Shawn

"....eyeing little girls with bad intent."

Holy crap, I can pretty much guarantee she's ONE OF 'EM! Oh, I had been hoping to never see that album cover again as long as I lived. Guess who showed it to me the first time? Take a WILD fucking guess.

Medicine talk: 6 days later, the only accurate statement in that paragraph is "I need to live" Now if that isn't a good enough reason to treat myself to a nice dinner today, I don't know what is.

Glad they got it cleaned up for you. I'm not a mac/pc nazi at all, spent a large portion of my professional career in Windows and with Windows based software, if you learn what to avoid it's actually fairly easy to "not" get a virus on a PC. I did tech support for Apple for a year, average of 20-25 calls a day, working solely supporting the main operating system. In 12 months, I had to forward 1 call to a team that watches out for Mac viruses. I went back and checked the ticket later and it wasn't a virus. So that's a pretty good average I would say. There are still a few pieces of software that I either haven't found Mac versions or haven't found affordable Mac versions of, so I log into Windows about twice a week, for maybe 10 minutes or so, do what I need to do, run my updates, then I spend the rest of the week on the Mac side of my hard drive. The only other reason I still have Windows installed is because about once every 6 months or so, I'll visiti a website that "only" works with Internet Explorer, so that forces me to "jump over"...but the only reason that is necessary, is because Microsoft stopped making a version of their browser for Mac. But it's okay, I think I can live with 1 website every 6 months or so requiring me to use Windows. But, on average, i would say I'm 98% of the time logged into the Mac OS.

A couple footnotes I need to add. - The need to self medicate also went away when the Klonopin worked it's way out of my system, which is another major *bonus* to this whole thing. - Now, everything is not sunshine and roses, because you don't come out of something like this without leaving a wake of destruction in your path. Mine kind of looks like Hiroshima. Mountainous debt (both to creditors and personal debts to family/friends), destroyed credit, repo'd car, destroyed rental credit, no regular medical visits or checkups, most of my remaining teeth are rotting out of my head, no savings, worn out clothes, etc. etc. etc. A list like that, would have had me cowering in a corner a few weeks ago, I couldn't allow myself to think about a single one of those things, because the stress it caused was just too much to tolerate. Now, yeah, it's there, it needs to be fixed, it's not insurmountable but it's close...but surviving through all I've been through and be able to see that list and just accept it, not have to run and grab a pill or a bowl or something to quiet my quaking nerves...that seemed insurmountable for a decade.

...of chemically induced dysphoria. (or, how to lose an entire decade by filling a $15 prescription once a month) I must admit that when I started my journey of stripping away 3 layers of prescribed psychoactive medication (with self medication topping) a little over 2 months ago, I really wasn't sure what I'd find underneath. After all, not a day had gone by that I hadn't taken some kind of anti-depressant since the year 2000, and since 2003 it had been either 2 or 3 medication "cocktails". What I found, was a smoking gun...and the shocking realization that all (and I do mean ALL) of my crippling emotional disorders, the ones that have left me feeling like a broken, kicked dog whose barely alive...were phantoms. Severe side effects, masquerading as mental illness, gone unnoticed and unchanged, for 9 years. The first thing I had to do, was look up the word dysphoria, which had somehow escaped my vocab teachers in school. dysphoria[disfôr′ē·ə] a disorder of affect characterized by depression and anguish. That sounds pretty damn benign on the surface, it's not, it's hell on earth. How did this wonderful symphony of destruction begin you might ask? Okay. Since I've been writing out variations of this for days, it's as succinct as it's going to get. But it's a page turner. Prologue - 2000 - start with a mild case of depression, caused by a regretted decision and environmental factors, begin antidepressant treatment. 3 months later, get passed over for a promotion that was more than deserved, it was already "promised", the depression deepens and the doctor increases the dosage of the medication. It's been so long now, I don't even remember which antidepressant it was at the beginning. 2001 - in a move of frustration, brought on partially by increased side effects to the antidepressant, I transfer to a lower position in a small satellite office in Dallas Texas. Now, this was the second "chickenshit" decision I had made in less than a year and a half, because my original intent in 1999 was to move to Los Angeles, but at the last moment, I decided to move with my company when they relocated the whole shebang from Seattle to Charlotte NC (oh, the culture shock). Did I want to move to Dallas? No. I planned on leaving my job at the end of the agreed year in Charlotte, collect a severance package..use that money to relocate to Los Angeles. But as I mentioned above, the antidepresants side effects were chipping away just enough of my confidence, I knew I couldn't remain in Charlotte, but I wasn't brave enough to do a simple job search...so instead, I took the inner-office transfer. Beginning: 2002 - About a year into my time in Dallas, the depression continues to deepen. At this point, I'm still mostly just depressed by being in Dallas, in a dead end job that I didn't really want and frustrated with myself to no end for moving there. Nothing against Dallas or the numerous awesome people I met there...it just wasn't where I needed to be and I knew it. But even though I knew it, instead of actually doing anything about it, I seek out additional assistance by seeing a Psychiatrist in Dallas. He starts by changing my antidepressant to Effexor (which is actually 2 antidepressants combined). I react very badly to the medication and start getting erratic. So he removes the Effexor and instead, he puts me on a cocktail of Lexapro and Wellbutrin. I get much more erratic. Seeming a tad confused by this, he decides to add Klonopin, to help with the anxiety. Shortly afterward (within 3 weeks) I'm meeting with my new therapist for maybe the second or third session, I'm pretty much a wreck and she applies just a little emotional pressure, to goad a response out of me...and I burst into tears uncontrollably. I described to her that it felt like I had "a ball of anger, the size of a baseball, stuck in the center of my chest". Lights Out: 2003 - After a few more sessions with the therapist yield similar results (slight pressure, huge emotional reaction that's way out of proportion), she decides I have a problem with the medication, but that I also have "a lot of unresolved issues that we need to work on". Now, as usual the therapist and the psychiatrist don't communicate with each other at all, leaving me (the seriously erratic patient) to pass the information back and forth between them. The pyschiatrist tries one more anti-depressant change to Zoloft, leaves the Wellbutrin chaser...and of course, doesn't question the possiblity that there could be a problem with the Klonopin. See, these old drugs (dating back to the 60's) like Klonopin. Doctors don't pay attention that stuff anymore, they are only interested if you're trying to scam it to get high. If they actually think you have a problem, it's like a sugar pill to them, it's so "old" it's normal and predictable and they don't have to watch it very closely. Now, if the dude had taken a quick glance at the severe side effects listed for Klonopin, he might have seen a picture of me on the page beside it. Because looking back now, it was a pretty apt description of the guy sitting in the chair in front of him. The therapist might have looked it up too, but that's not her job. Then the final mistake happens. The Psychiatrist, unable to explain why I'm not getting better and actually getting worse, believes that I actually have bipolar disorder instead of my previous diagnosis of major depression. So, to the cocktail of Zoloft, Wellbutrin and Klonopin...he adds Depakote. And the wheels flew off the train. Within the next 2 months, I quit my job, throw away all my furniture into the dumpster behind my apartment, shave down the