Does “Alone” Mean “Lonely”?

I made a mistake when having a session with my counselor Thursday morning. See, I’ve been going through a pretty terrible depression (sleeping all the time; lacking in personal hygiene; eating or moping when awake; lower-than-normal energy). It’s not that I feel particularly sad — one doesn’t have to be weeping and about to open a vein when feeling depressed. I just feel down and lacking in interest in almost anything. I have some business-type calls I need to take care of, like, ASAP and days ago; but I’ve let them slide, thinking to myself, “I’ll take care of that when I wake up.” But it isn’t working out that way.

Anyway, back to the mistake I made in therapy: When I mentioned how bad the depression has gotten, my counselor asked me if I had any idea what has brought it on, where it is coming from. I said, “I’m just lonely.” She was on it like a dog on a bone, and for one simple reason: the groups and such that they want me to seemingly spend the rest of my life in now that I’ve finished the IOP program. This has been an bone of contention with me, something I was warned about by my dear, sweet friend, Patty. She was right. Once they got their claws into me about the morphine and labeled me “addict,” almost nothing else matters, the treatment toward me would change, etc. Patty was right, as I said. Everything she warned me about has so far been the case.

They seem to forget that I came to THEM about the problem I had been having with the morphine. Details have been conveniently forgotten, such as I had already worked myself back down to the prescribed dose; I abused it for a short while the previous Winter while dealing with horrible anxiety and depression (the anxiety, especially, which is not really being treated); and I really only brought it to their attention because of one particular, bad night when I took about thirty instant-release morphine tablets I had horded, prescribed for breakthrough pain. I seriously wanted to end everything, even to the point of having “casually” found out from a friend that if something ever happened to me, she would take Popcorn. I went so far as to write a fucking note, people! And as soon as I took those thirty or so (at 15mg each, that was 450mg on top of the 280mg I already had in my system by taking it as prescribed), knowing full well that there would be no coming back with that huge amount of morphine hitting my already-saturated system all at once, I totally panicked. I went to make myself vomit up what I had taken, and for what seemed like an eternity, nothing would come up. I kept at it, though, knowing that with the 450mg of instant-release, I had just a matter of a few minutes to get it out of my system or I’d be gone. Finally, everything came up, and there was hardly any solid pill forms left… almost all of it had broken down already and was just about to enter the gut. I would have been dead within a few minutes, as I said, if I hadn’t finally been able to puke.

THAT is why I went to my counselor, my psychiatrist and my doctor, asking for their help. It had nothing to do with the previous few months when I was “abusing” the hundreds of extra pills I had horded. I brought it up to them because the suicide attempt scared me, NOT the use of the extra. Hell, I used the extra morphine, that above the high prescribed level I was already on, because I couldn’t take feeling anything anymore. I wanted to be numb, to not care. It never made me feel high, although that was probably because I’ve lived each and every day for the last fifteen years high on the shit. (I can definitely tell the difference now that I’ve gotten down to a much lower dose. My mind is clearer; I can concentrate better and retain more of what I read; my logical and analytical minds are working somewhat better again… you get the idea.)

But — and it’s a big but — instead of dealing with the reason(s) why I felt I needed to check out of this life, something I’ve attempted many times in the past (even three or four being serious attempts, not half-assed because I wanted attention or help), the focus was on my being a “drug addict.” Please don’t get me wrong. I do NOT deny that I have been addicted to morphine. My physical dependence upon it has been going on for many years, and when I lived in the Pacific Northwest and was sick all the time with what my doctors and I called the “It” syndrome because we didn’t know why I was so sick, nothing could be done for me. It wasn’t until I moved back here and my new doctor, listening to all of my symptoms, knew right away that I was physically dependent upon the morphine and was going into withdrawals every day. My brain and body were freaking out because there was not enough of the drug in my system, so I went into heroin withdrawals all the time. It was a horrible “existence” and I always wished, when I would wake up so sick in withdrawals, that I hadn’t woke up at all. My doctor switched me to extended-release, increased the dosage, and I never had those symptoms again until I started tapering off of the morphine, to get off of it once and for all, several months ago. Years and years up in the Seattle, living in Hell with “It,” and it took my new doc, here, a different set of eyes, to know and fix the problem.

Anyway, I digress… again.

Since asking for help to get off of the morphine once and for all, I have been pressured almost at every appointment with the psychiatrist or counselor about getting into more programs than the one in which I begrudgingly agreed to attend. I mean, literally every appointment with them had some time wasted with practically forcing me into more and more programs. At my session with my counselor prior to the last one, she and I became exasperated with each other even to the point of having some anger about all of this: my not being able to justify committing to “three or more” other programs to start now that I’m done with the IOP; and she being beyond frustrated with me because I hadn’t done anything yet… and I had already finished the IOP program a whole two weeks before! Gasp! She lectured me, that session, on how I’m doing the whole pattern of every other addict: resistance. That I was basically guaranteeing myself to relapse because I wouldn’t stay in programs for the rest of my life. Plus, she brought up yet again the fact that I spend almost all of my time alone — something I know isn’t really good for me, but whatever… I’m okay with it for now — and how the only way I could guarantee I would never go back to morphine abuse was if I filled all of my time with other activities, other people. I claimed, “Bullshit!” and we ended that session pretty heated with each other.

