The Fire Part 5: "Where is My Mind?"

Out of all of the posts that I have written about the fire this one was the most difficult. It requires a level of honesty that goes beyond anything that I have told you so far. This is not to say that the other posts on the fire were not hard for me to write or that I was anything other than honest with you. Every single thing that I have told you so far has been the truth, allowing of course for human error by way of faulty memory.

The honesty required in this post is going to reveal several ugly truths about myself. Why am I writing it then? The same reason that I've written the other posts on the fire, I feel compelled to. I guess that my writing this series of posts is my way to give away what I've been through, to let it go by sending it out into cyberspace. Maybe my writing this is just emotional vomit. I guess that I'll leave that up to you to decide, I simply lack the perspective.

I have said before that I am not writing this to elicit pity from others. I meant that but what you didn't know until now is that I don't want or need your pity because I've pitied myself plenty. I have held pity parties big enough to rival any keg party thrown by a bunch of frat boys. Before this post you have seen my strengths, some have even been kind enough to comment on it. Now you will see my weaknesses. There are many and they do not make me proud. You will see a lot of profanity in this post. It goes with the whole honesty thing. It's in here to tell you what I was really thinking at the time and not to offend.

Let's talk about anger shall we. Anger can be a positive and motivating emotion. More often than not however it eats at your soul. There wasn't any anger when I was initially on the burn unit, I was still in shock. The anger came along a little later when I became acclimated to my situation and had built up a tolerance to the drugs I was on at the time, about the time my hands were sewn into my hips. I mentioned my anger at Jackass being a driving force in my recovery. Jackass was not the first target of my anger though. My first target was God.

I never believed for a moment that God was responsible for the fire. God gave man free will; unfortunately man uses it for terrible things. I have been told by many people (and all of the nurses who saw my hands in the beginning) that it is a miracle that I still have my hands. I can accept and even believe that. I have had several people tell me that it is a miracle that I am still alive. That thought freaks me out to no end. If that is the case it makes me extremely uneasy because that means that God went out of his way to keep me here for a reason. I don't want that kind of fucking responsibility. I sure as shit didn't ask for it.

I was angry at God because he had made me continue living. While part of me was glad to still be alive there was a part of me pissed off that I was being made to live through this. I was ready to die when I let go of that windowsill. Death would have been more merciful and a hell of a lot more peaceful. Did God just not want to deal with me? I wasn't just angry at Him I hated Him. If given half a chance I would have gladly stood in front of God and cussed Him out. I would have told Him that I had occasionally thought in the past that He was fucking cruel and now I knew it to be true. I would have told God that I didn't appreciate being a part of this sick joke. Although I was not suicidal at the time I've wished that I had died that night more times than I can even begin to count over the next several years.

A couple of years ago I did make my peace with God and asked for forgiveness. Our relationship could still use a lot of work on my part but that is between God and me and not part of this story.

When I learned that the fire was arson I didn't immediately hate the person(s) who did it, all I wanted was for them to be captured before they could hurt anyone else. When I learned about Jackass I was angry and hated him a little but it wasn't until I saw him for the first time that I really learned what it is to truly hate another human being. I was warned by Ms. D the ADA, Mr. S the arson investigator, and several other detectives, cops, and bailiffs, not to expect to see any remorse from Jackass. While I heard and understood what they said I think somewhere in the back of my mind some naive part of me thought that this just couldn't be the case. Well it was. The boy just didn't give a shit.

I guess seeing Jackass in person (I had seen his photo in newspaper articles) finally gave me a concrete focal point for my anger as far as who was responsible for what happened to me. I kept joking with the cops during the trial, could they somehow make sure that he "tripped" going down the stairs or at least give me a baseball bat and leave me alone with him for five minutes. I think they thought I was joking. I wasn't.

I think most people have thought at least once in their lives "Oh I wish so and so would just drop dead!" I know what it is like to have murder in my heart. I know what it is to want to kill someone deliberately and with not just premeditation but with great desire. I know what it feels like to want to seriously kill someone and to know that it would make me very, very happy. I'll never be able to take those thoughts back and I know that I am less of a person for having thought them, maybe even not much of a better person than Jackass himself. My desire to kill Jackass has faded away mostly but I do look forward to the day when the state of North Carolina does it for me.

