Well, I'm back!
I'm sure you probably don't remember me, for I was not here for long after promotion.
It's not so much that I lost interest, but life kind of pulled me away from most recreational activities such as these, even before this story begins.
Well, hell has my life been a roller-coaster for the year of 2012! (Commence long story, brace thine self) (Also, if you're wondering why I'm breaking text up into 1-2 sentence segments, it'll be explained).
Where do I begin? A good place seems to be where my problems began, this past April. Yes, this portion of my story is mainly health issues.
I think April 2nd or 3rd, I had oral surgery! Woohoo! I expected to go through a lot after, but, damn, did I go through A LOT after.
It was a day surgery, not a huge deal. However, when I got home, it was not the after-effects of anesthesia, or the side effects of Vicodin that I immediately began dealing with.
It was a lot like the flu, but with barely any throwing up, near 24/7 sleeping, horrible body, especially joint, aches, and sudden deep depression spiral. I was convinced I had mono, and those doctors gave it to me.
But, alas, I recovered in about 2 weeks' time. Except, the fatigue & depression, along with significant personality changes, stuck.
So, I persevered, through to about mid June. Things got weird then. I was smoking some good ol' cannabis with some close buddies, and I nearly passed out for no apparent reason, with my hearing and vision fading, then my legs almost giving out.
I didn't think much of it, until it happened again almost exactly a month later. This time it came with a panic attack, my first ever, and god it was terrifying. I saw the craziest things.
I honestly believed I was going to die. I saw disfigured faces, much like the devil or a reaper or something. I was not tripping, I was just smoking some bud, like every other day of my life.
I took LSD like a week or 2 before this, and it was extremely uncomfortable for me. Not a 'bad trip' like some of the horrifying things I've read, just unusually uncomfortable.
So, I took a 2 week break from everything, even my home. I stayed with family at their summer house. (This place is amazing, at the top of a hill with no other buildings for miles in any direction).
Holy balls this is getting long, I'll speed this up to get to what I'm trying to say, that's actually related to this forum!
Anyway, I forgot to mention that knee pain and neck pain/stiffness were ailing me from some time in June through this point, getting just a little bit worse every day. Cannabis continued to make me very anxious and depressed, and I felt them all the time anyway.
So, I saw a doctor. I'll shorten this part and just say that they had NO idea. I've been fed words said uncertainly such as MS, fibromyalgia, anxiety disorder, multiple personalities, arthritis, it goes on and on.
Then a close friend tipped me off about Lyme disease! That it's actually a chronic disease, with over 200 possible symptoms, and that the CDC and 99% of doctors don't know a thing about how to properly treat it! Not only that, but negative bloodwork means nothing!
So, I printed this information and persisted until my doctor started treating me for Lyme.
It's been 3 weeks, and I feel human again. I truly did not realize how bad I even allowed myself to get. I was having things like full body tremors, and then completely forgetting about them because of how bad my short term memory got.
I still have some issues with concentration, especially on fully-body paragraphs, hence the broken-up text here.
This is honestly the most intense test of strength I've ever had to endure. How well can I fight the ignorant and the uneducated for treatment, as well as fight disabling disease?
I find myself looking up to the sky more and more every day, wondering at this. Am I actually being tested? On my will? My strength?
Since psychedelics don't seem to make me feel unbalanced and scared anymore, I have come back here, absolutely starving for knowledge, and for something to strengthen my perseverance.
I want to experience the loss of ego. This is my mission.
[Thank you for reading all of that, I realize it was a LOT. But I had to get it all off of my shoulders somehow, though I do apologize for how long I made it. It feels good to be back
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