Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Guess I picked a bad week to quit heroin. I mean Paxil. Who knew Paxil withdrawal would be such a harrowing experience? I probably should have been hospitalized to get through this. Well, I hadn't intended on quitting Paxil, I simply couldn't afford more of it. I had moved from 25mg to 20mg 2 months ago when I got a couple months' dosage from a foreign net-based pharmacy. Shitfoot got 30 mg. After one month, he informed me he'd stopped taking them, and agreed to let me have the leftovers. I planned to cut his in half and stay on 15 mg for a couple weeks, then cut the remaining in half again, taking 7.5 mg until I was down to 2 weeks left, then take those every other day. See what a wise plan I had? Actually, I had hoped that I could afford another script before it got to that, but instead, with 2 20mg doses to go, I asked Shitfoot for those pills he'd claimed he didn't need, only to be told he'd changed his mind and started taking them again. So fate decided for me: cold turkey. I do not recommend cold turkey. At all. Ever. If you find yourself in a position of going cold turkey or eating nothing but ramen noodles for a solid month, go with the noodles.
I don't even remember when I stopped taking the pills, I am unable to calm my brain enough to recall the exact (OK, even the approximate) date. But my guess is I took the last one on Monday (Aug. 30). I was prepared for restless sleep and vivid dreams. What I got was much worse. Around day 3 or 4, I was already aware of heightened emotional stress, very short temper, wild mood swings. Of course the fact that we moved on Aug. 28th and 29th didn't really set me up for a smooth transition, either. The dreams and disturbed sleep were there, but tolerable. The physical exhaustion was catching up to me, though, and life in general began to feel far too much for me to handle. By day 5, I was in the midst of serious withdrawal: lethargic, dizzy, both mood and appetite swings, body temperature regulation problems, inability to focus mentally, even my eyes would go cross-eyed several times a day. During all of this, I was trying to finish work, get the kids packed and board an airplane to my parents' house for the weekend. The logistics involved in simply clocking out and getting home seemed insurmountably complicated. Essentially, I felt as if I were drunk for the past 4 days. And not the "Wooooooooooooo!!! I'm gonna throw my panties at the bass player!!" kind of drunk, more like the "I sssssweear I'll be fine iffff I cannn juss' lay downaminit. Please let me lay down. CannI jusss lay right here?" Nothing like trying to navigate a 5-speed transmission in rush hour traffic to your NEW apartment while your head is spinning, your lips are tingling and numb, you're so tired you can't seem to keep your eyes open, which would be a mercy because your eyes keep going involuntarily crossed, your heart is racing, the AC is on full blast and you're sweating profusely, and you can't seem to breathe deeply enough to get clean air. "No problem here officer. No, I'm not on drugs. That's the problem." I made it home by some miracle of GOD, and was shuttled around for the rest of the weekend by my folks.
Day 6, evening: Rusty. I discover that adreneline helps alleviate my symptoms. The kids are sleeping at "the house" with their dad, and Rusty and I christened the place with many, many acts of lewdness. Weird stuff--once he got me going and into it, I'd feel just fine. OK, maybe a little unfocused and tired, but definitely better. Climax and the resulting dip in adreneline had me crashing hard, though, and I'd curl up to nap in his lap or catch myself bawling like a baby at a stupid music video. He was a trooper, though, and let me get my "crazy" on for a bit just to get it out of my system. Before long, though, the clever boy would have me all aroused again and we'd be off to the races once more. He planned to go back to his brother's where he'd been staying for the weekend, but I pouted and begged him not to make me sleep alone in the house, I just didn't think I could take it. He looked so cute in my Fred Flinstone T-shirt. Even though I passed out cold the moment my head hit the pillow, it did me a world of good to know he was there when I woke up. He probably doesn't realize how much I appreciated him being there to nurse me through it.
Day 7, I returned to work. Although I had taken several naps while away on my trip, and had been sleeping on a close to normal schedule, I felt as if I hadn't slept in 7 days. Groggy, slow, confused and struggling desperately to get real work done, an hour into my shift, I cut myself. No big surprise. I nearly took off the tip of my thumb, nail and all. I can distinctly remember the sound of the knife slicing into my thumbnail and not being able to stop my hand from pushing it through. Another 16th of an inch or so, and I could have cut clean through the fleshy part. I had to sit in the manager's office for 20 minutes going through their questionairre with a nurse on call, bandaging it and waiting to see if it would stop bleeding. All I knew is it hurt sofa king bad I wanted to squeeze the life out of it. It was good to feel some adreneline again, though. Somewhere between day 5 and 7 (gee, would that be 6?) I began getting "zaps"--not painful, just weird sensation as if a mild electrical current and just been turned on somewhere in my head and exited somewhere through my extrimities. Lasts a second, then a second or two of "recovery" time, but not as incapacitating as other symptoms have been.
