Since my last post, I’ve come acutely aware of our current circumstances in ways I wish so badly weren’t possible.
We flew her guy and this other girl out here the second weekend in December, and in all honesty it went Way better than I could have expected.
The original plan was they’d fly out Friday and we would go to a planetarium galaxy show that night, then Saturday we’d go to Meow Wolf. (If you don’t know what that is, don’t bother looking it up, just continue on reading.)
Originally, Sunday night was going to be the night that we spent actually spending the night apart (swapping); but She hadn’t slept with him in over a year at that point, and I got the opportunity to apologize to him Saturday afternoon… – Somehow we ended up alone in one of the dark upper hallways that overlooks at Moew Wolf C street and I just dropped the whole “we’re acting normal around each other like nothing happened” thing and sincerely apologized for the letter and all the pain I know it had caused him. – It went REALLY well… like; he said he forgave me.
Kind of ironic that I ended up apologizing after all the pain he’s caused me in all of this… but I really Fucked him up with that letter… And the apology interaction went better than I could have expected.
That night we went to an EDM show, and afterwards went home. I made the decision to do the swap for two nights because of how well things were going and I knew She needed that.
Sunday was already planned that we would pull get up around noon and drive the hour drive into the mountains. – We did that and he and I both took our drones up and got some great photos and videos.
Despite all the oxy I took that weekend to mentally survive it; I still do remember most all of the weekend, and in retrospect, it really couldn’t have gone any better than it did. Honestly.
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I really don’t remember much of the next month… we were on so much oxy that it was kinda just a blur. – I will say that She did get her nursing extended, and while we were back for Thanksgiving, I was able to ask my dad for a $50,000 personal loan to try and get out of the financial nightmare we were in. – He agreed and we were able to financially survive… at least until Her hospital canceled 90% of their travel nursing contracts mid January when the COVID numbers dropped exponentially.
She hadn’t switched Her nursing license to this new state yet, and it was expiring at the end of January… and with the limit on travel nursing contracts having to be at least 50 miles from your home address to get the living stipend, we quickly made a plan to fly back to our home state and get Her ID switched back to that state using an address for a house my dad owns that my sister currently lives in. So we flew back to our home state the 4th weekend in January (which just happened last to fall over Her birthday) and went to diner with 20+ of our friends and got Her ID switched back to our home state.
We had been planning on getting off oxy starting in February, since this time around we were able to 40 Subutex and we really HAD to get off it since we’d been addicted for 20 months at that point. – So we did.
I took a week off work, and we detoxed stating February 2nd. – And it was HELL.
I had seen a psychiatrist a couple days before we flew back to TN and got a script for Lexapro. – I knew that come-ups on SSRI’s was a 6-week Rough process… but I didn’t realize how bad it can be. About a week after I started it, I had a couple days of 13 out of 10 anxiety… I thought that was the come up, and I was still on oxy at that point, so I got through that and thought I was through it… I was not.
After we got through the first week, the actual withdrawal period was over and we Slowly started to improve slightly. The Lexapro really started working for me and my depression and anxiety went almost entirely away. – But by the third week in February, we still were basically bedridden and since we’d hardly been eating at all because of what we were going through… we were still in pretty rough shape.
She had talked to Her psychiatrist about switching to Lexapro since it was quite a bit stronger of an SSRI than the Zoloft she was on, and he thought it was a great idea… so the last week of February, right when we were starting to feel well enough to start getting out bed, She switched her to the max dose of Lexapro.
I couldn’t figure out initially why I was still bedridden at the end of February… especially since I am not nearly as sensitive to the withdrawals from oct as She is… – Turns out that the come-up on an SSRI as strong as Lexapro can cause pretty much the same symptoms as withdrawals from oxy…… 🤦🏻♂️
Plus, after the p months on oxy; our bodies weren’t in great physical health to begin with… – Combine that with how malnourished we were after a month of detox… and we were not at all doing well.
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She went downhill again within just a few days of switching from Zoloft to the Lexapro. – thankfully, because She had already been on an SSRI, her symptoms only lasted half the amount of time than mine had; which was still 2-3 weeks instead of the full six weeks like mine.
Then, she had to take a drug test for a new nursing assignment that was supposed to have started March 15… and She literally was in such rough shape from the combined oxy post-acute withdrawal symptoms and the come up on the Lexapro that she was barely able to get out of bed…
She didn’t end up being well enough to get out of bed till this last week. And because of scheduling issues and all that we were going through, She ended up having to take the full-body detox drinks that clears your system for 3 days in a row… (one of the reasons was because Adderall kept showing up on our home tests and her prescription for that were out of date…) – Anyway; the 3 days in a row that she took that set her back on the Lexapro come up… which, with how malnourished She is because of the 45 days we’d been basically bedridden and She had barely been able to eat during these last couple months, so She as in REALLY rough shape.
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So I finally stabilized around early March since I hit my 6 weeks on the Lexapro, but my body was in Such rough shape because of all that we’d gone through, combined with how rough of a state our bodies were already in that the oxy had been masking for the lad 20 months… that it required a Lot of adderall just to function… and by the time I was through the Lexapro, I was SO far behind with work that I basically had to pull 100+ hours per week of work these last few weeks just to keep my job….
Needless to say, we were NOT doing well.
Tonight, we hit the 45 days mark without oxy. We’re in such rough shape though, that it still takes everything in us just to be able to get out of the house… – But we managed to go out and pick up a pizza and some whipped cream chargers.
Laying there in bed after watching the series finale of Your Honor, the thought occurred to me that I had been long enough since we had taken oxy that we could probably take a little tonight and be okay. – Medically, it’s long rough that if we only took it one night, we wouldn’t have withdrawals or relapse or anything like that (said every addict ever 😅🙈). Plus, I really needed Her to feel well enough to eat something…
So we did just a Tiny bit about 46 minutes ago… – and god did we feel better.
I’m hoping that I can get Her to eat something tonight… and I have the oxy locked in the safe so as long as we’re committed enough to not relapse, I’m desperately hoping I can get Her well enough to start this new Tavel nursing assignment on March 27 (it got pushed back a couple weeks because of the whole drug test issue with how late She took it.)
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Everything rides on Her being able to actually pull off this assignment… and on me not losing my job because of all this. – So cross your fingers for us, because this whole part 7 weeks is ere the literal worst week of our lives… And even though I’m not worried about relapsing from just doing it this one time; we still have a FUCKING HELL of a long road back from this 😓.
A month from now, we’ll either have figure out a way to get through this, or we could not make it… —- There are so many things that could go wrong, or if we somehow do relapse, we’re even more fucked.
All the other parts of life seem so incredibly meaningless after the last 7 weeks of literal living hell… – Right now it’s just about survival.
Here’s to hoping I get to see my 33rd birthday here in 3 weeks 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼
