Woof-a-Doof, I knew this thread would appeal to you. Good to hear from ya. I liked your post.
Original poster, your question stirs my soul and brings up many of my own questions and reminds me of all I went thru in the immediate years following my 2 year incarceration at str8.
Last night, with your question in mind, I had a million dreams. I dreampt that I was hitch-hiking through my past. I was in California with my old best friend, who is the first person I ever smoked pot with. We were on the beach in San Diego. I told him that I planned to continue on, hitch-hiking into south America.
After str8 I was so sick in the head. I was completely lost. I had developed what I call a split/pseudo personality. Str8 had raped my mind so horribly that whoever I had been prior to str8 was barely there and afraid to even move, hiding in the depths somewhere. I had to relate to the world though. Somehow I had to find a way to have some reference point. With none of my original personality left I decided to just become somebody. I picked a personality to be and thoroughly adopted all the stereo-typical personality traits which I thought were appropriate to that kind of a person. I am not reccomending this to anyone but for me at the time it was a survival tactic, and something I apparently had to go thru. After several months or a year of trying to be someone that I wasn't, I came to the realization, as I stood alone on the balcony of my apartment trying to figure out why my girlfriend was leaving me and why I couldn't keep a job or even socialize with people other than those that I had known in str8, that I was in some kind of an internal conflict. My real self(for lack of a better term) seemed to be making an attempt to come out of hiding and yet there was this other personality now in place and firmly established within me. I was terrified to realize that I was completely estranged from myself. It was like there I was all alone and yet there were these 2 personalities having some kind of a crazy, intense and very real argument about who "I" really was. It was crazy to feel like there were 2 seperate and distinct people(personalities)within me. Absolutely terrifying.
At that point I took a major step towards healing but it came in the form of a nervous breakdown. I knew I had to let go of my false personality but I was afraid to do it. On the other hand if I didn't let it go I would only become sicker and remain a prisoner within myself. I refused to cling to the psuedo personality which I had developed as a means of protection. I was traumatized yet again by this whole scary process of freeing myself from my str8 inflicted psychosis. I felt completely alone in this struggle.
But I was committed to healing and becoming strong again.
I remember it was only a few months later. I was still very sick(It takes a long time to recover from such catastrophic illnesses), and I was stayin with my good friend, Dragonfly, after I had dropped out of college after only one month. I had already read Thoreau and was reading Maslovs' "Becoming Free, The Struggle For Human Developement" when my friend suggested to me that I just put whatever I needed on my back and start walkin'.
To find yourself you must first lose the world. I took that advice. I packed up my backpack, the one Dragonfly had given me, tied my sleepin' bag up under it and caught a ride as far as the Rocky Mountains. I hitch-hiked around that whole summer. I took only necessary possesions and my copy of "Becoming Free". I detached from all associations, only occaissionally calling my folks to let them know I wasn't dead. I kept a detailed joiurnal to record my thoughts and experiences. I hitched down to San Diego and looked up old friends, who I had known before Str8 and stayed with them for a week. Then I hitched north along the west coast hittin' Dead shows and swingin' acid along the way. I made it up to Eugene,OR and then Portland, which I have many fond memories of. Along the way I made new friends and managed to find temporary work here and there as I travelled and healed and naturally relied on my instincts to carry me thru. I made it back to D.C. by the 4th of July for the fireworks on the mall and then took off again, but this time with my friend K.C. in his '80 Datsun station wagon and repeated the entire circuit with him. We spent a month campin out at the base of Mt. Hood about 45 mins. from Portland gettin' high and drinkin Yukon Jack every night. We collected cans and bottles and sold our blood for money. We had almost no expenses other than food, alcohol and gas. Every night we would sit around the fire drinkin' whiskey and smokin' up and playin' guitar. Life is the school.
The entire point of this adventure was to find myself again. To lose the world as much as I could and be left only with myself. During the course of my travels I ran into many other Str8 survivors that I had known on my phases. I ran into survivors at a Jerry Garcia show at the Warfield theatre in San Fransisco and another survivor at the Reggae on the river in Humboldt County, CA and i ran into lots of survivors on Dead tour. I wonder if we were all tryin' to find ourselves after the brutality of the str8 mind rape.
I'm sorry this post has gotten so long but I just wanted to really illustrate the depth of the str8 inflicted sickness and the intensity and committment required to even just begin to heal.
Follow your instincts kid. Everything you need is within you. I wish you Peace and all beautiful things. ::dove::
Dr. Fucktard, as usual your interpretation is affected by your delusional world view. :silly:
Peace to all Str8 survivors.
