Category Archives: depression

“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.

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

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.

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?

I Screw Up Everything

I can not do anything right. I sit all day trying to keep going. But why? It just means more and more of the same. I will never be happy. I keep trying things to get myself going, but the basic problem is that I just don’t care. Nothing matters. Many things get started, but nothing is ever finished.

I have been a complete failure all my life… just ask my sibling. I have been a constant failure.

When my wife asked my sibling if there was anything I was good at… the response was that I was “sometimes” a good teacher.  That is all.  I have heard it all my life…

Writing Used to be Easy…

If you look back thru my Blogs… keep going. Once you get back a couple of years, there is some good stuff.

Self-Motivation is not all it’s cracked up to be. It’s all I can do, to keep myself going during the day. I can not fight all the doubts and fears at the same time. There is a point where I suddenly hit the wall. Suddenly, I can’t go on… time for bed. I hate it when that happens. I am helpless to stop it. I can’t even read in bed… the day is done.

Sometimes I last all day! Sometimes my mind crashes out after 8 or 9 hours. I hate it. But I have to go along. Fighting it just delays the inevitable, and is miserable time anyway. So I try to sleep… or half-sleep.

Finding the right thing to watch, or listen to is critical. Couple hours of TV… a few hours of music… and back. But either can bring on a crash, if I can not decide what the right thing is. It has to have to correct feel… it has to bring up the correct emotions, and feels. As previously noted, my brain has an issue with the flow of emotions. I can’t not feel things. So it is important for me to have the correct environment.

It can take me hours to find just the right thing… or I crash out. Those are the options.

My surrounds can make or break my day… week. I watch things I have seen, and listen to music I have listened to for 40 years. It is difficult to watch something new. There are far too many unknowns. That can make it difficult for Lori and I to agree on what to watch. Marx Brothers? And it does not matter how repetitious it is… I only half pay attention anyway. It is all about the emotional atmosphere it creates.

Writing has not fit in very well to all this.

And So It Was…

This has got worse. That is partly why it has been so difficult to write – or do anything. But next week will be the 25th anniversary of our first date, and we are now emotionally separated. It is a hollow relationship. I think we still like each other… and share a few interests.

I suppose it is all the fault of my various mental issues. At least that is the obvious explanation. I don’t have family, and I don’t have friends. Except you guys!

This is a difficult time… my hands are shaking. Try to be supportive?

Does anyone write actual letters anymore?

Every Day is Just One Day

Yesterday… what can I say. I had a bad day.

I couldn’t get up at my normal time because I couldn’t think of anything I could actually do. I got up 6 hours late. But then I went to bed 4 hours early… does that balance out? Maybe not…

Background noise in very important to me. I usually have some show marathoning, that I don’t have to pay too much attention. But the voices, and people talking helps me stay focused. Silence digs at me – though technically there is never silence. I always hear a slight hissing, and constant tones in my ears. Normally it is too soft to hear… It doesn’t bother me… but I digress.

I have these days too often. Usually I get better during the day, but not yesterday. It feels like there is nothing to be happy about – Dementors? – like everything is over… finished and I have nowhere to go. It seems like the world has stopped, and there is nothing for me.

Today will be better. There is no “why” it happened… it just did. Trying to find the cause is usually counterproductive.

Wish me luck! J

I Get NO Encouragement

I get ZERO encouragement… at home or anywhere.

Lori thinks people have to encourage themselves, be self-motivating. She believes that if I truly want to do something, I can just do it. 25 years we have been together, and it has not changed much. She thinks she is encouraging, but when I try to explain that she is not, and what she could do and say, she just wants to argue that she IS being encouraging.

DEF: If people are NOT encouraged, you are NOT encouraging.

I was a teacher. DEF: If the students are not learning, you are not teaching.

She can’t get that. She thinks the things she does are encouraging… they are to her, so they should be to everyone. But she will also say people DO NOT NEED external encouragement. She will not acknowledge that she gets encouragement all day at work… from her friends… from coworkers… the list goes on and on. But she seems to think none of that actually makes a difference. She has always done things thru her own motivation. It is simple for her.

Btw: She is a regional executive for a very large retailer. She is uber-successful. Everything she touches turns to gold. Master’s Degree. You name it. She has many friends, and travels with them to Vegas – I stay home. I see no encouragement for me to travel.

ANYWAY… enough of that. The point is, I am totally alone in my fight thru life. I have to be completely self-motivated. I have no friends, or family. There is no-one going to try to help me. I have to figure out every step myself. There will be no help accomplishing anything.

But… how is that any different than my entire life? I have never been happy in life.

This life has definitely not been worth the effort. Going on 20 more years like this… the thot makes me cry. And no-one cares.

 

And trump is a moron.  I do not mean to be insulting morons by lumping trump in with them,  sorry.

2017… Already?

No… I am not ready… even 10 days in.

How many times a day do you have to stop, and tell yourself `things are ok’? It gets tiring to almost constantly reassure myself. ‘Keep going… everything is ok’… I say to myself. ‘You’re ok”… on and on.

So it does not come as a surprise that I can not get much done. I spend much of my time trying to figure out what I can do, and what I care enough about. Some days I do not get anything done… some days I just can not get going.

Today, I will try to do a couple of things for myself… of course, there is a lot more to be done around the house, but sometimes I want to have fun… I want to enjoy my time. But I have to work too hard most days. It becomes overwhelming, and I often go to bed early. I am sleeping away my life.

Nothing seems to matter. It does not matter what I do, if I have no-one to share it with. I really do not know what to make of it all. Some days I do okay, and some days I sleep 18 hours. I really do hate it, but I get so tired of fighting. And there are few rewards for being successful. It just means I will have to do it all again tomorrow. Mondays are the worst – it reminds me of a whole week lost. They add up to years lost.

I guess I am not doing so well today. I will keep trying… what else could I do? Or… today may turn out to be a good day. There is no knowing. My moods can turn quickly when something goes wrong. And let’s face it, things go wrong. If only things going right would have as great an affect.

I seem to be not very positive today. it happens.