Category: Blog

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Updates and free stuff!

Hi there. It’s me. I’m completely off Cymbalta this week. It’s pretty weird. I head for Peru in 45 days. I’ll try to keep updating as long as I’m able. Back in 2010, the process of weaning off meds left me unwilling to bother writing about what I was doing. I mean, there was lots of other stuff going on, and I had quit doing music so there was even less of a reason to be posting public blatherings about my mental state. But I didn’t even try and write down what happened to me until almost a year had passed. I regretted it for a long time, as I think I would have retained so much more if I could have managed to write in the moment.

So far, weaning off Cymbalta has had plenty of rough spots, but there’s still an active part of me that is creative, and that’s nice. A month ago, I had a revelation about the next record and that’s been a big help. We started recording some songs a while ago, you might recall, but I didn’t really know what the shape of the thing was going to be and so I was even slower than usual in following through. But, now that I know where I’m headed with it, I have a lot of enthusiasm for the project. There’s also a secondary project that is full of crazy, dumb ideas that I’m excited about, too.

I’ve been involved in a couple of side projects… Paul Schwartz (Big Fish Ensemble) is writing new songs and formed a band called The Lord High Admirals. We played our first show recently, recordings are being made, so you can probably expect to hear more about that in the new year. Pink Pompeii was another band I was involved in, where I was playing keyboards and triggering sounds. It was completely out of my comfort zone and it was really a lot of fun for me, but sadly it ended too soon. Bands are skittish little creatures and sometimes you just can’t keep them tame.

And, though my record has been spotty of late (new Weekly Cover Thing is up this week!), I continue to make music for a Facebook group called Theme Music. Speaking of which, here is some more free stuff, just for you. I made it with love. And frequently my iPad.

Five volumes of those things now, you guys, grab them all. And thank you for sticking around.

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So, why the “rush” (HA) to finish the Peru story?

Because I’m going to Peru in November, and it felt like I really needed to finally close the door on the first trip. It’s not that I feel like I finished the process of learning, really, but I do feel like I’ve traveled as far down a particular road as I can alone and I need more guidance. I made great strides, I think. I hope. But I would like to make many more.

I started weaning off my usual daily 60mg dose of Cymbalta back in August, and should be meds-free by October 1st. Because it’s a capsule I’ve been following a particularly tedious method that I found recommended online. I took about two weeks to shift to 30mg capsules, and since then I have literally been opening the capsules and removing five more ‘beads’ from the dose each day. It’s not an exact science, ans the number of beads actually varies from capsule to capsule, but it’s slow and less of a shock to the system. As of today I am taking roughly a 10mg dose. It hasn’t been as bad as I recall the last time I weaned off meds to be, although the last few days I have been feeling it more than most.

It’s an unpredictable process. It is why I have nothing planned musically after the next 2 shows.

Still, I remain capable of having creative ideas and acting on them to an extent, and that is something. I remain capable of writing silly blog posts detailing the process as if there are people who would want to read them.

I’m going alone this time, which is something of a THING for someone who doesn’t travel well to begin with and will be off his meds. I leave on November 13th, I’ll be back on the 24th. In between I will participate in five ceremonies. I will try to write while I am there this time and take lots of photos.

I did not edit this post for clarity.

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What happened in Peru? (Part 13)

Previously: The journey wrapped up.

If you’ve been reading this whole time, you might be happy to know I’ve decided to be really direct, here at the end. Because otherwise, I will never get to the end of this thing.

So, let’s review. I suffer from severe chronic depression. It landed me in a psych ward for a week. It killed music for me. Eventually, I became meds resistant and the idea of electro-convulsive therapy began to be discussed. At that point I decided, what the hell, let’s try something crazy first, so I went to Peru to take ayahuasca with a shaman.

Ayahuasca is an information dump. It opens up your brain and drowns you in data. I’ve spent the four years since trying to live the process of figuring it out. It hasn’t been easy at times, but it’s made me a better person. Better doesn’t always mean good. But better than before, at least.

When my depression or anxiety comes, I’m able to stay separate from it in some ways. I recognize it when it arrives, I let Sarah know it’s on me, and I just wait it out. It doesn’t consume in the way it used to. It’s more like a medical condition, with physical symptoms, that requires maintenance and I treat it the same way. It sucks but it’s a hell of a lot more manageable.

On the other side of that, I have good days. I’m creative again. I make things. I have ideas. I pursue them, or at least try. It’s not constant, and it’s a thing I also have to work at to maintain. But that it exists at all is a huge difference from before I went.

I can’t prove that those changes are a direct result of what happened. In some cases, it’s definitely not direct. But even then, I don’t think I would have done the things that led to the rest without that one altering experience. I wouldn’t have been able to struggle (and continue to struggle) to turn things around without learning the things I did.

So, what did I learn?

Lesson #1 (the one learned immediately, in ceremony): God is love. That’s a plattitude. You see it all the time, it may not even register. I know it never did for me. I don’t even know if I believe in god. I don’t think I do in terms of the conventional notion of it. But I believe (and yes, “believe.” I used to say it but I never believed it until after Peru) that there is something higher than us. Something we can’t comprehend. And whatever it is, it feels nothing but love towards us, and wishes we could do the same.

Lesson #2 (the one I worked to learn): The main thing, that everything else seems to radiate from, is that my cynicism has never created anything. Never brought anything worthwhile into the world. It can’t. It’s incapable of it, because creating requires being open. Every movement forward requires saying “yes” to something.

No more turning down the third ceremony.

No more trying to imagine the future of an event (because I am always wrong) and deciding against a thing based on that inherently faulty premise.

No more turning down the chance to ride a giant broom.

No more going down with the floor.

I don’t manage it every day. I don’t manage it every other day. But I manage it as much as I can, and I try to manage it more all the time.

No more being afraid.

The answer is yes.