When I didn't want to kill Jackass I wanted to hurt him, badly. This usually happened when I was in a lot of pain. More times than I can even begin to count I've wanted to grab a baseball bat and go into his jail cell. I wanted to break every bone in his feet for the rainy days when it hurts to walk. I wanted to shatter his kneecaps for making it almost impossible for me to kneel, for making it a struggle to get around when it snows more than six inches. I wanted to take that baseball bat to both of his fucking hands until his bones were nothing but dust. I would restrain myself from killing him (if I could) so he could suffer. I don't wish for this much anymore. My hatred for Jackass has faded but has not completely gone away. I find it impossible, even with prayers for help on this matter, to forgive someone who doesn't ask for it or doesn't even think that he should. I guess that this is another reason that I want to go to his execution. I pray that at least then I'll be able to forgive him. It's stupid to hate a dead man.

Everything that I've mentioned still weighs heavily on my soul. Even though I know I am forgiven because I've asked for it I still feel like there is a dark stain on my soul that will never wash off. Part of me thinks that you can't be touched by evil without some of it rubbing off on you. Most of me knows that this can't happen unless you let it. I guess somehow I let it then. I used to think that I was a peaceful person. I no longer suffer from that delusion.

For a long time I wished that some stupid asshole would be dumb enough to fuck with me. I would just love to have a legal reason to kick someone's ass and take out my anger on them. Some days I actually yearned for this to happen. While this too has faded I am ashamed to admit that it hasn't faded as much as I would like it to. I'm not saying that I have ever gone or will ever go looking for a fight but if one came my way I would welcome it and probably enjoy it as well. Before the fire whenever someone wanted to fight I always walked away no matter how much I wanted to stay and fight. That part of me might be long gone. I know it would be my choice to join in the violence. I guess I just feel that I was attacked in a way where there was no possible manner in which to defend myself and given the chance again... Well you know. I am not saying that this is any sort of an excuse it's just how I feel. I feel like I'm part monster and not just because my scars make me look a bit like Frankenstein’s bride. Now on to mental illness...

When I was on the burn unit Dr. M told me that I needed to get counseling for what I'd been through. He told me that healing had as much to do with the mind and the spirit as it does with the body. I did not follow up on his suggestion right away. In fact it wasn't until the summer or fall of '96 that I finally got counseling, just a couple of months after the trial. The physical therapist I was seeing told me that she had a friend who worked out of her home and although she did not take Medicare or Medicaid she did take on cases at no charge. So I met Cindy (not her real name) and I liked her very much.

In the beginning most of my visits with Cindy were simply just bitch sessions. I did cover the things that I mentioned above. I was depressed during the trial. I did have small episodes of depression after each surgery but this is not unusual for someone who has just had surgery. It usually hit me about two weeks after my surgery. This was usually the time when I was weaning off the pain pills and my thoughts ran that if the stitches were out and I was off the pills I should be able to use my hand, so why can't I. It almost always lasted a week or so and then I was fine again. Cindy said something to me one day and I thought that she was the crazy one. She told me that I would most likely have a harder time mentally after all the surgeries were over. I thought what in the hell could be worse than going through all of these bizarre fucking surgeries?

It turns out she was right. During the surgeries I had something to fight, a tangible, physical focus. This is going to sound like a really bad horror movie ad, but the things you can't see are the things that get you. It’s easy to struggle with recovering from a surgery or learning how to do a task over again compared to dealing with your inner demons. In fact I'd almost rather have thirty more surgeries than deal with what is in my head. My head can be a very dark and frightening place. When the surgeries were over I started suffering from chronic, clinical depression.

At first I thought it was something that I was going to deal with and that it would simply go away with a little time. I had picked myself up by bootstraps before and I could damn well do it again, no problem. Big problem, I couldn't do it. For a long time (far too long really) I refused to take any medication for my depression. No way, I could pull myself out of this, besides I felt like taking antidepressants was a sign of weakness.

When my depression got worse I tried some over the counter remedies, St. Johns Wort, Sam E and the like. I thought ok maybe I just need a little nudge. During this time Cindy was urging me to go to the doctor and take antidepressants but I just wouldn't do it. It took me getting to the point to where I couldn't even go out of my apartment to get my mail before I relented and asked my doctor for help. I was getting out of bed and getting dressed but I just couldn't bring myself to go outside. I had someone ask me once why I even bothered to get out of bed each day. My answer was simple, I have to pee and I want my morning cup of coffee. No heroics there, just a bodily function and a caffeine addiction.

