Interesting Hell

I’m the kind of person who is very sensitive to drugs. If I take a regular dose of Nyquil I’m out for 14 hours. If I take just one small red Sudafed, I stop eating for six hours and lose a pound. It’s sort of freakish.

This does not make me a good candidate for addiction, however, I have always liked to smoke stuff and so I have to not do that, so I don’t.

On Monday, I went in for a little procedure, no biggie, but it required that I take two Percocet, which is, of course, oxycodone and acetaminophen. The latter enhances the former, which is an opiate. I took two 325 milligram tablets.

Eight hours later, I took two Tylenol.

Then I stopped all that.

This is where the trouble came in.

When I take an opiate, like most people, I am high as balls and walk around wondering how the world ever got so pleasant. It’s like all the sights and sounds with none of the worry. Basically, it’s like living in a movie. Fine. That lasted about two hours.

Then, the nausea, then the come down, then the four hour nap.

Fine.

Then ten hours of sleep.

Fine.

Then, a depression so severe, a hopelessness so profound, I had to go, “Oh man…this is clinical depression. This is the end. I am bipolar. They say online here if you’ve been putting everything in order, that’s even a sign of suicidal tendencies.”

Then I thought, “I’m always putting things in order. Plus, that’s what I always do at the end of the year.”

So, I’m sitting on the brown sofa and I’m thinking, “You’re just super duper depressed and it’s probably the Percocet. So let’s do a little experiment here. No need to panic, like this is forever. Do what you do when things are simply awful.”

And this is what I did. Instead of panicking, thinking I was going to be depressed forever, because that’s what depression does to you, I just accepted it. I accepted that I was completely miserable and that my brain was in a state of hating itself and that the only thing I could do was to just be with it.

Within five minutes it was gone.

I have noticed, in general, that all things once accepted, dissipate. And now even things caused by narcotics? I guess that works, too, accepting away your chemically induced misery.

This is a powerful notion, acceptance. And though Western culture is pretty much held up by the three tent poles of goals, drive and acquisition, I guess you can do all those things accepting as you go along.

It can make even the worst opiate induced depression lift.

Learning to accept the unacceptable is a brilliant counterintuitive action.

Accept everything you loathe and it will go away. Perhaps.

Doing the exact opposite of what you are naturally inclined to do always brings about an interesting new twist. It wakes you toward the other side. You don’t hold on and, zwoom, you are somewhere better.

If you hate this blog entry, accept it, and very soon you will no longer see it.