size of my CD collection by throwing out all the jewel cases (so I could fit all of them in the damn car) and....move back home, West Virginia? WHAT? Now, the reason for the big "WHAT?", is that just a little over 2 years before that, I was still following my plan of College, first stepping stone job, relocate to Los Angeles. But the guy that arrived back in West Virgiia, that wasn't me, it was what was left over after I had been completely buried by the medication. And there wasn't much left and he wasn't making a whole lotta sense and his family begged him to see another doctor. COMA CONTINUES - 2003 - 2011 Don't worry, this part is shortert. Because it just became a pattern and I kept following it over and over like a record constantly repeating one side on a stuck changer. So, why didn't doctor's #3-#7 ever figure out that the Klonopin was the problem all along? Because they kept changing the antidepressants, over and over and over. I didn't care, because I didn't care about anything (Dysphoria) and the only emotion I had left was anger/aggression and my only motivating factor was fear. I literally just kept breathing and going through the motions (and somehow continued to work and drive and actually make a living for a good portion of that time), But I was lost completely, so long since I had felt anything that wasn't a side effect, I just assumed I was never going to get better, I had a severe depressive disorder that I would never get out of and that I would be on medication for the rest of my life. Why did I think that way? Because that's what the fucking doctors kept telling me. ALL OF THEM at some point would say "now, there's a good chance you may have to continue taking these indefinitely,' Yeah, that's how you motivate people to get well. Let 'em know there's no fucking hope and they just have to "deal with it". Since that initial move to West Virginia, I have moved briefly back to Seattle, then back to West Virginia, then to Arlington, then to Mississippi, then back to West Virginia, then to Virgina Beach, then to Austin. No, nobody ever took me off the Klonopin. Why? That's really a fucking good question. Because, according the the AMA website, you're supposed to take them for like a maximum of 9 weeks and it's not recommended to take them for long periods because they are a controlled substance and are addictive. I was on them for 458 weeks give or take. Every new doctor in every new town, would ask a single question when I'd go meet them to get my refills the first time. Are you still having anixiety issues? I would answer yes (because the anxiety medicine was causing them) and then they'd say, "well, we'll continue on the Klonopin then". AWAKE & NO DEPRESSION So here I still was in Austin. Still suffering interminably, but I just couldn't maintain anymore. Couldn't hold a job, smoked pot constantly all day and night 7 days a week, lost my apartment, sold most of my remaining belongings, moved back in with a gracious friend and finally had enough...and I quit the Wellbutrin. Then quit the Zoloft. Those took a couple months, still didn't feel any better, but I was still on Klonopin and high all the time, so no significant change. 5 days ago I took my last Klonopin. I sit here now, after typing out a mammoth post that would have taken me 4 hours to do on all the meds, but was less than 45 minutes tonight. As soon as the Klonopin worked it's way out of my system (around day 2) I had a pretty good idea a breakthrough was happening before my eyes. Now that the majority of the physical withdrawal symptoms are gone, I realize it wasn't really a breakthrough, it was just undoing a 9 year old mistake so complex and convoluted that there was no way in hell the problem could be that simple, not a chance, my mental problems were too deep, I had too much anger inside me to hold, I was going to be on medication for the rest of my life... It was that motherfucking simple. I'm fine. In fact, I'm more than fine. I'm the guy I was before I took the first Klonopin. I pull out one little frayed thread (the Klonopin) and the rest just fell away, no more knots, just a big pile of string on the floor. So, that's my story. It's a movie of the week that's for sure. As I've sat here in this room for the past few days, working through all these withdrawals, it's literally been like waking up from a coma. At some point, the guy I've been since 2003 vanished and I just "popped" back into reality. A switch flipped. No depression. No agression and rage. No sadness. Having clarity of thought. Enjoying the fact that my head is "quiet", because it's just been jumbled and disconnected thoughts for 10 years, a constant cacophony. EPILOGUE: Right Now and BEYOND. Somewhere way up there I think I mentioned something about planning to move to Los Angeles in 1997, then again in 1999, then yet again in 2001, then I just got too scattered to go anywhere but jump from wrong place to wrong place. Never ending up where I originally intended, never going to Los Angeles after paying for college for the sole purpose of getting the skills so I could MAKE IT in Los Angeles? I'M MOVING TO LOS ANGELES NOW! Fucking try and stop me, I could probably teleport there by sheer willpower alone. Better all these years later than never and a damn miracle I'm even still alive to go there. Success/Failure isn't even a thought, because no matter what happens in my life from this point onward, it will always be a success, because I just got reborn and I'm not going to waste my second life. NOT A CHANCE! Shawn's back baby and he's headed to L.A.! Watch out! not "THE END" but "THE BEGINNING".

