Tag Archives: alone

Biopsy Results… or Lack Thereof

I had thought today I would be writing about my test results, and how I feel. I can write about how I feel.

This is the 3rd time I have had a canceled appointment. At least with the others I had several days’ notice. To be fair, I canceled 1, because I could not get a call-back to answer some questions about it. They never called back. I left 3 messages.

I need to get this over with, so I rescheduled for Dec. 23rd. Not a great date, but I suppose I need to get it done.

How I am feeling?

There are several things tearing at my mind. One is that I can’t possible have to go thru all this again. The other is that no-one I know has made any comments about all this to me at all. Of course, people I know also know me… so they tend to stay away and not say anything.

Isn’t that what friends are for?

As I have said, I have no friends. No-one reaches out (except B.C.). It has always been that way. People run away when things get tough.

Tomorrow I Get My Biopsy

Tomorrow I go in for a biopsy. The doctor told me the odds, and they seem in my favor. But I understand Math well enough to know that “odds” are just a best guess. They do not mean anything.

I am not even sure I care. It is not like there is some reason why I would like to draw out my life any longer than it has to be.

The Pit is always there beneath me. I can not avoid it. There will be no-one to catch me… or help me up when I fall. I am left to my own devises to find ways out of my problems. I suppose that is how it is supposed to be.

This is not how I ever dreamed the world would be – cold and indifferent. Come… go… we don’t care. Just don’t inconvenience us with sad tales.

Christmas is Over…

I was looking forward to Christmas this year. I wish it was over.

I have no family or friends. There is no-one I want to see. There is no-one I know of who wants to see me. People can talk a good line, but no-one has tried to contact me in any way… not as a friend.

People who claim to be “family” have no right to do so. They have shunned me, and avoided me. Even when I have reached out to them in my times of desperation… they have not been there. Their silence screams volumes.

I am tired of my life.

Every time I have thought I had found a friend, they have turned their backs on me. Sound familiar H.N. or B.R.? The result is always the same… I am alone.

I understand that people don’t like to deal with me, or have me around, but that is never what they say.

Leave me alone.

Here’s Another Fine Mess You’ve Gotten Us Into…

My brain won’t let me live a normal life. I get that. And I have to go thru the depression. I get that too. But can’t there be more happy times to balance it out? I mean… that would really be a big help.

And ya know… I do not get a lot of solace from things being better than they were without meds. They don’t work for everyone, but they greatly shorten my depressive periods. Of course, this means I can be depressed more often! Nice…

But… no matter what I say or write, Depression is a part of my life, and I have to accept that, and learn to live around it.

 

P.S. “The Bluebird of Happiness long absent from his life, Ned is visited by the Chicken of Depression.”

Unstable to the Last

I have to be very careful about interacting socially. Recently I tried getting back on Facebook. It was okay, as I tried to hold a low profile. But it wasn’t enough, and I got sucked in.

I pretty much stayed to myself, and on my own page. I “liked” some posts, and posted on my own page. A couple days ago – or was it yesterday – I commented on a friend’s page. It was a simple little comment… but someone decided to call me a “fool”.

I felt it physically. All through my chest I felt a swirling that I know all too well. My mind started to freeze up… and the world seemed to go a little dark. I could feel the panic. I deleted my comment, and went off Facebook. Then I went to bed.

I tried going back on a couple hours later, but just couldn’t stay. If I cannot comment on friend’s pages, then what is the point? I cannot know how people will respond when I don’t even know them. So I have to stay away from friend’s pages.

Fear took control… and there is nothing I can do about it.

I am emotionally unstable, and it makes me want to hide away even more. I am going to stay home… for a while. Now it will take me some time to put the pieces back together. And I will try again sometime…

Anxiety rules my life. Fear takes control. I have to take a back seat when anxiety takes over. And of course, depression is not ever far behind. Hours… days of hiding away, only to be right back in the same place a few days or weeks later. What has happened will happen again.

Nothing ever seems to get better. Today I am not as optimistic as I normally can be.

