Category Archives: Me & My Issues

Most of Us Live in Silence

I have all sorts of mental problems… we all know that by now!  But I am not alone.  The great majority of people like me are hiding in the wings.  They will never set foot on the stage.

I am not sure why I have chosen such a public path.  I know it is no-one’s fault that I am where I am.  And my struggles are not a creation of society… or of myself.  So why do I write about it here on the Internet?  And why don’t more people read it??  I will leave the latter question for others to answer.

As to myself.  I think the answer is somewhere around my need to understand, and to connect.  The connecting with other people part has always been a complex mission for me.  And for so long I did not understand where the problem was – it was me.  More precisely, my weird brain chemistry.

There is no more I can do about the chemistry part, so I have to work in other areas.

But that does not really answer the question either.

I have never seen much of a need to hide my physical, or mental limitations.  But I have kind of gone the complete other direction from hiding.  I know it burns some people out to read all I write.  It seems like a never-ending story.  But at least you guys are not stuck with it all the time!

I wonder about all those other people out there like me.  I have met a few thru this Blog, and discovered a few that I had already known – we get very good at “blending in”.  It helps to know there are others who share my experiences.

I think that is what I am looking for – understanding.  Not just from people how understand by experience, but those who can learn to understand, and accept.  It is as if we live in another world, and we just want human contact like everyone else.

Is that so much to ask?

When Thinking is Too Much

I think too much.  Just like the Paul Simon song – “Maybe I Think Too Much”.  There are times when I can not control the direction my thoughts will take.

When I have things to get done, I have to build a careful plan.  I need to consider every aspect of what I need to do, and set priorities for each thing.  This helps me get thru tasks without having to rethink them too much.

So I have a sort of outline for the day – when to think about what.  I can put off thinking about something, if I schedule when to think about it, and I already know the basics.  It works pretty well for me usually.  (“when” means in what order, not what time).

If I do not plan, and control where my thoughts go, and when, then my brain runs rampant, and I can not control where it goes.  All other considerations get pushed aside.  I get stuck in a loop of over thinking.

So this plan works… some of the time.

The problem comes when something upsets the “plan”.  It can be any of a number of things (yes… zero is a number, but I mean a bigger number).  Once that happens, everything falls apart, and the planning has to start from scratch.  And that usually means planning on the fly, which is almost always doomed to failure.

Last second planning takes on a life of it’s own.  My mind becomes swamped with some new direction of thought.  And I can not control where it will go.  But for sure, the old plan is dead.

This is how things I really want to do, don’t get done.  Those things invariable fall to the end of whatever “list” I might have, and those things usually do not get done at all.  There will not be enough energy to fill in for that planning by late in the day.

Sometimes the upheaval is so strong that I end up getting nothing done, because the planning stage burns me out, and I shut down.  This happens a lot!!

This is where most of my least productive days come from.  One small event, and the whole thing – water, tub, and baby – all get thrown out, and I fail.

Sadly… this is one of the things I had been working on in session before it’s early demise.  I will slowly figure it out though – it actually is a lot better than it used to be.  Removing the grocery shopping has taken away a lot of my Stoppers.  That alone accounted for at least 2 lost days per week.

But I can not eliminate all the Stoppers, so I need to find a way to deal with them.  I will keep looking.

There is More than Meets the Eye…

Another night full of nightmares, and restless “sleep”.  I would just stay in bed all day if I could… there is very little point in being up.

Except there are things I need to do…

At least it is clear there is more to this than just having gone out for errands Monday.  That may have started the ball rolling, but it is collecting plenty of moss now.  If I may mix a few metaphors.

The big problems I face now are all the things I really need to do today, and this weekend.  I think I will be okay if I can pull myself together, and enjoy some of the time.  That has been known to happen.

The problem gets worse when I want to get some of my things done.  I have even less motivation for those things… there is less reward to them.  So I will do what I can, and just try to get thru the day.

I know I am hurting partly because of my sudden increased aloneness… but that is what it is, and I need to just get used to it.  I do not have someone to help me thru these issues.  But that is not new.  I have got too used to having my back protected.

Okay… I have to find a way to move on.  It is not doing any good to suffer alone.  I have to find new things that will help.  I need a better attitude, and more optimism.  I need to build something.

What’s All This Then?

Thursday morning, and I do not feel better from my errands Monday!  I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night, and had nightmares most of the night.  I feel almost as mentally drained as I did Tuesday.

I went out to get the mail this morning, and almost had a panic attack – that has not happened for a few weeks!  It was not a pleasant experience.

There must be more to what is going on in my brain, than just those errands.  I know I am getting more upset about my psychologist – it was not right!  But I don’t think that is everything either.

There are a lot of projects staring me in the face, and that adds anxiety, but this is more than just anxiety.  I know how to handle anxiety.

And it’s not depression – I know how to recognize that. 

