I had to call out paramedics tonight. I felt a bit rubbish even though my blood oxygen was ok-ish.
They could hear a wheeze, before a stethoscope came near me. They nebulised me and then waited for my blood oxygen to settle. I felt a whole lot better afterwards. I’m just a bit amped up from the steroid.
This new phase of my journey with my respiratory failure is still a mystery to me. My sats have been better than before becoming a retainer, yet my heart is working harder.
I will work it out.
Most of us have a fairly good idea of what others perceive when they are around us. Well mannered, dressed a certain way, kind or otherwise, easy to laugh with or not.
Some folk notice somethings we don’t. A nervous laugh, twisting a ring, that we kiss the air, that we frown a lot.
A mirror does not show our true image either. To see that, we must hold two mirrors at 45 degrees and look at the join. This is what we really look like.
In order for us to know our true selves, we must lose our inhibition. Loss from a brain injury does not count. Brain damage causes all sorts of problems, and can include loss of hibitions, but does not reveal the true self.
Chemicals of a certain nature do show ourselves for who we are. Some people are terrified of using them.
The two best chemicals are alcohol and morphine. If you have ever had surgery, you probably had morphine included in the cocktail that anaesthetised you, or it was administered just before you awakened to prevent post-op pain.
After I had an operation, I found that I felt love toward the nurses in the recovery room. Later I learned l told two nurses that I told two nurses I loved them. This made me feel a bit embarrassed, but not overly so.
I do drink alcohol on occasion. My man likes to get me slightly tipsy. I become more readily to laugh and I am more complimentary. This is the true me. Veneer has dropped, society’s demand for proper behaviour vanishes.
Someone I knew, when drunk, climbed into an ambulance and drove it away. Another person assaulted another drinker in a bar. I have seen drunken women brawl like angry cats.
Of course, there are many others who become loving and laughing like me. Quite a lot cry, or become needy.
The dreadful thing is that some people commit domestic violence when disinhibited. Mostly men but some women too.
Other men seduce women or video call them to masturbate.
Since alcohol is not prohibited, how do we prevent the negative results? I believe that anyone convicted of a crime while drunk should go through detox and made to get support for the future. A future of sobriety.
Nothing else will stop negative disinhibition. Although it will always be retrospective.
Published in Know Thyself, Heal Thyself
Writer and psychologist. My health, a journey with two life shortening diseases 