This was an email I sent to his mother mid-March.
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From:
Nikki Loehr <evilevilcouch@gmail.com>Date: Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 6:40 PM
Subject: "Beautiful writings on sickness, well-being, and awakening"
To:
lancaster.karen@gmail.comI just thought this would be a nice link to share.
I find it relevant, due to my varying health problems (anemia, chronic acid reflux, medium hiatal hernia (where my stomach pokes out of my diaphram, which causes the chronic acid reflux), am prone to gastric ulcers, my right pelvis is misaligned which causes discs in my lumbar vertebrae to herniate at times, which pokes into my sciatic nerve, causing intense, stabbing pain from my lower back, through my hip rotator, all the way down my leg...though the sciatica hasn't been as much of a problem the past couple years because I've done a LOT of yoga, pilates, and ballet and it's strengthened my lower back and my muscles have pushed my pelvis a bit more into place because of all of that (though it tends to get misaligned at times anyway).
My physical ailments are what came about through the intense stress that I've had the past several years. I'd work 10-16 hour days. I've done work in media, advertising/marketing, music and film industries and the fine art world. I've accomplished a lot in the past four and a half years at 24 years old that my colleagues, usually a decade my senior and having finished their bachelors, have not done. I'm not bragging about my accomplishments because it has obviously taken a toll on my health. I've paid a price. Though, really, I'd worked so hard because I'd failed out of school at 20 (though I'd started college at 16) and my professors at UNT, after failing me, told me I would never become a graphic designer, and all of these efforts were in hopes that I could prove my competency to myself as well as proving I was capable for whenever I apply at other schools to finish my undergraduate degree. I'm finishing up my applications to Yale and Columbia for their non-traditional student programs. Four and a half years ago, my professors, family and friends all told me I was crazy and dellusional. I didn't set out to prove them wrong. I'd lost hope in myself and my self-confidence and esteem suffered. I set out to prove myself right. But, again, the intense years of stress took a toll on my health.
But, um, anyway, I feel the link it's relevant for Barrett as well, with his dealing with the withdrawal and addiction and the fact that he's probably bipolar. Addiction is an illness, something he will have to deal with and make active efforts to remain strong and overcome for the rest of his life. I've been diagnosed with bipolar, though over the past five years, the only time I took medication for it was from June to September because I had a nervous breakdown at the end of May, which was triggered by my severe anemia (my doctor said my brain wasn't getting enough oxygen, I was losing blood internally and my doctor said that if I didn't get the anemia taken care of now then I'd have heart failure by the time I'm 30).
Five years ago, it took a lot of effort and hard work to be able to manage everything to where I would not have to be on psychotropic medications anymore (massive lifestyle change, changed my diet, getting regular exercise, cutting out toxic influences and relationships in my life, focusing all my energies toward work, productivity, improvement, creation, innovation, etc etc). The focus is self-improvement, and that's been Barrett's focus, but the withdrawal process used up all his energy.
I'm not quite sure if it's an accurate assessment, but I feel that off of opiates and only being on antidepressants right now, in addition to the instability of being an addict coming off of drugs, I feel that he has become very manic. He cycles through feeling happy/content to extreme anger and a motivation to destroy everything. It's very disconcerting. I see the good in him and have hope that he'll overcome all of this...but, I don't know. I think it may have been a bad move on the doctor's part to only give him antidepressants when the patient's medical history includes a bipolar diagnosis. He's cycling through such extremes, and the "cyberwar" stuff is simply increasing stress and paranoia, in which he copes by becoming vindictive and obsessed with vigilantism, making the extremes that much more dramatic -- even traumatic. A theory I have is that, during the first week or two of his withdrawal period, I suggested he take the mood stabilizers I was prescribed, being that the withdrawal gave him insomnia and sleepiness is a side effect of the mood stabilizers I had. He'd take them maybe for a couple days or so and things would be fine (abilify has a 72 hour half-life, so it'd be in his system for a while), but since he wasn't taking them every day, he'd go through whatever other mood swings and it'd start the cycle all over again. I don't know, I'm not a doctor, but from what I've observed and experienced of his behavior and from what all I have experienced, I think he's manic right now and needs to be put on some sort of mood stabilizer. That, and I think he needs to probably focus more on his health/self-improvement and putting his life back together now that he's overcome the hard part of the addiction and has been coming into more notoriety in his profession and relative success (albeit not financially).
It's a long road, but he'll get there.