So I am writing a book about interesting parts of my life. It is tentatively called "Manic Progression; Sex, drugs, rock n' roll, and Bi-polar"
Here is an excerpt I dropped on to Facebook this Memorial Day weekend; let me know what you think...
SPEED BUMP ON THE WAY OF GETTING HEALTHY...
2003: Freshly moved from Boston to Coventry, RI in a comfortable 3 bedroom house on a lake with 2 of my best childhood pals. I had left the Boston-area of attending college and doing the Typhoon Ferri thing for nearly 8 years. I lived in Grand Central-esque jam house as the door was mostly unlocked and lots of musicians and bands practiced and jammed there. Ahh, good old Brighton, MA on a street that may have been the only one in Boston i could ALWAYS find a parking spot....
Now that I lived in worked in RI, I decided to find a doctor. My roommate would talk about his. He wasn't a big fan and did not always see eye-to-eye with her, but I said 'fuck it,' I don't have the energy to research and I don't want a dude making me cough so I called up her office.
To me it seemed obvious that something was wrong with me. No idea what, but it was time to come clean with myself because those 'things that are just in your head and will go away,' never did go away. I foolishly never kept a diary because I have forgotten so many things (with my ailments, I'd be shocked if I was able to maintain any type of consistency in any way in the form of data entry) and therefore many things I recollect in my adulthood I have trouble putting an exact time frame on it. I don't think those memory lapses were helped by my smoking copious amounts of weed and averaging about 3 hours sleep per night in my roaring 20s! So here I am, nearing 30 and I finally made an adult decision. Get to a fucking doctors office! So I enroll at Dr Lanna's office (her real name since she deserves accolades for righting the ship, after nearly killing me!). Details are sketchy, in fact I cannot even remember my first appointment. She was nicknamed the Blood Doctor because she loved to send her patients to get blood testing. Good for me, because my first test revealed lots of things, the most obvious being that I made a good decision to go to the doctors.
The follow-up (or f/u on my med report, always makes me chuckle) appointment to review my blood work was quite revealing (as well as other blood tests going forward). First, I had virtually no B-12 in my system. At that point a B-12 Shot was jabbed into my arm to where I instantly felt better (I always had sore joints, arms and lack of energy prior to this visit). I had high cholesterol, high blood pressure (already learned on first visit), high tri-glycerides (a path to diabeties), high uric acid levels (a path to gout), 15-20 lbs overweight, high Iron content (the cause of sore joints?)....what am I fucking 80 years old? It was a mega dose of reality. That B-12 was the starting point of my very slow progression back to health. To combat the cholesterol, I was told to try Omega Guard on shaklee.net (fish oil). To keep my vitamins, I was then recommended to try B-Complex from shaklee.net (is my Dr on the take here, I thought?). Naturally, I am now on blood pressure medication. The iron level and gout were actually ailments that soon followed consistent visits so I began to have my blood drained every 8 weeks at the RI donor center to eliminate the iron and then I was prescribed meds to keep my uric acid levels safe (since I was in the seafood business and I loved wine, no way was I going to quit either). But, before the two pills were prescribed I wanted to find out what the fuck was wrong with my mind.
Most of my childhood and into adulthood, I was lazy, bored easily, easily distracted, and found it hard to pay attention or complete a project once I struggled or something better came along. It is a good thing there is an advanced functioning brain in my cranium which allowed me to bullshit my way through high school and college, although from time-to-time, teachers were offended by my constant zzzzz's in class. Sorry, couldn't help it. Worse, I did it in classes with teachers I liked! It was frustrating. I hated letting people down. I had a tremendously guilty conscience. ADHD and ADD was not really the thing back in my childhood years. When I began the process of figuring out what was wrong, I had a conversation with my Mother and she recalled my 2nd grade teacher having the ability to project I had some sort of ADD type behavior that would catch up to me in college (it did!). But before that I had to start talking to my doctor who assumed as well, it was ADHD and sent me to a specialist. I took the test and aced it....Ritalin here I come... OH SHIT!
