As my hobbies drop by the wayside, and I get comfortable just existing, I am always propelled by loneliness. It is difficult living in a world of people, all alone. But it is all there is.
Nothing is worth the effort of doing…
Monthly Archives: April 2017
Every Day is Picket’s Charge
There is a wonderful point in an Al Stewart song (Three Mules), where he refers to Picket’s Charge. It is in the context of being in a position where it is impossible to not go forward… even if it means disaster.
The Charge of the Light Brigade is another example. People in a no-win situation, who end up doing what they “need” to do… even knowing it leads to disaster.
Eat Drink and be Merry, for tomorrow we die.
Every day is Picket’s Charge in my life. Or at least it has that potential. When your brain does not work quite the same way, you find yourself having to go into situations you know will lead to a draining experience, that will leave you incapable of doing anything for days.
Every day carries the potential of devastating loss… Each new day brings the chance of complete collapse… because I have no way of knowing how my brain affects my perceptions. I can not tell where I might be right, or where I might be wrong. There is no way I can trust my own judgement.
So every human interaction I have, carries the very real possibility of emotional disaster. Perhaps a complete collapse. I can never know.
Every day, I know that. With every decision. The effort is often overwhelming, and it goes nowhere. I give up more easily. But my fear is nevertheless real as well. My brain can crash… there are real consequences.
Every day is Picket’s Charge… or could be.
“The Aviator”
The Aviator is a movie I go to when I am feeling down. I understand Howard Hughes in this movie. What he does, makes sense… though not what I would have done. But the movie makes me feel better.
The scenes of him testifying before Congress are great. No matter how far he fell down, he was able to pull it all together to testify before Congress… and take down a Senator. We all know how that feels… putting it all together to step up for important occasions. We have all done that… we do it almost every day! Every day we step up to be what we are expected to be. Howard Hughes was much worse off than myself, but I see, and understand the spectrum.
I stood up for many years… I did pretty well, I think. But as life goes on, it gets less and less important to care about trying. I do not think my life would have been worse if I had just given up 40 years ago, and followed the easy path. It very certainly would have been easier. Right now, that means it would still be easier for me to deal with people. Or not.
Did I waste my energies? Or would I be in the same mental place, even if I had taken an easier path? I can not know. I can never know… All I can know is where I want to be.
Give me the money, and I would disappear into a world where I can be invisible. I want to go away, and not have to expend so much of my life, just trying to get along. The outside world takes away most of my energies… it leaves me flat… it takes too much out of my life.
I have LMCS… and there are few treatments… Lack of Mountain Cabin Disorder. I have no Fortress of Solitude… no place that is only me… where I do not have to try to fit into anything. I am so tired. Even now, the world is always far too demanding. I worked so hard to fit in, and I do not see a pay-off. I am now ready to give it up with the outside world.
What I need is a world where I do not have to expend energies on fitting in… Not going to happen. I will be eligible for SS soon… and I think I should just go off into my own place. I could live on that, with my pension. It’s not like I am going to be traveling around much!
Of course… this is all pie in the sky stuff… I sit here in my office for the next 20 years.
I am good at envisioning futures, that can never happen.
Who to have as Friends?
I have found it very difficult to have normal conversations with people, without have to spend most of my time either… trying to figure out what people think I mean, or trying to explain what I mean.
I have found it easier to communicate about everyday things, with people like me… so I don’t have to explain each point along the way. Just let me say what happened without having to explain everything. It gets so tiring to have to worry about how someone will interpret what I say. People like me, don’t need the explaining part.
I want it to be “normal” for me.
Do you realize how rare that is for us?
The Ghost in the Room
There is a ghost in the room… wherever I go. It is me. The ghost of who I was… of who I was on the inside, haunts me every day. I died decades ago. I disappeared under a cloud of misunderstanding, and mistrust.
When I talk with anyone, my ghost is in the room. Do I listen to my “reality” voice, or my ghost?
