Missing BoheMIAn In Action

Being a foodie used to be a huge part of my identity...All of my friends were foodies, but they weren't necessarily overweight.  I was always thinking about food...I finally got to experience a state of consciousness where food was not a preoccupation when I started taking Adderall.  It wasn't just about the appetite suppressant element of it...It allowed me to engage in other things more fully, thus diverting my attention away from food.  It also helped me to block out a noise issue I have, Selective Sound Sensitivity Syndrome (or "misophonia"...when I first learned about it, there wasn't a whole lot of information on it, but there has been more circulating since then)...Before that, it seemed that I was always trying to flee from noise...It was difficult to find a place to study because of it...I wonder if Adderall can legitimately be used to treat these conditions, aside from ADHD and narcolepsy?  My ADHD "diagnosis" has always been an iffy one - half the pdocs/mental health professionals I've consulted about it say I have it, half say I don't.  I don't really know how I'm supposed to feel about this...Like, is it fair for me to have the medication?  Then again, have I ever fully "qualified" for any sort of condition?  I'm often sorta in-between, or I shape-shift.  All I know is that I have had trouble concentrating and following through with certain things for a long time, and it has been a chronic issue for my academic performance.  When I was younger I had a lot of OCD symptoms, but I don't think that's the whole story.

Despite having gotten a degree where a good deal of reading and writing was involved (or was supposed to be involved...I didn't do a lot of my reading, unfortunately)...I think I could actually benefit from a developmental reading class.  And an ADHD coach.  Learn how to retrain my brain, my eye movements across the page and ability to synthesize what I see.  Learn how to read "effectively," and not over-annotate everything.  I feel like I should be beyond this already, especially at a time when I should be teaching others these skills.  But maybe this is one of those "back to the basics" kind of thing.  I believed (and still do believe, to an extent) that through teaching others I will be able to help myself improve in this regard, but I think I also need some additional coaching.  Perhaps I also need to pick up a meditation practice to help with the concentration...And ability to deal with feelings of boredom and restlessness...

Whatever this is, this unnamed thing that may or may not be ADHD...Just because it doesn't have a distinct name/recognizable profile doesn't mean that it shouldn't be taken seriously...Right?

I can see why the appetite suppressant aspect of Adderall would be a red flag for certain features/behaviors of eating disorders, I think it can treat some.  Like Binge Eating Disorder or Compulsive Overeating?  Could it even help people with Anorexia or Bulimia obsess over food less?  (If the obsession is taken away, then there will be no excessive concern about weight?)  I do believe that altered states can teach us things, but sometimes they need to be guided...It really was life-changing to be able to experience the passage of time differently...different kinds of thoughts running through my head...But maybe now it's time for me to say okay, now that I've had that firsthand experience, what can I do to maintain that state in other ways?  Sort of like how psychedelics open spiritual doors for people and incite curiosity about reality, creates a desire to learn...But then you realize you can't turn to psychedelics forever, but you CAN access something similar through meditation, through creative and intellectual and spiritual pursuits...For some reason I'm thinking about biofeedback now.  The way it was explained to me was that it helps the brain understand what it feels like to be in an "ideal" state or whatever (the "zone"?) because you can see when you've reached it via the machine, and so you kind of have to remember how it feels like at that moment and reproduce it...Forgive me if this is totally off...

Haven't been sleeping too well lately.

There's airplane in my hair.  My belly button smells ripe (eew, I know).

Have we become too comfortable around each other?

We have become too comfortable around each other.

Are you following me?

There are mixed feelings coursing through me.  Am I edgy because I'm tired?  Or just edgy?

Perhaps I will be able to hear myself again within the silence of these walls.  It usually begins in the shower.

The last time I was here, I flirted with Ana - my version at least.  Personalize your eating disorder.

I don't really want to identify.  To focus on the body seems a bit superficial.  Then again, I know it's not that simple (and what a judgmental statement!).  We all focus on "surface" things, which often runs deeper.  I'm not trying to get all psychoanalytical here.  If it's not one thing, it's another.  Besides, some consider performing or doing a reading "vain." 

I want to ponder deeper questions about this life, these realities.

