drained

drained--that's the word of the day. i'm always physically drained, but right now i'm also emotionally drained.

i've been playing around w/ my diary template but ended up not getting all of my older entries to look consistent as far as font and color go. so for now, i'm back to a boring d-land template. hopefully purple is pleasing your eyes, whoever cares to read me.

anyway, that's been sort of frustrating. at least i know some html, so it's handy.

i'm physically drained b/c..well, i always am lethargic. but i also couldn't sleep last night after the noise complaint. it was b/c i was in so much pain. i'm afraid that the arthritis is starting to affect my sacroiliac joints, and my legs always hurt. i don't have many darvocet pills left, but i still have a pretty big bottle of that hydrocodone cough syrup. surprisingly, the doctor also gave me 2 refills. i had a tough time getting off of it b/c i was on it for over a month (jan-feb). my sister got concerned about me taking it for so long and said that b/c it was essentially the same as lortab or vicodin, and she only prescribes it for kids in serious postoperative pain, she didn't want me playing around with it. and she told me to avoid oxy-contin at all costs. i would never play around w/ oxy contin b/c it's gotten such a bad rep. esp in the rural, southwestern parts of the state where i live. it's like whole towns are getting addicted to that stuff. and the shame of it is that a lot of that population never get help b/c they're uneducated. essentially a lot of them are rednecks.

but to get back on track i know how to handle narcotics. i'm too smart to let it get the better of me. and i myself have worked w/ a few AODA clients. i'm not stupid. i took some of that hydorocodone syrup last night for its pain-relieving qualities. besides, it doesn't irritate my stomach the way other NSAIDS do. but it's only a one time thing. i won't do it again. maybe that's why i'm so fuzzy headed and tired today too.

finally, i'm emotionally drained. maybe i shouldn't be. but i am.

*[to my readers: skip this paragraph b/c it probably won't make any sense]*

anyway, after reading a heartwrenching diary entry yesterday, i went back there and read another one, and then left a long guestbook note. whether or not it was the right thing to do, i don't know. i hope it was.

it's hard when it's not a face2face thing, and when a person doesn't realize that he/she is in trouble and needs help but everyone around him/her can see it. also, whether as a therapist or as a friend, you have to tread very carefully in trying to help or reach out, b/c the person you're trying to help can easily get mad or resentful. and that's the last thing i want to do here. is it stupid of me to take that type of risk here? i don't know. i really don't know. sometimes though, i get this vague sense that i'm starting to watch a train collision in slow motion... and that gets me thinking it's only right to try to intervene. relying on clinical judgment alone, the situation absolutely warrants some type of intervention. even if the end results are futile. but it's not even a matter of my own professional training background or professional ethics. i think that as people, as a society or whatever, we have an obligation to try to reach out and help when we see another person is in trouble. now that probably sounds pretentious, but i guess what i'm trying to say boils down to one thing: it's simply a kind gesture at the very least.

this all has me thinking a lot but at the moment it's all not coherent enough for me to put into a readable entry.

such is my [halfway?] coherent train of thought right now. i'm sure i'll be back later on.