I don't recall my reaction to the diagnosis and new prescription. I was not really proud to be medicated. I also knew I was perfect in my Mother's eyes, so admitting to her I wasn't was hard on me as I bet it was hard on her but she was always a good sport about it. At the same time, I am thinking... who the hell gets diagnosed at nearly 30 anyway? Well, today at 39 it was the right path to go, but at 30 it almost killed me or got other people killed...here's how....
After I was diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed a light does of Ritalin, I started feeling good. I felt in a way I always envisioned...focused and productive. When I can succeed at both, I am a happy man! I was so used to half-assing my way through everything I was soon 3/4-ing my way through everything. That imporvement was at least good enough to improve my mental state a little. My friends and roomies were all on some sort of meds..all different from one another but we were all searching for a better high, a better mental state so we started sharing. Energy drinks became a part of my steady diet more and more.. plus endless runs to Dunkin Donuts for lattes while playing video games and smoking weed and drinking wine. Soon, I felt the need for speed, speed and more speed! I wanted Adderall, I wanted bigger doses of Ritalin, 5 hour energy, more Ritalin, who had Adderall? Any Lexapros around??? Thank GOD none of us were into coke or I would have dove head first with a wet suit on. My extrmemties started always feeling cold and my arms shaking, heart racing...not thinking things through calmly or deliberately. I began to slowly stumble again. My roomies would have some bouts of isolation and depression. I needed constant company and attention. I needed a Red Bull. "Who's going to Dunkin' Donuts?"
Eventually, an incident happened that changed everything. It was there I learned that I have a Guardian Angel. I also learned that Ritalin and ADHD were not the answers to my problem. It was something else. This incident is the most horrifying wake-up call of my life (and I have had a few) and it occured (I think) around the spring of 2004. Typhoon Ferri had a gig at Big City in Allston, MA. I was living and working in Rhode Island and naturally running late. Mind you, running late was a huge burden on me. It made me angry, reactive, sweaty, shaky, cranky and downright oblivious to safety matters while driving a car. I had made prior arrangements to stop by a buddy's place to score a dimebag of weed. I needed it to calm me down because I was chilly, hyper, crazy and stressed out and manic because I was running late. So, I am back in my old 'hood to see my friend. He lived on a one way that tails slightly downhill towards Washington, St (which is the busiest street in Brighton, MA). It is circa 6pm so there is still some steady traffic rolling around, tail end of rush hour on a weekday. His house is the second to last one on the right before the main street. The last house is surrounded by a cement wall that goes to the corner of Washington St and blinds anyone on Washington St from the one-way street. The table is set for my arrival, so I park my little Mazda 626 at the edge of his driveway, between two legally parked cars. I race out of the car and sprint up his driveway. Just as I am about to knock on the door, I hear a loud SMASH! I heard no other sound before nor after that. I paused for a second, looked towards my car...it wasn't there! I was in shock but merely for a split second. I raced to the end of my bud's driveway, looked to the right and there was the ass end of my car, across Washington St, perched in a dug-out before a large apartment building. I sprint after it and notice that the SMASH was the result of my car flattening a STOP sign. I cross the road and access the situation. My car was still in DRIVE!!! 'What the fuck?' I thought. It is a habit to naturally putting a car in PARK well, when you fucking park! I look around. A lady is screaming 'You could have killed someone!' (or something like that) as I began to block her out because I really wanted to say 'No shit, Sherlock!' but I think I was in brief shock. In fact, I don't recall much reaction aside from enhanced paranoia from the inability to calm myself from the Red Bulls, Amps, Ritalins and who knows what else flowed in my bloodstream. I realized, that my car, while still in DRIVE, climbed the sidewalk, scaled the wall downhill (causing major damage to my side and right rearview mirror), smashed the STOP sign and somehow managed to crawl accross Washington St without the beep of a horn or the screech of a tire ($6000 of body work was needed). More importantly, no one was hurt. Someone could have been walking on Washington St towards the side street only to be flattened by my un-manned car and killed or severaly hurt. What if it was someone pushing a little baby in carriage? The pain and guilt I would have endured for life would have led me to institution or worse...death! Anyone who knows me knows I am not one who gets off on hurting or harassing people. But, then and there I looked up at the sky and said "Thank you!" For, that was the moment I felt I had a Guardian Angel. I even lucked out with the Police. I think the cop just didn't want to deal with paperwork after I told him what happened. No sobriety test? He did say I would have to pay for the STOP sign. 'Um, ok' I thought. It certainly could have been a lot worse. Shit, it could have been the end of my freedom!