It is more of an emptiness… just not caring.  But I care that I don’t care.  Does that make sense?  If I were depressed, I would not care about not caring about anything.

It feels like the day after I went out on errands – trying to recover my energies.  But it is not getting better like it should have.  So there is more going on.  I have to think about it, even though I do not want to.  But I need to understand!

When I get closer, my anxiety goes up, and I feel drained.  There is something there.

I just need to wait it out for now…

Going Out, and the Repercussions

I spent a couple of days planning for running a few errands yesterday.  What was unusual was that I needed to go out of town – not very far, but places I am not used to going.  So it took some time to get ready.

Things went pretty well.  I spent a long time at the hardware store in town, before heading up the freeway to a hobby store.  Then I stopped at a Garden Center, and bought some flowers for our new backyard garden.  I did not go to a forth place I had planned to go, but it was still a good trip.

I felt pretty good about it.  Yesterday evening I was tired and drained, but I did fine.  Then there was this morning…

I feel empty.  My emotions are escaping me.  I have no energy.  Now I am just sitting, trying to make sense of the day.  I do not want to do anything… eat anything… I could sleep all day.

I had hoped to start on some small projects today – I needed parts from the hardware store.  But I do not see that happening now.  All I want to do is sit, and stare.  And I don’t really want to do that.

The worst part is that I have used basically 3 days to go out for 3 hours.  Tomorrow I will consider whether it was worth it.  But it seems out of proportion with what I got.  Maybe it was good for me, but that is hard to see right now.

When is the cost too high?

Still Here!

I know I have not written for too long… but it has been a mentally busy time.  I have had a lot of ups and downs.

I tried very hard to be involved in a 4th of July party, but ultimately, I did not have the energy to go.  It was a big down point for me.

And I have been dragged down farther because of my loss of my therapist.  It all seems so surreal.  After 8-1/2 years to be just put off so easily – by email.  It all seems like I will wake up from it at any moment.

But I won’t…

I think I am doing okay, but I know there are many things I need help with – I keep thinking of things I need to talk about in session.  And I have barely scratched the surface.

So I will try to move forward, and write more here.  I just feel abandoned, and more alone.  That will not pass.

The Long Depression

About a year ago, I started taking a new med for depression… it did a very good job.  My depressive episodes decreased in number, and became much shorter.  I had forgotten what more than a week of depression felt like.

Now I remember.

I find myself just sitting much of the time… not really even looking at anything.  I would be in bed, but there are things I need to be doing throughout the day.  So I sit here.

I am not sad, or bored, or much of anything.  I am empty… but still there are things I have to do.  There are errands I need to run.  I should be doing “fun” things with Lori on her day off.  But in reality, it is hard to care about any of it.  The not caring is part of depression.  A part that hurts those around me.

Most of the time I am here alone.  So I can stare at my desk all I want.  But I feel some guilt when Lori is here.  There is not much I can do about it…  People can get mad at me, or feel let down, or discouraged.  I hate it, but it is not something I can fix.

The last 3 days have been the worst.  We had to cancel a trip because of things I need to be here for – 2 sick cats.  And it is all my fault.  At least it is my fault that I can not substitute anything for that trip… I am not prepared to go anywhere.

Fortunately the pattern in my desk has some interesting contrasts.  I sort of watch TV some of the time.  I am not really interested, so it has to be something good, and something I know well enough to ignore.

I don’t care.

All of that is just to help the time pass more quickly…

I Know How to Find a Needle in a Haystack…

Patience

I have been working on getting to my image of what I want, for over 40 years now.  I am closer than I have ever been.  Until 2004, I did not make much of an effort towards this goal… I could not because I did not know what was holding me back..

There have been a few times when I had some small bits of progress.  But it has only been the last few years that I have started to feel like I really can move towards the life I want.  It gets a little more complicated because the things I want, sound defeatist to some people.

I want something so very simple.

I have taken a huge detour now, and I do not know where it will lead.  I can not see the path ahead of me, and my hopes have dimmed.  Right now I feel a lot of despair, and grief.  And I am not sure how to get started again.

There is a plan I have been working on that I will continue to follow – then what?  The plan does not go very far into the future… there was so much more to develop.  And that option is gone now.

I will have to find a new way to work out how to move forward, and how to get better.  I am not optimistic.

Living Times as They Come

I just have to live my life as it comes.. as does everyone.  I am not doing very well a that right now.  I have lost something very important.  Every day I find myself feeling a little more isolated.  There is no safety net for me any longer.

I do not mean to harp on it, but after 8 years of therapy, you kind of develop a need for someone.  you get used to talking things over before acting on them.  When that is suddenly gone, it creates a huge hole that starts to swallow up everything.

There are too many things going wrong in my life right now.  A major part of my process for finding ways to improve my life, is gone.

Today I am feeling very low, and more lost –  I can not see which way to turn.  And I know it will get worse… at least for a while.

