I am so over rehab in any sense of the word!

Thank God I'm done with the Bridge - it was supposed to be the bridge, the pathway to physical well being, but let me say I was far - very far from prepared for my return home. I didn't know what to expect or how to handle coming off so much methadonea & oxy and have been a physical flop...exhausted, achey, tired beyond words but mentally alert and frustrated.

I spent my first week at home with this great little bridge world between reality and fantasy - and let me say that I preferred my fantasy world...it was so much easier, well, probably because it was just an hallucinatory dream world, of course.

I know I never want to return to that world - and here's the hard part. My body is screaming at me to give it something to feel good - I've been on massive - truly massive, the Utah Doc wouldn't refill my Rx cause it was dangerous in his opinion - amounts of methadone and a ton of other drugs, and now I'm on nothing, nothing at all, and all these empty neurotramsitter cell spots are begging - give me something good, something yummy, exciting, thrilling, dangerous, enticing, erotic, illegal, or overload - we need to offset the emptiness with a new high...and I hear them calling and it feels so true and yet I refrain from engaging in conversation as that is one quick path down the road to misery and pain.

Done it. I don't want my physical recovery process to lead me to some sort of addiction issue - and the pull is so strong, and the chemical confusion inside is exactly what turns former legit Rx patients in to hardcore illegal addicts....no thanks.

This internal battle is pretty tiresome too.

And I find I need new things upon which to focus, as I'm still not working.

So - here are a few:

I am returning to school on a full time basis.

I am experiencing and rejoicing in my discovery of Watsu - and considering training if I can figure out how to afford it.

I am applying to school in another country. - OH YEAH - forgot, my super cool mini super genius has decided to applying to boarding school and so will no longer be around for me to mother after this summer...which allows me to move and make choices based solely upon my desires.

And there you have it for today.

Peace.

My Second Friendly email from Ut-yah

I am going just a little insane. I have a few more weeks to
get through this but they're having me do a really rapid detox & tons
of working out & radical diet change al at the same time and I feel
kinda of crazy and really good. Thanks for the kind thoughts - had a
great time at Scott''s too! See you soon -

the onset of insanity

Yeah, I just sent you guys a rather lengthy email, but since that
point in time I realized something - I am going crazy. It is
affecting me more than you, but apologies all the same....I'm just
writing to stave the insanity. We're hiking in Zion tomorrow. I am
looking forward to that. It has healing powers through out the areas
we're going so maybe it will help. Did I tell you there is a crazy
cowboy from Portland that only eats red meat (which does not exist
here) and will not eat fish or ground turkey or buffalo burgers or
boca burgers or vegetables? He shows up for yoga in jeans 4 sizes too
small with his 6" belt buckle, boots, and his hat. He kills me.
Also, this place has ghosts. I can feel them but someone else can see
them. Or we're having simultaneous hallucinations...

Sleep well my pretties...

Further forms of my limited contact with the outside world

Today was a lot harder for me. They have really stepped up the
medication withdrawal and I was having a pretty hard time this
morning....they couldn't find the key for my medication lockbox and so
I was about 3 and half hours late getting my first dose which was hard
because everything was
drasticallyl reduced the day before...it felt awful, but also made me
realize how acclimated my body has become to these meds...and I am
grateful to be getting off!!! The people here are great!!

I've had my heart rate tested to see my target heartrate, have my own
routine with a personal trainer, have worked with a nutritionist who also
tested us today and determined what our resting caloric needs, our
maximum caloric intake and how to calculate our fitness caloric
intake combined with our target heartrate range for burning fat
without going too far and burn muscle, have met with the MD Dr and the
OMD DR and the acupuncuturist and a chiropractor and a physical
therapist and a mind body specialist and an EFT trainer and quite a
number of other health related people too. Next week I'll do Watsu
and another aquatic method that involves two practictioners moving me
that it a lot like Watsu but supposedly more emotionally based.

The weekend guys arrived and brought popcorn and candy and most of us
stayed up too late and ate things that we probably shouldn't have. I
thought I was eating the safe healthy butter free popcorn and instead
I had the kettle corn - and our lecturer brought us all chocolate
kisses - another big no-no. We're on a no dairy no red meat nothing
white low fat sort of diet but with additional arbitrary restriction
randomly determined by "The Kitchen Nazi" - as she calls herself - and
signs her postings.

Today we finally left the grounds and immediate surround ghost towns
and extensive desert, and went in to a town. There we went souvenier
shopping and again - the weekend crew took us to get some
icecream...but I didn't eat the cone.

First sign of life from my time in physical rehab, aka physical HELL!

Hello you lovely luscious ladies -

I started to write you last night but oviously I was as high as a cat
as you willl see from my attempt I was higher than a kite...but at
least I got the first two words out right!!

The place is beautiful, the food is great, the people who work here
are wonderful, most of the "guests" here are pretty cool, and my
roommates are both the youngest person and the oldest person at this
place - 23 and I think 72 or 78. More on that another day - we're
still trying to find our groove here, not that it's uncomfortable, but
still not quite groovin just yet. I had 4 medical or physical
appointments and a massage yesterday. I think I have 4 more today and
another massage, and we're going hiking in a ghost town just down the
road.

I forgot to tell you - we are in the middle of no where, down obscured
road with warning signs about fire arms, and then down a few more dirt
roads - I couldn't escape if I wanted to...but I don't so that's ok -
there is zero light interference out here and the sky is AMAZING!!

OK I'm going to eat and then get doped up again, but I hope you three
have a lovely day and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Jen




Hey there firk-================afc


QQQ\\]ss
friendly c==at gift bag

Pain Rehab???

Yes, my Mom and my therapist met and my Mom returned with a steatement - she was sending me to rehab. SENDING ME!! An adult - decades in to that status, with my own teenage daughter, and my Mom is SENDING ME!!

Well, I thought a bout it and returned to my therapist and asked...WTF why are you in collusion with my Mom?? I thought you were MY therapist and was not expecting you to throw out something brand new that we've never even discussed!!!

She stated, it was the first time it had occurred to her and she believed it would be a great experience. We talked some more and I came to see her point of view...some in-patient place that specializes in chronic pain woud be good for me, and allow me some space to feel and be myself without the stress and crush of my daily dreary life and parental oversight (or rather, maternal oversight).

So I started looking, and I discovered that the clinics in the US are meant for addicts and amputees - there aren't any out there just for people in pain - AND they charge TENS of THOUSANDS of dollars! I found some that were about $60K! I thought that was freakin ridiculous...Then I started finding clinics but they only did highly invasive things that required constant and continued medical care - I wanted to be DONE with the Docs and the meds and the pain.

And then I started to look outside the US where the medical system is not focused on profit but on recovery and immediately I found places that were ridiculously low and focused on you leaving without pain and low meds or no meds - the systems that were not based on profits were the ones that dealt in HEALING TREATMENT rather than continued treatment.

I found one I liked and was ready to go, but then my Mom found this one pretty cool place in Utah - it's called The Bridge. They had all the alternative stuff I am interested in and are focused on healing rather than invasive and continued medical care - a nice mix of eastern and western medicine. And it sounded great - Soutern Utah, near Mt. Zion, great weather, beautiful scenery, and the treatments I want...I'm leaving Oct 29.