Category Archives: Me & My Issues

And They’re Off and Running!

I realized just today, that one of the big problems I have with weekends, is that it’s a race – I need to have fun, before I have depression.  Once the depression starts, it’s all over.

Most times things do go bad it starts with very high anxiety.  That changes your blood chemistry – it’s like that moment when your body goes into Fight or Flight mode.  Except it lasts 10-30 minutes.

After that the body and mind sort of crash.  And suddenly I am totally set up for depression.  It does not always happen!

The nice thing about this blog is that having a better idea of what is happening, makes it easier to find a way of avoiding it!!  In this case, I see I need things to start with having fun – or at lest soon after the anxiety crash.  And it’s not as easy as it sounds!  Everyone would rather have fun!

But I keep inching forward… learning new things that make other things fit together better.  In that way, it’s just like Physics.

This actually came to me while I was commenting on a Facebook post!

Another Weekend Lost…

to Depression.

There is nothing new in this.  It happens most of the time… at least to some extent.   I plan for things.  Almost every week, I have a “plan”.  It’s really more of a hope now.  But there are so many hurdles to get thru.  And one small mistake, and I tip over the edge.

Anxiety, I am better at managing.  Not really good… but better.  With planning, I can usually overcome even strong anxiety.  Like tomorrow I have to take 2 cats to the Vet.  That is only about 5 blocks away.  But I am already having to deal with the anxiety.

But I have never learned how to overcome depression in that way.  My Doctors tell me it can’t be done… not by brut force anyway.  I can sometimes push myself thru my anxiety.  There is a cost, but I can usually do it.  Depression?  Not so much.

The nature of depression takes away all will, caring, all positive emotions, and leaves very little else.  It’s like trying to just overcome a coma.

Nothing matters…

Always the Failure – Please Point it Out Again

I fail.  But then I almost always do.  Good thing there is someone to point out my failures to me.  Otherwise I might actually start feeling better about myself.

I know I have a horrible time getting things done.  With my mental issues, and back and knee pain pretty much all the time… but I try to feel good about what I do. 

I can not carry heavy things with my left hand – my fingers and thumb have joint injuries.  My toes have joint issues too, making it difficult to keep my balance at times.  But I still try to move around and I do what I can.  It is never enough.

I can not get things done.  I know that.  I try to work around it.  Of course I am writing about my own wants as well.  I have been trying to get my office set up for a year.  It’s pretty close, but there has been little progress recently.  I try to do house work first, then if I still can, I tinker in my office.

Depression and anxiety are the biggest hurdles I face.  Yesterday I was out of bed about 5 hours the whole day.  I did not eat.  Right now I am getting ready to go take a nap.  Not because I am tired, but because I am depressed, and I feel like life is worthless, and pointless.  It is just the same thing over and over.  Nothing ever gets better.

I know this is all my fault.  There is something wrong with me.  I have no more control over it than when the Sun will come up.  But I still have to be responsible, and acknowledge my failure.

Funny word “fault”.  My father used to tell me that assessing fault is a fool’s game.  There is no way to ever know for sure who’s fault things are.

Pushing People Away – an Example

Today I messed up plans I had been working on for weeks – months actually.  It was to meet someone I have been wanting to meet for years.  How much of that should I say?

It was all set for next week.  And then cats going to the Vet, and Mother’s Day came in, and I blew my plans apart so completely, that I ended up having to unfriend this person on Facebook.  (Yes I am back on Facebook)

I can not go out very often.  When things get too complicated, my brain stops relating to it, and it all has to go away – Start Again.

I am sure this is one of the major reasons I do not have any close friends.  When it comes to going out to do things, it is all rather problematic.  It is actually easier to have people over… but we live a little out of the way.

ANYWAY… my point is that when plans get upset, they generally fall apart entirely, and may then never happen.  That amounts to pushing people away.  My brain must eliminate the cause of the distress… It ends up being bad for me, and I have hurt someone.

My brain is my own worst enemy.

How to Motivate a Mountain

I may not actually be a mountain, but when it comes to getting me motivated, I am as much so.  I do not know how to motivate myself… worse, I do not know how Lori can motivate me to do things around here.

It is a difficult situation.  It comes back to the problem that I do not know what if feels like to be “happy”.  My psychiatrist and I talked about this.  My brain is confusing what might be “happy”, with the feeling of moving into depression.  Now that is for some later Blogs.

For now, the problem is how do I teach my brain to understand what is happening?  Success – that is what I need to experience more of.  Then I think it will get easier to motivate myself.

BUT for now, nothing is working!