For a while I did fine with the pills although I tried several that didn't work and some that only worked for a time and then stopped working before finding a something that worked. I've been on Prozac, which I had to quit because of the sexual side effects. I wish that I could take it because it is the happiest of all of the happy pills. I've tried Paxil, which made me so dizzy that I couldn't stand and Zoloft, which made my heart race so badly that I actually went to the emergency room. I have also been on Wellbutrin, Effexor, Celexa, Elavil, Seroquel (an anti-psychotic), Depakote (usually given to manic-depressives), Lamictal (also for manic-depression), Atarax, Ativan, and Klonopin. The last three pills are for anxiety. I've taken these pills separately and in different combinations. I think I've forgotten the names two or three other pills that I've taken.

After I had the depression pretty much under control I started suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It wasn't too bad at first, just some mild panic attacks and some anxiety. What pushed me over the edge was September 11th. I feel so damn corny saying that but it's true. Seeing those people leaning out the windows trying to get away from the smoke and the fire and knowing that some of them were jumping really got to me. I could truly empathize with them up to a point.

So I started to get a little squirrelly again. Cindy sent me to a psychologist for something called EMDR. EMDR is short for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It's kind of hard to explain but the short version is that the goal is to reprogram the thought process in your head, to fix the short circuit that is causing you to have PTSD. It helped some. My first session was about two weeks before Christmas and that year was the first time since the fire that I didn't cry at Christmas.

I yo-yoed around for a while. I would feel ok and then I would start feeling like shit again so we'd do the happy pill shuffle and then I’d feel good again and on and on and on. It was a little over two years ago when I was in a down cycle that I met the bitch that had me thrown in the loony bin.

A friend of mine knew this lady who is a psychic and does tarot readings and asked if I would want one for free. I thought why the hell not. It might be fun. I've had one or two done before, no big deal. So this chic comes over (I honestly don't even remember her name) and gives me my reading which pretty much says you will be having more of the same, just what I needed to hear. So she calls me the next day to check up on how I’m doing and I tell her that I’m pretty bummed. She asks me a pretty weird question, "What would you do if you ran into yourself right now?" Like a dumbass (but not that Dumbass) I answer honestly, "I'd probably beat the shit out of myself right now." Some days you just feel like kicking your own ass.

The next thing I know there are two cops at my door and I’m wondering what the hell is going on. Apparently the bitch who had met me just one time called the cops on me because she thought I was suicidal. I get patted down, put into the back of a police car, and taken to the hospital. To say that I was upset would be an understatement. While at the hospital I talked to the psychiatric intake nurse. I did this in a calm manner all the while explaining to her that I was not suicidal (although I had been suicidal before I was not at that time) only depressed and that the lady that called the cops on me had only met me yesterday and spent two hours with me. I was locked up anyway. I swear if I ever see that woman again I’ll knock her on her fucking ass. I believe I informed my friend of this when they let me out.

So there I was locked up and feeling trapped. That really helped my state of mind. There is nothing I love more than that you can't escape feeling. I get yanked off of the medications that I was on (you're supposed to be weaned off antidepressants) and thrown on an antipsychotic and a med for bipolar disorder (manic depression). The psychiatrist in charge of my case (I don't remember his name but would like to call him stupid motherfucker) told me that I was bipolar. Bullshit! I have never made any claims to sanity, not before the fire and certainly not after. Normal is a setting on the washer. I knew I had problems but I also knew that being bipolar wasn't one of them.

Apparently saying someone is bipolar is the diagnosis de jour. When I told my Mom (who did work in a psychiatric hospital for a while) and Cindy of the diagnosis they both agreed that the doctor was an idiot. So did my new therapist and my group therapy leader. I eventually got the diagnosis ruled out and removed from my chart.

After a five day forced stay in a lock down ward that I don't remember because the meds were messing with my head so badly, I went home. I was dizzy as hell for the next two weeks because of the medication, and life was hell. I was assigned a therapist/case manager at an outpatient treatment center. Cindy said that I should go to this new therapist because she thought that we had gone as far as we could together in our sessions. We were pretty much friends at that point which negates the whole therapist/client relationship. A fresh perspective would be good. I still see Cindy from time to time.

I met my new therapist Donald and liked him very much. When I told him about the diagnosis he told me that it was in vogue and not to worry about it. He was only my therapist for about eleven months before he took a job somewhere else but he listened well, gave me good advice, got the bipolar diagnosis removed from my chart, and got me into group therapy for my panic attacks.