I got to the gig and the band was there setting up. I looked like a ghost. I was still shaking. If I recall, I started off roughly on the bass, flubbing notes and generally being in a state of shock. Music heals, but nothing can take away from that scary incident. Clearly, ADHD was not my problem. But what was? I was clearly craving to do things bigger, faster, and stronger. I was doing fine for such a short period of time and then it slowly began to change for the worse. I went back to my doctor and claimed I didn't want to take Ritalin anymore. It was killing me or worse would cause me to kill or hurt others. I was desperate. We got in a fight. She said she wouldn't just prescribe anything to anyone admitting to smoking marijuana and that I was just looking for a cheap high with other drugs. I was incensed and perplexed. Clearly she was 200% wrong because I wanted to get better. I don't remember the feeling I must have felt upon leaving the doctor's office that day but I bet, anger, confusion, fear, loathing were all part of the equation. Strangely, the next day, one of her assistants called me to apologize on her behalf (as if!!??). I felt slightly better because of that but lost some respect for the doctor because I'd preferred an face-to-face apology. But again, I didn't want to hunt for a new doctor and I had already begun to go through a lot with her. So, I began to work with the nurses practitioner more (I think the Dr was now afraid of me!?) Soon we came to a new conclusion that there was maybe something different wrong with me. This time we got it right. This time I was ready to make the slow progression into healthy....
Here is an excerpt I dropped on to Facebook this Memorial Day weekend; let me know what you think...
SPEED BUMP ON THE WAY OF GETTING HEALTHY...
2003: Freshly moved from Boston to Coventry, RI in a comfortable 3 bedroom house on a lake with 2 of my best childhood pals. I had left the Boston-area of attending college and doing the Typhoon Ferri thing for nearly 8 years. I lived in Grand Central-esque jam house as the door was mostly unlocked and lots of musicians and bands practiced and jammed there. Ahh, good old Brighton, MA on a street that may have been the only one in Boston i could ALWAYS find a parking spot....
Now that I lived in worked in RI, I decided to find a doctor. My roommate would talk about his. He wasn't a big fan and did not always see eye-to-eye with her, but I said 'fuck it,' I don't have the energy to research and I don't want a dude making me cough so I called up her office.
To me it seemed obvious that something was wrong with me. No idea what, but it was time to come clean with myself because those 'things that are just in your head and will go away,' never did go away. I foolishly never kept a diary because I have forgotten so many things (with my ailments, I'd be shocked if I was able to maintain any type of consistency in any way in the form of data entry) and therefore many things I recollect in my adulthood I have trouble putting an exact time frame on it. I don't think those memory lapses were helped by my smoking copious amounts of weed and averaging about 3 hours sleep per night in my roaring 20s! So here I am, nearing 30 and I finally made an adult decision. Get to a fucking doctors office! So I enroll at Dr Lanna's office (her real name since she deserves accolades for righting the ship, after nearly killing me!). Details are sketchy, in fact I cannot even remember my first appointment. She was nicknamed the Blood Doctor because she loved to send her patients to get blood testing. Good for me, because my first test revealed lots of things, the most obvious being that I made a good decision to go to the doctors.
