Cole Carrington (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
burninginside) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
muserevival2014-01-28 12:08 am
burninginside) wrote in muserevival2014-01-28 12:08 am
Entry tags:
Word of the Day 038.
Nostalgia
n. 1. a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time
This morning, one of the staff here helped me out into the gardens to sit and get some fresh air. I was grateful for the change of scenery to that suffocating room, but I've been too ill to do much else. They aren't giving me any clear bill of health yet, but I have to say, today I don't quite feel like I'm on death's door. More like just maybe up the block from death's door, so it's progress.
The counsellor sat with me for a little while out in the garden and asked me how I was coping so far. Well, she didn't actually phrase it like that, because at this early stage, it's impossible to feel like you're coping with anything. It's a miracle if you haven't ripped your own hair out or aren't talking in tongues. Coming off hard drugs, it really is as awful as they say it is. There's no way in fucking hell I could have detoxed on my own. If I tried, I would have killed myself. So, when she asked me how I 'felt I was progressing so far', I told her that. I told her I was grateful to have the professionals around to stop me losing the fucking plot, and to stop me dropping dead, if I'm honest.
I guess it was some sort of casual and impromptu counselling session. They're not shoving the therapy down my throat, which I do appreciate. They're giving me the time to have the physical fall-out of detox, and understand the psychological stress that comes with that. Then on top of that, they add the fact I have PTSD and for a long time, I haven't had any sort of medication for that. I'll probably walk away from all this with a bunch of meds to keep me right, but honestly, I'd rather that and be clean to have a fighting chance of living again.
My first scheduled therapy session is on Wednesday, and with a PTSD specialist. It's a condition that often goes hand-in-hand with drug addiction and the reason I even chose this rehab was their focus on PTSD. Tomorrow, I have a complete physical check too. I can't figure out what is more intimidating, but if any of this wasn't intimidating, it would be easier to palm it off. None of that is really what's completely on my mind today, though.
Being out in the garden, this woman came over and asked if I minded if she sat with me. Apparently I looked lonely, or perhaps like I just wanted to be alone, which is why she asked. I had to actually think of what the difference was because for so long, it was one in the same for me. I was surprised to realise that maybe it was just loneliness, and I welcomed the company for a little while. We sat there in silence for a long time, but it wasn't awkward. It was amusing how, for a split second, she reminded me of Destina when she pointed out I looked like shit. So I told her that was actually a compliment right now.
The conversation took a turn I never expected. She told me she was there because she had been threatened to have her toddler son taken out of her care if she didn't clean up. She was a Yale graduate in nursing and had the world at her feet, but when she lost her newlywed husband in a car crash, it was like her world fell apart and drugs were the only way she could cope. I haven't talked about my own son in a very long time, but I found myself telling her about him and how it wasn't drugs that lost him, it was PTSD too. It made me wonder where my life could have been if I had never met Brendan and stayed closeted. Would I be back in Georgia, in a white collar job providing for my wife and son, a drug habit no where in my life whatsoever?
What-ifs are unhealthy, I know that. But in here, you just can't help but stop and think where you might be if you never fell into the black hole of addiction. For some reason, I don't want to drown out the history anymore, because that is what got me into this mess. I'm going to have to face everything I lost head-on, and I know it's going to be horrifically painful to have all those mistakes re-played for me.
I think I made a friend today. Brothers-in-arms. She even said we should get a cuppa together when I get to the point I can keep anything down. My case manager asked how I would feel about limited contact with people back home, but I found myself saying no for now. I'm lonely and I miss them. I wish like hell I could have a regular chat with Emilio just to hear his voice. But if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it right. I'm not anywhere near ready to let the intentions of rehab slip away or I'll get lax about it and fold. This is rehabilitation, which means restoring myself. Myself. Me. My life, and no one else's. And that is going to take all the energy and focus I have, a fight no one else can do for me.
When I come out of this, I want to be the best person I can be, and if sacrificing my connection to the outside world helps me sink my focus completely on me and getting better for a little while, then I'm going to take my balls in hand and do it. It was the outside world that gave me all the loopholes to fall into all these traps I couldn't get out of, and here away in the middle of nowhere, I have no choice but to do something I have worked so hard not to do since I started using.