I was almost as reluctant to go into group therapy as I was to start taking antidepressants. I am not a "group" kind of person. I decided to go though because my panic attacks were becoming debilitating. I'm glad I did. The group was led by a woman named Emily and was a women only group because a lot of the women in the group were raped and beaten. I went once a week for about six months. I will say that being locked up in a loony bin was almost worth it because of that group. It was not a group whine session like I thought it would be. We were mainly taught strategies on how to cope with panic attacks/PTSD and shared what worked and what didn't, etc. It helped tremendously. I finally got the better of my panic attacks at the beginning of this year. I started having one and said to myself, "Knock it off, there is nothing fucking wrong and you are in a safe place so just knock it the hell off!" It worked! Yet another example of anger coming in handy. Anytime after that when I've felt an attack coming on I can stop it in less than ten seconds.

After Donald left it took them about three months before I was assigned a new therapist named Katie. She was helpful but very young and after seven months she left (this place has a high turnover rate). So I was going on my third therapist in two years. Katie left at the end of April. I get a call at the end of July from this woman who says that she is my therapist and she is calling to tell me that she is leaving. ??? I asked her that if she was my therapist how come we'd never met. She said that Katie said in my chart that I was doing well and only seeing the doctor for happy pills. While this was the case for a while the last time I saw Katie I was having a nervous breakdown and told her to put a note in my chart saying that I needed to start seeing someone again. Apparently Katie failed to do so. When I bitched to my therapist I'd never met about that and having three therapists in two years and not even meeting one of them she gave me some numbers of some other clinics in the area. I really need to give them a call and see it they are taking new patients.

My relationship with my happy pill doctor isn't much better. I had one for about two months and then got switched to Dr. S who I am still seeing now. When I saw doctor number one I bitched that one of my meds (Depakote) was making my hair fall out and that if it kept up there wasn't a pill in the world that would keep my ass sane. He didn't listen but I met with Dr. S shortly thereafter and he agreed to take me off the pill. He put me on another one in its place (Lamictal). I was also taking Seroquel at the time. The Lamictal and the Seroquel didn't work well together and I felt overmedicated.

I was seeing Donald at the time and bitched about the problem and the fact that I could not get in to see Dr. S until my next scheduled appointment two months away. I asked Donald if he thought if it would be ok if I just went ahead and weaned myself off the Seroquel (which I shouldn't have been on in the first place because it's an antipsychotic and I'm just a complete neurotic). While Donald said he couldn't officially tell me to do that he said unofficially that he thought that it would be fine since I was going to wean myself off rather than just stop. He told me to write a letter to take to the doctor when I saw him again outlining the reasons why I was quitting. I not only wrote the letter I kept a log of how I weaned myself off of the Seroquel as well.

So I was on the Lamictal and doing just fine. I did ask Dr. S why I was on a medication for manic depression when I wasn't bi-polar and that diagnosis had been removed from my chart. He said that given all of the antidepressants I’d been on that sometimes you had to look elsewhere to seek relief. In other words when they run out of pills to give you they start throwing anything at you that they can think of to make you better. It's not an exact science I guess. I did well on the Lamictal and after about six months I asked if at some point I could go off the medication to see if my brain chemistry had fixed itself. I was told that after being on the pill for eighteen months I could give it a try if all went well.

Right before going off the Lamictal I started having what I thought were health problems and felt so bad one day that I went to the ER. It was after six on a Friday, otherwise I would have gone to see my doctor Dr. C, who is wonderful and attentive to her patients. They checked me out and ran a bunch of tests which all came back normal. They had asked me when I came in if I had panic attacks in the past. I informed them that yes I used to but I had them under control and that this was not a panic attack. I knew what a panic attacks felt like and how to deal with them and this was no panic attack. They discharged me with the diagnosis that I was having a panic attack and told me to come back if my symptoms got worse or if I passed out. I was mad as hell and cried all the way home. I plan to do a post in the future on the state of the mental health care system and how mental patients are labeled and treated. It will not be a glowing review I can tell you that right now.

While I still felt weird over the next few days the symptoms did pass. Dr. C was out of town for a couple of weeks but I did make an appointment to see her when she got back because it was time for my yearly check up anyway.

