreck. What are you supposed to do when you can’t do anything because you’re so restless? In the old days you could drink and smoke and get into a TV show—but once you get used to drinking and smoking it no longer has the same effect, that blows up in your face, and all you’re really remembering, when you want to drink and smoke, is how it was when you were very young, and it worked, at least to some extent—you could block out yourself, and the world.
But let’s face it, too—you don’t always sleep well as a smoker, either—you wake up, needing and wanting a cigarette, and that wakes you up, and really you’re miserable, etc. So what are you really dreaming of? A period of about two or three hours when you’re high on alcohol and nicotine and you can get drunk enough to go to sleep in a state of happy oblivion? Even when you’re young, you wake up after about eight hours, needing a cigarette, and coffee, to block out the resurgence of everything you were blocking out with the alcohol and cigarettes the night before. But all this talk about cigarettes is making me want it—but I can’t breathe anymore, my lungs aren’t the same, etc., so even if there weren’t the relapse effects, I couldn’t physically manage it—I wouldn’t be able to breathe. So it’s just me, here, with nowhere to turn—forced to do yoga, on the floor, and meditate, which you can’t do for long, and then what? You have to go to bed and pray that you’ll fall asleep, and have a better day tomorrow. So my frustration, now, again, is this: how can there be anything left to bubble to the surface? I confront everything, and this shit is never ending, so it makes me think—maybe this isn’t just about me needing to accept my sexuality, my talents, my differences, etc. Maybe there’s something else going on. Like I’m just lonely, and frustrated with my condition—but I’ve always been restless, and, ultimately, driven to the floor, doing yoga for my back, trying to work out the tension. So maybe I’ve always been lonely and frustrated with my condition—and what the hell is the answer to that? I fear there may be no answer—that this might just be who I am; my only hope is that a better relationship with Jesus will cure my loneliness, and help me to accept my condition, a life that must be lived apart from my generation, and the reality I imagine.
But I have to say—my days are not so bad, but, for about three hours there, at night, and all throughout the night, I am missing something that, when I was young, alcohol and cigarettes used to provide. A high—a general feeling of wellbeing. But let me get real, again. When I was young—didn’t I, for the most part, just get drunk and bemoan my fate, and my girlfriend woes? Wasn’t I actually miserable, then, too? But the alcohol and the cigarettes took the edge off that, I suppose, and made it possible to sleep, at that time of my life, so there. Taking the edge off, and approaching a state of oblivion, with certain feel good chemicals in my brain to block things out, is what I really miss—and I should be able to get that, naturally, simply from having done a solid day’s work. Now, for the past ten years or so I wasn’t having all these problems, was I? I was taking my risperidone, and getting to sleep, and sleeping through the night—but, frankly, I had no recreation time to myself, then, either. I couldn’t watch TV at night. I couldn’t do much at night but go to bed around 7:30, read for a little while, and go to sleep around 8:30—so I was basically just sleeping though the part of my day that should have been a happy time—a formerly drunken, nicotine induced sense of oblivion, if not acceptance—and, when the world comes knocking, oblivion is not just nothingness—it makes you feel good, it makes you feel at peace, even if you’re not—it’s pleasurable. I needed and wanted that pleasure, and that sense of peace, in my life, and, frankly, I think I deserved it, which, I guess, in some sense, could be part of the problem.
So what am I going to do about all this? The risperidone didn’t actually help me actualize—it suppressed various parts of myself, making my life livable, which was great, compared to where I was, after the shit hit the fan, but in the long run a livable life is insufficient. You need to be yourself, in full, you need to feel pleasure, peace, and happiness overall—not just being happy that you’re no longer miserable, and you’re going in the right direction, but really happy, filled, that is, with a general sense of wellbeing and satisfaction, especially at night, and when you go to bed. But I don’t really know what I can do—and, because I’ve always been restless—not necessarily counting my time on the risperidone, but, again, the risperidone, and the side effects, and sleeping through your troubles as opposed to truly being happy, is not the answer—so I wonder, will I always be a little restless? But I can’t be like this forever—I can’t live my whole life getting through, and enduring, long, insufferable nights. I need to be truly happy. So for now, what? What can I say? Take a time out to do yoga and meditate? To take a hot shower or simply wash up? Maybe, at this time of my life, I needed the hot shower—although it only seemed to extend my evening for about 30 to 40 minutes, and then I was anxious all over again.
