Week 2 - Last Leg of The Taper. Dancing on the Edge of Eclipse and Emptiness

The Long Hard Road out of Hell {Part 6}

Mar 16, 2025

This Week’s Vibe:

It sounds a bit emo up in here…
I was surprised when I checked this week’s Spotify history.

But here you have it! What is a playlist if not a mixtape? It’s a Love Language in and of itself 🖤

An Odyssey

The blood moon ascended in Virgo, a crimson tyrant glaring down, and its weight sank into my bones, stirring a restless ache I couldn’t name. I’m no sage of the stars—my grasp of astrology stalls at Aries’ stubborn sameness and Mercury retrograde’s promise of havoc—but this full moon eclipse tore through me. It shrouded me in fog and left me cloudy, unhinged, teetering on the edge of something asylum-worthy.
Don’t we all tremble under the moon’s pull?
Yet this one carved deeper, its predictability dragging me under—manic mind racing one hour, followed by
Nothing.
A numbness that leaves me longing for rage,
relentless psychotic laughter,
a longing to want to set the world on fire and watch it burn.

I get only emptiness. The numb void that threatens to unravel me completely.

As the moon’s shadow softened and the sun ventured forth, timid and gold, Mercury slunk into retrograde—a promise that deadlines will dissolve like mist, trust in others might fracture, and I will whisper to myself:
Survive this.

Mercury in retrograde makes a brilliant scapegoat for avoiding accountability, no?

Then Tuesday.
Fuck.

Imagine my elation when I received the notification from Spotify: Sleeptoken, my sonic saviours, unveiled a new single. My heart leapt—best. day. ever!—only to crash into a hollow “meh.”
Anticlimactic and disappointing, a muted echo where I’d craved a roar. I could’ve written a ten-page requiem, but I’ll spare you the dirge—two lines carry the weight of that quiet devastation—a bitter undertone in a week already dissonant with loss. [Yes! I am a drama llama, a stress princess, a little OTT. Deal with it. Please]

Something suddenly and unexpectedly changed in a place that exists 9 hours in the past, rendering one of the people I relied on heavily, more than I realised, unavailable.
Possibly indefinitely.

Really? Really, Universe? Really?
Coupled with Sleeptoken’s sting—it’s lame—LAME!

However, my support system endures, and I cling to this fragile constellation, but I won’t lie: this sudden loss has, and continues to affect me quite significantly, emphasising the importance of stability, safety and trust in the throes of recovery.

I drifted through this week cloaked in a fragile lie: I’m fine, I’m coping. It didn’t require much—I only needed to start writing this update before the self-reflection tore that veil apart, exposing the truth—I wasn’t [coping] at all.
My gift for dissociation, that eerie ability to detach from the present and the wreckage of my soul, left me awestruck once again. And ashamed. More somatic check-ins, I scrawled in my mind, a plea to anchor myself before I vanish entirely.

My journal lies open, a chaotic map of the week—kidney pain like a dull blade, headaches pulsing like war drums, all blurring into a haze. Thursday pierced the fog: I nailed a job interview, a fleeting flare of triumph that had me hopeful and equally anxious.
I poured my soul into Trip Reports: Gangsters, Meth and Mercy: A Butterfly in the Ganglands, with several hours more invested compared to the average essay, due to mental fog and strain. The rest? A smudge of days lost to shadows and sound friction in my head.

I’d sworn to seize the week, but instead, I retreated, a hermit in my bedroom’s dim embrace. I ferried my son to school Monday through Wednesday, each drop-off a hollow ritual before I collapsed back into bed, sleeping away the sun’s arc. Thursday and Friday, he had no school—a reprieve I clutched like a lifeline.

