Sep 15

Been sleeping a lot.

And by a lot I mean easily over 12 hours a day. Some days 18. Some days 14. And even on the lesser 14 hour patches. The up time is often spent dozing.

Sometimes like this the exhaustion fades a little. When you're not testing it. Sliding from one sleep to another it is just mostly sleep and rest. You don't flake out. Because you are already assuming the position. On the other hand. There is no build up of energy. No itchy impetus to get up and do things. That kind of energy never happens. Once upon a time I couldn't rest for overly long. Before very long I'd get itchy feet. Full of things to do. And energy to burn. Now the energy never gets above minimum. Some days, if I don't push it, I can sleep around the clock, I lose track of time, and I never feel like waking up. Never refreshed.

Work was a bit of an anxiety fest this week. Asleep. Unable to do things. It made me anxious, things to do, not doing them. I made up time in the small hours of the night when I would have better lucid moments. And belted what work out I could. Done what I needed to do. Another week of just managing to get by.

With all the sleep I have been dreaming a lot. Nothing decidedly awful. Just low level anxiety dreams. But also dreams where I just live a life. Of doing things. Going places. Interacting with people. Finding moments of closeness. Intimacy. Normalcy. And in those dreams I am not affected by exhaustion. Nor pains. Nor dizziness. Nor nausea. Not any of the myriad symptoms I have. I feel like I did in the before times. When none of that was on my radar. And life was a different kettle of fish.

Even with the anxiety themes of the dreams - losing things you cannot find, worried about what people think of you, can't find your way home, can't do the thing you need to do - they are a much better place for me than the waking world. Relatively speaking, it is a nice place to be. I am not cut off. Not a prisoner of my own ailments. I have something to offer others.

On waking it is a brutal change of gears. The squealing of the tinnitus. Everything hurts. Everything is sluggish. Heavy limbed. Heavy eyed. Alone. And without hope. Exertion makes all the warning lights go on. Scratching along from one day to the next. I live better in my dreams. That was the realisation I had today. I am better off in my dreams. What does that say about where I am ?

This last half week I have been more stable in mood. I have upped my nutcase meds. And I think they have laid a firmer calming hand on the misery. Flattening everything out. I dislike doing so. Mostly because I am aware they also tend to cut off any hope of fleeting happier moments. But mostly because of the absolute havoc they play on the sexual side of things.

Sexuality and me is a complex thing these days. Once upon a time sexuality was a big part of who I am. Not that I ever flaunted it. It has always been something of a secret side to me. Not because of any hang up about it. But just because I didn't want to ever bother anyone with it. Without fail I would avoid any chance of crossed signals. Even frustratingly at times for others, when it was pretty clear and offer was being made. Mostly I walked the world with my sexual side switched off. But privately. It was a big part of me. And I loved being able to connect with people in that way. I loved the blur of intimacy, no pigeon holes, no words for it, no bad attempts at definition. Just close to people. And sometimes that becomes sexual.

I have always been a proponent for sexual freedom. Not having hang ups about it. As long as you are not harming anyone, go to it. As I got older this only increased based on my thinking that the world is full of pain and misery, and so many people telling you what you can and can't do, bills to pay, taxes to be had. By christ if you can find yourself a little happiness amongst the shit, then do it. It's one of the few things they haven't worked out how to make a misery of. Yet. Well. Kinda. All the shaming, particularly of women, for having sexual feelings and all the like. How women get treated here is in my humble opinion diabolical. It is for me all about control. Men. Trying to control women. And in 99% of cases stemming from the original bullshit religious frameworks. The original misogynist setup. Lazily perpetuated into modern culture. Be chaste. Don't experiment. Don't be dirty. Save yourself. For men. Typically. A different measuring stick.

But anyway, I digress.

Although I've never held it against anyone per se, I've always been more drawn to people that can embrace their sexuality - whatever that is - rather than people who are afraid of it. And to my eye, plenty of people are afraid of it. Afraid of what it makes them. Afraid of what others might say of them. Afraid of being judged even in complete privacy. The guilt that has been conditioned into people by shitty fucking fairy tales has been astonishingly effective. Added to the fact that people love to have an excuse to sneer at other people. Oh you're a slut. Inferior. I can mock you. Degrade you. And I score moral points. Yikes.

Understandly then, some of this has to lurk if not in the shadows then somewhat hidden. Whilst some are fine to endure any slings and arrows that come their way, others are a little more cautious. Whilst others are scared into not doing anything. A shame. Why is it that as a species when given choices to live in peace or live in war, to be nice or to be mean, to have a utopia or a dystopia do we often pick the shitty reality for ourselves. A world without sexual hangups and shaming would be a damn sight calmer. And one with less anti depressants. But no. Let us instead burn each other for imaginary sins whos standards are completely at odds with our biology. Like making having eyebrows a sin. Idiotic.