But, I suppose, if I take twenty minutes to stretch, and meditate, on the floor, and I take twenty minutes to shower and get ready for bead, and I take an additional thirty minutes to watch TV—that’s a little over an hour—which should get me to ten, which is where I need to be, if I’m going to wake up at a reasonable time—as opposed to 5:00 a.m., etc. Now, in the long run—do I need to go through the ordeal of taking a whole shower? Won’t it kind of be like a bath—something that helped for a while, but something that, ultimately, is unnecessary—because, for example, I will have better, more entertaining things to do? Can’t I just wash up with a rag—something that takes two or three minutes, as opposed to 10 or 15? Something that doesn’t involve a shock to my system, i.e., waking me up? And that, ultimately, is the problem with taking a shower at night, isn’t it? It’s a kind of shock to the system—it wakes you up? It makes you feel like you have a day ahead of you—and that you need to be doing something? Maybe that would change—I don’t know—but it seems, now, that a shower, as a permanent solution, is not the answer, as, well, I should be happy, and relaxed, doing other things, without being driven to take a shower—I should only take a shower, and go through that abrupt change to my system, if I want to—not because I have to in order to make it to 10:00.
Which is why I didn’t shower last night—but, well, we can’t get there all at once, and maybe I’m not ready for the ideal scenario—maybe I need the hot shower to dilute the tension in my body—tension that shouldn’t be there, but, nonetheless, is. So I need a new plan, don’t I? If this isn’t just about accepting my sexuality—if it’s actually about my relationship with Jesus, i.e., I’m not an atheist, or a happy atheist, so, let’s face it, that is all that this can really be about, if it’s nothing to do with me, personally, so, that, necessarily, must be what has to change. And how do I change that? When do I get to stop running, and, instead, enjoying my life, and the world I live in? I’m already praying—but, perhaps, it takes more time. All of it takes time. But I need to see progress—I’ve been chasing my tail, thinking that I just need to accept my sexuality and everything will be fine, but I don’t have a problem with being gay, or bi, or whatever, and I don’t hide it—and people don’t reject me, even if, viscerally, they judge me—but what the hell? That shouldn’t make me miserable. Why the hell do I care? I know I’m not disgusting—I know that, among the right people, I’m not disgusting at all—on the contrary, I’m very attractive. So, again, why the hell do I care? I don’t, not really. So this has to be about Jesus, doesn’t it? Not just an afterlife, but a personal relationship with God, right?
So, what? What can I do about that? I want to be able to read. I’m reading something that I like, but I’m too restless to read it, to enjoy it, so damn, this! And yoga would be so much better with a little wine or a couple shots of liquor! There is no solution, for me, at this time. I think that’s the honest truth. All I can do is play it by ear—but there is nothing that I can put into my body that will make me happy and satisfied, knowing what I know, and being what and who I am, and there is no state of mind I can magically find myself in. There’s not a whole lot I can do but play everything by ear and wait, right? But that’s not really acceptable, is it? Because this shit has got stop—I need progress. Is there some medication I can take—that won’t have bad side effects? I think I’m already taking it, etc. So I’m back to where, and who, I was, minus the alcohol and the nicotine, but, essentially, the same person, just a little more out of the closet, etc. All the work I’ve done, all my achievements, my satisfaction with my output and my product up to this point, isn’t really changing the restlessness I feel, which I might’ve thought it would, so, again, this must be about frustration and loneliness, the absence of an emotional connection, and the only answer to that, for me—and, I suppose, for a whole lot of people, is Jesus—and getting there? Maybe just knowing that will help, maybe a time out for yoga and meditation will help, maybe sticking with a hot shower will help—I don’t know. The jury is still out on that one—an abrupt change to the system, a mild shock, versus a little muscle relaxation, however temporary, which shouldn’t be needed, but, nevertheless, may be needed, at least at this time—to make it, as it were, to 10:00. So all this writing—all this desperate search for a solution, something that I can do, that will ensure that the night to come isn’t a repeat of the last—and what do I have to say for myself? Maybe it’s not my sexuality after all, or maybe, it was, for a little bit, for a little while, but that wasn’t it, last night—I think, now, really I’m me, I always have been, and I don’t give a fuck, what people think, deep down, as long as, for all intents and purposes, they are forced to respect me—so, again, this is really about a state of mind, a relationship with Jesus, and I have to think it, and believe it, and there’s no other solution, and no definitive explanation of how to do this. Maybe in realizing that, in knowing that—and not overthinking my sexuality, and whether or not people know and accept me or not—because, ultimately, I do my part, in my work, so it doesn’t matter, and so, I have to think, in knowing this, in cutting through the bullshit, in accepting that there is nothing I can do but change my state of mind, and develop a better relationship with God, and Jesus, then, well, just maybe, maybe, tonight, that is, I won’t be climbing the walls. And if I am—damn me, there’s nothing I can do but hope, and pray—but I just don’t believe my life is always going to be like this. I never did, and I refuse to believe that, now. It’s just unacceptable.