Monday… My Day of Rest

Monday is a day I have set aside for low stress.  I do not hold myself accountable for doing very much.  No chores, shopping, or projects – unless I truly feel like it!  Of course I still have to feed the cats… and myself.

It also gives me a little time to slow down my thinking, and even allow new thoughts to penetrate my brain.

And I can reflect some.  I am trying to make some changes… more than just cosmetic.  I need to see how things really are, and it helps to step back from them, to see truth.  I never really know where it will lead.  And on Mondays, I am fine with that.

I will be 58 years old next month.  Not a major milestone, but I am still trying to find my life… out there somewhere (figuratively).  I get very tired sometimes – too often.  It gets hard to do anything.  And I want to move ahead.

Today I went for a morning constitutional <—  I love calling it that!  Even though I am having back issues, I am trying to do some walking early in the day.  I does feel good, and gives me a little time out of the house.  Small steps… not that I walked in small steps mind you, but I am making small steps forward.  It’s a sort of metaphor.  I never metaphor I didn’t like.  Got it?

All seriousness aside, I just want to feel better.  And for now, that means feeling better staying at home.  I need to feel more like my life matters, and I am having some fun.  Then I can think about going out more.  The world will still be there.

I need to find myself, and find ways to be happy, and have fun.  That is first, and foremost.

The Internal Battle…

Okay… there are many internal battles, but right now, they all seem to be melting together.  Everything is related.  And it means there really has to be one encompassing solution – probably not all at the same time.  But what I have been trying has not worked.

Now I am trying to find ways to start over… or more accurately, to find some way to keep going, but with some changes.  There is no point expending energy on things that can not help.  I need to be able to live alone, and keep to myself, while finding some kind of – if not happiness, at least non-unhappiness.

One thing that will help will be to avoid social media – it just engenders a false sense of optimism.  There are no answers for me there.  I have deeply set issues with no real-world solution.  I will have to create my own solutions.

And that will take forcing myself to avoid making the same mistakes.  Number 1 is the myth that I can find a pleasing place in the social media world.  I require a closer contact than that.  I need to know it matters.

Also I am rethinking these Blogs.  I love to write, but this writing does not generally make me feel any better.  I do not know who is reading – though I am sure few of my on-line friends do.  A few do, and I appreciate that.  But I seem to lose more friends than I gain.

And I am not going to go to session for a while.  I am not convinced it has been doing me any good.  I am better, but I do not know why.  And I think I need to be more self-reliant.  I need to just find my way on my own.

The Fear of Failure has to be Curable

Atychiphobia has to be curable because it is not really a disorder… it is the result of a disorder.  Results can generally be cured.  The fear of failure can be disproved thru direct action, with the help of others.  It can not be done alone.

This is not a primary issue.  But it is one that has to be dealt with.  So… I need to have more successes.  Small ones at first… around home.  As I start to feel better about things here working out,  I can start to stretch myself a little bit.

I need to slowly, thru time extinguish this fear – at least diminish is substantially.  I have a few little plans to try to help with that.  But there is some fear of failing to deal with the fear of failing… hmmm…

Just one word… Depression

I have been struggling with depression on and off over the last week plus.  I have had a few good days.  Then this last weekend things went into a tail-spin.  Sunday I was in bed almost all day.  I had tried to put together a productive plan for the weekend, but it unraveled quickly Saturday.

Lori was supportive, and tried to keep things going.  But I just did not have the energy.  I am not able to motivate, and follow thru.  It did not not help that my back has been on edge the last week as well.  But I know how to work around that most of the time.

My efforts have ground to a halt much of this last month.  I am trying to figure out where my life should be going… as I do not have a support structure.  I have lost friends, and ambition.  I have had to cancel trips, and activities.  It has been a bad year.  I do not even know what I want anymore.

And I seem to be wearing out my readers.  There is not much new to report, and the old is always the same.  Some people have said I write some good thoughts, and share things most can not.  That makes me feel better.  But my hope is to improve my own life – perhaps a little selfish, but it is what I need now.

So I am trying to keep writing.  I have 4 other blogs started… I may even finish one.

The Course of Diminishing Energies

I suffered from a lack of energy to be able to do much as far back as High School.  But I did pretty well for a while.

As people with long term chronic depression know, life gets gradually harder as time passes – without treatment at least.

The first casualty of depression is things that are fun.  By 1977, I was starting to have a harder time doing fun things.  By 1982 doing fun things was pretty much out of the question.  I was back in college preparing to become a teacher.

From 1985 on, I was able to use my energies to teach.  By 1997, my energies for that were about gone too.  In the interim, I gradually became more and more house bound when I was not at work – coaching freshman volleyball for 10 years did not help.