I need to stop living in fear.  I have become afraid of many things.  Reading and writing.  Doing as I please.  Well, maybe it's good that I've been jostled around a bit.  I don't take as many things for granted anymore.  But this is only the beginning.  When external obstacles are removed, the internal ones are still there (or maybe they are the same?).  And then when those are removed, there remains the task.  The still-yet-to-be-discovered textual territories.

I'm wondering if I need to return to a life in the theatre.  I can't think of a time that I've been more inspired, more focused, more clear in my direction.  Well, maybe a couple, but the theatre rarely fails to evoke a sense of wonderment in me.  I won't be just a performer.  I'll be a writer and dramaturge as well.  But I've been putting my life on hold and maybe this is what I need. 

I'd like to return to my research in general as well.  Read more and write, hopefully.  For a while chaos kept me on my toes but eventually I petered out.  I haven't been reaching out to people.  I've noticed that my mind hasn't been wandering off in all the contemplative, imaginative (sometimes to a fault) ways that it used to.  I haven't been doing very many meaningful things.  I could say that there are forces beyond my control that have been getting in the way of these meaningful things, but in the end it's still my responsibility to pursue them.  I haven't been growing a whole lot as a person.  I know that I could do more.  This doesn't feel too good.  I've felt this way before, albeit under slightly different conditions, but it seems like I'm always holding myself back somehow.  As if I have spent my life with one foot out the door and the other still inside the house, my body keeping the door from closing entirely.  I hide, then poke my head out occasionally.  I've been playing existential peek-a-boo.

But I don't want to get too hung up on how I'm falling short.  Back when I used LiveJournal, my posts were full of reiterations of things I wanted to do but somehow couldn't or didn't bring myself to do.  If only I could just stop thinking about doing them and begin.  How can I annihilate all this "aboutness?"  How can I move forward?  I wish I could be a college student again, living a bohemian life, getting high off of philosophical questions, immersed in thought-provoking discussions, surrounded by people and art.  Where did all of my idealism go?  (Yet, I was also idealist to a fault, engaging in what one might call "magical thinking.")

What I need is a re-birth.  To live an extraordinary life that is rooted in the every day.  Where one's values is aligned with how one lives one's life (Nietzsche?).  Transcendence is not beyond the horizon; it's in the here and now (is it still transcendence?).

Maybe I need to re-take Philosophy 101.

Wish I could also take some kind of developmental reading class, or have a coach help me through the learning difficulties i never quite resolved in school.  It feels late in the game, but I might still want to do more school.

And I want to stop purging.

Also, I think I should limit myself to 2 drinks a day.  And 1-2 orange cream bars.

Last night I dreamt about buying ecstasy again, except this time it was in a silly putty-like form.  I wonder what that means?

I can't have any chips around.  Any sort of junk food in bulk spells trouble.

I've purchased 'Purge: Rehab Diaries', by Nicole Johns.  What drew me to it was that it is about someone with EDNOS who doesn't look thin, and is a grad student in her 20's - all things that I can relate to.  It seems that a lot of fiction dealing with the subject of eating disorders tends to be found in the Young Adult section...I guess the ones for "adults" tends to fall under the memoir genre.  It'd be great to see more adult fiction about eating disorders.

Don't get me wrong - I really enjoy reading memoirs.  It's what I truly read with pleasure and don't struggle with.  (There are things* that I read that I find to be rewarding, but that are still sort of a challenge.  There are also things that I read for craft.)  I probably shouldn't be spending money on books right now, but oh well...

*things - texts, parts of books, excerpts/passages, snippets, skim-reading, blah blah blah.  It's rare that I read a book cover-to-cover. 

I forgot that I've had a bad habit of going to people who technically "should" be able to help me and asking for it, but either I don't understand it or I don't follow through with it (the former probably leads to the latter).

I've forgotten the extent to which I often sabotage myself.

If you are asking for help, will the other person understand that you are asking for help?  Are you really asking for help, or something else?  Perhaps you don't know how to ask for help in a way that is communicable?

A friend once said, "There is no need to be ashamed of having a problem.  Just ask for help."

If there is a fire in your house, don't call a librarian and ask for advice.  Call the fire department.