People don’t even know who I am. People I worked with for 15 years know virtually nothing about me. Or I should say… about my ghost. People are afraid of ghosts. They are afraid of me. I am two people. Or was… the real me is now limited to this office, and my writings. They prefer the public me. Even with its faults.
But the ghost haunts me… I can not be the public-me so much anymore. The energy to do that has long since faded. And when I have to be the public-me, the ghost pulls at my mind…
There is a ghost with me always.
Fearing the Fear of Fear…
Most of my decisions are greatly influenced by fear. The fear of potential bad outcomes. Which choice had the least fearful path. But my brain does not trust my judgement. So I like to be able to see what someone else thinks. That is where I have problems. Who would that be?
Obviously, it can only be Lori.
I throw out plans that I can not support externally… to someone else I trust who thinks I can do it. Left to myself, plans fade away quickly succumbing to fears of failure. Usually it means not being able to run an errand. Sometimes it is much bigger. I can not commit to anything down the road. Who knows where my brain will be in four months? And I can’t have four months of worrying about it every day. So… no plans for nice trips.
Fear.
Why start something I will not finish? I never finish anything. But I keep trying… as much as I can. Trying smaller things, that don’t matter so there is less to lose. Chores… but nothing else really matters. I have to make things not matter. I have to believe all these things don’t matter.
“It doesn’t matter.” Are words I speak far too often. Fear makes us stop caring. We have to stop caring before we get swept under all the failures.
Some things haunt us… things we are drawn to do, but can not. We might spend hours thinking about it, without ever being able to accomplish anything.
But… I keep trying. J
I Have SiBS
Star is Born Syndrome.
And how to get out of it.
I used to be a teacher. I was liked, and even admired, by students and faculty. I was trusted, and influential. I had built my own home to my needs, and was well known in the community… having gone to city council meetings. I had friends, and family. I had been president of the teacher’s union. All of that and more.
Now I live in virtual isolation… dependent on my loving, successful, liked, and admired wife, financially and otherwise. No friends or family. No one knows what my opinions are, and no-one cares. People don’t trust me.
This was a thot I just wrote down this morning. My “Run Away” approach to life has not worked out as well as I had planned. The last several months I have been trying to build a foundation for getting out to have lunch with a friend… or such. Over the years, I made a lot of different attempt to meet, and develop friends. It never worked out.
Now… I am not sure which way to go. I no longer have confidence in my understanding of what others want, or how they think, or feel. I am flying blind.
My foundation is my confidence in my ability to disappear. I would like it to be confidence in my ability to keep trying, and take more chances. I should be able to do that. That word “should” again.
My meds are stable, and very consistent… even if one requires going out. I know what happens without them. Was that 2 years ago?? It was not good.
There is not going to be a better time to start. I will be writing about how this is going.
The Knights Who Say Ni’
I am a Knight who says Ni’.
My primary battle cry is “Run Away!’
When things go badly with people, I run away. I get out… and try to disappear. I vanish… as best I can. Fear makes us do funny things sometimes. A lot actually. I have no idea what people think of this, but my impression has always been that people were glad to see me go. I was not wanted there anyway. That is what I believe.
This is a feeling that sweeps over me. My hands shake. My brain races, looking for a way out. Panic. Panic can make us do irrational things… especially when I tend to do “irrational” things anyway. What do people think?
I even want to run away from my home. There are times when I must run, and my office is not far enough. I think I need to live by myself. I am not good around people. I do not trust my interpretations of what people are thinking or feeling. My psychologist said I was hyperempathetic. It seems to cause rapid imagination.
No matter what happens, I gradually hide more and more. I have been trying to get better… to reach out more. But every time I try, I mess it up somehow, and have to hide again. I do not understand people!
“The Road to Moscow”
by Al Stewart
I have listened to this song hundreds of times. I can not get away from needing to understand WW2.