The follow-up (or f/u on my med report, always makes me chuckle) appointment to review my blood work was quite revealing (as well as other blood tests going forward). First, I had virtually no B-12 in my system. At that point a B-12 Shot was jabbed into my arm to where I instantly felt better (I always had sore joints, arms and lack of energy prior to this visit). I had high cholesterol, high blood pressure (already learned on first visit), high tri-glycerides (a path to diabeties), high uric acid levels (a path to gout), 15-20 lbs overweight, high Iron content (the cause of sore joints?)....what am I fucking 80 years old? It was a mega dose of reality. That B-12 was the starting point of my very slow progression back to health. To combat the cholesterol, I was told to try Omega Guard on shaklee.net (fish oil). To keep my vitamins, I was then recommended to try B-Complex from shaklee.net (is my Dr on the take here, I thought?). Naturally, I am now on blood pressure medication. The iron level and gout were actually ailments that soon followed consistent visits so I began to have my blood drained every 8 weeks at the RI donor center to eliminate the iron and then I was prescribed meds to keep my uric acid levels safe (since I was in the seafood business and I loved wine, no way was I going to quit either). But, before the two pills were prescribed I wanted to find out what the fuck was wrong with my mind.
Most of my childhood and into adulthood, I was lazy, bored easily, easily distracted, and found it hard to pay attention or complete a project once I struggled or something better came along. It is a good thing there is an advanced functioning brain in my cranium which allowed me to bullshit my way through high school and college, although from time-to-time, teachers were offended by my constant zzzzz's in class. Sorry, couldn't help it. Worse, I did it in classes with teachers I liked! It was frustrating. I hated letting people down. I had a tremendously guilty conscience. ADHD and ADD was not really the thing back in my childhood years. When I began the process of figuring out what was wrong, I had a conversation with my Mother and she recalled my 2nd grade teacher having the ability to project I had some sort of ADD type behavior that would catch up to me in college (it did!). But before that I had to start talking to my doctor who assumed as well, it was ADHD and sent me to a specialist. I took the test and aced it....Ritalin here I come... OH SHIT!
I don't recall my reaction to the diagnosis and new prescription. I was not really proud to be medicated. I also knew I was perfect in my Mother's eyes, so admitting to her I wasn't was hard on me as I bet it was hard on her but she was always a good sport about it. At the same time, I am thinking... who the hell gets diagnosed at nearly 30 anyway? Well, today at 39 it was the right path to go, but at 30 it almost killed me or got other people killed...here's how....
After I was diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed a light does of Ritalin, I started feeling good. I felt in a way I always envisioned...focused and productive. When I can succeed at both, I am a happy man! I was so used to half-assing my way through everything I was soon 3/4-ing my way through everything. That imporvement was at least good enough to improve my mental state a little. My friends and roomies were all on some sort of meds..all different from one another but we were all searching for a better high, a better mental state so we started sharing. Energy drinks became a part of my steady diet more and more.. plus endless runs to Dunkin Donuts for lattes while playing video games and smoking weed and drinking wine. Soon, I felt the need for speed, speed and more speed! I wanted Adderall, I wanted bigger doses of Ritalin, 5 hour energy, more Ritalin, who had Adderall? Any Lexapros around??? Thank GOD none of us were into coke or I would have dove head first with a wet suit on. My extrmemties started always feeling cold and my arms shaking, heart racing...not thinking things through calmly or deliberately. I began to slowly stumble again. My roomies would have some bouts of isolation and depression. I needed constant company and attention. I needed a Red Bull. "Who's going to Dunkin' Donuts?"
