From the The Universal Household Assistant or What Every One Should Know (1884):

Things to try. — Try popcorn for nausea.    Try cranberries for malaria.    Try a sun-bath for rheumatism.    Try ginger ale for stomach cramps.    Try clam broth for a weak stomach.    Try cranberry poultice for erysipelas.    Try a wet towel to the back of the neck when sleepless.    Try swallowing saliva when troubled with sour stomach.    Try eating fresh radishes and yellow turnips for gravel.    Try eating onions and horseradish to relieve dropsical swellings.    Try buttermilk for removal of freckles, tan, and butternut stains.    Try taking your cod liver oil in tomato catsup, if you want to make it palatable.    Try hard cider -- a wine-glass three times a day -- for ague and rheumatism.    Try taking a nap in the afternoon if you are going to be out late in the evening.    Try breathing the fumes of turpentine or carbolic acid to remove whooping cough.    Try a cloth wrung out from cold water put about the neck at night for sore throat.    Try snuffing powdered borax up the nostrils for catarrhal "cold in the head."    Try walking with your hands behind you if you find yourself becoming bent forward.    Try a silk handkerchief over the face when obliged to go against a cold piercing wind.    Try planting sunflowers in your garden if compelled to live in a malarial district.

Fuck everything. I can't ever be a good person. I want to die, but instead I took lots of drugs that WILL NOT kill me. I don't really care. I constantly fuck up. It's all my fault. I drag everything in together. I wish people would just leave me be. I want to take my next check and just leave Boston, and I think I will. Boom-zoom. Outta here. I don't want to know anyone. I want to live alone an do lots of drugs. I know there is the beauty there, but I am so far away from it this minute. How fast everything can spiral down. I just want go away now. I don't want to ever return. I hurt people even though I try to help. I was doing so much better. Now it is all gone. I know this is part of whatever is meant for me. I don't get it. Please. I don't get it. I'm trying. I'm trying really hard. Look at me smile. The universe is a beautiful place. Yes it is. Look at me smile. Fuck everything.

I'm trying to keep from looping, but sometimes it happens anyway. If I catch the loop early, I can break free of it by will power or meditational prayers. But, once it gets going very strongly, my mind becomes blocked to the All and I can see only the loop. Different strategies are then needed.

I used to use methods such as cutting and purging to pull me out. But they only worked somewhat, and ended up becoming loops in and of themselves.

Methods I use now are taking a walk, taking a long shower, smoking a cigar, smoking some weak salvia, or talking with Sol or Luna.

If the looping is beyond that, I will attempt to go to sleep. Sleep seems to be the most powerful non-destructive method of reseting loops available on a daily basis. I can wake up and am able to do my meditational prayer again and find the balance.

If I can't get to sleep, I take one of the dwindling number of Klonopins I have left over from when I had a prescription. I know that it's technically a psych med, but my dislike for psych meds is rooted in living on them. Taking one occasionally, especially with the intent of using it to sleep, is not the kind of use I am weary of.

Sometimes even sleep isn't enough. The looping load has a habit of building over time and occasionally A much larger reset button is needed. But I am not currently at that point.

I'm doing much better at keeping myself in the good place, even if I still loop sometimes. The fact that I am not freaking out all the time with my current level of stress is in and of itself a vast improvement. While I still have minor freakouts, they pass quickly. And even when I'm looping and out of touch, I am more able to move and function. I'm finding new ways to adapt. New ways to continue. New ways to be.

It's a difficult journey, but it is a journey that I have no choice but to take. An easy path was never promised to anyone. Although my path has seen many hardships, it has also seen many joys, and for that I am truly blessed.