Tangent. Again.

So me. And sexuality.

It's true to say that in my unrestricted form I have, or rather had, a very high sex drive. Again. Not something I broadcast. And something I could entirely control. On. Off. But all things being equal.

In fact I'd say, in what is probably a surprise to almost everyone that ever knew me, more than anything my chief characteristic would be my sexuality. Not anything else.

After I got ill. Everything changed. And. It also has to be said, probably, finally, my age started catching up with me. But post being ill. My sexuality evaporated. My sex drive went to near nil. 

I can remember wrestling with this. Because this again was another part of me I had lost. Lost the capability to do things. To live a life. And also lost a key part of Who I Am. My sexuality. It was a blow. One amongst many. And like one of many. Something that depressed me and caused me to despair. Who was I ?

Add into this the dance with anti depressants. It's a fact that many anti depressants screw with either sex drive and or capability to climax. For me it was always the latter. Sometimes they prescribe anti depressants for those with premature climaxing. Because it does just that. Strangles the climax. You can get so far. And then never get any further. A frustrating piece of bullshit.

There is a funny comic that sometimes does the rounds on depression discussions. It depicts someone going to the doctor with depression and the answer being, you're sad, ok, here, have a pill that will drain the feeling out of everything and never let you cum. Thanks doc. So much better. Funny. And true. 

All told then, in my post ill years, my sexual side gets flattened by all comers. And taking a high dose of anti depressants is just the icing on the cake. When I am off the anti depressants, then once in a while my sexual drive comes along.

Here's the really tangential aside to bringing this up.

Dreams.

In all my life I basically never had a sexual dream.

In hindsight I think because I had a very high sex drive and was always active. And so. Never dreamt about it. As weird as that is.

I think in the course of maybe 40 years I had two quasi sex dreams. Which never went anywhere. But were definitely sexual in nature. One of them, something I still remember, was being bitten by a female vampire. No accounting for taste perhaps. Some goth girl overpowering me pinning me to the floor and biting my neck. Uh huh. Apparently. That very much floats my boat. I would guess that probably puts me with about 80% of other guys. Ho ho.

Weird thing since being ill and losing my sex drive.

It starts to creep more into dreams.

When I am flatlining sexually in the waking world. Apparently my dream side takes over. They still don't go anywhere. They still just tittilate and then fuck off. But. There's definitely a correlation there. Fascinating. Like the sub conscious gets sexually frustrated. And starts dreaming about it. And yet in the waking world. Yeah. Not so much.

On a connected note, the idea of such things in the real world fill me with a mild horror. The idea of a relationship in the real world fills me with a proper horror. I think of all the horrible ways it would fail. All the energy I don't have that I would have to pour into it. And not be able to keep up with the emotional upkeep. The idea that someone could just deal with me on low power mode. Understand that I can't dance a drama fuelled path seems incredibly unlikely to me. And arguably unfair. And so I imagine all the expectations and demands on me, that I couldn't hope to hit. And it fills me with dread. I still admire beauty in people. Almost like. Some art aesthetic. I can appreciate when someone is attractive. Both guys and gals. But. No relationships. As soon as I even think of it with someone who seems attractive, I can see all the horrors unfolding and I recoil hardcore.

And for me. Sex with another person has always been an intimacy thing. I could never do one night stands. I need to know who you are. And how you tick. And be close to you. So one thing follows another.

It is another part of me I miss. That side of things.

Sometimes I imagine what it might look like in a chronically ill compromised kind of way. It tickles at the edge of awareness that this too would be something you might have to get used to. A different way of doing things. A different tempo. Different expectations. Like everything else. Learning to live with your illness. Rather than trying to fight it.

I can also see that the amount of understanding and patience someone would have to have with me. About all things. Would be a tall order. For me. I find that unreasonable. I would be unreasonable to expect anyone else to be that patient. Be that understanding.

It is in the end, just one more sad epitaph on the list of things. One that I never bring up with people. One that I rarely discuss even with myself.

Eh well.

So. I don't like being on the mental meds.

They make a bad situation, worse.

Lesser evils. 

So in my dreams. Occasionally. I will dream of running a finger tip along an inner thigh. Of watching someone gasp. Before the dream washes away to something else. In my dreams I am somewhere else. And still alive.

Awake. I am already dead. The undead. Still talking. But not alive.