Category Archives: Me & My Issues

U-Turns on to Infinity

I am a fairly smart person.  But I am trapped in a brain that does not work well.  I am usually smart enough to hide the confusion, and despair from people around me – they don’t like to see that.  I make mistakes.  Bad ones.  Then I am left alone to try to work my way out of the Pit.

Why would anyone assume someone with serious mental problems, is always going to be logical, and reasonable?  I am not always either of those things.

I can say I am sorry… but it all still counts against me.  I get it.  People don’t really care why you do things… they are not going to attempt to delve more deeply into someone else’s problems.  So often, the most vulnerable people, are the ones most at risk of being labeled, and forgotten.  The ones who need the most…

I say I am sorry… and that totally dismisses any and all of my thoughts, concerns, or expressed needs.  I was crazy when I said those things.  So they are obviously wrong.  Nothing I say will ever get a fair hearing… I am crazy.  It is all forgotten until the next time.  I guess I am stupider than I thought.

Of course, this is all my fault.  I fight for myself, then have to u-turn and become passive.  I want people to understand, then turn around and push them away.

Yup… crazy…

“I do not do birthdays”

I used to say this a lot around this time of year.  I probably still would if I was around people much.  I do not like my birthday – I do not remember ever liking it much.

I do not know why.

The closer I get to my birthday, the more invisible I become.  I go off social media, and turn off my phone.  The last thing I want is to have people wishing me a Happy Birthday.  I hide.  It really does help.  But it is not a lasting solution…

I have not worked on this problem – it only comes up once a year, so it’s not such a bad thing.  It has been easy to let it slide.  And a couple of days from now, it will not be a problem again.  It will slip away for another year.

There have been very nice birthdays… one party when I was 22 was great.  Since then… not so much.  This is entirely my fault.  I hide, and do not let people get close around my birthday.  I say I do not want anything… because that is how I feel.  So the good intentions, and even efforts, of others, get blocked.

Things are what they are, and I just need to relax, and ignore…

Sometimes, I Can Not understand how I got this far…

My personal history, seems as a nightmare to me now.  To had to stand in front of people, and teach…  I can not imagine doing that now.  It could not really have happened.

I can not understand how I did it.  It’s like once having been able to fly… and now I can not understand how I did it.  And from my point of view, that is a good comparison.  It seems like flying… how could I have done that?

My mind is not able to go places Ii it used to be able to go.

I am not sure, but I think I like it here better.  But that does not answer the question.  How could I have done that?  And what brought me here?

When I think about teaching… or as is more common, I have nightmares about it, it is my Hell.  How did I get here?  My mind has changed…

What is that Bright Orb Up in the Sky?

Could it be the Sun?

90 degrees in Oregon… in June??

I write in spurts.  There will be several Blogs in a row… and then a break.  I do not always know why that is happening.  It’s not a bad thing… just odd.

I will be seeing a new psychologist next month.  I sent her the URL for this Blog, and she said she thought we could work together.  Shouldn’t it have scared her off?  I mean… she is a professional.  I am glad I have a little time to let it really soak in, and to get ready.

I do not have a lot to say now… so…

The Intervention of the Real World

I would rather most of the real world would just leave me alone – I don’t mean the people I know… or the places I like… I mean the rest of the crap.

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not my garden…  Portland Chinese Garden

Yesterday the sprinkler system was put in the back yard.  Fine.  It is raining today – welcome to Oregon!  I know the gardener well, but not the installer.  But I felt trapped in my own home.  My anxiety was way up all day.  And I had to remain sharp to answer questions that came up – there was only one.

I became a prisoner in my own home.  In my own office most of the time… constantly afraid someone would need something from me.  I did not get much done.  Mostly I just hide as best I could.  I could not concentrate on anything.

When they were done, I paid them, and came back into my office to great relief.  But I was so tired from it all, I went to bed a little after 6pm.  I was exhausted by anxiety.  It would have been nice if I has slept well…

But it is all OK.

Today, I get back on track as best I can.  My mind is starting to settle down this morning.  There are a lot of things to do, but I have time.  I can not know what will come up, but the worst is done.  At least for yesterday…

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.

Disneyland is Fun… These Places are Learning…

Places I would like to go… to learn… to feel…

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Auschwitz… a place of unspeakable horror.

The Door to Hell.         President Obama, and Michelle.

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These are the places I want to visit.  How do you tell your spouse you want to go to the most horrible places on Earth?

But I have to learn… I have to feel…

My Father was in World War 2… he was at the first concentration camp liberated by the allies.  I heard the stories as a child.  I heard about the bodies stacked like cordwood.  I was not even a teenager.  But now I need to know…………..

I feel as if it is a Duty for me to visit these places… so that they may never be forgotten.

We have a duty to learn from the past.

A Man, a Plan, a Canal, Panama

A nice palindrome.

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I do not do well at traveling.  People who know me, know that.

Sometimes, someone will suggest a place to go… it is interesting.  So we talk about it.  There are enticing ideas of things we could do, and I get optimistic.  And there will be a plan.  So I wait… they will have a plan.  And I wait… and wait…

People who know me also know my brain never stops thinking.  So I roll the idea around in the back of my mind.  In an absence of new information, my brain comes up with more bad things about the trip, than good things.  Eventually, I reach a tipping point where I no longer feel comfortable with the whole idea.

