More on My Brother

I went over to visit my mom. She isn't home but my brother is.  He is high. He is singing, banging himself in the chest, and making odd noises.

In spite of this, we managed to have a nice talk.  I blew a gasket--unfairly--with someone and feel awful.  I am too ashamed to see her and apologize. My brother gave me some very wise and compassionate advice, something to the effect that we are all human, that I should just admit that I f--ked up and understand that it is part of being human.  While I do not want to romanticize addiction, his struggles have given him a great deal of insight into human nature.

I have had four lost years after I stopped taking opioids--I took them for only three days while I was hospitalized, I never abused them, and was never addicted. The drugs knocked something in my brain out of balance and I could not regain that balance, even after I stopped taking the drugs. I have been a burden to my family.  I am not abusing drugs but I am not any easier to deal with, ultimately, than he is.

If I had known what I was going to go through for the last four years, I probably would have found a way to continue taking opioids.  It is a choice between overwhelming depression and addiction.  Neither one is great.  By the way, opioids relieve the depression with fewer side effects that conventional antidepressants.  The conventional antidepressants made me feel positively hostile. They cause weight changes and skin changes.  I just hate them.  Opiods have the downside of addiction but while I was on them, I fet normal--not euphoric, not high, but normal. In the short term, they had fewer side effects for me than conventional antidepressants.