It was time for me to start weaning off the Lamictal. At first it went great, no signs of depression or increased panic attacks. Then I started having problems with anxiety. I woke up feeling like I was going to scream one morning. The methods I'd used to stop my panic attacks didn't work. Every sound was jarring and overwhelming. It took me forty-five minutes to talk myself out of bed, telling myself that everything was ok and to calm down.

I called the mental health clinic and asked to speak to the doctor. No dice, they don't patch patients directly through to the doctors which makes sense when you think about it. I was told to contact Katie to see if she could help. Katie looked and saw that there weren't any appointments open until my next one with him a month away. I asked her to please leave him a message to see if God forbid he'd be willing to stay ten minutes late or if he would even call me on the phone. Katie made an appointment to see me the next week. She said that my best bet was to call every day to see if there was a cancellation or come in at eight each morning and wait (sitting in a waiting room was not an option in my current frame of mind).

After calling for a few agonizing days and getting nowhere I called again and talked to the receptionist. She told me that my best bet was to talk to the triage nurse, so I got a machine and left a detailed message, this was at 11:00AM. I hadn't heard back from them by 3:30PM so I called again and talked to the receptionist who told me that Katie and most of the doctors go home early on Fridays (I now know to never have a crisis on a fucking Friday) and maybe I should go to the ER. I explained to her that there was no way in hell that I was going to the ER and couldn't she please just page the nurse so I could talk to her in person.

I got to talk to the nurse in person and I told her what was going on, again. She told me the same thing the receptionist did and I asked if she just couldn't pull my chart and see that I was taking Lamictal and explained my symptoms, again. I also asked if I couldn't get something to chill me out as well (not in those words exactly). When you go on Lamictal you have to start at 25mg and work you way up. I was taking 200mg before I quit and I knew that 25mg might help but not much. She said that she would see what she could do and would call me back. I hear from her over an hour later and she asked me if I could be at the clinic by 5:00. I told her that I damn well would be.

When I showed up I got a prescription for a Lamictal start-up pack. I was told that I would get nothing else for the anxiety as I might be drug seeking. They told me that they didn't think that this was the case but they didn't want to risk it. If I wanted something else I'd have to wait and see my doctor, the appointment was two weeks away. Fine I was seeing my personal physician on Thursday next week anyway.

I go to see Dr. C on Thursday and I'm feeling a little better but not much. I'm taken back to the exam room and it is stuffy and hot as hell since they hadn't started up the AC yet for the year. This starts to make me more anxious than I already am. Fortunately the nurse said that the window opened, so I opened it to let some fresh air in. This made me feel better until a tractor trailer truck started pulling up right outside my room; lots of that fun beep beep beep and the sound of a large truck idling twelve feet away from the window. Then the truck started to make this horribly loud noise. I look at the side of the truck and read that it was a professional document shredding service. This goes on for ten minutes and I seriously thought I was going to end up curled up in a ball in the middle of the floor screaming. It was only by sheer force of will that I didn't end up that way and it was very close. It is so much fun being a fucking whack job!

When Dr. C comes into the room I clued her in as to what had been going on and she informed me that I have severe, chronic anxiety. This disorder is completely different from panic attacks and does not respond to the methods used to stop panic attacks. It also causes the strange medical symptoms I was experiencing when I went to the ER. I did tell her that when I was off the meds I did not experience any depression and only had one panic attack. The panic attack I had was on the day I was waiting to hear back from the nurse about my Lamictal. My smoke alarm goes off for no reason whatsoever (it was broken and was replaced two weeks later after repeated false alarms), which is a PTSD trigger for me under any circumstances let alone when I feel like I'm literally coming out of my skin. Despite how anxious I was I was still able to stop the panic attack in about thirty seconds.

Dr. C gives me a prescription for Atarax which is used for mild anxiety. She does not want to give me something stronger because she wants to leave that up to Dr. S because his knowledge of happy pills is more extensive than hers. She does write me a letter to give to him stating that I needed to be given something stronger for my anxiety as soon as possible. Cool.

I go and drop off the note for Dr. S before I even go get my Atarax prescription filled. The Atarax helped some but I was still pretty anxious. Loud noises were still bothering me the most and a couple of times I seriously considered killing some yappy dogs in my neighborhood. It felt so great to conquer depression and panic attacks just to have to face this shit, one step forward, two steps back.

