Posted by drummer (208.157.153.250) on June 18, 1999 at 15:34:46:
I feel like shit. That’s not to say that if you touched me that I would feel soft and mushy and have several kernels of corn all over my body. I mean the inside of me feels like shit. You know, behind my eyes and inside my brain. And all of those strings of nerves that hang from my brain and end at the tips of my fingers and the tips of my toes. They feel like shit too. I have not posted in a while due to this whole shit feeling thing. I have not felt the urge to type the word, “Ya-Hoo”, in quite some time.
As a friendly reminder to all of you; I’m an idiot. An idiot with clusters. An idiot who has had chronic clusters for 15 years. I think maybe that the clusters have contributed to the fact that I am an idiot. Although, for as long as I can remember, even before clusters, people have asked this question of me, “are you an idiot”? I have never altered my response. I have always responded with, “I’m afraid so”.
My wife, who I have known for 8 years, has asked this same question of me in various forms. She has asked me things like: “Are you an idiot?” What are you; an idiot?” and “Did I marry an idiot?” One time I accidentally locked our 2 year old daughter in our car. And as my wife was running to the house to get a wire hanger to break into our locked car, she yelled over her shoulder, “what the hell? Are you a friggin’ idiot?” I believe my wife already knew the answer. I think it was a rhetorical question. As I looked through the car window at my trapped 2 year old daughter, she looked back at me and smiled and said things like, “daa daa” and “weeeeee” and “ardle eedle oodle?” I think this was my daughter’s way of asking me the same question. I simply smiled back at my trapped daughter and nodded my head.
I wonder if people that are making the transition from sanity to insanity feel like shit for a while before they cross the bridge to “crazy land”. I wonder if they consider themselves idiots. My wife tells me that I look and sound insane when I get hit with a cluster headache. She says I look and sound like an idiot too. She is concerned that I will hurt myself by bouncing off the walls during a cluster headache. I wonder if this is why they keep some insane people in padded cells. I think I need to partition off an area in the basement with padded walls and a padded floor. This would be a safe place for me to hide and bounce during a cluster headache. It would also be a nice place to lay down after the headache is over. I’m often tired, depressed and moody after a cluster headache.
I recently read a news article about a man in Philadelphia who was fired from his job as a nurse in a mental hospital. He had taken a gun back to where he was employed two months after he was fired. I guess he wasn’t too happy about being fired. I’m surprised that he didn’t realize that there are many, many mental hospitals all over the world where he could seek employment. It is obvious to me that he is an idiot. I feel bad for the depressed, schizophrenic and multiple-personality-disorder people that live in that mental hospital. I bet they felt fairly safe before the idiot with the gun came back to work. I think my padded, partitioned basement idea is much safer. I’ll just make sure that I never fire my wife.
I absolutely, positively and thoroughly believe that anyone and everyone that has ever lived on this planet of ours, is an idiot. I like and admire the idiots that readily admit that they are idiots. I like and admire Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Leonardo de Vinci, Mark Twain, my doctor, my best friend Doug and my wife. Yes, even my wife on occasion has admitted to being an idiot. The idiots that don’t readily admit to being idiots scare me. Adolph Hitler, Slobodon Milosevic, William Clinton, my boss and several of my friends that suffer from migraines really scare me.
Before I told you guys that I am an idiot that feels like shit and hinted to you that I very well may be going insane; I told a few other caring, understanding people. I told lc bob, Elaine, DJ and my wife. lc bob told me that I was normal. I like lc bob; he is not only a great writer (Symphony for a Devil), but also, a great listener. Elaine showed me great compassion and offered several intelligent ideas as to why I might be feeling like shit. DJ asked if I was OK through an E-mail to me before he even knew that I felt like shit. I wrote him back asking him how the hell he became to be so smart. How could he possibly know that I might be not OK? I like Elaine and DJ too.
I have just recently explained to my wife my feelings of shit. I try not to bother her. She is under a lot of stress because she is married to me. She currently has 5,478 responsibilities. All these responsibilities stem from me, the kids and her job. I only have 7 responsibilities. My responsibilities stem from me and my job. I also am responsible for the kids too, although, ever since the “kid-in-the-locked-car” thingie; I need constant supervision.
Anyway. After I explained the feeling like shit thing; my wife asked if I remembered to take my medication for my cluster headaches. I told her that I could not remember. Of the many medications that I take, one of them is Neurontin. This is an anti-seizure medication that also helps with depression. One of the side effects of Neurontin is short term memory loss. It is difficult to remember to take a medication that makes one not remember to take a medication. “Does this make sense?” It makes perfect sense to me. My wife says she will help me remember to take my medication. She now has 5,479 responsibilities and I now have 6. My wife says the medication should now help me feel less like shit.
You know; it’s bad enough suffering the indescribable pain of a cluster headache, let alone the various side effects of clusters. Or maybe what I consider the side effects of clusters is actually the cause of clusters. I’m talking about depression, quickly changing mood swings and the frustration of losing valuable time from one’s life. The cluster attack itself takes about an hour out of my already short 24-hour day. Then after the attack I’m like a guy with a multiple personality disorder. Maybe I’ll be depressed, maybe angry, maybe frustrated or sometimes even euphoric. If it is a level 10 attack I may feel all those things at the same time. This is when I feel like shit.
One more thing. Once during a level 10 cluster attack as I was pacing back and forth from wall to wall in our living room. I stopped banging my head for a second and stared up at the ceiling and screamed at the top of my lungs this: HEY GOD!! WHAT THE FUCK!! ARE YOU AN IDIOT!?!?