Category Archives: Bad Things

The Days Get Shorter

I do not mean because of the seasons. There are times when I get tired earlier and earlier. I try to sleep most of the time. Usually when that happens, I don’t really care. I have lost the ability to care.

Sometimes reading helps. Sometimes I just need to let to work thru. I can get up whenever… But I will feel better if I can just let myself deal with the depression… Even nightmarish sleep is better than being up, and having to deal with the world.

There is no knowing how long it will take to feel better. A day, or several days? Mine used to last weeks. Things are better, and I can usually work thru it in one overnight. I’m lucky… most of the time.

Recently they have snuck up on me more… I don’t like that much. I think things are going along well, and suddenly… BAM! I suppose that is not all that new. Maybe it just seems that way because other things are going along better. But if things are going better, then why is things still happening?

Because that is the nature of the beast.

I Failed Thanksgiving

I suppose I really did not really fail.  But I can’t help feeling like I did.  I was unable to attend.  In my own home.  Actually I was there for a while.  But when my anxiety shot up, it was all over.

The sad part is that I am the Turkey Roaster.  I do it every year.  And it really is good.  But we had an unusually large turkey, and when I figured how long it would take in the over, it was too long.  So I changed my cooking plan . The right temperature, at the right time.

Anyway… so I missed out of my own Thanksgiving dinner.

It got worse after everyone left.  I am not sure why, but I think some of my barriers dropped down even more.  I started feeling more.  And it wasn’t fun.

My ability to keep going, and deal with the anxiety ran out.  Sound familiar?

Thanks to help from Lori, I have got much better at not thinking it is a failure.  I did the best I could.  It still doesn’t work totally, but my recovery a lot better than it used to be.  Work on one thing at a time.  And think small.  Anxiety often starts with the smallest thing… so start with how you react to that one thing.

That is an approach my last psychologist and I worked up for me.  One little thing at a time… and the smaller the better actually.  As I gain confidence, I have come to learn that this “failure” was just part of how I have to interact with the world.  So it does not feel as bad.

I still have limits… kinda low ones too.  But I try.

I cannot push myself like I used to.  It’s ok.  Perhaps I simply don’t want to.  Either way, my life has become easier emotionally.  I have come to accept where I am.  At least for now.  None of this means I plan to, or expect to stay here.  But before I can go somewhere, I have to know where I am.  And it helps if I can be at least satisfied with where I am.

Notice: I did not say ‘my limitations’. So I am learning what to expect of myself.

Living in a Huge Shadow

I literally had teachers tell me I was not the student my sister was…

I have a One-on-One IQ of… well… all 3 tests were above —.  I am smart.  My mind can work so quickly, it astonishes me.  I can conceive/visualize in 4 dimensions.  But still… I have never been good enough.  My sibling could do everything well.  “They” had lots of friends.  So it was obvious that I should be the same.  I should follow in her (opps) footsteps.

Wow

My parents were always very supportive.  My mother and I became very close in her later years.  We literally talked about everything… and I do mean we talked about anything, and everything.  She really only listened to my advice.  And I think that was because we discovered we had the same mental issues.  Our brains went crazy in the same directions.  It created a bond.  We actually understood each other!!!!

But still today, most people think I need to meet their goals.  They know best.  So… why would I be alive again?

Levels of Success

A frequent issue I had when growing up, was that I could not ever live up the expectations of my older sibling.  If I set my own goals… and achieved them… it would not matter because I was not the one who set the goals.  My sibling did.  I could never be good enough.

40 years have taken away almost all my soul.  I try to take small steps forward… but I am still faced with the attitude that I am not capable of setting my own goals.  I must achieve the goal they set down, before I can be successful.  They will “not let me off the hook”, or will say other things, that ALL lead to the same basic concept… all I have to do is do more, or try harder.  I have to try harder, so I can meet their goals for me.

I have not even yet achieved my own goals… insisting I meet greater goals is purely… Try Harder… Do More…  And it also implies that I will not be accepted if I do not meet their goals, because I would not have tried hard enough.  Or, I may be “accepted”, but everyone also accepts that I just didn’t try hard enough.

