Tag Archives: anxiety

I Guess that was Wrong

I guess I should not have said that… I am told it will make things worse.

I seem pretty good at finding what makes things worse, but no-one seems to know what I should say. I makes me feel there is nothing I can say. That I have to get used to this life. I should be used to it by now… you’d think.

What should I do? I have problems recognizing threats. My brain interprets anything neutral – like no response at all – as a potential threat. When I don’t hear back, or the response is neutral – like “OK” – my brain signals to prepare for “fight-or-flight”. I feel this horrible fear something is wrong. Did I say something wrong? Are they mad at me? I can’t identify what it is, so fear takes over. sometimes I strike out at things… sometimes I vanish into the woodwork. Think Facebook.

All those reactions make things worse. But I can not see it happening. Lori will point it out after, and I can see her point. But I still feel the same… I would still react the same way. It is not possible for me to see it happening. Later I can always see I have made things worse, but I do not understand why. It’s not easy realizing my own emotions are wrong.

People’s reactions don’t make any sense to me. I do not understand what is happening… fight or flight.

That has always lead me to end up alone. Lori can do only so much. I can’t only talk to one person – but I have not had a conversation with anyone in years. Not more than talking to a store clerk, or the UPS person.

Give me credit for trying. I keep trying. Nothing is easy. I have to recover many times each day… depression and/or anxiety can take over my brain at any time. Dozens of times a day, I have to stop myself, and calm down. I say “It’s okay”… “Calm down”… “Keep going”… and other words of self-encouragement, to myself. It either works, or I crash out.

Mini-crashes are bad… But I do try again… and again. Why? What did Einstein say about doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result?

PS Thanks for the nice comments N.

The Long Slow Road

I am in transition.

I have spent my whole life in almost total fear that I would end up alone. And I usually have been alone. And I do not mean “by myself” – I mean no-one in my life other than Lori.

It is okay… this is where I belong. Over the last year+, I have gradually been pulling away into my whole world. I was on and off Facebook, but never felt the comfort there that I had for years before. It just doesn’t seem to fit into my life just now.

Home is what matters, and that is where I should stay. There are things I can do, and even places I can go. They know me at Nana’s Pub! Do I need more?

This last week, I struggled with a lot of depression. I had too many of those days when I was trying to sleep way too much.

But I am much better now.

I have been meditating and letting my thoughts free-flow. I can relax, and I can adapt. I actually have been adapting to this result for most of my life… I just wasn’t willing to pay attention. Now I am. Now I see the only path ahead.

There can be happiness in my life. I will be 60 in a few months, so it is about time I accept my limitations, and that they mean I can not have close friendships in my life.

I am finally OK with that.

Though… it May Not Seem Like It

It does not always feel, or even seem like things are getting better. I tell myself things are better… sometimes Lori says I am doing better. I never know.

Fridays are usually bad – I am faced with a weekend, and the possibility of getting more things done. It rarely works out, and I do know that. So I am fighting the desire to pack it in, and give up on any plans. That is by far the easiest solution.

Is it obvious that it’s not the right solution? Obvious or not, it is the path of least resistance. We are like water, and electricity… we follow the path of least resistance. Except that we are supposed to have free will. Whatever that is.

I will go to bed early, and try to sleep thru the night. There will be nightmares – like last night. The more stress, the more nightmares there are. They may just be dreams, but they take all will out of me.

We do get better… it just doesn’t always feel like it.

“We get better.”

 

Things have not gone well.

But – I still think and feel that things are getting better. And that things will continue to get better over the foreseeable future.

Of course there will be set-backs. And I will have many dark times. But things will get better. And my life will improve.

I know it. 

(in the non-scientific definition of “know”)

Taking Some Time Off

I have been taking some time away from Blogging (here), as I have been working thru some details of my thoughts. I am closing doors… Doors that were probably only in my imagination anyway.

Any kind of social life if not going to work. But my life here at home, and with Lori, is my social life.

There is a bar, where when I walk in, they start to draw me a Guinness even before I sit done! So I do have a social life. And there’re my kitties.