I never knew I could make a shallow attempt at humor and inspire latin! I have a new skill!

Delete all cookies, temporary internet files, everything. Restart the computer, test it again and see what it does. Then download "AVAST", it's free and as easy to use as anything in Windows ever is. Afterwards, start shopping for a cheap Mac.

http://hipgnosiscovers.com/ WOW.

Bones - Season One: Epidode 15 in tonight's installment... Bones gets shot at, Booth and Bones play air guitar to Hot Blooded, Booth gets blown up by a refrigerator bomb, some poor chick gets eaten alive by dogs...and Adam Baldwin has been in every television show ever made since 1984.

I didn't discover them until Watershed came out, so I worked myself backwards. I love all the eras actually. Not a single album I don't like. When Mikael refers to Alice Cooper I'm guessing he's speaking more in terms of the production style relationship between Cooper & Bob Ezrin on Welcome To My Nightmare, Billion Dollar Babies, etc. Since Heritage was mixed by Steven Wilson, he is basically is the "Bob Ezrin" in this scenario.

Heritage album cover unveiled:

US Fall Tour Dates Announced - lots of dates, they are taking good friends Katatonia as the opening act. SEPTEMBER 2011 19th - The Palladium, Worcester, MA - USA 20th - Webster Theater, Hartford, CT - USA 21st - Webster Hall, New York, NY - USA 22nd - Webster Hall, New York, NY - USA 23rd - Trocadero, Philadelphia, PA - USA 26th - Newport Music Hall, Columbus, OH - USA 27th - Expo Five, Louisville, KY - USA 28th - Cannery Ballroom, Nashville, TN - USA 29th - Amos' Southend, Charlotte, NC - USA 30th - Center Stage, Atlanta, GA - USA OCTOBER 2011 1st - House of Blues, Lake Buena Vista, FL - USA 3rd - Warehouse Live, Houston, TX - USA 4th - Stubb's Waller Creek Amphitheater, Austin, TX - USA 5th - Granada Theater, Dallas, TX - USA 6th - The Beaumont Club, Kansas City, MO - USA 7th - First Avenue, Minneapolis, MN - USA 14th - Knitting Factory Concert House, Spokane, WA - USA 15th - Showbox SoDo, Seattle, WA - USA 16th - Roseland Theatre, Portland, OR - USA 18th - The Warfield, San Francisco, CA - USA 19th - Mayan Theatre, Los Angeles, CA - USA 20th - House of Blues, San Diego, CA - USA 21st - The Fox Theater, Pomona, CA - USA 22nd - Marquee Theatre, Tempe, AZ - USA 24th - The Complex, Salt Lake City, UT - USA 25th - Ogden Theatre, Denver, CO - USA 27th - The Rave, Milwaukee, WI - USA 28th - Vic Theatre, Chicago, IL - USA 29th - St. Andrews Hall, Detroit, MI - USA 31st - Mr Smalls Theatre, Millvale, PA - USA NOVEMBER 2011 1st - Rams Head Live!, Baltimore, MD - USA

nice little interview and chord demonstration. and.... the teaser trailer for the new solo record "Grace For Drowning"

Yep, that's the feeling exactly. You either "don't care" or you "hate", those are the only remaining feelings. I find it FLABBERGASTING that this medication is not supposed to be taken for more than 9 weeks(!) and I was left on it for 9 years!!!! At least Stevie figured it out a year earlier, I lost damn near a decade.

on the outside of a bag of cat food... "NEW LOOK! Same great formula!" Does my cat give a shit if they changed the design of the bag? Is that somehow a selling point, to anyone?

Already implemented, I'm a seasoned campaigner.

Thanks Dave, believe me, I do see the value. I knew the value all along, but I've been twisted in such a medicine pretzel that I don't think I've really been seeing anything clearly for years. Not exaggerating at all, YEARS. I'm not going anywhere, in fact, I think that guy named Shawn from the old BNBB days, that dude? He's almost back. It's like I've been wearing glasses with the wrong prescription for a decade, thinking the world is REALLY that damn blurry and ugly, when all of a sudden I realize that I just needed to take the glasses off. Your eyes might hurt for awhile till they adjust, but damn shit looks clearer already. And these withdrawal symptoms from this medicine are a BITCH, but I'll live through that as well. In my research I discovered that benzodiazepines (like Klonopin, Valium) are actually designed for short term use, long term use is considered "controversial" and is not advised. How that little fact slipped past the notice of 7 different people with medical degrees? Don't ask me, I have no clue. Anyway, I've been sailing rudderless for decade, traveling from port to port, but my bearings are coming back, the compass is being dusted off and a new course is in the process of being plotted. Yes, I've hit rock bottom economically, but that just means I got nothin' left to lose and everything to gain. No more excuses, no more taking the easy route just to avoid possible risk. I didn't go to college for nothing, time to put that degree to use, it's been collecting dust for a decade. to be continued...