My goals are never enough…

Trying to Sleep thru the Fire

My main goal the last 4 days has been to sleep.  Today I just lie there watching the clock… and waiting for it to get dark out.  I have the same movie going over and over.

The roar of the bridges burning behind me is deafening, but also strangely comforting.  Now I will not waste time hoping for something that can not happen.  It will be easier to sleep, and fade away.

I know I say things I should not.  But I also know there are a very great many things people should be saying to me.  That is not going to happen.  People don’t know what to say.  Though I doubt any would try even it they did…

I try to reach out, but I can not keep my thoughts together.  I end up lashing out instead.  The world is such a lonely place.  I understand that I have no place here, and people would rather I just shut up, and disappear.  This becomes my only outlet.  It’s easy for them to ignore me when all I do is write here.

Maybe I sound a little angry?  I am.  Angry at… stupid fricking little chemicals in my brain.  It’s no-one’s fault.  But my misery.

Sorry… a bit of ranting there.

U-Turns on to Infinity

I am a fairly smart person.  But I am trapped in a brain that does not work well.  I am usually smart enough to hide the confusion, and despair from people around me – they don’t like to see that.  I make mistakes.  Bad ones.  Then I am left alone to try to work my way out of the Pit.

Why would anyone assume someone with serious mental problems, is always going to be logical, and reasonable?  I am not always either of those things.

I can say I am sorry… but it all still counts against me.  I get it.  People don’t really care why you do things… they are not going to attempt to delve more deeply into someone else’s problems.  So often, the most vulnerable people, are the ones most at risk of being labeled, and forgotten.  The ones who need the most…

I say I am sorry… and that totally dismisses any and all of my thoughts, concerns, or expressed needs.  I was crazy when I said those things.  So they are obviously wrong.  Nothing I say will ever get a fair hearing… I am crazy.  It is all forgotten until the next time.  I guess I am stupider than I thought.

Of course, this is all my fault.  I fight for myself, then have to u-turn and become passive.  I want people to understand, then turn around and push them away.

Yup… crazy…

Sometimes, I Can Not understand how I got this far…

My personal history, seems as a nightmare to me now.  To had to stand in front of people, and teach…  I can not imagine doing that now.  It could not really have happened.

I can not understand how I did it.  It’s like once having been able to fly… and now I can not understand how I did it.  And from my point of view, that is a good comparison.  It seems like flying… how could I have done that?

My mind is not able to go places Ii it used to be able to go.

I am not sure, but I think I like it here better.  But that does not answer the question.  How could I have done that?  And what brought me here?

When I think about teaching… or as is more common, I have nightmares about it, it is my Hell.  How did I get here?  My mind has changed…

A Man, a Plan, a Canal, Panama

A nice palindrome.

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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.

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……

“THE” Dream – with variations

Sunday night I had my most common nightmare.  I will try to describe it…

It was morning, and I had just arrived at the High School I taught at.  I am starting to have a panic attack – that was very common on my way to work.  There are very few students or teachers around.  I have been commuting from my current home for the entire school year… it’s early May.

I know I have to decide if I want to continue teaching there… my panic is getting worse.  There is a lot of mail in my box, as I haven’t checked it for several days.  I go to my classroom, and find it as it was when I was first teaching – before the remodel.  But there is some other teacher in there, and all my stuff is gone.  I am not even sure what I will be teaching.

I have a hard time working my way back up the hall to the office – my panic attack is raging, and I know I can not do this anymore.  I have to quit, and go home.

But there is no-one in the office.  There is no-one to tell… I can not do this anymore.  I HAVE to go home.  I look thru every office to find someone to call a sub.  There is no-one there who works there.  But there is not much more time to get a replacement.

