Understanding

Have you ever tried to explain something to someone that was very difficult?  We can gather clues to what someone is talking about through context and cognitive thinking.  I think that’s the way to put it.  Blue is the color of the sky, right?  What if I’d never seen the sky?  What is blue?  It’s the color of water.  My glass of water isn’t colored.  It’s the color of a certain flower.  Does that flower grow here and is it in bloom?

What’s my point?  It’s that if you don’t have a reference to something then you may not know how to understand someones explanation.  This can apply to anything really and in my case it’s GAD (General Anxiety Disorder).

Have you ever gotten a cold?  Who hasn’t?  Did it work when you told it to go away?  Point.  We can’t tell some things to go away or to stop.  All we can do is learn to handle things as best we can.

There are certain average triggers for me, one being the dentist.  Another would be flying and perhaps getting on a large boat.  Then there are triggers that I can’t see.  When I think back now I’ve really had this my whole life.  It’s much more pronounced now though.

I rode a ride at Six Flags when I was seven years old and 30 minutes later I passed out.  Can you imagine being a child and everything is fine, then your suddenly falling and the world goes black?  The last image I saw is burned into my mind: the train was coming around as I stood in line for a ride and I saw someone walking down a grassy bank.  The last sound I heard was my mom’s voice.  It sounded like I was in a tunnel.

When I came to I was being dragged into the exiting line for Thunder River.   When I tell people it was the Dehlonaga Mine Train ride that it happened on, they laugh.  If you ever blackout will you be laughing?

I didn’t ask for that to happen to me.  I didn’t expect it to happen.  I wish it never had.  It did and there’s nothing I can do about it.  All I can do now is learn to live with it.  It’s something that no one around me, save, my wife and mother, can remotely understand.  When I see someone panic, I do understand.  It could be about anything and I understand because once your mind is set into motion it’s so hard to stop.  It’s like driving a fully loaded Mack truck down an incline and thinking the brakes will work once you realize you’re headed for a sharp turn.  It’s too late and you’re now committed to the plunge.

So if someone ever tries to explain it, then imagine something like you’ve never experienced.  I suppose the best analogy is to think of something that scares you to death.  Now, take that feeling and live it at any given random point in time.  You never know when and you never know where.  It’s like something jumps out of time and grabs you.

While my case is actually fairly mild, to some it’s crippling.  It’s sad that an otherwise perfectly healthy human being can suffer at the mercy of his or her own mind.  The world goes on as we all do, down the path we’ve yet to completely choose.

If there is a ray of hope I can inject, it’s that these dips into psycholimbo do subside and clear up.  Much like a summertime thunderstorm does once the sun sets.  That helps me to get by.  While I’m surrounded by people I love, these are battles only I can fight.

I see that same spirit in my oldest son’s eyes.  That spirit that is fiery and unstable that leads to an unyeilding imagination.  It’s both a blessing and a burden.  I only hope he has a better handle on it than I do.  But if he doesn’t and I say “I understand” then I can honestly say I really do.

Piss off!

I got to thinking this morning, about things.  I have a lot of great things going for me (wife, two healthy children, job, loving family).  Added to that I do have things that bring me down (me, myself and I).  I’ve had things bring me way down.  I’ve been depressed.  I’ve had bouts with severe anxiety.  I tried medicine once but hated it  (wellbutrin).  I refuse to take a substance to deal with who or what I am.

In the space between that last paragraph and this one I realized that I made myself into what I am.  All of my problems aren’t a result of someone or something being against me.  I’m against myself.  I loathe misery but I can’t seem to escape it sometimes.  I’m surrounded by people that love me but I feel so alone sometimes.  My mind is always out there, somewhere.  I fear the unknown but I’m drawn to it.  I try to get away from it but I keep ending up back where I started.

I had a conversation yesterday regarding when I was happy or content with my life for a sustainable period of time.  That’s just it, with life around me, I am content nearly always.  “My” life is riddle with mental obstacles like sand spurs on a beach.  I want to be there but I keep stepping on these damn annoying things.  The last time I was content with myself would be years ago, many years.  I really hate that.  I want to be content with myself now and for the vast majority of time.  80-90% of the time would be great.

As a creative type person I have an overactive imagination and I beat myself up with it.  I could probably be arrested for mentally abusing myself.  Hmm, free meals… then again I’m not gonna be anyone’s bitch!  “What are you in for?” “Self inflicted mental abuse.” Oh yeah that’ll get your ass kicked in prison.  Remember when Superman gave up his powers to be with Lois Lane? [Superman II] Yeah I sometimes wish I were a dull ass person with no ability to create.  the thing is that I’d regret losing it, I know I would.

Well that’s enough ranting for now.

