Category Archives: Health & Fitness

Still Crazy… After All These Months

I do have “a” mental illness…. I am a BDDA – Brain Dysfunction Disordered American.

And I think coming up with that acronym is further evidence of my point. 

As I have aged, I have less energy, and inclination to fight it.  It is easier to go along with the flow of my brain, even though others are put off by it.  I am pretty difficult to deal with.  I think if you dig into it, you would find me worth the effort… but that is not enough.

I have found things that are of great help, and those I will keep doing.  I have done a lot to build my home environment  into what relaxes me most.  I have found a nice little place I can go to get away… and pretty much just read on and on… usually 16-18 hours a day.  Things here are getting better across the board.

I have given up on friendships outside my Home.  I go back to social media, but it will never feel it is as much my place as I had thought it was.  It just takes too much effort to hold things together, and then my mind falls apart just a little, and I have a falling out with the world.  So I am building here at home.

But I am proud to say I am still here… and my home life has never been better than it is right now (though the words after “better” are a bit superfluous).  So I am trying to enjoy this, and build on it.  My mind was never designed to get along with people… at least “normal” people.  I call it CBD – Chaos of the Brain Disorder.  Not going away anytime soon. NOT contagious.

So I keep going, and trying to maintain control.  I try to stay more to myself – yes… even more. 

I do have to thank 2 on-line friends who did reach out, and chat with me.

title from Paul Simon sort of…

After the Long Struggle…

The last couple of months have been very stressful.  Not just for me, but Lori is starting a new job this week.  And there have been all sorts of other issues to deal with as well.  So things have been really stressful for both of us.

relaxing-pictures-hammockNow comes that period, as things are settling down, that my brain starts to switch out of protective mood – a lot of energy has been going to fighting anxiety, and depression for too long.  Now that I can relax some, my brain takes the week off, and leaves me with virtually no protections.  My brain is on vacation.  I just don’t have the energy to fight it now.

My brain, and my mind, are not on the same page.  My physiological brain, wants to shut way down for a while to recover.  But my mind wants to take advantage of the improved conditions, and jump forward.  Unfortunately, my mind has to take into account the fact that I am really tired from so much stress over such a long period.  My brain wins.

OK… I know this is just my impression of what is going on, but it is easier for my to understand what is going on, if I think of my brain, and my mind, as being different things.  My brain is the more physical part – that’s where the chemistry is not quite right.  My mind is more the ethereal part.  That is the part that makes final decision, and tries to implement them.

My brain has gone on vacation… and I am having a lot of trouble handling anxiety and depression right now.

“Well that’s just stupid! :)”

An email from my wife.

YES!!!! And I need to figure out why my Brain does that!!!  my response

My brain makes the same stupid decisions over and over.  I am a smart guy, but just about anyone could see the signs of disaster before I crash out.  Ask anyone who has known me… I do run into the same public wall, over and over.  I do not know how to respond to people.  I always assume I am much more accepted than I am.

Everyone knows what the result of all this is. 

And I am one of them.  I know the logic is faulty.  But no matter how prepared I am, I can not overcome some part of my brain, that insists that I must react a certain way… regardless…  Try to imagine how frustrating it might be, to see this error, within your own brain, but to be totally unable to stop it from happening.

I have been making the same mistakes for 40 years – probably a few hundred times..  And each and every time, I suffer a crushing blow.  My newer meds schedule, is smoothing things out along the way – I do not have as many ups and downs during the day.  So that is good.  But there is still something wrong.

To me, my observations seem to suggest it is more likely to be physiological, than psychological.  I am not saying it is physiological, it could also be chemical, but the constancy, and regularity of the kind of emotional errors seems to point this direction. 

I have nothing to back up this thought, other than it seems to make sense.  So it would be one good place to start looking for truth.  And that is how I work.

“I don’t want anything…”

I have said these words too often in defense of my crazy brain.

garden-party-table-close_horizIf there is something I want… truly want, there will also be great fear of it not coming about.  Something almost always goes wrong.  When my anxiety about it is getting too high, I will back out, and say I want nothing.  It is safer to run away, and get nothing, than to take the chance of being let down.

It is a formula for disappointment.  But fear can make us do many things.

Waffling back and forth results in… alternating between hope and happiness, and fear and anxiety.  The back and forth can be very draining – it hurts.  But the really bad part is that eventually I end up with nothing… even though that is not what I wanted.  If I do it well, people may not even know I lost what I wanted.

I do this on a fairly regular basis.  It is less disappointing than having things fall apart at the last minute.

So my life is often about trying to find the way to be least disappointed.

The View Can Be Nice From Here

The sun might be out at times.  And there are some nice plants growing on the walls.  The echo sounds good if you sing to yourself… or you can pretend it is someone else talking.  And lightening would not make it down the hole to the bottom.

Even in the Pit, there are good things to think about.

I spend a lot of my day doing just this… trying to find the good parts of the world.  And my ideas can be pretty much of a stretch, but it is often all I have.  Like right now.  The one about the plants really did make me feel better.

It’s all I can do to hold on.

Beware of the Agoraphobes Amongst Us

Yes… we are out there.  Most of us can push ourselves to go out.  That does not mean it was easy… it also does not mean it was not fun << Crap!  Done in by the old double-negative (like “non-fiction”).

Things can be fun, and even more draining than things that are not fun.  I can have fun.  But it can also cause anxiety – especially if it means challenging my boundaries.  And a LOT of things do that.

