Category Archives: History

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

I Am a Very Weak Person

I always have been.  There have always been people who know better than I, and have more confidence than I, and who run over me without even noticing.  I have got much worse over the last few years.  This is what I was like before I was a teacher.

Teaching made me feel confident, and I was able to exert my desire, and influence more.  But since retiring, I have lost all that ground.  I have gradually become a doormat.  You don’t even have to try to run over me.  No matter how hard I try, or how long I prepare, I can not stand up.

It takes confidence to stand up for yourself… even on seemingly small things.  I back away at the first hint of failure.  Then I feel lightly around the edges for some sign of something to be self-confident about.  It usually works for a while.  But over a period of time, it wears me down, and I fold like a cheep suit.

This is ALL my fault.  There is no-one to blame but myself.  If I fall apart, it is up to me to figure out what to do – though usually I just give up.

Over time, it gets easier, and easier to give up.  And it gets easier and easier for others to give up on me.  I get is.  That is human nature.

So I retreat again… and farther.  And the next time it will be even harder for me.  I will fail even more spectacularly the next time.  Or I will finally learn to stop trying.  I gave up on making new friends… I gave out on being more social… what’s next?

There must be other things I can give up on.

I hear a very quiet… “I told you so!”    inL

I Can’t Even Explain it to Myself

I can not deal with complex social issues.  Well… not really even so complex.  When there are too many issues going around, I can not keep them all clear in my mind, anxiety grows, and there is a crashing sound in the back of my brain – figuratively.

I can plan only one thing at a time.  I can only have one trip out of home, in my thoughts.  If other events, or possibilities intrude, I can not go on.  Even if the events would be fun for me.  How fun something might be, has nothing to do with how my anxiety will grow.

Even a simple shopping trip will take all my thoughts and energies.  Adding one more place to go can bring down the entire house of cards.  No-one understands it… I do not understand it.  I know how it works… the affects it has… but the process is beyond my ability to comprehend.

My life has to remain simple.  There can not be too many things to figure out, or to do. 

My mind is not as strong as it once was.  I used to be able to think thru all sorts of issues, and problems.  My brain got tired.  Times change.  I am not what I used to be.  And I just can not hold social events in my mind… even the simple ones.

Oh I can still design complex things I can build.  I can do all the designing visually in my mind… and I sometimes come up with some very impressive ways to simplify something I want to make.  I can still visualize complex, multiple parts in my mind in 3D.  Wonderful, complex machines…

But when it comes to me, and my life… I get easily lost.  Even just going to Walgreen’s can fill my thoughts.  It will be all I can handle.

That One Big Decision that Changes Our Lives…

I was a machinist… and I hated it.  But it was not the job I hated.  There was no real intellectual stimulation – it was not difficult enough.  I got to a point where I needed to make a decision.  And one of those, would lead to another such decision…

I had to decide if I wanted to go to a technical school, and get thru a program.  I would have done very well.  And I have always liked working on things.  I think I could have got into design.  And it would have paid pretty well too.

Or I could finish my Math degree, and get a teaching certificate… It would cost a lot more to get thru, and take longer.  The other big thing was that I would make a lot less money.  And I always felt it important to have my space be right for me.  So teaching it was.

First I had to get thru my Degree program.  I finished very well, and enjoyed finally getting my Math degree.  It became known to me that several big companies were offering nice contracts to Math students.  This was my second big decision.

But I had always liked the idea of teaching.  I thought I would be good at it.  And I think I was.  My father said we all have a duty to give back.  Though he did not like to define “give back”.  I wanted to teach.

It was the greatest experience in my life.  I have many fabulous memories… they will last me my entire life. Smile

I think I made the right choices.

There is no TGIF

I have struggled thru my life on my own.  Every day is the same – take care of the house, the cats, the bills, and maybe myself.  There are not any days off.  Even on the weekends, the expectation is that I will work on the same things.  There is no break in it.

I can’t even go out my front door without planning, and dealing with anxiety.  My every move to governed by errors in my brain chemistry.  And I have been learning about dealing with it.  It takes constant effort.  I have to fight back the anxiety… and constantly remind myself to avoid depression – if I can.  I have got better at it.