Three planets aligned, in a bad way

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time you’ll know that our family has run the gamut of illness (Strep, pharyngitis, flu, cold, allergies, etc).  Well I picked up a little bit of bronchitis, if there is such a thing.  It was a secondary infection from a cold I’d been getting over, right after I got over the flu.  Yeah.  Fun.

Well this morning was just bad.  I woke up with indigestion, so right off the bat I’m just “ugh”.  It happens, so I keep movin’ along and it’ll pass in time.  Right before I left for work I took my antibiotic, on my now empty stomach.  BAD MOVE!  So we truck along and go pick her car up (after three months in/out of the shop).  Now I’m starting to feel that medicine creep back to haunt me.  Heartburn/indigestion and my mind is now reeling.  I drop the oldest off at school and keep trucking.

I get to work and I’m now in anxiety attack mode.  I worked myself into one, oh the joy.  Now the three moons have passed the ecliptic plane and graviationally lensed light can now focus onto the hood of my truck so that when I crank it this afternoon the compressor belt will screech for the ten thousandth time in a week.  Run-on sentence FTW!!!

Well, all better now and I lived to write about it, as I do.

I don’t care what you say anymore…

I really don’t like being angry.  There are two forms of being naked.  One is having no clothes on, and while that’s fun and all, that’s not the kind of naked I am.  The other kind of naked is being exposed emotionally.  The feeling of having no control over yourself and what you’re going to do.  It’s not a pleasant feeling.  When you describe what GAD is to someone who doesn’t have it, you might as well be an alien.  That’s the kind of look you get.  You feel like you’re from a different planet or not quite actually on this one.

One of the most common complaints of GAD sufferers is the fear of doing something terrible or stupid.  It can range from falling in a mud puddle, to hurling yourself off of a 14 story balcony.  Yeah it’s extreme.  The problem is, you aren’t actually “wanting” to do these things, you are afraid something will posess you and you will do them.  That fear leads to anger.  Anger at yourself for letting yourself feel that way and that anger leads to more distress.  It’s a viscious cycle.

How do you fix it?

Medicine is about the worst thing to use.  I’ve tried one and it made me feel worse than before I took it.   After three days on wellbutrin I dropped it.  I thought I might try another but decided I wasn’t going to live my life medicated.  I’m not saying I’m cured, no, far from it.  I’m saying that I’ve learned to know when  I’m having an anxiety attack.  I never get  used to it but at least I know what it is.  It’s usually a half an hour of terror followed by great relief.  I don’t know what sets them off I don’t know when I’ll get them, they just happen.

What’s really set me off is the past two weeks.  First, I had the flu.  Ok, that’s bad and all.  Well I have this new job and I wasn’t granted any paid time off.  So I came to work sick two days out of the four I was down with it.  I had to make up one of the days and burn a vacation day given for attending an all day event.  Then, as it were, I get a cold last week.  I am still fighting that cold now.  The past two weeks I’ve had fever, chills, cough, snot, congestion, headaches, worked from home (with no credit), worked at night doing sidework, worked a saturday for make up, spent a saturday at a work event and it feels like a lot more.  It seems like I can get any rest.  And when I have time for rest, my mind races so I can’t rest.  I’d take a vacation, if I had any…  So here I am, venting like crazy because this is it, this is my outlet.  It gets better though.

Every single step of the way, life seems to want to play a joke on me.  I don’t have bad luck, no, I have ANNOYING luck.  I am so thankful to have great family and friends.  Two healthy children, loving wife, house, cats, and the works.  I’m thankful for that every day.  Life hasn’t dealt me a bad hand, just a very annoying one.

So this message is to you, life.  I will beat you down and make you my bitch.  You are mine.  It’s not the other way around.  So take your annoying luck and stick it up your butt with a coconut. UP. BUTT. COCONUT!

…This is my life.

IT’S FRIDAY!!111

Does anyone remember that song?  The 5 o’ clock whistle?  Back when DAVEFM was Z93 (R.I.P.) they did it every Friday at 5pm.  It wasn’t them originally though.  It had a long long running and I know nothing about the history of the song, actually, more of a medley.  I must find that song…  I had it on a CD at one point.  CURSES!

Last week we were all sick.  This week was recovery mode.  I had a tight knot in my stomach and still kinda do, for a couple of days.  I don’t feel stressed but I know that I am.  With regular work, family and side work, woo.  I’m even having to turn away sidework.  Oddly I don’t get much reward from sidework.  I get some extra $$ but it hardly seems worth it when I have to shew away my four year old.  I feel particularly bad when I do that.

The other night he asked me if I wanted to come upstairs and play Zelda with him.  That was the first time he’d ever exclusively asked me to do something with him.  I mean he’s asked me to do things but just the way he asked.  Instead of heading to the pit to work I went upstairs and played Zelda.  It was totally worth it.

L