Then they get mad at me.  It is my fault that I was not patient enough to wait for the plans, which never seem to be forthcoming.  I could just assume it will happen, but my brain does not, never has, and probably never will be able to do that.  People know that about me.

But no matter how many times people see the same results, they will keep trying to plan trips by the same method.  What did Einstein say about intelligence?  I am supposed to rewire my brain, and react to the same stimuli in a new way.  But they – the sane ones – get to follow the same path, and it always becomes my fault.

I am growing very tired of this.

SO… I will NOT travel overnight to any new places for the remainder of this year, nor probably throughout all of next year as well.  If others wish to travel, I will wish them a Bon Voyage.

Again… I can not change the way my brain works, and I have grown increasingly unable to push myself beyond my limits, to meet the conditions meted out by others.

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.

Balancing the Schedule

This morning I got some really bad news – Lori is not working today, and is working tomorrow (Saturday).  Now, I had this on my computer calendar, but this has been a hectic week, including working on my computer.  So somehow I did not notice.

Does not sound like such a big deal does it?  In itself, it is not.  But I had a carefully worked out plan for getting lots of things done tomorrow, and I can not shift that to today.  This is not something I can be flexible about.  It is also stuff I can not do on my own… so it can not get done this weekend.

Fine… but as I said, there are things I can not do on my own, so I will not be able to get it done during next week either, because Lori will be on Prince Edward Island.  And that leads to next Saturday when I am supposed to have company which will need to have that stuff done first.  Change of plans.

This one little mistake, will ripple thru the next few weeks, potentially changing plans and ideas all throughout May.  And I will be letting someone else down as well as myself.

My anxiety does not allow as much flexibility as I would like.  Things have to be carefully thought out… at least as carefully as I can be.

Of course, I may be able to rework a solution… but it will greatly increase my anxiety, and something else has got to give.  Right now, I am just too discouraged to even think about it.  This is not good…

There are also things I might have planned had I realized what the schedule was.  I can not even think about that now……

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.

“THE” Dream – with variations

Sunday night I had my most common nightmare.  I will try to describe it…

It was morning, and I had just arrived at the High School I taught at.  I am starting to have a panic attack – that was very common on my way to work.  There are very few students or teachers around.  I have been commuting from my current home for the entire school year… it’s early May.

I know I have to decide if I want to continue teaching there… my panic is getting worse.  There is a lot of mail in my box, as I haven’t checked it for several days.  I go to my classroom, and find it as it was when I was first teaching – before the remodel.  But there is some other teacher in there, and all my stuff is gone.  I am not even sure what I will be teaching.

I have a hard time working my way back up the hall to the office – my panic attack is raging, and I know I can not do this anymore.  I have to quit, and go home.

But there is no-one in the office.  There is no-one to tell… I can not do this anymore.  I HAVE to go home.  I look thru every office to find someone to call a sub.  There is no-one there who works there.  But there is not much more time to get a replacement.

So I look down the hall towards the science and math wings, and there are very few students in the halls.  And they move slowly… and are indistinct.  As I walk past the councilors offices, I see that it is very crowded with students, so I can not talk with my friends there…

I go to the room of a teacher who often helps me calm myself down.  He is not there.  He is on a speaker phone over internet.  There were 2 small stereo speakers.  He could hear me, but there were several students around… and he is trying to teach.  I wandered away.

Ultimately, I decide I just have to go home.  I have my car key, but I can not find my car.  I always can not find my car in these dreams.  I remember all the places I parked, and I could not find it.  I end up walking all the way around the school looking for my car.  I never find it.

I went back into to school, and still there was no-one who worked there, and very few students.  By this time I am starting to fall apart.

This is where I woke up… and about where I usually wake up.  And I did.

Where the Heck Have I Been?

Caliban is home after being missing for more than 2 weeks… but I have not written since he has been back.  My energies were depleted while he was gone, and have taken a while to build back up some.  I am still not quite right, (am I ever?).

I missed one trip to Newport while Caliban was missing… I hardly went anywhere except to look for him.  I have been out a couple of times since, so that is about back to normal.

But my mind still seems to be off a bit.

Actually, I have been having a lot of unusually sudden low periods.  I am swinging back and forth emotionally more than is normal for even me.  How long will this go on?  (that is a rhetorical question)

My little beasties are very important to my life.  They are my friends.  And they really do make my life easier – except in the morning during feeding time at the zoo.  But it is all worth the effort.  Maybe I am just being overly vigilant right now…

I have had many thoughts about what to write, I have just not been able to think them thru.  I hope to get back to more regular writing soon.  Once my mind settles back down to its normal craziness, things will be better.  Until then… pet Caliban.

BTW… the Cat Fence has been repaired so Caliban can not get out again.

Caliban the Krazy Man

This is my little Caliban – not so little really, he is 17 pounds.  But I always think of him as the Little Man.

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Caliban has been missing since last Sunday night.  That is not very long… but it feels like an eternity.  My kitties take care of me.  And Caliban loves to sleep on my desk right here by me.  He is a companion for an agoraphobe.

I have not been thinking about much else the last few days… I know that is not good for me, but it is all I can do.  It has been harder to think clearly about much at all.

But my hopes are still high, and I am doing the best I can.