The song is about a Russian Resistance fighter… his story… and his reward of life exile in Siberia. Because he met westerners. My father met Russians who were probably shipped off to Siberia, just for having met a westerner. 30 million Russians died… more than one in five. In some cities… fewer than 10% survived. Over 85% of Hitler’s war effort was against the Russians. Many say 90%.
Why?
My father never stopped looking for why. And he left me that heritage… I have to understand, why? How could such a thing happen??? 100 million people lost in a World War… who even knows that?
Irrational R Us
Learning to worry about every single little decision – which I already do – because it might be wrong, feeds my anxiety… there is literally no way I can be sure I am being rational. Do you have any idea how that feels? To know that no matter how careful, and thought out, you still may be completely wrong??
It is not a confidence builder.
And they wonder why I drop of Facebook. I can never know if I am saying an acceptable thing, let alone the right thing. I worry about each post so much; I almost always think about deleting them. So I run away. I can’t say the wrong thing of Facebook if I stay off. I can’t hurt anyone’s feelings if I am not there.
I have a degree in Math… and I can say, there is a pattern there. Who knows… it could even lead to total isolation for fear of offending. I’m not an expert… though I sort of am. I’m just an expert at the other side. I can describe what things are like over here… but seeing from your view is a bit tough.
Making “Rational” Choices
Apparently, this is more difficult than it looks.
When people expect me to make rational decisions… and I can’t… then they expect me to make rational decisions… and I can’t… it goes on and on. It is not going to happen folks. People want me to be normal. So they treat me as if I am… But why is the irrational guy, being asked to make the rational decisions? And I am punished when I don’t get it right.
I understand reality exists. But, I do not need to be reminded that we “probably” won’t end up going… every time we talk about a trip to Alaska. I think it is second nature for most people… they point it out. The rational thing, would be to just accept it as a possibility, and move on. Ya… not so much for us irrationals. People need to understand; the problem is I can not learn to do certain things. I have to find ways around them.
I can view a 3-D exploded view of an older Honda engine. I could tell you where every part went… I just zoom in on the image. Can you do that? Can you learn to do that?? Can you imagine a real hypercube?? I can. You can not learn that. I would not expect you to. there are things my brain can not do. Stop expecting me to figure it out.
But all that aside… let the irrational guy figure it out.
Being “Irrational”
Has anyone else noticed, that when people point out you are being “irrational”, they generally expect that to be the end of it? You will stop being irrational, and become rational just because you had not noticed it. sigh…
How can I recognize a solution, when I am not the least bit clear on the problem? It seems like a cart before the horse kind of situation. While I am still trying to figure out what happened, everyone else was moved on, and assumes it won’t happen again. What won’t happen?
There are things I can not do reliably. That is not going to change. The thing I need is for people to get that first… then look for ways to mitigate it. I can’t teach my brain to work differently. I have to learn what to look for, and rely on others to do the “rational” part. Letting the irrational guy figure out what to do… does that make sense to rational people?
BPD
Borderline Personality Disorder
Apparently, I am that too. BPD, autism, anxiety, depression, OCD, phobias… is there an end to this list? I know I am leaving off several important names. But this one was just added. J
There are a lot on names for mental illness… the names are mostly for the Nones… people with no mental illness. Nones like to put names on things. Even when they have no idea what the names mean. They are just words. Having something to call it, seems to make it easier for them.
All that aside… when we are talking to Nones, the names help us explain things. They can look those up on the Internet. They might be able to get some kind of understanding, and possible connection. And I am still the same. The names don’t change what I am, or what I have to deal with. Who knows… maybe the names will help me too. But I don’t think so.
Nones live in a different world. Most of them have some kind of little mental tweak. Usually it just comes up as something that irritates their family and friends. They will live their lives in ignorance of anything being amiss. Oh those Nones… they can be a laugh riot!
WOW… I just noticed there are people in the foreground of my banner photo. The subject drowned them out. In case you do not recognize it, it is the entrance to Auschwitz.
Ramblings of an Agoraphobe 