| Back home clean and sober...sort of... |
[May. 29th, 2011|12:26 pm] |
Two weeks ago I returned home from my secant stay at rehab. It was good to be sober for a few months while I was getting over my latest depression. I didn't follow any therapy. I used the time to build up my working hours. I guess it was more like staying at a half way house since I was at work during the day and only came back in the evenings to eat, sleep and socialize.
The main things that helped me out of my depression were the other patients around me, the change of scenery and the changes in my medication and of course staying off the sauce.
It was was really good to be out of the house. So good that I have decided to try to move as soon as possible (unfortunately soon could mean over a year with the salary I am earning now). Even though I was only staying in the next village it felt like I was away somewhere on vacation. The section of the clinic I was staying in has a really nice court yard which the nurses and patients maintain. Since it is surrounded by walls ön three sides and trees on the other there is hardly any wind. On any day that there is a little sun I took advantage of it spending the evenings on the terrace. I was already getting compliments on my tan in March. The clinic was built on the grounds of one of the oldest mental asylums in the Netherlands. The terrain is is at least two square km and is laced with tree lined paths. I went walking almost every evening when I first arived.
As for the fellow patients....I found from the very begining that I could get along with almost everyone, almost too well. At first my connection with the others kind of scared me. I felt too much at home. I started trying to make things less comfortable for my self (not unpacking anything, as if I were only in a hotel room for a night , telling people I would be gone in a week) as not to get to comfortable. I had met patients my first time in therapy who were already there for the third or fourth time. I didn't want to become one of them.
After around a month I gave up on my earlier attempts to distance my self from my fellow patients. I came to the conclusion that it was only natural for me to feel so conected to the people aound me. They, like me mostly came from mentaly unstable families and expirienced some kind of trauma in their youth which led to the misuse of chemicals to numb the pain and confusion caused by those ugly experiences. In therapy unlike in the wider world it is acceptible to talk openly about these experiences which makes it a lot easier and faster to get to know people.
My favourite person I met in therapy is a girl named Jeannette. She is trying to kick a coke and herroine habit of 23 years. She arrived in my group strait out of a three month prison sentence.
She came in looking like a high class hooker, wearing shiny black tight fitting clothing, nodding off from time to time like she had just had a shot of 'H'. She talked the tough talk of a criminal junkie. However somehow I knew right away that there was a lot more to her than that. And I knew right away that we had some kind of connection. Anyway I was right but I will go into that in another entry.
The last thing about my stay that really helped me was new medication. I had been taking a low dosage of anti depressants for two years I knew they weren't doing anything more than numbing my emotions but I didn't dare to to quit because of the heavy effects of withdrawal.
My sleeping pills stopped working around the time I started getting depressed. The first thing they gave me when I got there is some nice heavy tranquilizers which provided me with much needed rest. After a few months at the clinic I met a guy who had the same problem with antidepressants as I have always had: they have a numbing effect but really don'T MAKE YOU ANY HAPPIER. He had just started with a new medication which he said was the first thing he could truly say had helped him. I asked the psychiatrist if I could try the new drug myself and finally quit the one I was on. She agreed.
I can't say that I have become a cheerful, jolly joker but I manage to take my negative thoughts and feelings less seriously and enjoy the better times a lot more. I think with the help of the EMDR therapy I have started with my new psychologist and the Sedona Method a meditation therapy I descoverd on internet I may be able to become a fully functional human being for the first time in my adult life. Maybe even at some point a happy person....I'm keeping my fingers crossed. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 7th, 2011|09:23 pm] |
Back in rehab...
Don't really know what I am doing here. Just spending some time away from home and drying out. Hopefully being here will let me look at my life from the outside and figure out where changes can be made. As for the alcohol. It definitely wasn't anywhere near as heavy a period as it would have been in the old days....but it has never really been about the alcohol or drugs.....
I had the same problems before I ever touched the stuff..... |
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| I just did something I always wanted to do |
[Jan. 16th, 2011|12:22 am] |
I chopped off half my hair...felt pretty good.
I have know idea how it looks except for the front...
Oh well...at least it is some thing new.. |
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| What's worse than what I just wrote is... |
[Jan. 15th, 2011|10:53 pm] |
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I am catering to Carolien's vanity. She knows I hate texting. I did it for two weeks when I knew she was thinking about ending the relationship. Now that it is over she hasn't been answering my calls but will text me back. And I do it no matter how pathetic it seems...and knowing that it is already over between us... |
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| 2011 has been really shitty so far.... |
[Jan. 15th, 2011|10:15 pm] |
I already wrote a private entry about it but know one besides me needs to know the full pathetic story.
Simply put: my girlfriend of just over a year broke up with me around 2:30 a.m.
It was a shock to my system that destroyed all sense of normalcy. I am still reeling.....
I thought that after a year our connection was pretty sollid.
However after thinking about it there is no such thing as sollid.
I knew we had problems... I didn''t know hoiw different we saw that our problems were...
Oh well.....I am suffering for it now.... |
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| New Band |
[Oct. 5th, 2010|10:44 am] |
I finaly have a new band together for the first time since X Marks The Spot broke up in ..... I can't even remember what year that was. I guess around four years ago. I have played guitar quite a lot in jam sessions even been on stage twice with another band.. it is not the same though.
So far the band consists of me on guitar, Klaas, also on guitar and René on drums. We need more members but this is a good start.
We don't have a common goal yet for what kind of music we want to make. We do have a common background though. We all have listened to a lot of punk music or still do.