At this most recent session this past Thursday, my ass hadn’t even gotten all the way down in the chair yet when I was asked if I had finally gone to the Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics’ Anonymous meetings on Monday, and if I had joined the “Mindfulness Group” at the place I went to for the IOP classes, AND if I had talked to the guy in charge of IOP about joining his PTSD group. I swear, I could have screamed at her, especially when sh

e told me I had lied to her about the mindfulness group. I had told her that I had left a couple of messages for the woman in charge of it but had not heard back. Months ago, when the previous mindfulness group started, I was more open to joining it because I was in the “do everything to help myself” mode. But I was, besides doing the IOP classes three mornings per week, having physical therapy two afternoons per week as well as trying to work dental appointments in between all of that. The woman in charge of the mindfulness shit understood, and said she’d add me to the list for the next class, which was to start on July 17th, and would give me a call to sign me up.

Now, months later, all I could tell my counselor was that the next group was to start sometime mid-July and that I was on the list. Again, I was waiting to hear back from the woman as to when I would start, etc. Of course, I had pretty much talked myself out of it, too, because it wouldn’t start until really late in the afternoon, and I’m not good with afternoon appointments. Never have been; never will be. When my counselor told me this past Thursday that she called and talked to the woman and was told that the new group started the day before my last counseling session, my counselor decided I had lied to her in order to get out of it. I hated being accused of lying, and I told her so. She said she had written down when I first told her about the mindfulness group and not being able to do it then, that the next one started on the 17th of July. I probably DID tell her that, way back then. I really had forgotten the exact date by a couple of sessions ago. I couldn’t even remember the name of the woman leading the group… still can’t. Oh, and supposedly the woman told my counselor that she hadn’t had a message from me. That may be the case, but that doesn’t mean I left a message for Someone. Since I didn’t remember her name, I had to ask for the woman in charge of the mindfulness group. I was transferred both times to the same voice mail. It’s not my fault if it wasn’t the right person, nor if that person never forwarded my request/info to the correct one, right?

To wrap up this once-again-too-long entry… you know, “long story short,” which is most often said after the long part has already happened… I told my counselor that I had come to a decision about all of this stuff, that if it was going to continue to take up so much valuable therapy time, I would need to just stop it all, therapy included. I said that I had decided that for now, I would not get involved in any of the other stuff, knowing full well it was against recommendation (and that I would sign something if needed to that effect). For me, anything relating to the morphine other than as to how the tapering down is going, should from now on be a non-subject. I just don’t want to hear about it anymore. I said that I wasn’t saying I wouldn’t do something in the very near future if I found that taking care of this in a more-controlled (by me) way proved unsuccessful. At that point, I asked, I would like to have the option of coming to them again, hat in hand and tail between my legs and with much humility, and requesting their help into getting me into another group or two. But, again, for now… leave it alone.

My counselor reminded me that they were only on me so much because they genuinely DO care about me. I know that. I really do, and I appreciate it. But we agreed that, at least for now, we’ll work on the other stuff for which I’ve been stuck in therapy for so long, but with her have made amazing progress over the past five years. She asked me if I would read the letter I wrote to Mickey on July 1st (and posted here on OD and on FB that day, too), which I did. And finally, after over two years, I had a complete meltdown. I’ve cried a lot over the past two years that she’s been gone; but this was beyond regular crying. I mean, it came from the gut, maybe even deeper, and all of the grief I have been trying to suppress for so long spewed out for me. It needed to. Writing the letter had been really cathartic anyway. But it was stream-of-consciousness, not thought a lot about as I wrote it. And I had not gone back to read it over at all. Doing so in my counselor’s office on Thursday was the first time I read my own words to my beloved Mickerdoo. And I had the breakthrough I needed for so, so long.

It was nice to have a productive therapy session again, not one during which there was so much focus on my “new” label: drug addict. I still don’t know about that title. I mean, yes, physically dependent: no question. Mentally addicted? I don’t really know. Probably. Maybe? Whatever the REAL reality of it is, all I know is that I needed to reclaim control of my life again, and I did. Oh, and my counselor and I like each other again. The mistake I made, about saying I was lonely, she let go of. She had pounced on it by saying that if I was in the groups I would be around other people, yada yada yada. I told her that I’m actually liking my solitude most of the time, that I’m still learning to live for myself and not with the consideration of everyone else first. It’s just that I DO get lonely from time to time. Who doesn’t? That doesn’t me that I want to suddenly fill up practically all of my time with being around a bunch of other people, although I really DO understand the importance of it.

As I said, we like each other again. Although we really don’t necessarily agree with all each other is wanting or doing. we respect each other’s decisions and it’s all kisses and hugs and cartoon birds and hearts and flowers again.

We’ll see what happens when I see my psychiatrist on Monday, though, huh? Ugh!