I'm on day 9 now, and I'm still feeling tired and fuzzy-brained, but much better. I have hopes that tomorrow I may even feel "Normal".
I don't even remember when I stopped taking the pills, I am unable to calm my brain enough to recall the exact (OK, even the approximate) date. But my guess is I took the last one on Monday (Aug. 30). I was prepared for restless sleep and vivid dreams. What I got was much worse. Around day 3 or 4, I was already aware of heightened emotional stress, very short temper, wild mood swings. Of course the fact that we moved on Aug. 28th and 29th didn't really set me up for a smooth transition, either. The dreams and disturbed sleep were there, but tolerable. The physical exhaustion was catching up to me, though, and life in general began to feel far too much for me to handle. By day 5, I was in the midst of serious withdrawal: lethargic, dizzy, both mood and appetite swings, body temperature regulation problems, inability to focus mentally, even my eyes would go cross-eyed several times a day. During all of this, I was trying to finish work, get the kids packed and board an airplane to my parents' house for the weekend. The logistics involved in simply clocking out and getting home seemed insurmountably complicated. Essentially, I felt as if I were drunk for the past 4 days. And not the "Wooooooooooooo!!! I'm gonna throw my panties at the bass player!!" kind of drunk, more like the "I sssssweear I'll be fine iffff I cannn juss' lay downaminit. Please let me lay down. CannI jusss lay right here?" Nothing like trying to navigate a 5-speed transmission in rush hour traffic to your NEW apartment while your head is spinning, your lips are tingling and numb, you're so tired you can't seem to keep your eyes open, which would be a mercy because your eyes keep going involuntarily crossed, your heart is racing, the AC is on full blast and you're sweating profusely, and you can't seem to breathe deeply enough to get clean air. "No problem here officer. No, I'm not on drugs. That's the problem." I made it home by some miracle of GOD, and was shuttled around for the rest of the weekend by my folks.
Day 6, evening: Rusty. I discover that adreneline helps alleviate my symptoms. The kids are sleeping at "the house" with their dad, and Rusty and I christened the place with many, many acts of lewdness. Weird stuff--once he got me going and into it, I'd feel just fine. OK, maybe a little unfocused and tired, but definitely better. Climax and the resulting dip in adreneline had me crashing hard, though, and I'd curl up to nap in his lap or catch myself bawling like a baby at a stupid music video. He was a trooper, though, and let me get my "crazy" on for a bit just to get it out of my system. Before long, though, the clever boy would have me all aroused again and we'd be off to the races once more. He planned to go back to his brother's where he'd been staying for the weekend, but I pouted and begged him not to make me sleep alone in the house, I just didn't think I could take it. He looked so cute in my Fred Flinstone T-shirt. Even though I passed out cold the moment my head hit the pillow, it did me a world of good to know he was there when I woke up. He probably doesn't realize how much I appreciated him being there to nurse me through it.
Day 7, I returned to work. Although I had taken several naps while away on my trip, and had been sleeping on a close to normal schedule, I felt as if I hadn't slept in 7 days. Groggy, slow, confused and struggling desperately to get real work done, an hour into my shift, I cut myself. No big surprise. I nearly took off the tip of my thumb, nail and all. I can distinctly remember the sound of the knife slicing into my thumbnail and not being able to stop my hand from pushing it through. Another 16th of an inch or so, and I could have cut clean through the fleshy part. I had to sit in the manager's office for 20 minutes going through their questionairre with a nurse on call, bandaging it and waiting to see if it would stop bleeding. All I knew is it hurt sofa king bad I wanted to squeeze the life out of it. It was good to feel some adreneline again, though. Somewhere between day 5 and 7 (gee, would that be 6?) I began getting "zaps"--not painful, just weird sensation as if a mild electrical current and just been turned on somewhere in my head and exited somewhere through my extrimities. Lasts a second, then a second or two of "recovery" time, but not as incapacitating as other symptoms have been.
I'm on day 9 now, and I'm still feeling tired and fuzzy-brained, but much better. I have hopes that tomorrow I may even feel "Normal".
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