Now that I'm done dealing with things that need to be dealt with for the day, I'm going to enjoy the rest of the solstice. I'm going to take one of the Ativans I still have laying around from when I had a prescription and have a shot of Buttershots to get myself in a more relaxed state after being tensed up by the Verizon affair. Tonight, purpleglitter and I are going to have dinner with zarthon and celebrate the changing of the the sun.

gacked from kaiaroo:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- Scientists said Thursday that marijuana appears to promote the development of new brain cells in rats and have anti-anxiety and anti-depressant effects, a finding that could have an impact on the national debate over medical uses of the drug. Other illegal and legal drugs, including opiates, alcohol, nicotine and cocaine, have been shown to suppress the formation of new brain cells when used chronically, but marijuana's effect on that process was uncertain. Now, a team led by Xia Zhang of the department of psychiatry at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon may have found evidence the drug spurs new brain cells to form in a region of the brain called the hippocampus, and this in turn reduces anxiety and depression. full story

So much for the killing brain cells argument.

A couple days ago, I was at Mass Convenience. Behind the counter I saw a display of flavoured cigars for 50¢ each. I purchased the last chocolate one they had and put it in my pocketbook. This morning I was feeling quite panicky and twitchy, so I lit it up outside Walgreens. I know tobacco is bad, but I've found that it calms me down better and quicker than ativan or klonopin ever did. I smoke only occasionally, in fact it's been about two months since I had my last puff. I don't want to and can't afford to become addicted, but sometimes tobacco is a useful substance to self-medicate with and other times it's just nice to have a relaxing smoke.

i've had a good week
haven't had much access to computers, so haven't really been posting
several people have squawked at me for my acid use
but i plan on taking it again if the opportunity arises
this displeases many, but i feel like it is good for me
i always learn so much
and i want to see the universe again
i didn't get to last time because i was to into fixing my brain

-----

skye the budgie came out of the cage for the first time today
she even landed on my head
it is not the first opportunity she's had to fly around though
before we got her, she escaped for four days
she's very lucky she survived in this cold climate

i've had to catch mr. squeaky once a day
he's got a scaly foot problem
i have to put medicine on him once a day
he hates it and bites me a lot
but he's just a little finch so it really doesn't hurt

-----

i'm going to northampton with purpleglitter on Monday
haven't been in years
i'm looking very much forward to it
check out how my old haunts are doing
i don't imagine i'll see anyone i knew from when i lived there
the turnover in the valley is quite high
but it will be an adventure none the less

i took 5 hits of acid last night and did a lot of work on figuring myself out. a major crippling problem i have is self-doubt. it is so pervasive that i barely write poetry, play music, make art, or explore the universe anymore. i don't trust myself. i need to do confidence-building exercises. i need to get back in the attitude of "can do it" rather than "can't do it". i've been stuck in this rut for years, and i think i figured out how to get out. it's going to take some work, but i "can do it". i'm not quite ready to take on the world yet, but with some work i think i may just be able to do it. i feel like i've woken up from a long slumber. i'm still groggy, but i can see a new day.

i'm sure it is only the pot making me feel better right now
but it really is
i still feel a bit shaky
but not like i did
pot can get me through this

Feeling much better.
Pot really helps with the no-geodon effects
which themselves have gotten less
maybe the worst is over
maybe that was it
maybe i'm going to wake up tomorrow morning knowing how wrong i am now
but it could be
i may be free
we'll see

well that was a bust. i tripped. I tripped quite a lot. but i didn't learn anything and it was generally unpleasant, so around 3:00am I figured out I wasn't going to learn anything and all I would do was be generally unpleasant for the next six hours, so i took 160mg or geodon and 4mg of klonopin and went to sleep.

Yep. Seems to be working this time.

Twenty minutes ago I took less than my normal dose of geodon and increased the acid dose. Let's see if this works. If it doesn't I can always take my full dose and go to sleep.

i find myself reconsidering my acid plan
i need to answer some very serious questions about it first
this is not something to rush into
sure, i've been wanting to try this for years
but do i really have a plan?
why do i need to do this right now?
i know why it seemed that i need to do it now
but i may have found a solution
this panic came about because i was afraid of what might come out in hypnosis
stuff i know about and stuff i don't
i wanted to deal with it with acid first
because i wanted to be more in control
at least not in front of my therapist
especially considering what my other therapist said about me in her notes
i didn't want someone i don't feel like i can trust being around for that
i don't know what would happen
i need to know first, on my own terms
i will do acid before i explore hypnosis further than for relaxation purposes
but i have to realize i can set limits
i can tell my therapist firmly that all i want her to use hypnosis for with me is relaxation and grounding
that's it
i don't want anymore
and i won't take anymore
i will work to get myself to a space that i don't need geodon
and when i'm at that space i will take acid and explore
but to do it before then is reckless and causes stress for those who care about me
it's not fair to them
it's not fair to me
it's just a grand self-destructive act
all the problems i experience without geodon will be magnified
i'm not going to discover anything
i'd to curl up into a ball and scream
it's just stupid for me to do right now
i'm going to take my geodon now and chill out

