Anorak hand-job

[hirez]

See, now, heresafookinthing...

I pitched off my bike last weekend - embarrassing, and I managed to bollocks my ankle. (Not the fell-over-on-the-way-to-the-pub one. The other one. Now I have a matching set. Anyway.)

So I'm guzzling painkiller of choice (Ibuprofen + codeine) and...

... I'm startlingly productive.

The only thing that shuffles to mind is that, due to the warm fuzzies, I'm not spending half my time second-guessing myself because I Just Don't Care. This freedom from self-doubt business is really quite liberating.

If that's the sort of effect one can get from SSRIs then I think I want to play.

It feels like the usual clamouring mob of demons (At least that's how I think of it. Imagine a howling tribe of imps, each one bearing a different yet equally choice remnant of Past that they insist on waving in front of me:

"Here's you making a drunken fool of yourself. I bet she thinks you're a complete idiot. Not much point even speaking to her again, eh?"

"Hey, remember that time you rolled the Carlton? It went like this, didn't it?"

"Don't try that. You don't know how. You'll piss it up and people will laugh."

It is truly the Devil's own slide-show that you can't look away from or ignore.)

[ Of course there are people who'll gleefully relate Exactly What You Did Last Night. They have no empathy and should be spurned as unfeeling wretches. ]

... Have been silenced, (or at least there's a locked door in the way and I can sort of hear some muffled banging and cursing, but I Don't Care.) and I can hear myself think for the first time in... Ages.

It won't last, of course.

[ObWhitbyReport: Complete Shite. Hated it.]

Comments

[redcountess]

I take nurofen plus every day for joint pain, and last night I think I accidentally took a double dose (four). Rather than suffer any symptoms of OD, I had a mind as clear as a bell and was ridiculously chipper, as Diva said, "smack" :-)

[aeia.livejournal.com]

I think I might have to start hitting the painkillers with codine in them :)

[inulro.livejournal.com]

They completely fail to make anything in my mind clearer, as all my LJ witterings will attest to.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

I've a crateful here. I won't touch the things. They just make me into a cranky arsehole.
Well, more of a cranky arsehole.

When I was stuffed up with them when my wrists went wrong, they probably cost me my job. Before that I remembered to be tolerant of my idiot manager (For His Hair Was Pointy And he Knew No Better), afterwards I just didn't care and no longer responded favourably to his "I think mauve has the most RAM" suggestions.

[reddragdiva]

I'm pretty sure you didn't - you've just been having a remarkably good week since halving the Plaquenil.

[markeris.livejournal.com]

You have just described the one thing I would like removed from my life, and without doubt the major objection to my productivity.

I`m still wary of SSRIs mind. Do report back on any further advances you make in the field of "shutting the back of my head the f**k up" though.

[reddragdiva]

The main thing you need is a doctor (GP or shrink) you can actually trust.

[markeris.livejournal.com]

I don`t think the voice in the back of my head having a low opinion of me and my achievements in life is particularly a medical matter. Or indeed a psychological matter. I think it`s a pretty normal state of affairs. it`s interesting to read others experiences with the little b*st*rds though, especially those where they gagged him.

[aeia.livejournal.com]

The SSRI's do kind of shut up the voices.. but the side effects can be as bad :-/

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I think that's the problem I have with them. Opiates are, by and large, far too much fun. You also build up a resistance fairly quickly and when they wear off the demons are really fucked off so demonstrate their anger in standard fashion.

But we know all this stuff, so it's manageable.

SSRIs, on the other hand...

I dunno. I think effective demon-management comes with hunting each one down and carefully walloping it into a paste with a brick-hammer.

[glitchdrei.livejournal.com]

you think?

everyone i know on ssris has ended up worse off than before, and when trying to come off them, have been practically suicidal.

[liz-lowlife.livejournal.com]

What are SSRIs?

[hazeii.livejournal.com]

One day they'll work out exactly how pills affect the head - at the moment it's still rather suck-it-and-see - and then things *will* get interesting.

The effect you describe sounds similiar to the suspected mode of action of Ritalin (a stimulant) as used for AD(H)D...the issue in ADD being not lack of attention, it's lack of *control* over attention (thus the attention paid can be too little, can be too much). So by juicing up the control mechanism (with speed, ritalin,caffiene etc) you get better control over the overall system.

Will they succeed in producing a pill to make people 'better than well'? If they did, who'd take it? Everyone, no-one, some people?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Absolutely.

If I may slowly torture an analogy to death:

There are aftermarket engine-management kits you can buy in the US that bolt on to (previously caburettored) musclecars. Unlike the (predominant?) Euro method of keeping a 'map' on an EPROM, these things work out what's going on from a variety of sensors, so are a hackable in real time. (This from memory of a series of articles in Car Craft from ten years ago and therefore more than likely wrong)

That's what I want for my brain-chemistry. Culture drug-glands? Gimme.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Such things do indeed have a complex map of exactly what's going on in head-space.