Today (Saturday) dawned as redemption, a fragile hymn of renewal. I stormed the gym, my first return in what felt like lifetimes, sweat and resolve washing away the week’s grime. Sauna, ice bath, a swim—then the beach with my beastie boy, my fierce, tender son. The ocean shimmered with ancient magic, when night fell, we played tongue drums as bioluminescence ignited the waves—a living pulse of light and sound that temporarily pieced my fractured spirit back together with spit and tacky gum. For a breath, the chaos stilled, and I felt the faint flicker of aliveness

Taper Triumphs and Tangled Trials

Here’s my war cry, ragged but proud: I’ve hacked my meth use from approximately 0.5–1 gram a day to a trembling 0.134g!
Freedom glimmers so close I can feel its warmth, a fragile promise I ache to claim. One last week to taper off completely, sustained by a reader’s gift of supplements—thank you, again, for that tether to hope. Swallowing fistfuls of tablets daily is a quiet torment, a ritual of grit, and somehow, I’m shedding weight—a defiant twist when detox usually bloats me with unwanted pounds.

One more week to hunt ethically sourced iboga and peptides, stepping stones to a horizon I can barely imagine.

Other glimmers pierce the dark: a second interview Monday for that job I conquered Thursday. Liver tests? Normal, a sigh of relief.
Kidneys? Borderline—a tender warning to nurture myself, but a mercy compared to the dread I’d carried. The tide appears to be turning.

I have a confession:

I’m terrified. I’m unsure.
This week, after a vicious clash with my ex left me a quaking, dysregulated shell, I felt it—meth’s gentle pull, lifting me from the abyss with a smoothness that borders on holy. It quiets the tempest, restores reason, and banishes the wild extremes that threaten to consume me. Now, as I release it from my grip, terror seeps in—the terror of a life without its steady pulse. I’ve never faced the world sober, not truly. If I claim this job Monday, it’ll be my first sober step into work—ever. I’ll have to forge connections without that chemical veil, and unearth a self I’ve never met. Will I still crave the same joys? Will my friends—none users, by some strange grace—still know me? How do I weave new bonds? I haven’t tried since my teens, when drugs were my courage. The unknown yawns before me, a chasm of shadow, and I stand at its edge, trembling, unready.

Reminiscence and Reckoning: A Heart Heavy with What Was and What Could Have Been

These days, I’m adrift in the echoes of a younger me, dreams I cradled and misplaced along the way. Bass guitar, drums, a band—reckless anthems I swore I’d live. At 22, 30 loomed as a distant summit; now, long past it, I’m still that girl, just wearier, etched with quiet scars. Time once unfurled endlessly—wrinkles, grey hair, death: a fable I’d never touch, not unless it was at my own hand. Now, mortality stalks me, a relentless murmur: I’ve likely crossed the halfway line, my remaining years outnumbered by the ones spent. I ache for the vintage VW Kombi I longed to steer through the Transkei, travelling and unravelling up to Namibia, down to Mozambique—slipped through my fingers. My dancing days—semi-pro freestyle, severed at 20—haunt me still. I dreamed of performing beyond local raves and provincial rugby stages; I was destined for Ibiza’s pulse, Tomorrowland’s roar. Those visions flicker, fading embers of a fire snuffed too soon.

I mourn the wild hearts I’ve known: French wanderers chasing summer and psytrance, the Prins brothers, my girl dancing at the club - “she ain’t no Cinderella when she’s taking her clothes off’’, the boys from the Deep South, my scissor sisters. Beautiful Bruno, our serendipitous telepathic meeting and deep soul thread spanning time and oceans until cancer stole him abruptly and stole my breath. My soul sister’s suicide—a wound that weeps fresh whenever her name crosses my mind.

I wrestle with my son’s future, desperate to spare him the jagged scars and broken crutches his father and I bear.

And me—who am I beneath this skin? Who am I becoming? The questions pile like stones, heavy and unyielding, pressing the air from my lungs.

Thank you for taking the time to read Matters of Substance. These pieces are like love letters—intimate reflections where I bare my soul, sharing raw details of my journey through trauma, drugs, addiction, and healing. As a South African, I cannot set up Substack subscriptions, and I want to keep it free for those who cannot afford the info. However, if you feel compelled to support my work, please consider donating the amount you would be willing to pay for a subscription by following this link:

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