geodon has kicked in
feel much better
i still want to try going off my geodon and take acid
i just want to plan it out better
make sure i have a babysitter who is willing to deal with extreme freaking out
i need to have a plan what i'm going to do the next day
i can't do this haphazardly like i was going to
that would likely end in disaster.
so planning
that is this stage.

i decided to call my friend one last time and tell her that i wasn't going. i hope she doesn't go and i'm not there. i don't want to go out in the snow. i doubt she does either, so hopefully she's staying home.

i've been a big grumpy bump today, grumping at people who completely don't deserve it. i feel bad. hopefully i'll calm down with a little herbal medicine in my system.

i want to do acid
acid has always been great therapy for me
it was my therapy before i was brave enough to seek out psych professionals
sure, i freak out a little bit sometimes
have wicked bad trauma flashbacks or get caught in nasty loops
i get really switchy and lose time
but as a good friend of mine stated, acid is for freaking out sometimes
it's okay to freak out
it's actually helpful
i really want some again
i've learned so much on my trips
but i haven't been able to get it in years
it's been far too long since i visited tripland
i want to go back there
soon

My pot smoking has changed drastically over the past few weeks. I'm smoking less pot each time I smoke, but smoking more often. I've been smoking when I don't feel my meds are doing enough. Pot calms me down quicker than Ativan or Klonopin, and unlike Ativan and Klonopin it is not addictive. I haven't been getting stoned, just slightly buzzed. While before if I smoked I wanted to get very baked, now I just want to stop my brain from exploding. One or two hits usually suffices. This is not to say that I plan on never getting very stoned, it's just not something I've been doing recently.

i need new knickers
the ones i have are too small
i've gained quite a bit of weight since i bought them
i don't really have the money to buy them right now
i'll have to wait until next month

-----

marijuana is surprisingly good at keeping me stable
yeah, i still have problematic moments on pot
but they're far less often and more short lived
i almost consider it a psych med at this point
i pretty much use it as one

heroin
i know it's bad
i've only done it twice
and that was 4 years ago
but i really want to do it again
that or opium
something in that family
i know it's bad
i probably shouldn't
i don't know where to get it anyway
and i'm not actively looking
but if it were to become available to me, i'd be so tempted

drugs drugs drugs
why am i so interested in drugs
what is it about them that intrigues me so
i talk and think about them quite often
i talk and think about them more than i do them
with the exception of pot and alcohol
drugs other than pot are either too expensive or i don't know where to get them
well, that's not entirely true
i take valium from time to time
but that's just another benzo
i'm prescribed klonopin and ativan already
i just like to rotate them
so i don't get too used to one
so i don't really consider valium "doing drugs"
but technically it is

again, what draws me to drugs?
why do i even smoke pot?
what is the lure?
i can't answer that
i'd like to talk to my therapist about that
but my current one is so judgmental
it's hard to have a real discussion about drugs
if i still were seeing fatima it would be much easier
she didn't think drugs were a good idea, but she didn't judge me because i used them
we could talk about drugs without her freaking out

about the question
why do i do drugs?
i can think of a million excuses
but none of them feel real
they're just excuses
i sometimes say it takes the pain away
but it really doesn't
i sometimes say i'm looking for answers
but i never find them
i sometimes say i feel better
but i just feel different
maybe it's the difference
maybe i am searching
maybe it does help with the pain
sometimes i really believe those things
but right now they just sound like excuses to me

this seems like something i should really figure out
especially if i'm going to keep doing them