The day to day things… the mundane… the normal parts of life, become nightmares sometimes.  It is all I can do to make it thru the day.  And often I do not.  Several times a week I can not fight it anymore, and have to go to bed and hide my mind.

That makes it difficult to keep going the same way on the weekends as well.  There is never a break – except now I can get away, and go to Newport.  Once a month or so, I get a couple of days to recover.  It is very welcome, though not enough.

I know people have struggles at work… in school… and with other aspects of their lives.  And everyone needs a break.  My struggles are always around me.  I do not get to go home from work for the night, or the weekend.  I do not get to finish my homework, and rest.  There are no final exams.  There is never any true rest… there is only better control.

Some of you will understand.  We live every moment within our nightmare.  It is all around us.  We take it with us.  There is no TGIF.

Coming Unglued

Sometimes things happen that cause my mind to become unglued.  This usually results in a quick trip to bed to hide under the covers – literally.    There it can take hours to relax enough just to be able to think again.  More hours are needed to recover.

And then there are times… when everything I know seems to be flying away from me.  Suddenly my entire live is fading, and there is nothing I can do to save myself.  All is lost.  I may just sit on the floor, and cry.  My mind goes into a very dark place.

At such times, I had an occasional habit of reaching out… groping for help.  On Facebook I would cry out, pleading for someone to bring me back down to the ground.  Ranting…  Repeated posts would go unanswered…

Sometimes someone would jump in to try to help.  And it did help when I was able to follow thru with contacting them.  But mostly I was met with silence.  The most aggravating thing for me was when people would contact Lori to find out if she was okay… if she was okay.

That was like the little twist of the dagger in my chest.

She has friends… I do not.  Though!!!  A special thank you to the 3 people who have reached out to me over the last few years.  One I was never able to get back to.  I lost his name in deleted Facebook posts.  Now my Facebook account is deleted!  Deleted… not just closed.  I needed to make it go away.

It will help.  Now there is no place for me to reach out… and Lori will not have to tell people that she is okay.

I Know I Over-react… But Doesn’t that Mean I Am Reacting in the Right Direction?

I have emotional issues – everyone can see that.  Sometimes I over-react to things, and people run away.  But I think my reactions are at least going in the correct direction – I am reacting correctly at least initially.  Then I go too far…

I understand that people are taken-aback by it.  But I never hear from them.  Oh there are occasionally people who try to help.  But the people I thought I could rely on most, are nowhere to be seen.  And so I withdraw farther into my own world.  It is a nice world… it could rain more though.

Maybe people think these are issues best dealt with within the family.  For me, that means between me and Lori – there is no other family.  Or maybe I should talk with my closest friends – those were the people on Facebook.  So I am left with writing about things here, in my journals, and talking with my cats (not great conversationalists).

The process is very familiar to me.  It has been a central story in my life.  I reach out, and others pull back.  Lori gets more responses to my over-reacting than I do.  But it seems to me clear that I am the one most in need.  It is a dynamic that sucks the energy and hope out of me.  I have to deal by myself.

The first step for me is always to pull back, and go farther into hiding.  If they do not need me, I can not let myself need them.  It is not as easy as it sounds, so I am not sure how others do it!  Maybe they just click their friend-counter down one notch, and move on.

Now… that is a bit harsh.  I am not giving them a break.  Clearly other things are affecting them in their choices.  I just do not know what those things are.  I am left to my imagination as to what is really happening, and why.

Whatever is happening, it is centered on me.  It is my fault… and my responsibility.  So I will go on, and reach out where I can.

Crazy is as Crazy Does

I do not react to many things in a “normal” way.  Many would say I over-react.  I am not seeing it that way.  To me, my reactions are completely normal.  But then… I am crazy.

I am just normal enough to pass… most of the time.  I do not notice when I slip out of the normal range, and other people take notice.  They were not paying attention to the little weird things I do… they was “Oh that is just Neil”.  So they see me as being unpredictable.

I don’t feel unpredictable.  My actions seem completely normal, and predicable to me.  So I tend to be caught off-guard by people’s reactions.  Didn’t they see that coming??

When you perceive the world in a different way, it is very difficult to know what should be the correct response.  To me, it all fits together.