So I go and see Katie on Wednesday the next week wondering what the deal is since I hadn't heard from Dr. S about the note. I asked Katie about it and she said that the note was put into her box (nobody gets in to see the wizard). I asked her if she gave it to Dr. S and the stupid bitch said no, would you like me to do that for you. Well yeah you clueless dipshit since that's who the note was for in the first place! What I said was, "Yes please." So I finally hear from Dr. S two days later and he tells me that he has called in a script for Klonopin a much stronger anti-anxiety medication. It helped but I was a zombie for about a week or so. I didn't give much of a shit at that point.

When I see Dr. S I explain everything and mentioned what happened at the ER happened when I was on the Lamictal but it wasn't as bad as when I was off it. We add Wellbutrin to the mix since the leading medications for anxiety are ones that I can't tolerate. I was to wait two weeks until the Wellbutrin levels were built up in my bloodstream and then I was to wean off the Klonopin. Klonopin is not meant for continual long term use because it can be habit forming.

It went well for a week or two and then I started feeling wired and overmedicated again. I still felt much better and wasn't overly anxious so I continued with the plan and started weaning off the Klonopin. I did more or less alright until the first day I didn't take any at all which was about three weeks ago. I made it until about six in the evening before I thought, "Fuck this shit, I'm taking a pill!"

I saw Dr. S last week and admitted to not being able to wean off the Klonopin completely. I also told him that I felt overmedicated again and asked why should I stay on the Lamictal when my symptoms started while I was on it. He agreed that it was a good idea for me to wean off the Lamictal and told me that since I was taking low doses of Klonopin I could still take it. I told him that I was at the end of my current Lamictal prescription and while I thought that I might have one refill left I wasn't sure so could he please write me a script for me. I got all of my prescriptions (I should have checked them) and made my next appointment. When I got home I realized that the script for Lamictal wasn't there. I check my bottle and I did not have a refill left. Do I really need to tell you what a pain in the ass it was to try and get that straightened out? I really, really need to call those other places and see if they are accepting new patients.

While I am not currently seeing a therapist (because I am waiting to be assigned a new one) I did start seeing a hypnotherapist about three months ago. NO, I do not cluck like a chicken every time the phone rings. I bark like a dog every time I hear a car horn. Al has helped me a lot. All that happens is that he relaxes me to the point where I am just about to fall asleep and asks me questions and helps me create safe places to de-stress and do my inner work. He says I do all of the work and that hopefully we will be calling it quits soon and I will continue working on my own with the tools he gave me.

So far I have gotten a lot out of the hypnotherapy which is another thing I was reluctant to try by the way. The biggest test came this past weekend. My boyfriend of the past year and half (who has been amazing through all of this) got tickets to the Panthers' pre-season opener against the Bills on Saturday night. I am a frothing, crazy, rabid Panther fan. The tickets were in the nosebleed section. I have been in the nosebleed section of a stadium before the fire and I hated it. I felt like I was going to fall off. I'm also not crazy about really large crowds. So when I saw Al on Thursday we worked on these problems with the hope that I could enjoy the game.

When I first got to the seats the stadium was still relatively empty and I was a little freaked out but not as bad as I thought as I was going to be. Going up the stairs was not a problem other than the fact that it winded the hell out of me. Going down the stairs was scary. Even though I just looked down at the next step in front of me and used a death grip on the railing the first couple of times I went down the stairs my legs were shaking pretty badly. It got better later but there were also more people in front of me then to break my fall. The crowd didn't bother me at all. The stadium was about eighty percent full and fortunately it wasn't too crowded where I was sitting. After the game my boyfriend told me over and over how proud he was of me. Al did too, he wanted me to call him and let him know it went and I called him this afternoon. We beat the Bills 14 - 13. I had a blast.

So here I am. Ten years of conventional therapy, thirteen pills that I can think of (there are more I just can't remember them), four therapist (three that I've met), one forced stay in the psych ward, EMDR treatment, group therapy, and one hypnotherapist later. I think I'm getting better and I'm working like hell for it, I just hope it's for real and that some day I'll be over all of this. I don't think I could stand another setback. I am so tired of being fucked in the head. I really am.

Well, all I have left to talk about are the speeches I used to give, where I'm at now, and tying up any loose ends (I wish I could do that in real life). In case you are interested about the title quote "Where is My Mind?" is the name of a song preformed by The Pixies. If you haven't heard of The Pixies you might have heard the song anyway, it's playing at the end of the movie Fight Club. If you want to hear the song, it is the second one in my player over to the right. "Way out in the water somewhere swimming..."