Monthly Archives: May 2014

What is that Bright Orb Up in the Sky?

Could it be the Sun?

90 degrees in Oregon… in June??

I write in spurts.  There will be several Blogs in a row… and then a break.  I do not always know why that is happening.  It’s not a bad thing… just odd.

I will be seeing a new psychologist next month.  I sent her the URL for this Blog, and she said she thought we could work together.  Shouldn’t it have scared her off?  I mean… she is a professional.  I am glad I have a little time to let it really soak in, and to get ready.

I do not have a lot to say now… so…

The Intervention of the Real World

I would rather most of the real world would just leave me alone – I don’t mean the people I know… or the places I like… I mean the rest of the crap.

CG-1208a-0020

not my garden…  Portland Chinese Garden

Yesterday the sprinkler system was put in the back yard.  Fine.  It is raining today – welcome to Oregon!  I know the gardener well, but not the installer.  But I felt trapped in my own home.  My anxiety was way up all day.  And I had to remain sharp to answer questions that came up – there was only one.

I became a prisoner in my own home.  In my own office most of the time… constantly afraid someone would need something from me.  I did not get much done.  Mostly I just hide as best I could.  I could not concentrate on anything.

When they were done, I paid them, and came back into my office to great relief.  But I was so tired from it all, I went to bed a little after 6pm.  I was exhausted by anxiety.  It would have been nice if I has slept well…

But it is all OK.

Today, I get back on track as best I can.  My mind is starting to settle down this morning.  There are a lot of things to do, but I have time.  I can not know what will come up, but the worst is done.  At least for yesterday…

Managing My Emotions

I do not control how strongly I feel my emotions.

10175036_684502278273955_1000793200_n

I stay home, and hide.

It is mostly an effort to keep emotions from swarming over me, and taking control of my life.  When I was young, I could control things a bit better… not a lot, but a bit.  Now I just want to find some peace in my mind… I want the emotions to roll back, and let me enjoy life.  And I can only do that here.

Today, I have to avoid as many emotional entanglements as I can.  It is a quiet life.  It is the only life I have found where I can relax much, if not most of the time.  I like my home.  I do not see it as a prison… though it feels like it some times.

Emotions swirl thru my mind, until all I can do is listen, or escape them.  I prefer to escape.  But that leaves me vulnerable to the emotions, actions, or whims of others.

So I am here.  And it can be a very nice life… very happy.  That ends up depending on the actions of others.

The most balanced times of my life, have been when I was truly alone… when I lived alone.  Even when I was teaching, I could go home.  There was a place for me.

And that is what I am building here.

Right now… I am sitting here with the lights low… candles and stained glass lamps.  A scented candle adds a pleasant aroma to the air.  My kitties around me.  It is a place of dreams… a place I can only hope will continue.

A place of Peace of mind.

Disneyland is Fun… These Places are Learning…

Places I would like to go… to learn… to feel…

800px-Birkenau_gate

Auschwitz… a place of unspeakable horror.

The Door to Hell.         President Obama, and Michelle.

File:Car in Oradour-sur-Glane4.jpg

Oradour-sur-Glane

These are the places I want to visit.  How do you tell your spouse you want to go to the most horrible places on Earth?

But I have to learn… I have to feel…

My Father was in World War 2… he was at the first concentration camp liberated by the allies.  I heard the stories as a child.  I heard about the bodies stacked like cordwood.  I was not even a teenager.  But now I need to know…………..

I feel as if it is a Duty for me to visit these places… so that they may never be forgotten.

We have a duty to learn from the past.

A Man, a Plan, a Canal, Panama

A nice palindrome.

Ortelius_-_Maris_Pacifici_1589

I do not do well at traveling.  People who know me, know that.

Sometimes, someone will suggest a place to go… it is interesting.  So we talk about it.  There are enticing ideas of things we could do, and I get optimistic.  And there will be a plan.  So I wait… they will have a plan.  And I wait… and wait…

People who know me also know my brain never stops thinking.  So I roll the idea around in the back of my mind.  In an absence of new information, my brain comes up with more bad things about the trip, than good things.  Eventually, I reach a tipping point where I no longer feel comfortable with the whole idea.

Then they get mad at me.  It is my fault that I was not patient enough to wait for the plans, which never seem to be forthcoming.  I could just assume it will happen, but my brain does not, never has, and probably never will be able to do that.  People know that about me.

But no matter how many times people see the same results, they will keep trying to plan trips by the same method.  What did Einstein say about intelligence?  I am supposed to rewire my brain, and react to the same stimuli in a new way.  But they – the sane ones – get to follow the same path, and it always becomes my fault.

I am growing very tired of this.

SO… I will NOT travel overnight to any new places for the remainder of this year, nor probably throughout all of next year as well.  If others wish to travel, I will wish them a Bon Voyage.

Again… I can not change the way my brain works, and I have grown increasingly unable to push myself beyond my limits, to meet the conditions meted out by others.

