Minor Adventures in Losing It

Not to justify the amount I drank at our Sunday night Memorial weekend party as appropriate, but I do think my prescription anxiety meds combine weirdly with wine. The medication helps me let go of anxiety. With 3 bottles of wine (slight exaggeration) I let go of a lot of memory too. It is interesting to have people tell me what I did and said and to have no recognition/recollection as they tell me things. Yes this is extremely disturbing from an alcohol abuse perspective (public service announcement) but taking the space-station view it is kind of interesting.

I was reminded on Monday that on Sunday I had made social plans (news to me…that was lost when the tape erased) and although I felt quite toxic that morning I love the friends I had plans with so I showered and got in the car and was social…and ate a lot of salty food and drank Cokes so that did not exactly help with detoxing.

Not remembering things was only part of my surreality on Monday. I felt rather detached from my body – I mean my consciousness was not in synch with the rest of me. Or it wasn’t Sarah’s consciousness. This is hard to put into words but so interesting. Getting cleaned up and dressed was mostly routine although my short-term memory was shot…I had to be careful to remind myself to take with me directions, hostess gift, etc. The mechanisms that would normally remind me with nags/guilts were still inactive…I was functioning on very low power, in terms of careful-obsessive thoughts.

Getting into my car and driving out of the driveway felt strange. Almost like when more than a week goes by without driving, like when you have been sick or traveling by plane, and then back in your own car at last you sort of take it on faith that your body will know what to do with the gas pedal and steering wheel, not to mention all the other actions and reflexes required. Yep, very disassociated. Of course I got on the road anyway!, but not the highway.

When I walked into Tom Thumb to buy some hostess flowers I had a flash of a new surreality, a new questioning of what would normally be so nonthinking…was I wearing pants? Was I wearing clothes? Really, I was just not in Sarah at that hour of that day. I felt fabric with my hands and glanced down as a double-check but I still didn’t feel completely reassured. I was not in my center.

But I kept thinking – as the disassociation continued for a few more hours, until I got tired and fussy and thus more like my Sarah-self… Isn’t not being myself something I usually think would be preferable? To have a break from myself?


Like a minor out-of-body experience? Not caused by trauma…just caused by 3 bottles of wine (again, slight exaggeration) plus pharmaceuticals.

That afternoon I enjoyed the people I was with but when I did a lot of talking, I felt clunky. I talked anyway, and that was interesting too. Managing my concerns over feeling clunky was something I knew I needed to do. People are not perfect. I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t judge myself objectively in conversation and it’s important to minimize the critic when I perceive it. My self-improvement goal is to be less self-critical and to move forward. But on Monday I was clunkier than usual and my meds didn’t mute the self-critic as efficiently as usual – I can only assume they were not being processed efficiently by my still-polluted liver and brain. But I maybe didn’t care since I was not quite myself. Yes, interesting.

This morning I was looking for a lavender shirt and found a darker shade shirt, also from Chico’s. I stared at that shirt with a where-did-it-come-from look. Still can’t access memory of wearing this thing! I can tell it’s not brand new and I must have gotten it with my Chico’s online order (OK, maybe orderS) last year. I probably wear it with black pants – I somehow know that much – but I don’t remember what I accessorize it with. And for me – with a drawer OR MORE for each color jewelry (pink and red have their own drawers, orange has 2! drawers, etc.), this is odd.

That was kind of interesting, probably more interesting than scary. (Maybe the shirt had been hidden behind another one that I recently moved?) But I am scared for my brain that right now I can’t remember the name of that shade of purple. I have another, older shirt that color, a sweater that color, and Chucks that color. I receive compliments when I wear the color. But…drum roll…I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE COLOR IS CALLED! Will have to Google but I am still a little…maybe…worried about brain cells.

Although today was a long day. And I have various anxieties floating about that pull my mental resources. And not so many days have passed since the big drunk episode.

Damn it – that shade, blue-gray-purple, is not exactly seasonal for June, and will be hard to find on a retail website (and I am trying to stay off shopping websites, right?...) Google didn’t bring up the right color name… I even dared to look at Converse shoes but the shade I wanted is called Aster Purple by Converse, and I thought this color was a one-word name…

Boy, now I feel lost in space. Lands End calls it Alpine Purple. I know there is a simpler word for this!

OK I am pouring out the rest of my small glass of wine and eating a bowl of pasta with vegetables.

Big breath. I am not crazy. The color name is not important.

It has been a long day. I am a middle-aged woman. I still have plenty of brain power…for important things…which this is not.

Big deep breath.

I may need a pill to sleep. Or more pasta.