So I look down the hall towards the science and math wings, and there are very few students in the halls.  And they move slowly… and are indistinct.  As I walk past the councilors offices, I see that it is very crowded with students, so I can not talk with my friends there…

I go to the room of a teacher who often helps me calm myself down.  He is not there.  He is on a speaker phone over internet.  There were 2 small stereo speakers.  He could hear me, but there were several students around… and he is trying to teach.  I wandered away.

Ultimately, I decide I just have to go home.  I have my car key, but I can not find my car.  I always can not find my car in these dreams.  I remember all the places I parked, and I could not find it.  I end up walking all the way around the school looking for my car.  I never find it.

I went back into to school, and still there was no-one who worked there, and very few students.  By this time I am starting to fall apart.

This is where I woke up… and about where I usually wake up.  And I did.

Caliban the Krazy Man

This is my little Caliban – not so little really, he is 17 pounds.  But I always think of him as the Little Man.

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Caliban has been missing since last Sunday night.  That is not very long… but it feels like an eternity.  My kitties take care of me.  And Caliban loves to sleep on my desk right here by me.  He is a companion for an agoraphobe.

I have not been thinking about much else the last few days… I know that is not good for me, but it is all I can do.  It has been harder to think clearly about much at all.

But my hopes are still high, and I am doing the best I can.

In the World of the Mentally Ill

And that is not “mentally the third”.

When your brain does not work the same way, you are often left defenseless in the real world.  I can not predict how people will react to me, because my mind can not work that way.  I do not know how to interpret them.

I have been described as “overly empathetic” by my psychologist, and psychiatrist.  I do not have filters, so everything hits me at my heart.  My mind tells me that everyone will be the same.  Maybe I lack some basic defense mechanism, but I am constantly, emotionally buffeted by people around me.

I can not usually relate… so I try to be alone.

Thoughts over-run my mind, until I can not think clearly about anything.  So I try to be alone.  I try to minimize the amount of input I am dealing with… I have to deal with it all.  I can not let something slip out of my thoughts, until it is resolved.  And how often can we really resolve things fully?

I spend at least 4 hours of almost every day, just trying to push down my anxieties, fears, thoughts, and emotions.  It gets tiring.  And there is nothing to show from it.  It is empty wasted time…

Some people respond by saying nothing – afraid to say the wrong thing.  Some people go ahead as if everything is normal, and run right over me.  It is so easy to do without even trying (not that they would).  Most of the time, I just go on… or try to.  Some times it is all too much, and I crash into depression.

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Blogs, After this…

The last few weeks I have been in a fairly steady decline.  I am not sure where it is coming from, but right now it threatens to affect things I have been looking forward to over the next few weeks. 

There has been a difficult combination of long periods of higher than normal anxiety, and short but intensive depressive episodes.  I have not been able to work my way out of it.  This is at least day 4, and that is longer than I normally have to deal with.

I have not been able to get going on anything… I am not even enjoying the Olympics.  I was awake most of last night, fighting these feelings.  This is my Pit.  At times like this, I have to wonder if it is all worth while.  Fortunately, there are few times like this.

Suffice it to say I am frozen, and unable to much at all.

A Very Weak Week

The last few days have been very trying.  It sort of started when I missed the Super Bowl, and things went downhill from there.  Everything I try to do to meet people, or go out, or be in contact with people, has blown up in my face.  The only things I can do, are alone.

What I am seeing is more isolation ahead.  I can at least go to a nice secluded place to get away… but as far as people are concerned, my life has gone even farther from having any friends.  I just need to stay home.  No-one will ever be better off for knowing me.

I am working on getting my office all finished up – I have made very good progress.  I can be comfortable here, by myself.  I have my hobbies.  But at the same time, I know I will have to make this pretty much my entire world.  There is nothing else.

My mind has been degraded.  I simply do not care as much anymore.  There is not so much to care about.  And it is clear, I can not think the way everyone else does.  I can not make a life with other people in it.  The only thing that works for me, is to be alone.

Just ask anyone… I am crazy.  I am weird, and unpredictable.  I am not a good friend.  I am best forgotten.

Three Blogs in one day?  I will try to slow down.  Smile