Facing myself, and every fuck up that came from not.
Cole Carrington
( original character )
n. 1. a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time
This morning, one of the staff here helped me out into the gardens to sit and get some fresh air. I was grateful for the change of scenery to that suffocating room, but I've been too ill to do much else. They aren't giving me any clear bill of health yet, but I have to say, today I don't quite feel like I'm on death's door. More like just maybe up the block from death's door, so it's progress.
The counsellor sat with me for a little while out in the garden and asked me how I was coping so far. Well, she didn't actually phrase it like that, because at this early stage, it's impossible to feel like you're coping with anything. It's a miracle if you haven't ripped your own hair out or aren't talking in tongues. Coming off hard drugs, it really is as awful as they say it is. There's no way in fucking hell I could have detoxed on my own. If I tried, I would have killed myself. So, when she asked me how I 'felt I was progressing so far', I told her that. I told her I was grateful to have the professionals around to stop me losing the fucking plot, and to stop me dropping dead, if I'm honest.
I guess it was some sort of casual and impromptu counselling session. They're not shoving the therapy down my throat, which I do appreciate. They're giving me the time to have the physical fall-out of detox, and understand the psychological stress that comes with that. Then on top of that, they add the fact I have PTSD and for a long time, I haven't had any sort of medication for that. I'll probably walk away from all this with a bunch of meds to keep me right, but honestly, I'd rather that and be clean to have a fighting chance of living again.
My first scheduled therapy session is on Wednesday, and with a PTSD specialist. It's a condition that often goes hand-in-hand with drug addiction and the reason I even chose this rehab was their focus on PTSD. Tomorrow, I have a complete physical check too. I can't figure out what is more intimidating, but if any of this wasn't intimidating, it would be easier to palm it off. None of that is really what's completely on my mind today, though.
Being out in the garden, this woman came over and asked if I minded if she sat with me. Apparently I looked lonely, or perhaps like I just wanted to be alone, which is why she asked. I had to actually think of what the difference was because for so long, it was one in the same for me. I was surprised to realise that maybe it was just loneliness, and I welcomed the company for a little while. We sat there in silence for a long time, but it wasn't awkward. It was amusing how, for a split second, she reminded me of Destina when she pointed out I looked like shit. So I told her that was actually a compliment right now.
The conversation took a turn I never expected. She told me she was there because she had been threatened to have her toddler son taken out of her care if she didn't clean up. She was a Yale graduate in nursing and had the world at her feet, but when she lost her newlywed husband in a car crash, it was like her world fell apart and drugs were the only way she could cope. I haven't talked about my own son in a very long time, but I found myself telling her about him and how it wasn't drugs that lost him, it was PTSD too. It made me wonder where my life could have been if I had never met Brendan and stayed closeted. Would I be back in Georgia, in a white collar job providing for my wife and son, a drug habit no where in my life whatsoever?
What-ifs are unhealthy, I know that. But in here, you just can't help but stop and think where you might be if you never fell into the black hole of addiction. For some reason, I don't want to drown out the history anymore, because that is what got me into this mess. I'm going to have to face everything I lost head-on, and I know it's going to be horrifically painful to have all those mistakes re-played for me.
I think I made a friend today. Brothers-in-arms. She even said we should get a cuppa together when I get to the point I can keep anything down. My case manager asked how I would feel about limited contact with people back home, but I found myself saying no for now. I'm lonely and I miss them. I wish like hell I could have a regular chat with Emilio just to hear his voice. But if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it right. I'm not anywhere near ready to let the intentions of rehab slip away or I'll get lax about it and fold. This is rehabilitation, which means restoring myself. Myself. Me. My life, and no one else's. And that is going to take all the energy and focus I have, a fight no one else can do for me.
When I come out of this, I want to be the best person I can be, and if sacrificing my connection to the outside world helps me sink my focus completely on me and getting better for a little while, then I'm going to take my balls in hand and do it. It was the outside world that gave me all the loopholes to fall into all these traps I couldn't get out of, and here away in the middle of nowhere, I have no choice but to do something I have worked so hard not to do since I started using.
Facing myself, and every fuck up that came from not.
( original character )