What Nightmares Are Made Of

These are the times that nightmares are made of.  As time goes by, I am increasingly feeling cut-off.  It has only been a week since I “lost” my psychologist, and I have not yet seen its full impact.  I know that will come…

This is all my own fault… I should have been more clear why I was not coming back to session at times.  But whatever the cause, I am now cut-off from anyone impartial to share with.  There is nowhere to discuss my ideas… and no-one to help me refine them.  Friends are too close, or too far away.

That is my greatest loss.  That can not be replaced, and it will bring me to a halt before I can implement new ideas.  And the biggest loss, is my loss of trust in anyone.

I am sure this is just the beginning of a decline.  At least it will be far more difficult, if not impossible, to move forward.  Why would I risk going out of my safety zone?  Why bother trying to make changes if I have no test in reality?

The way ahead is dark, and nothing but mystery to me now.  I have felt some anger about it, but that is overwhelmed by fear.  And this will only get worse…

Feeling Like Hiding… Always

I doubt if it is really a true feeling… but I commonly wish I could hide from the world. 

I know someone who was an “outsider” ~ someone who didn’t get it.  But then something happened in her life to throw her violently to the other side of the fence.  Suddenly she gets it all.  But usually, the people who really care about us, will never understand.

It is difficult for those who have to live with us… they see the pain, but not the cause or depth.  They learn to not react “normally” to our “moods”.  And they try very hard.

But most people just stare in wonder.  They can not imagine where we are ~ thought they often think they do.  We have all heard the “snap out of it” comments… “just try harder” implications.  We are treated at times as if we must just not care enough to do anything about it.

That is hard to get used to.  It makes me feel more isolated.  It leaves me worse off.  And it leaves me wanting to hide… always.

I Still Have a Plan

I have been hurt by the events of last week.  It still echoes thru my thoughts.  I have a deep sense of having been abandoned by someone I really needed to be able to rely on.  And it will have long term affects.

But I still have a plan to help get more done, and feel better about my life.  I will continue on that plan.

Yesterday was a turn-around day for me ~ I had a wonderfully relaxing day, and feel more optimistic.  Things will get better, and I will find a way to get back to “normal”.

Start Again!

Now I feel like I have to start over… from the beginning.  My confidence in the system has failed, and with it I have lost most of my faith in what I have learned.  I am not seeing therapy as a positive experience.

I can not trust anyone enough for therapy now.

It is entirely possible that I should have started to transition to a new therapist, but it should have been done in session.  It would have taken a lot of time to do, but would have been possible.  The email was not the way to go.  Also she made it sound like a done deal… I was shocked.

I know session helped me, but it still feels like it did not matter.  And I am not up to starting over, from the very beginning.  Actually, it is worse now, because I doubt the effectiveness of sessions.  The meds work though.

There is no way I am going out the front door to any kind of session, or to see any kind of therapist.  I’m done.

So basically… Start again?  Not going to happen.

Therapy for having No Therapy?

This story goes back a ways, so follow along.

I started seeing my psychologist in late 2004, and for several years went every week.  I got better.  I cut down how often I went, but kept going.

Over the last year and a half, there were 3 times I went for appointments that were not to be.  One was a misunderstanding, and the other 2 were mistakes she made.

I’m agoraphobic, so going for a 40 minutes trip each way is difficult.  After each of those episodes, I did not go back for a while – almost 3 months in one case.  But each time, I eventually got back into my sessions.

At the beginning of May, I asked about an appointment for the next week.  She said she might have to testify in court (she is a forensic psychologist) so she would get back to me in a couple of days.  A week later she emailed that she could do it.

By then it was too late for me to get ready to go on such short notice, and I figured it would then be at least another week.  I was angry.  So I said “Too late.  I will not be coming back.”  I also canceled my disclosure agreements.  So I assume I was no longer a real patient of hers.

Last Sunday I emailed saying I would like to see her again after the 4th.  She emailed back that she thought it was time for me to move to a new psychologist, and she could help me transition.  Her reasoning was the the gaps in session indicated we were at a plateau, and I needed a different approach.

I was quite taken aback.  In April, I had brought up that I thought I was sort of at a plateau in improving my anxieties, and I wanted to start working more on implementation – I even wrote a Blog about this.  And it was going very well.  We figured out a plan to reduce my weekly anxiety, and help me get more done at the same time.

It worked better than I had hoped!  I’m still doing this new stuff.

But I not longer have a psychologist.  I feel abandoned, and turned away.  I even feel anger.  But I have completely collapsed mentally.  I get nothing done… and just try to accept where I am now.

My One Constant in Life

If there is one thing that has been a constant part of my life, it is that everyone will eventually abandon me.  Everyone.

I push most away, but some leave on their own.  Either way, the result is the same.  I have been here before, and will be here again.  I never quite get used to it.

And here I am again.