I've actually had the opposite problem, too many doctors messing with my brain chemistry. I'm getting more convinced by the day that a large portion of the issues I've been having since 2002 are actually side effects to the Klonopin I was prescribed at that time. 4 psychiatrists and 3 general practitioners kept misinterpreting these side effects as other issues. So they kept piling more and more drugs on top, changing brands, changing doses, adding and removing anti-psychotics, trying cocktails of multiple meds, mis-diagnosing my "major depression" as "manic depression" on one occasion and almost killing me by putting me on Depakote. This can happen when you move around as often as I do and new people keep looking at your shit. But, I've asked every Doctor that I've talked to one question and none of them ever checked into it. "Is Klonopin supposed to make you hate everything? Because that's what happens when I take it". The ONLY constant medication I've taken since 2002, the only one that has never been increased, decreased or altered by any of these Doctors is the Klonopin. Everything else has been changed multiple times, either making the situation about the same or much worse, never making it better. I just wish it hadn't taken me 9 years to make the connection. ....so for right now. I'm totally behind therapy and am actively seeking a good counselor open to alternative medicines and approaches...but I'm taking a LONG sabbatical from Western Psychiatry and from any manufactured chemicals designed to alter my brain chemistry. I'm reclaiming my brain chemistry for Shawn.

Yeah. I kind of had a minor meltdown the other day. Partially caused by taking an accidental double dose of an anti-anxiety medication, a particular medication that seems to cause more harm than good. Partially because I guess I was just sort of due a breakdown. I kind of feel like I'm hauling a small skyscraper of stress on my back. I need to drop that bastard and just keep walking. My new mantra: "Desperation breeds inspiration, desperation breeds innovation, desperation is temporary"

Wow. I can't really describe how deeply touching all your kind words were to read. I'm so grateful. So grateful.

I need to take a break for awhile, I don't feel I have the energy or the positive attitude required to share anything of value to this community. I'm not leaving for good, but after 8 years on this board a couple more before that on the old BNBB, I think I've said everything about jazz that I have to say. In the past several years I've had to sell off my entire jazz collection anyway (I'm down to less than 20 physical CDs), the ones I have left not really being worth anything financial, so they just sit in a box until I decide to throw them out. The depression over that act makes this place even more painful to visit, to constantly read about discs I "used" to have and new reissues that I'll never be able to afford. It's just too depressing to "pretend" that I still belong here right now. To constantly be reminded about ALL THE COOL SHIT people just bought. So, I'm off for awhile. Not sure what the future will bring, I have a little over 60 days before I'm homeless, so that needs to be my main focus right now. I can still be reached on facebook or via email: shawndudley@yahoo.com Thanks for the friendship and camaraderie, I just wish I had something to repay in kind.

*edited because I was being an idiot*

thanks man, it's appreciated. I'll try to avoid those bastards. LOL The first paragraph is something that I've never been able to figure out, nail down, visualize or even imagine existing on this planet. The rest, yeah, I know how life works, 99% of it sucks. The older I get, the more tired I get of the fight, the cost of business becomes too high, survival becomes something less than it should be. Doing anything other than something I'm passionate about seems like a big fucking waste of time. Surviving ain't enough, I need to live. They already got my peace and sanity years ago. I don't know what serenity is, I've never experienced it. I honestly reached the "end of my rope" several years ago and it's only been through the unbelievable kindness, graciousness and support of numerous friends and relatives that I haven't let go of that rope completely, or found myself dangling from the end of it. But I'm still technically here...and if the right kind of creative job opportunity came along I could flourish like a motherfucker, nothing could get in my way. It's just the possibility of that seems to become more remote by the minute and I can't keep "settling", I'm just not wired to "settle". I'm wired to succeed or fail utterly, so far I'm really good at the latter. "I don't mind dyin' when it's my time to die, but until that time, I'm gonna live my life, the way I WANT to." - Jimi Hendrix

If that's the case then this new world is not one for me. I knew I should have become a mortician, those motherfuckers are never outta work.