avalyn's New Writeups

drug abuse (personal)

2009-12-16T20:33:27Z

I think I've reached the nadir of my adult life. While my stay in the loony bin a few months ago did help me feel better about myself, the effect has worn off in a big way.

I have about twenty dollars to my name. I sold just about every form of entertainment (DVDs, comic books, etc.) I had long ago. All the money I do get, which is about $150 a month (from my parents), is used to pay for therapy, psychotherapy, meds, and a small amount of food. Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure that all the drug abuse I've perpetrated over the past ten years or so as had an extremely detrimental effect on my mind and my ability to do much of anything. Memories float up now and then but are instantly lost in the ruins of my brain. This all started, as these things do, in 1994; at age seventeen, I had my first experience with LSD. Subsequent experiences (somewhere between 20 and 50; I didn't keep track) really had an adverse effect on my cognitive functions.…

tribadism (idea)

2009-11-28T16:50:31Z

NSFW!
You have been warned.
So don't blame me if you get caught reading this at work.

Tribadism is, in essence, a lesbian sex position. It's also known as scissoring, scissor position, making scissors and other scissor-related terms, because of the way it looks: the legs appear scissor-like. Picture two pairs of scissors, open them wide, with the convergence of the two blades meeting at the center. Before the modern use of the word "lesbian", the word "tribad" was sometimes used instead, as a code word of sorts, particularly in English-speaking places where homosexuality was considered immoral and/or illegal. Hence the "-ism" part of the word, much like "lesbianism" (a term I don't really like, because as an -ism, it implies some sort of socio-political movement, or something you'd find in the DSM-IV), is a euphemism…

August 23, 2009 (log)

2009-08-23T10:42:21Z

So. Life after a stay in the mental hospital has so far been a pretty unremarkable affair.

I haven't really gotten started on getting my life in order yet. One step at a time is the key here, people.

While I was gone, the IRS finally got up from their collective executive leather chairs and saw fit to process my returns for the years 2005 to 2007, and duly sent me a cheque for about $1,500. Just in the nick of time: the frames of my glasses had broken while I was locked up last week, and luckily they were still under warranty so I got them replaced at a 50% discount (still costing $90) and there was something terribly wrong with my car that I was able to have repaired at a cost of $500. What was wrong with it I cannot say; the receipt is in car mechanic code that is unreadable to me beyond general terms like "sparkplug" and "valve assembly".

New prescriptions from the doctor assigned…

mental hospital (place)

2009-08-18T00:58:45Z

I had a meltdown of sorts back in April, shortly after I was fired from my job in the IT department of a major university. It was the fourth time I'd been fired from an IT job, dating back to 2000. This led me to an introspective summary of the past few years of my life, which I determined to have been pretty bad but which had then hit rock bottom. I made some threats regarding suicide. Not an actual suicide attempt, but some serious venting about how disgusted I was with myself and my life. My family banded together and, without my consent, attempted to have me committed to a mental hospital.

During the initial interview with a case worker there, I managed to bullshit my way into convincing him that I was well enough to avoid being committed. I made a point that being forceably committed would probably do me more harm than good, and he agreed with me. And so I returned home, depressed to the depths of my soul and unable to…

August 9, 2009 (personal)

2009-08-09T22:57:43Z

True life
Begins behind the borders
You will never reach deep waters
If you do not change yourself

Recently I started tapering down off the antidepressant drug Effexor. As you can read the accounts of others in its node, it, like them, sapped me of my creativity, imagination, motivation, concern (with anything and everything) and may have contributed to the loss of my job back in April.

Effexor is a nasty drug, as any of the accounts of its (usually) former users can attest. I was on it for year; indeed, I'm still on it, just tapering down so eventually I'll be off it completely. I don't intend to replace it with another…

a strange machine (poetry)

2009-07-13T00:59:28Z

On this night
A new machine burns and churns
blazing a new path into my head
with brazen sobs and fierce laughter

Finally presenting itself
a damnable steel contraption
my face razed by the acid-sweat that streams from my brow
as it encircles me, it calls out to me
and lastly engulfs me

"Upwards!" it brays, fumbling
as it pushes its way skywards through the foul haze
of downtown night—I'm held by its arms, soaring

"Soon," it coos, barely audible, "You'll be one of us!"
The machine's…