The 1998-9 school year was the first year I was sure I was not teaching as well as I had the year before.  I knew I had to get out.  The 1999-2000 school year started on a down note, and I continued to have more and more difficulty doing much of anything.

I left teaching at Spring Break 2000.  I could not go on.  It was all arranged as we were moving to another State… but still.

Since then, my energies have not deteriorated nearly as quickly.  But even so, I have become more limited to home.

I finally discovered that I was not a normal person, who was just very weak, when I started seeing my psychologist, and got meds in 2005.  Since then, most of my efforts have gone into slowing my loses.

Now I hope to be transitioning to working on actually getting better! 

When is Understanding Enough?

One of the most difficult tasks someone with severe depression, and debilitating anxiety has, is to try to explain what is does, to other people.  Everyone who has suffered from depression, knows that others do not know what it is.  This is one experience we all share.

Most people have never really been depressed.  Certainly not the debilitating depression that some of us feel.  I can not know what is was like to grow up as a Black man in the South, in the `50s.  I can learn about it, and sort of come to understand it… maybe.  But only someone who has been there would know what it is like… and only that person could determine how well I understood it.

The worst problems are with people who think they understand, but do not.  They think they understand what it feels like, and what it does to you.  But listening to them proves they do not.

So they try their plans, and in their ignorance, they make things worse.  They make the worst possible suggestions, and have totally unrealistic expectations.  They think they know how things should work… so they act on that basis.  And it actually conflicts with what is really happening – making the situation destructive.

Isolation results.  You can’t even try to explain things to these people because they will inadvertently apply their wrong thinking, and push things in the wrong direction.  So we learn to not even try to explain.  Things work better with less communication, because communication can not exist without understanding.

It is not their fault.  How can they understand something so far outside their existence.  But if they are smart, and learned, it can be very difficult for them to accept it is something they do not get.  And if they are so very sure they understand, there is not point trying to explain anything to them.

Some people will not learn.

When Worlds Collide

The last few days have seen some great progress… but also some huge set-backs that will totally derail any prospect of improvement in the short term.

I know everything is my fault, and I do not need to hear it anymore.  But it sure would be nice if people understood what I was talking about.

Sessions went GREAT!  Both of them.  Psychologist Wednesday, psychiatrist yesterday (Thursday).  We totally have a plan!!  But it is unworkable because of issues beyond my control.

Fortunately, I have another session Monday.

I Do Not Even Know What I Need or Want from Life Anymore…

The last month has hit me to my core… I have lost all sense of what I want, and need from life.  I have not given up, but I currently have no direction.

I thought I had it pretty well figured out.  I thought I knew what I was needing, to get the happiness I want.  And I might still have been correct.  But I have lost all confidence in that model – so to speak.

I have been putting out a lot of energy over the years at trying to develop more, and more reliable, friendships.  It has been a disaster at every turn!  Every time I start to feel better, it blows up in my face.  And I end up worse off.  Other than family, I have not made a new close lasting friendship since 1975.  Hi Tim!  Yup… that is 38 years.  He lives in Seattle.

In the past, I have questioned my methods, my sincerity, and my choices.  But only now have I lost faith in “friends” even being an appropriate goal.  It may be unachievable… it may be unnecessary… it could be that it is just not going to happen for me.  I do not know.

Okay… fine.  What other goals have I had?  The next big one for me has been to get my shop, and hobby areas all finished, and immerse myself in designing, and building things.  The idea is to do the things I enjoy, and forget about everything outside this home.  Well… not “forget” exactly, but diminish.  To make the outside world superfluous.

It seems a much more achievable goal.  But in many months of actual effort, and great amounts of time too depressed to deal with it, I have got virtually nowhere.  To the point where even that goal seems unimportant, or simply too far away, right now.

I am at a point of having to rethink the purpose of my life.  I have to figure out not only what is important to me, but what is actually obtainable.  It would be a great reward to fly to the moon on gossamer wings, but that is not going to happen either.

I do not know where this is going… I will keep you all informed.

No Rest for the Wicked

I have fallen to a point where I can barely see the light.  There is no day in my world… only the darkest night.  I try to scratch my way up, but I have nothing to stand on, and no-one who truly understands. 

I do not enjoy any part of my life.  There is no joy in Whoville.

I used to have more energy… I used to be able to push it all away enough to even teach.  Now I can barely get up in the morning – or afternoon or whenever I finally get up.  Life has worn me out.

And there is little else I can do.  Everything I try is 2 steps forward, and 5 steps back… I am worse off today than I was just a few months ago.  My anxiety is under better control, my depression is taking over again.  And I will not go thru that process again.

I am not sad… I long to be sad.  I feel only despair and hopelessness.