Eventually, an incident happened that changed everything. It was there I learned that I have a Guardian Angel. I also learned that Ritalin and ADHD were not the answers to my problem. It was something else. This incident is the most horrifying wake-up call of my life (and I have had a few) and it occured (I think) around the spring of 2004. Typhoon Ferri had a gig at Big City in Allston, MA. I was living and working in Rhode Island and naturally running late. Mind you, running late was a huge burden on me. It made me angry, reactive, sweaty, shaky, cranky and downright oblivious to safety matters while driving a car. I had made prior arrangements to stop by a buddy's place to score a dimebag of weed. I needed it to calm me down because I was chilly, hyper, crazy and stressed out and manic because I was running late. So, I am back in my old 'hood to see my friend. He lived on a one way that tails slightly downhill towards Washington, St (which is the busiest street in Brighton, MA). It is circa 6pm so there is still some steady traffic rolling around, tail end of rush hour on a weekday. His house is the second to last one on the right before the main street. The last house is surrounded by a cement wall that goes to the corner of Washington St and blinds anyone on Washington St from the one-way street. The table is set for my arrival, so I park my little Mazda 626 at the edge of his driveway, between two legally parked cars. I race out of the car and sprint up his driveway. Just as I am about to knock on the door, I hear a loud SMASH! I heard no other sound before nor after that. I paused for a second, looked towards my car...it wasn't there! I was in shock but merely for a split second. I raced to the end of my bud's driveway, looked to the right and there was the ass end of my car, across Washington St, perched in a dug-out before a large apartment building. I sprint after it and notice that the SMASH was the result of my car flattening a STOP sign. I cross the road and access the situation. My car was still in DRIVE!!! 'What the fuck?' I thought. It is a habit to naturally putting a car in PARK well, when you fucking park! I look around. A lady is screaming 'You could have killed someone!' (or something like that) as I began to block her out because I really wanted to say 'No shit, Sherlock!' but I think I was in brief shock. In fact, I don't recall much reaction aside from enhanced paranoia from the inability to calm myself from the Red Bulls, Amps, Ritalins and who knows what else flowed in my bloodstream. I realized, that my car, while still in DRIVE, climbed the sidewalk, scaled the wall downhill (causing major damage to my side and right rearview mirror), smashed the STOP sign and somehow managed to crawl accross Washington St without the beep of a horn or the screech of a tire ($6000 of body work was needed). More importantly, no one was hurt. Someone could have been walking on Washington St towards the side street only to be flattened by my un-manned car and killed or severaly hurt. What if it was someone pushing a little baby in carriage? The pain and guilt I would have endured for life would have led me to institution or worse...death! Anyone who knows me knows I am not one who gets off on hurting or harassing people. But, then and there I looked up at the sky and said "Thank you!" For, that was the moment I felt I had a Guardian Angel. I even lucked out with the Police. I think the cop just didn't want to deal with paperwork after I told him what happened. No sobriety test? He did say I would have to pay for the STOP sign. 'Um, ok' I thought. It certainly could have been a lot worse. Shit, it could have been the end of my freedom!
I got to the gig and the band was there setting up. I looked like a ghost. I was still shaking. If I recall, I started off roughly on the bass, flubbing notes and generally being in a state of shock. Music heals, but nothing can take away from that scary incident. Clearly, ADHD was not my problem. But what was? I was clearly craving to do things bigger, faster, and stronger. I was doing fine for such a short period of time and then it slowly began to change for the worse. I went back to my doctor and claimed I didn't want to take Ritalin anymore. It was killing me or worse would cause me to kill or hurt others. I was desperate. We got in a fight. She said she wouldn't just prescribe anything to anyone admitting to smoking marijuana and that I was just looking for a cheap high with other drugs. I was incensed and perplexed. Clearly she was 200% wrong because I wanted to get better. I don't remember the feeling I must have felt upon leaving the doctor's office that day but I bet, anger, confusion, fear, loathing were all part of the equation. Strangely, the next day, one of her assistants called me to apologize on her behalf (as if!!??). I felt slightly better because of that but lost some respect for the doctor because I'd preferred an face-to-face apology. But again, I didn't want to hunt for a new doctor and I had already begun to go through a lot with her. So, I began to work with the nurses practitioner more (I think the Dr was now afraid of me!?) Soon we came to a new conclusion that there was maybe something different wrong with me. This time we got it right. This time I was ready to make the slow progression into healthy....
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
ajdabassplayer:
Pia!
Pia! 
abadon:
thank you so MUCHHHHH *.* 