So when I do react in a crazy way, I am totally surprised by what people do – that was not predicable to me at all.  Then I get thrown completely off, and it can lead to even more unusual behavior on my part.  I am not sure if anyone really gets this.  They expect me to be crazy, but they do not see, or understand, the depth of it.

This has lead to more isolation.  People don’t know how to react to me, and I do not understand their lack of reaction.  I end up alone.  That is the nature of the things…

I can not change how I react because it seems totally normal to me.  How can I know to not do something, when it seems the most normal reaction to the situation?  It never occurs to me that I should do anything else.  And it is hard to learn from events when I feel like I have been wronged.

My Biggest Problem Right Now

I am totally inadequate. 

Lori does everything better than I do… she works harder, and gets more done that I can on my best days.  No matter how hard I try, I end up letting her down.  And it shows.  I can tell it bothers her.  I can tell it bothers everyone I interact with.

I cancel things I have planned because I can not trust myself to follow thru.  I am tired of feeling like a failure all the time.  This has been my life story – I have always been encouraged to feel like a failure.  Even though it is currently unintentional, it is very real.

It is relentless.

Changing My Name…

It is a difficult thing to write this Blog.  I have recently been thinking about changing my last name to Kahl.  I do already get some things addressed to me as Neil Kahl.  And when wine arrives, I even sign Neil Kahl – that is to match Lori’s name because she ordered it.

The logistics are messy, but not difficult.

But why would I even consider this?

That is one of the most difficult answers I have ever thought about.  Do I have a family anymore?  Is it time for me to move on, and start in a new place, with a new name?  Does it even have to be Kahl?

I have been estranged from my “family” for more than a decade.  I was not able to go to my nephew’s weddings., or to even meet my grand-niece.

The reasons for this, go to the core of my existence.  It is part of why I am where I am.  If this one thing had not been there, I do not know how far I could have gone.  It combined with my internal mental issues, took over my life.  If either had not been there, my life would have been very different.

I was born too early for the new meds.  So that would have been hard to change.  Tranquilizers would not have been enough.  I tried an antidepressant in 1983, and it was terrible!!  I had a racing heart-rate, and could not eat.  So it would have not made a big of a difference it I had been diagnosed earl.

Combine that with other “factors”, and my life became a constant struggle to keep going.  I can’t do it anymore.

So… this issue is central to this entire subject.

It will be very difficult to write about.  But I will.  I will not hide who I am.  So you guys out there will get to see deeply into my life.  I hope you enjoy the ride.

NOTE::  I am thinking “Macdonald” might be a good name.  I have ancestors that were Macdonald’s.  The lower case is intended.

Who Actually Believes?

Some people look at what I am able to do, and say I have done well.  Some say I have not, and it is all about my being lazy – I need to try harder, or push more.  And I am hoping most people are somewhere between.

Telling me to push myself more has no meaning.  There is no less.  If I did not push as much as I do, then I would not have survived.  That would have been the end of me.  So how much more can I try?

I know this is a very difficult thing to understand.  Most people have never experienced these kinds of internal horrors.  They are too far outside the norm.  And in my case, I was able to do many more things in the past, so why can’t I do them now?  It does not really make much sense… even to me.

It took a long time to come to recognize the reality of my mental state.  I no longer have the energy to fight as hard as I used to.  The things I used to be able to do, are in the past.  It is hard for me to think about all those things I used to do… but I have to move on.  I need to deal with the present.

So… try to understand.  And if you can not, then try to at least allow for the possibility it is something beyond your abilities to understand.

A Shadow from the West has Fallen

A shadow has fallen over my thoughts, and my life.  This has been a bad year for me – though it started out with such promise.  I will not review it now… but since April things have slid steadily downhill.  Now I am about done in.

I have lived under a sort of oppression… from childhood on.  And it returned to my life last week, bringing me down into my pit of despair, and depression.  Sometimes one event can dredge up an entire history of abuse at the hand of someone who knows what’s right for everyone, and isn’t afraid to say it.

I lived in that shadow… it never quite goes away.  Even after years of being left alone, it can still drag me down.