Chasing People Away, a Professional’s View

I have been chasing away friends for a long time.  I really hit my stride in college, when most of my life started falling apart.  But I have fine-tuned it over the years, to make it almost an art.  I have 1 friend left. Hope he doesn’t read this…

People don’t know what we need.

When the mind starts to take a backseat, and… GKW takes over, people don’t know how to react.  Some will try, but they are almost always doomed to failure.  Eventually it works out best for everyone if there is a parting of the ways.

We end up alone.

The worst part is that it ends up being better (easier?) for us to be alone.  People become more of a drain than a help.  It’s not their fault.  They just do not know how to relate.  We are going thru something outside of their experience.

It’s hard to let them know it is not their fault.  We can end up feeling like we have let them down, and hurt them.  But we loose.

If you are stuck at home, I understand.  It is so much easier to just stay here.  And why shouldn’t I?  I pay my taxes, and am a good citizen.  I just happen to have a problem with how my brain works.

Sometimes Meds Help… For Some People

I use medications to help me feel better.  I have been lucky in that I have generally had good results… but not always.  I had real problems with one med I tried a couple of years ago.  Now my meds help a lot – more than I can even know.

Not everyone has been so fortunate.  Some have bad experiences with their meds… some to the point of going off them entirely.  And it may be nothing would help… everyone has different chemistry.

But with meds, or without… life is still a struggle.  Our normal brain chemistry changes throughout the day… meds don’t.  So they do not help as much with the ups and downs of everyday life.  There are times when I am not even sure the meds work.  The ups and downs are not self-correcting, I am on my own.

However we work our way thru the days, there are still those ups and downs to deal with.  We have to be constantly aware of our own moods, and how our environment can cause change so quickly.  One minute we feel fine, the next we are sliding into a deep depression.  It just happens.

I understand. I share the pain.

Where Do I Go From Here?

I like candle light… and stained glass lamps.  I keep the light down low.  Those efforts make my office more comforting.  There are 5 cat beds, including 2 on my desk.  I can watch TV. Disks, or streaming… even from our own server with hundreds of choices.  I have dozens of CDs of music I can listen to… and audio books.

I email back and forth with Lori, keep track of the News, and continue my study of the Weather.  I am trying to start writing again… Blogs, Journals and all.  There are plenty of things for me to do.

My anxiety still makes many things more difficult than they should be.  Depression takes a toll.  It’s so easy to just give up, and do nothing.  It happens way too often.  I go thru dozens of mini-struggles everyday… with even the smallest of issues.  And there are days when I am overrun, and fall back into hiding. 

My little world has expanded some — with trips to Newport.  I go there to read.  The hotel has no Internet… no wi-fi-… no TVs, no phones.  No computers… not even at the front desk!  I read.  My next trip I will be in the F. Scott Fitzgerald room.  It has a nice chair by a window, overlooking the beach.  I read.  Last trip I was in the Oscar Wilde room.

I eat at the Irish Pub, and bring home a case of wine.  It is my escape.

Right now it is the most relaxing thing I do.  It is a Beginning.

All this, and it is still just a beginning.

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…

A Pattern Develops…

What I am experiencing in my life now, is that same pressure that has pushed so many Depressives into solitude.  It does not matter that I would like to be social… I never can be.  So life is easier if I disappear.

I should have given up a decade ago.  There has never really been any chance of me having friends.  I can never fit in.  There was only a few years in my life when I did have friends… sadly, that was about when my brain started going really off.

When I try, something goes wrong… I end up just upsetting people.  And it pushes me a little farther away.  I get to where I do not want any interaction with people… that way they can’t let me down.  Except, it really is my fault.  I am the common thread.  I am the one who is different.  I am the one who doesn’t fit in.

I can not understand the way people react… or more commonly, don’t react.  My frustration at being isolated often overcomes me, and I go too far.  I have to stop trying.  I have to stay away from people as much as I can.

Maybe then I will find some peace and happiness.

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…

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…

“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.