I’ve seen this article doing the rounds on social media over the weekend. For the non-clickers in our midst, it’s a piece by Sarah Hepola about binge drinking and the experience of blackouts. She describes the experience of waking up in odd places, not certain how she got there or what she had done the night before. She talks about the panic, fear and confusion the blackouts could cause, and also about the freedom that went with being drunk. It’s an interesting piece to read from my own perspective – someone who doesn’t drink and never has, but who is no stranger to blackouts. So I thought I’d write a post of my own, what with having a blog and all.
People often seem surprised when they realise that I don’t drink. I don’t make a big deal of it, this one blog post excepted. There are two situations in which it tends to come up. The first is when someone is trying to offer me a drink and seems puzzled (or in some rare cases offended) by my request for a soft drink. I’ve met people who thought I was trying to spare them the cost of buying booze, or that they were trying to get me drunk, or who thought I was somehow being shy. In that case I will reassure them that there’s no issue, I just don’t drink. The other situation is when it’s medical. How many units a week? Zero. Yes, zero. No, I don’t drink at all. Yes, I’m sure. It’s surprisingly difficult to convince a GP that you don’t drink – I saw a GP in my teens who actually accused me of being in denial about an incipient alcohol addiction and it must still be in my notes, because I get asked about it to this day.
I’ve also never taken recreational drugs, which seems to surprise people even more. Not even a single experimental puff of a joint. If I can tell you what it’s like to be on opiates or benzos, it’s because they were administered in hospital.
Now, I realise that all of this is probably making me sound like a total fucking goody two shoes. I’m not. While clubs and parties aren’t really my scene, when I do go out I am quite capable of matching my behaviour to the people around me. I’ve had friends try to take my car keys away from me, thinking I was too drunk to drive because I was so giggly and nonsensical. I can disinhibit with the best of them when I want to.
So why, if I’m not completely uptight and joyless, do I not drink? There are two reasons. First, I absolutely fucking loathe the taste of alcohol. I’ve always been willing to try new things in case I someday find something I like, but every time I take a sip I get an overwhelming hit of ethanol and it’s really, really unpleasant. People assure me that this is what it’s like for everyone and the trick is to push through it and get used to it. But I never did, probably because of my second reason, which is this: I am a control freak.
Yes, I know, plenty of control freaks drink. Not this one, though. And this is where the blackouts become key to my story. Imagine the phenomenon described in that article – finding yourself in a place you don’t remember going, having to piece together your actions based on what people tell you and any physical evidence you may have left, like receipts and the like. Now imagine knowing that this definitely wasn’t the result of drugs or alcohol. There’s nothing you can attribute this to except possible stress.
There you have my experience. These blackouts, or dissociative episodes, or whatever you want to call them, are bloody terrifying. I had a handful during my teens. Mostly they just consisted of lost time when I was at home, or classes that seemed to skip past in minutes. The first time I became aware that something odd was going on was while I was at uni, and in the early stages of my breakdown.
I found out about it one day when I phoned my parents and they were both furious with me. I didn’t know why, but I soon learned that I had called them the night before, quite late. It was an angry, rambling phone call, during which I said things that I would never normally have said to them. They were upset, understandably, and assumed that I had taken something. I hadn’t. I was certain I hadn’t. The last thing I remembered was heading out with some friends, so I checked with them. Sure enough, I had started acting strangely and had run away from them at some point. Someone had seen me in the Students’ Union using the payphones, which must have been when I called home. Apparently I had yelled at some kids for vandalising a bush and chased them down the street. I have no idea what else I did. I have no memory of any of these things. I just woke up the next morning as if nothing had happened.
After my parents died, during that strange, hermit-like era when I was living in their house, I think I had quite a few blackouts. It’s difficult to tell for certain, because I was living alone for much of that time. I’ve always been somewhat reclusive, and apparently I’m quite good at continuing to appear functional during most blackouts. But there was certainly something going on. Things would move and rearrange themselves around the house, odd things like my car keys being deliberately positioned in the middle of the hall floor, or things arranged in specific patterns. I tried not to think too much about it and laughed it off, calling it “my poltergeist”, but it seems considerably more likely that the actions were mine, just unremembered.
There have been other incidents, some of which frightened me badly. The time when I was on sertraline for depression was particularly bad. There are gaps in my memory that I find quite distressing. There would be times when I wouldn’t just find out what I had done second-hand, I would clearly remember having done something, only to find that I hadn’t – I’d lost some time and just filled in the blanks incorrectly. I had to come off the medication and just hope for the best.
Knowing that blackouts happen to me, prompted by nothing more than stress, makes drinking or taking drugs a really frightening prospect for me. I’ve been out of control too often, and I don’t like it. I have to try to get control and maintain it, to identify why they happen and do what I can to prevent them. The idea of doing something that I know could actually bring about a blackout… nope. Absolutely not.
Do I envy the people who can have a drink or a joint and not worry about this stuff? Yes. Bizarre as it may sound, I envy people whose blackouts have a clear-cut, understandable cause, and systems in place to support them as they tackle any problems they have with that cause. I’m still floundering around trying to figure out where this overlaps with PTSD and where it doesn’t and whether there’s some root cause that I’ve blocked out. It’s confusing and frustrating, and exactly the kind of thing that sometimes makes me wish I could reach for something that would help me relax.
I’ve written versions of this post before and never put them up. Talking about this openly makes me nervous. I fear being judged for it, that people will think I’m making it up or exaggerating or that I’m just insane. As ever, I write this in the hope that if there are other people out there experiencing the same things, perhaps at an earlier stage in their journey and wondering if its just them, they might find it and know they’re not alone. And for anyone who wants to judge me, there’s plenty of material here already, so I might as well just do it. When the bridge is already on fire, no sense in worrying about an extra splash of kerosene, right?
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