Some people have to be superior.  And to prove they are, they have to prove others wrong.  They have to control the lives of those around them.  And they will never let you forget their dominion over you.  Never…

They have no empathy.  They feel no pity, for anything that does not belong in their world view.  They are the sole knowers of what, and who is right, and who is wrong.  And they will share their views.  Especially with people who are easy victims.  It is how they feel whole.

They are the ones who come along to rub salt in the wounds of others.  And they especially pick on those whom they perceive to be struggling with other issues.  So as I have had increasing problems in my life, it was bound to come back to haunt me.

I write about my struggles here.  I share what I am going thru.    So I make myself a target.  But I am too easy a target… I am no challenge for them.  I collapse before their hateful words.

“Hateful” is the only way to describe it.  It is not intended to inform, it is only intended to hurt – to put me in my place.

I surrender.  You win.  I can not stand up against you.  The depression swept away our anniversary weekend.  I was up only 15 hours all weekend, and ate nothing but a few chips.  You win. 

Now leave this broken soul alone, and never darken my door again.  Though I suspect you will.

And the shadow has returned.

Happy Anniversary!

Lori and I have been married for 16 years today.  We were married in a wonderful outdoor ceremony in Ashland, Oregon – our favorite place to visit.

Thru all the good times, and bad, Lori has been with me to help me when I needed, and to comfort me when I was down.

I could not have made it this far without her Love and companionship.  Together we are making our own life here in Woodburn.

So happy Anniversary to my Loving wife… and many more!!

I Started Out As A Child

There were 3 major influences on me as I grew up.  My parents, my various disorders, and my “domineering parent”.  I have written a lot about the second… not enough about the first.  And only hints about the third… until recently.

I am not sure how comfortable I am with this topic.  There is a person who exuded tremendous energy over my life.  Someone I was never as good as.  Someone who succeeded everywhere, because of intelligence, and a creative mind.  Someone who always told me how I was failing.  Someone who never let me forget that I had to try harder, and do different things, in order to be acceptable…

This person never experienced depression, or overwhelming anxiety, or true phobias.  As with most people.  They can not truly understand what life is like for those of us who do suffer from these, and many more, mental problems.  They tend to see us as people who are just not trying hard enough…

There are many people who think they have been depressed, or had a migraine, or such, that really have not.  A bad headache does not a migraine make!

They have no empathy for people with anything they have not personally experienced.  If they have not experienced it, then it does not exist.  People who have those problems just need to try harder.  They are like poor people to republicans.

I recently received this Comment about one of my Blogs::::

You never talk about your anger issues. So many of your social problems, including the loss of your therapist and friends and family, are the result of lashing out at people. You are an intelligent and talented person, but you have always had trouble controlling your temper. That goes back to childhood too. (And btw: As to being depressed when you were in middle school—who wasn’t.)      grammar not corrected.

Anyone who actually knows me, knows that this comment shows a vast lack of knowledge about me, and my life over the last 10 years.  It does not even make sense!

Lori tells me she was not depressed in middle school.  Lori makes a huge effort to understand my mental differences.  It is not always easy, but she always tries.  It can be very stressful for her to do it some times, but she always tries.  And that makes all the difference in the world.

BUT… my domineering parent will never let go of her narrow minded view of the world.  This person will always think –   “I have all the answers for anyone willing to listen.”

A few years back I stopped listening.  My life has been on an upward trajectory ever since then!!  I am finally out from under the oppression of someone who knows what’s best for me and everyone!

I know I have a long way to go.  And I write about my struggles here in my Blogs.  But struggles are okay, because that is what life is really about.  So even when I am at my lowest, I know I am better off than I ways… back then.

—- As a note, I will not post comments from this person.  They are intended to hurt me only, so they will end there.

From an Ignorant Comment

This was written by someone with NO understanding of the facts of the situation.  This person was my “Domineering Parent” growing up.  It has been discussed many times in therapy.

“So many of your social problems, including the loss of your therapist and friends and family, are the result of lashing out at people.”

I may have lost friends because of my past anger issues, but not family.  My mother and I talked about this many times.  She could see what I was talking about for herself.  And she tried to help me understand it.

My loss of my therapist had nothing to do with my losing my temper.  YES, I was angry – as I have said – but I did not lash out at anyone.

This person is one of the main reasons I am where I am – not thru malice, but thru action.