I did not stop Blogging altogether, I only stopped on my most public Blogs. I have another. It is for my darker thoughts, and my dark side. But there is time to write here as well.

My thoughts have been more private. I needed a smaller audience for a while.

I am settling in.

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.

Trying to Have No Feelings…

I was in Newport this week. I spent a couple of nights at my favorite place. I had one small panic attack – being so far from home. But it was a very nice trip… I read “Goblet of Fire”.

I come home, and have to resume my “normal” life. I don’t really know whether going helps in the long run. But I am not going to worry about that now. The time for that will be before the next trip.

I had some depression earlier today. I can feel it near.

It gets so hard to keep trying to push it away. It’s either that or fighting anxiety. Nice combination.

Everyone has situational anxiety… I am talking about chronic anxiety. Anxiety that exists for no reason. It just is.

My thoughts are kind of meandering. I don’t know how I feel. There are things I need to be doing, but I have no energy.

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.

I used to Keep a Journal

In 2013, I completed about 17 journals. I was doing a lot of writing. So far this year, I have written… maybe 1. I am not sure why I stopped. But it happened in just a couple of weeks.

I have not wanted to try to figure out what happened, but for some reason it just didn’t matter anymore. Since then, I have tried starting up again… it only lasts a few days. I have only written a few pages in the last 6 months.

Writing was therapeutic. It helped me organize my thoughts towards understanding where the hell I was. It stopped helping. I think it’s important to understand why.

Before the internet, I used to write letters. Long letters. People don’t write letters anymore. It’s a little sad. Writing is more personal, and more expressive. Here, I have plain, bold, italic… but every word I write carries its own expression. That’s also why I like fountain pens.

When I write, the word flows out of my pen. The loops vary… the width of the line varies. There is emotion in every movement of the pen. The same word will vary in appearance in different parts of the same writing – emotion changes and flows.

A keyboard can never do that.

The Days Get Shorter

I do not mean because of the seasons. There are times when I get tired earlier and earlier. I try to sleep most of the time. Usually when that happens, I don’t really care. I have lost the ability to care.

Sometimes reading helps. Sometimes I just need to let to work thru. I can get up whenever… But I will feel better if I can just let myself deal with the depression… Even nightmarish sleep is better than being up, and having to deal with the world.

There is no knowing how long it will take to feel better. A day, or several days? Mine used to last weeks. Things are better, and I can usually work thru it in one overnight. I’m lucky… most of the time.

Recently they have snuck up on me more… I don’t like that much. I think things are going along well, and suddenly… BAM! I suppose that is not all that new. Maybe it just seems that way because other things are going along better. But if things are going better, then why is things still happening?

Because that is the nature of the beast.

Probably a Grandmother By Now…

cannon_beach_family_bonfireThis morning I picked up a photo from my office floor.  How did it get there? It’s a picture of a girlfriend from high school.  And it occurred to me that she is probably a grandmother by now.

Suddenly I was very sad.

We have no children.  I had always thought I would. But life had its own plans for me.  Things don’t always work out the way you plan.  There is nothing I can do about it now.  There is not enough room in the rest of my life to accomplish much of it.  And there are times when I feel my life continues to spin farther out of control.  There is nothing I can do.

I am not sure how I got here… what forces diverted me.  Don’t get me wrong, I like much of my life.  I just have so little control.  Anxiety… depression… my brain keeps me immobile.  But I have long since given up dreams.

Life without dreams is not where I thought I would be.  It limits, and minimizes.  It leaves me stationary… stopped.  In some ways I have been stopped since 1985 when I left the U. of Washington.  Everything stopped after that.  I don’t know what happened.

My life moved along, and so did I.  But I never dreamed much anymore… I never saw everything as possible.  There have been changes, but my hopes and dreams have been left far behind.

Now my dreams are small – a shelf here, a small trip… anything.  And I can not even make those come true.  I can not push myself anymore.  Not like I used to… back when I pushed myself to have what appeared as a relatively normal life.  I could look almost normal.  I can’t do that much anymore.  I don’t have much inclination to even try.

Today, I mostly try to get thru the day.  I try to enjoy my time… though I am not doing anything.  And that has become good enough.

Shit.