Today was an excellent session with my bartender. I told him about the Abilify and the wobbling but lack of rollercoasting.

And about how the Abilify short-circuits intrusive memories. I explained it as like being in a video game, where at certain points a cutscene can occur that takes away all control from the player in favor of a cinematic clip. For me, intrusive memories are like unavoidable cutscenes.

But the Abilify stops the cutscenes nearly the moment they happen, as if a hack had been installed, and all control remains with me. I’m not inexorably pulled into that branch of the game, where the PTSD bosses await. I can instead go fishing at the Watering Hole.

This is an enormous change for me, further illustrated by my lack of complete emotional breakdown when talking about something my father had done to me. It wasn’t molestation exactly. It’s just not okay to treat your daughter as a girlie show in the shower, and then beat her afterwards for being a girl and not a boy. That’s why I was absolutely terrified of them before the Abilify, and am still disgusted after the Abilify.

Also before the Abilify, I wouldn’t have been able to relate all that to the bartender without breaking down into sobs and clutching Ike hard enough to smoosh his stuffing.

Going back to showers, I may need to start using performed bath things as aromatherapy to make the shower experience even more different than what my father turned it into. I don’t have experience in this area O.o as my father considered such things sinful luxuries.

So if you have a recommendation for brands and scents for the shower, please feel free to comment.

Anyways, I still have PTSD, but it’s far less likely to be triggered by the bipolar. Which may ultimately end up saving me up until maybe Thanksgiving, when the triggers are less my memories and more everything around me.

But in large part, this is going to be a good regen. Now if only it would last.