To React, or not to React…

I over-react to things emotionally… I always have.

My brain tells me I am reacting perfectly normally, but there seems to be a problem with my Amygdala.  I do not have as much control as most people do.  And it all comes out too often.  Usually that happens when I am alone, and great sadness sweeps over me.

There are also indications problems with the amygdala may case anxiety problems… hmmm…

I have had problems with my emotions all my life… I was always known for being emotionally outgoing.  I was known for hugging people, and telling people how I felt.  But I also got upset easily, and fell into depression.  I have had depressive periods since my early teens, but they really started hitting me in college.

The anxiety was there even earlier, but that is another Blog…

My psychiatrist and I have talked about this extensively.  There is not a lot I can do about it with meds, other than tranquilizers… I have tried some prescriptions in the past.  They either do not help, or they tranquil everything out of me.  I can not live like that.

I spend much of my time trying to control how I feel… it is very tiring.  But I can usually do a pretty good job.  There are times when I just can not do it.  And that pushes people away, and makes them wary.

Emotions burst out, uncontrollably.  I say and do things I should not.  Before my anxiety meds, I even became violent at times.  I am doing a much better job of managing my anxiety now.

There are also very few people I can talk to… that know me well enough.  My emotional problems have made it impossible for people to be my friend.  I am alone.  So things build up inside.  And it all gets a bit more complicated.

I over-react.  But that does not mean my reaction is wrong, it is just way overdone.  There may still be truth behind it.

As Time Crawls Along

The passage of time is not always predictable.

“The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”  –  Albert Einstein

For me, time seems to go so very slowly most of the time.  Depression makes time slip by so very slowly.  But that is not even the worst of it…

Because of my home life, most mistakes, or misunderstandings, cost me at least a week.  Since I am home by myself all the work week, there are times when I can only get some things done on the weekend.  Missing an opportunity easily pushes “plans” back a week or more.  And usually I have little control over it… so almost every week I push back my plans… my hope.

Sometimes whole months slip by without any real progress in my life.  I am getting household things done… trying to keep up.  But my personal life just sits.  And there is no-one who will help me make it better.  I am not trusted… and my needs are not a priority.  But even that is my own fault…

See… if you struggle all your life, without knowing what is ripping your thoughts, and emotions apart, it is hard to become trusted.  And even when you find out what the truth is, and work towards building some kind of life, that trust does not come back… ever.

I have only myself to blame, and only myself to look to for answers.  It is a mind-numbingly slow process.  Often it does not even seem worth it.    And much of the time, I wish I could stop caring.

I am not the only one with this experience.  There are far too many of us.  But there are far more people out there who do not understand, and do not actually believe in our internal problems.  Just get up and take care of your responsibility… just go out… just…  they all mean, “Just try harder” by other words.

People who treat us like that, have NO concept of trying harder.  They have NO understanding of what trying is really like.  They are not trying to overcome their own mind.  Life must be nice…

A Sense of Community

I live in Woodburn, Oregon. 

WDB-1209a-035

As I have mentioned, it is the only city in Oregon with a majority of “minorities”.   People seem to react to that when I am asked where I am from – mostly in Newport.

I feel a tremendous sense of community here… and that is a pretty big thing to say for an agoraphobe.  But everywhere I go in town, I am made to feel comfortable.  I am greeted kindly, and enthusiastically where-ever I go.  And in places I go frequently (for me) I have been greeted by name… even though I have never told them…

People in this town care about each other.  I do not fear the people where I go… even new places.  I feel very much at home here, and I resent the implication that there is something wrong with where I live!

You want me to unfriend you?  Just react to Woodburn in anyway that smacks of racial prejudice… or that there is something wrong with this town.  I love it here.

Balancing the Schedule

This morning I got some really bad news – Lori is not working today, and is working tomorrow (Saturday).  Now, I had this on my computer calendar, but this has been a hectic week, including working on my computer.  So somehow I did not notice.

Does not sound like such a big deal does it?  In itself, it is not.  But I had a carefully worked out plan for getting lots of things done tomorrow, and I can not shift that to today.  This is not something I can be flexible about.  It is also stuff I can not do on my own… so it can not get done this weekend.

Fine… but as I said, there are things I can not do on my own, so I will not be able to get it done during next week either, because Lori will be on Prince Edward Island.  And that leads to next Saturday when I am supposed to have company which will need to have that stuff done first.  Change of plans.

This one little mistake, will ripple thru the next few weeks, potentially changing plans and ideas all throughout May.  And I will be letting someone else down as well as myself.

My anxiety does not allow as much flexibility as I would like.  Things have to be carefully thought out… at least as carefully as I can be.

Of course, I may be able to rework a solution… but it will greatly increase my anxiety, and something else has got to give.  Right now, I am just too discouraged to even think about it.  This is not good…

There are also things I might have planned had I realized what the schedule was.  I can not even think about that now……