Whatever kind of music we end up making it will be noisy and I am pretty excited about making a big noise again. |
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| 4 day work week |
[Sep. 6th, 2010|12:40 pm] |
Up until now I had been working three days a week. I asked a few times for more ours and now after 6 months I finely have have them.
I want to be happy about it because I will be earning quite a lot more. The problem is that for the most part all that I can think about is all the energy it will cost me and how much free time I will be loosing.
I am doing my best these days to think positively. Even reading books about how to do it. It would be really great if I didn't always concentrate on the drawbacks in life. It would save me so much energy....so would giving up smoking. I am going to make another attempt before the end of the year.
If any ex smoker on here has any suggestions on how best to go about quiting it would be much appreciated. |
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| originally from violet_rain |
[Aug. 22nd, 2010|01:12 am] |
I'll respond by asking you five questions (eventually) to satisfy my curiosity.
Update your journal with the answers to your questions.
Include this explanation and offer to ask other people questions.
1. Do you remember when you first started drawing? Was art a conscious decision or did it just have to happen?
I remember a small book my mom must have given to me that I drew in at least from the age of six. Before that I cannot say for sure. I remember one picture really well. Two guys playing tennis. One guy was a regular human the other was something completely different. He had two arms and legs, hiss head though was definitely a flies head. The pattern was the same as the net. I wish my parents would have saved that sketch book.
2. If you could take your family anywhere in the world (and money and time were not an issue), where would you go & what would you do?
At the moment if it were only about me, I would say the US/Canada or Japan. However if it were my family I would say Definitely take them to Canada. I am Canadian, or at least that is what my passport says (another one says the US) but I haven't been back since I was 6 years old. I would love to finaly see Victoria where my Sister lives, the nature reserves, Toronto, my own home town Kingston, Quebec actually I could spend more than a year just traveling around. However since it would be about family...I would love to show my daughter the places she probably would have been if her mother didn't die before she even got to know her. I would love to be able to take my mom to see my sister and I would love to show my girlfriend why I will always miss North America and Canada in particular.
3. How did you and your partner meet?
We met in the same 'Personal Effectiveness' class together (horrible translation I know, I am too tired to figure out what the proper term is) . I immediately liked her. She isn't the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, but her laugh and comments immediately had me paying attention. I was already dressing better for the next session. I hated it when I found out that she had a boyfriend. I even played him once for the roll playing part of the session. I thought it was over and done with at that point.
Luckily it wasn't....We were both trying to get more exercise and someone else at the course did their best to get us together as walking partners. We only went walking once and then I finally got the invitation that their was room to get into rehab. Carolien had just started doing art therapy at the same complex so instead of walking we went fr coffee on the days she was there.
Since I found out she had a boyfriend I had never considered the possibility that we could get together. However a month after I got out of rehab I called her up to hang out. She told me it was over with her boyfriend. Which didn't mean to much to me until our meeting felt allot more like a first date.....anyway...it turns out she like me from the first time she met me and that we both had always felt that way (although at the time she was doing everything she could to save her relationship, it was finally he who decided it was over...his loss). Even her ex has told me afterwards that the way sher talked about me it was obvious that she was getting something more than just friendship from me.
4. Favourite concert ever?
Pukkelpop 1991 Sonic Youth, Dr. Junior, Ride, The Pogues, Nirvana, the Ramones, House of Love and Frank Black who wasn't on the bill but who did acoustic performance right after the Pixies broke up, before the breakup had even been announced. The whole crowd knew every word of every Pixies song.... I was so depressed at the time...high school outcast lost in a foreign country and living with the parent I hated. That concert was a bright ray of light. |
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| Too many months without thinking.... |
[Jan. 5th, 2010|12:39 pm] |
I haven't writen on here for quite a while because my head was empty. There hasn't been half enough activity up there since I started working a propper job again. I always knew that work was mind numbing but I thought I had learned enough in the years of unemployment to have found a way to keep my head turned on even if the drag of work would be draining a lot of my energy. I found out that this is not the case.
I feel like in the past two days I have finaly woken up again to what is important. It took a the nasty shock of my girlfriend breaking up with me to shake me out of my snooze.But I guess it was necessary.
I realize again that I have to start forcing my will on life again. I can't sit around and let things happen. When I do, I begin to slide down hill. My goals become vague dreams and my actions become lame half intentions.
I have set a new goal for this year to really put my music and creative projects first. Yeah I have to work but I have to fight to keep my mind awake while I work. I can't loose sight of my aspirations. I have to take a lot more action. I can't epect the world to give me the things I want if I am not taking the steps to get them or take them.
My first two actions will be to book a practice room for this weekend or as close to that as I can find a free space. Call up Robbert the ex singer of the Hufters and ex bassist of Straf arange for my ex drummer Daniel to be there and get my brother on guitar and have a propper jam session. If it doesn't work out look for other musicians through internet.
Secant action is getting my lap top fixed buying a good sound card for the thing and start finishing a ton of good compositions I was working on in 2009. |
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| Ara & Alastereo |
[Oct. 22nd, 2009|11:10 am] |
Here is some music I made with my friend Moníka. We had been planning to make music together for a long time but due to poor recording facilities and being to poor to afford studio time it never worked out until now. Moníka calls her self Ara and I am Alastereo of course. Moníka made the video while on vacation in France.
Ara & Alastereo 'Tylko Cialo Me Tu'
Ara & Zoomer- 'Tesknota'
Zoomer is Markus, Moníka's boyfriend this is his mix of a track that Moníka and I did together. His version of the track is completely different than mine. I really like the video he made for it. He put it together from a film he made while on vacation with Moníka in Sweden last Halloween.
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alastairg's journal