The BIGGEST PROBLEM is that once people see you out, they assume that’s it.  To most of them, you are now cured.  If you fall back, that works against you.  People do not see the cost of the effort to plan, and hope to go out, on any efforts to feel… good.

We can get very easily discouraged when others expect us to make more progress now, because we did so well……… so…… why should we try so hard… again?

Managing My Emotions

I do not control how strongly I feel my emotions.

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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.

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…

In the Age of New Things

Well… the whole new meds thing seems to be… not an option.  We are tweaking the time of day I take things, to soften up the edges, but I am going to have to do all this on my own.

I am up to it!

This is not what I was hoping for, but nothing is worse today than it was Wednesday.  So I just need to keep going along as I have been – things have been improving.  There is more to learn about how my liver works, and that may give some new clues as to what might help.  If my 2D6 is too “robust”, I may be able to take even more of one med… but that will have to be seen later.

I have a name of a new psychologist, that my psychiatrist has recommended as a good match for me.  I have emailed her to see if she is taking new patients.  That will help too.

There are always new options, and all I can really do, is keep trying.  It does get tiring, and discouraging, but what else can I do?

Have a good weekend all! Smile

Session Yesterday with My Psychiatrist

After going to the Dentist yesterday morning, I went to see my psychiatrist.  Mostly we talked about my meds – I am still struggling too much of the time.

I am adjusting the timing of one of my meds for a couple of weeks to see if that helps.  After that we may alter the form of my med – I could try the Extended Release version.  Then things get more complex.

There is a new kind of Liver test that shows how your liver deals with different kinds of chemicals.  The test shows the efficiency of 6 different pathways thru the liver, that can determine how some drugs are metabolized.

Primarily, the 2D6, and 2C19 pathways are most involved in metabolizing psychoactive meds.  My 2D6 may be too efficient.  That would explain why I need twice the maximum recommended dose of one med, and why that is not enough.  My liver may be eliminating it before it can do its job.

If may also show why Vicodin did not work very well for me.

The down side… the test is about $1000, and it is classified as “Experimental”.  So insurance will not cover it… but I may have no other way to go.  I can’t just keep trying me meds, and combinations.

Things Just Do What They Want

I should be doing better.  I should be feeling better.

Things are going better at home – I am getting more done.  I am having more success completing things.  But I am not feeling much more energy.  I am still tending to crash out after about 12 hours being up.

Things should be better.

Why am I not feeling it yet?  Things are going along well enough, but I can’t pull it all together.  Is it just a matter of time?  Or is it time to take another look at my meds?  I will be seeing my psychiatrist next month, and we will have to take about this.  So far we have been waiting for my home life to fall into place… I think I am there.  SO it may be time to revisit my meds…

Or maybe I still have farther to go… but I am tired of all the constant effort.  I spend way too much time trying to relax, and lower my anxiety.  It all ends in the early evening, when I have to figure out dinner (or not), and I just can’t do any more.  So I go to bed – sometimes I read for a while… sometimes not.

I know I am better.  Maybe I just need more time to really feel it.

I live in a Different Place… and People Just Roll Their Eyes

How the world affects me is different than how it affects most people.  This is especially true in personal relationships.  Those of us with manageable mental illnesses, all know what it is to deal with “normal” people.  They will not understand… we have to learn to “respond” to them as they would expect.  It is not our true nature… but it is an acceptable response.  And if we do not learn this well… we end of failing – on the streets, or in the jails.  We fall thru the cracks.

I could very easily see myself as a homeless person.  I have even thought that it would be a much simpler life.  There would be so much less noise.  But it is a solution to nothing.

As we get closer to people, we have to slowly unroll the internal turmoil that is us.  We have spent our entire lives learning to fit into their world, and now we have to ask someone into ours.  When we get close to some-one, we need for them to learn how to live in our world – or at least to understand what it is like.  Lori has done that… but there are so many others…

I spent 20 years learning to fit in before I began my professional life.  I learned how to hide my internal struggle so well that I would forget about it at times… I would go on autopilot, and not even recognize my own feelings.  I have no doubts, that others noticed the odd little things from time to time.  Even my mother saw it.

But there was never enough to open the door.

To Finish First, You Must First Finish

I do not know who first said this.  I have heard it was Enzo Ferrari… but it does not sound like him to me.  He was like Lombardi – it’s all about the winning.

Whomever said it first, I have found it refers also to live.  You can not achieve your goals, unless you are willing to finish your life.  You can not decide how you have done ahead of time.  Wait and see how things go.

That does not mean people should try to finish their lives early.  Quite the opposite.  Live is a long haul issue.  We have to think about our lives as if they can go on forever.  Otherwise we will most certainly shorten our thinking, and shorten our lives. 

I think what it means is that we can never know how we have finished, until we have finished.  And in reality, that is the only thing that matters.  How are you going to feel about your life in those last moments?

Short of that… all our pronouncements, all our judgments, all our callings for a better society, all our opinions of others, mean nothing.  Nothing.  Nothing… can I make that point any clearer??  We are what we are, and our life is what we make of it.

All that matters is how, we are allowed to see ourselves.  I was careful about those words.  We need to be free to see ourselves as we really are – to see the hidden good.  There is humanity within us, and we must first treat ourselves with humanity.  Live for the goodness within you.

Stop telling people how they should feel.