Then they just nail the wastegate shut, for absolute maximum thrutch. Until the top of the head blows off.

[hazeii.livejournal.com]

Mmm...part of the trend from open loop (ram the fuel in and hope) through parameterised (measure a few things, ram the fuel in, and hope) to closed loop (ram the fuel in, if things get too hairy back off a bit).

That's all dumb stuff though...I like the idea of there being intelligence in the feedback loop, messing about with the settings to see what happens.

[fluffydave.livejournal.com]

Losing your self doubt can really work wonders for you. When I was taking German A-levels, my Teacher advised us (off the record) to have a shot of vodka or two before going into the Oral exams at it would help us relax more.

To this day I speak German a shit load better drunk, than I do sober!

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Tsk - he could at least have recommended schnapps.

Cautionary tale

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

Am on similar course of Nurofen Plus things for a spacked-up shoulder.

was also noticing a slight sharpening of the grey matter; rewired the MIDI config on the studio whilst watching telly. That's not normally possible.

Went to bed at 7am, woke up about 10.30ish, fresh as a daisy.

Coughed up two black-burgundy gobbets of phlegm, noticed blood round my mouth & on my teeth.

went back to bed with The Fear.

Of course, all of this could as equally be brought on by having to do the WF end-of-year accounts...

Re: Cautionary tale

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Allegedly Neurofen can fuck up your digestive system if you don't take it with food.

Nobody told me that though, or maybe I was in too much pain to take it in, but I'm pretty sure I took it without food quite a lot in my 6 months on the maximum recommended dosage, so YMMV.

[glitchdrei.livejournal.com]

yeah, my parents kept forcing me to take it when i was really ill years ago, but i couldn't eat anything and so kept throwing up green stuff.

when i realised and started refusing to take any painkillers, i felt much better.

[lucifein.livejournal.com]

am i odd then?.. I do not take medication of any sort, refusing even headache tablets and night nurse. Left an ambulance man worried sick when i refused the painkilling gas he was clammering to get me hooked on. I have a great belief that my body can cure most of its own ills with mind over matter, obviously not something like regenerating a lost limb, but the pain after the shock dissapates. Apart from having faith in my own constitution i'm terrified i'd 'take something for the pain' for something small and my tolerance toit would build so the next time i would have to take a greater dose and so on, that meaning when i do really need it the painkiller will have to be at such a high dose that it could leave serious after effects. Well thats my one fear mentioned in public. I'll get me coat!

Luci xxx

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Don't the Christian Scientists do a similar thing? :)

[ Shrug ]

It's up to you. Ibuprofen is (IIRC) an anti-inflammatory as well as a painkiller, so in a number of cases, medium-term use is a Good Thing. (Where's Marge when you need her?)

For my own part, I've consumed a variety of legal, and somewhat less so, substances and have been fully aware (because I want to be) of the likely effects, good and bad. It doesn't take long (anecdotes about SSRIs apart) for most things to be flushed from your system.

Yin & yang aren't pandas.

[sarah-mum.livejournal.com]

But what if it's the same demons who shovel all the amusing and interestingly random stuff out too?
Personally I believe they're closely linked if not one and the same, so zombify yourself if you must, but don't come round to mine for tea if you do.

Oh, and you looked to be pretty well amused when I saw you (albeit briefly).

Re: Yin & yang aren't pandas.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

They're not.

If anything, the bastards take up vast amounts of time by cheerfully telling me that everything I create is shite and people are only going to laugh, so I might as well not bother. Or they'll tell me "No-one's going to understand a word, if that's some attempt at communication, you've failed dismally pink-boy."

This isn't the first time I've pursued this line of thought, by any stretch of the imagination. Some number (ok, ten) of years ago, I swapped an afternoon of DTP for a Reichian therapy session. The results were startling: I was happy. I smiled at people. I discarded my leather jacket. (Social armour? Safety blanket? Oh, I think so...)

It didn't last. But I was still the same JH-R while it did. Just one that was less likely to be a moody fucker and a lot more fun to talk to.

See, car salesmen and estate agents haven't got the lock on being socially adept, and just because you're some uncommunicative, SSRI-guzzling, black-clad wall-hugger doesn't mean you're going to be a deep and intelligent tortured soul.


As some kind fellow once said "You're interesting in spite of your neuroses, not because..." Which made me sound like the Anti-Woody Allen, but is still a fine thing.

Thing is, I get a lot of personal satisfaction out of hacking on interesting problems. That I'm doing better with that endeavour is an interesting side-effect of pills I'm taking for other reasons.