Tag Archives: atychiphobia

Non-Traveling Guy

My travel has gradually diminished to nothing. There is no-one to encourage me to go. I am on my own in figuring out how to work past my fears… phobias. Even remaining people close, have given up trying. I will not be trying.

Putting effort into travel is virtually guaranteed to be lost effort. And one more failure. I can’t do much by myself. I will only put energy into things here at home.

That has been the de-facto situation for a couple of years at least. But has been recently confirmed. I need to move on.

I Am a Cat Person

WOW! …am I ever a cat person…

I understand cats. Predicting their behavior is pretty simple. And I talk to them. Lori rolls her eyes and shakes her head when a cat will do what I say with a simple, calm, quiet command. “Down”… and they will jump down off wherever they are. Lori yells at them 2-3 times before they decide to get down. They understand what I want them to do.

We lost our oldest kitty – Cymbeline – a month ago, at 17. It is still very difficult to think about her. She slept in one of the cat-beds on my desk. There are five cat beds around my office. During the winter, three of them have warming pads. There are often four cats sleeping here.

They are my friends. They are my only friends. Caliban sleeps near me all the time… wherever I go in the house. They each have their own personal ways of accepting commands. But they are always around.

Our backyard has cat-fence so they can’t get out, and others can’t get in. They love it out there. Except Miranda… There are some cat-perches out there.

There are three cats here now.

They are a calming influence in my life. They make it easier to relax. Their positive reaction to me makes me feel better. I take care of them too.

Trying and Pushing = Brave?

I am at a point in my life, where I have to change what I believe. I have been working on it. I need to change the way my brain inter-relates to the world. No small feat.

Progress is measured in very small increments. I cleaned up a work-space to actually be able to work on something. Why? Because I wanted to. Got a problem with that?

This is not where I thot I would be at this point in my life. I need to teach my brain to want what I have. How does one change so many decades of training? The “slow-motion” PTSD must be rewired. There is no guarantee of success… or even progress. Make what I have work.

Being Brave, is what you do when there aren’t any other options. It is another state of our being. Others will see it in a different light, and will call it “brave”. OK… But it is just us doing what we must do. Especially for the Mentally Ill. We have to be “brave” just to get up in the morning!!!!

I am not truly brave. I am scrambling to survive. The options have narrowed significantly over the last few years. My presence on-line is my only reaching-out place. so here I am.

It is very difficult to reach out to an empty audience… OK… OK… not “empty”. Though I would like to hear more from people. Is this where I remind you all, I have no friends? No? Ok… later.

I am not in point of fact, looking for friends on-line. Friends are people you actually see. Sigh… there is a whole spectrum of “friends”. You can be very close to people you never see… or distant from those you see frequently. But it is more difficult to start with no foundation of brick-and-mortar friends. Not impossible… “It is a consummation devoutly to be wished.”

Hello… my name in Neil.

An Open Window…

I am trying to give people a chance to hear from the other side of the Mental Health issues we face. These Blogs may come back to haunt me. I make bad decisions, and people may respond in ways that make me think they are angry at me.

My response: Get in line.

I am used to people being mad at me. Even when they are not. My brain goes into protective mode and it assumes anyone with cause, is mad at me. Unless I have direct knowledge, they are not. There is almost a constant fear in my brain of people being mad at me. If I cannot know better… my brain assumes they are mad.

That is what my brain does. And NO amount of knowing that, will ever be able to stop my brain from going there.

If you fall into a pool of water, your brain will respond in a certain way to save you. It would take a lot a practice to learn exactly how to react in the best possible way… that protects you the most quickly. But it would take practice. You would need help…

Here is the catch… there is no way for the mentally ill to practice unless there is someone to practice with. We need help. We need someone to unlock the doors to the pool.

I don’t have the keys.

Fearing the Fear of Fear…

Most of my decisions are greatly influenced by fear. The fear of potential bad outcomes. Which choice had the least fearful path. But my brain does not trust my judgement. So I like to be able to see what someone else thinks. That is where I have problems. Who would that be?

Obviously, it can only be Lori.

I throw out plans that I can not support externally… to someone else I trust who thinks I can do it. Left to myself, plans fade away quickly succumbing to fears of failure. Usually it means not being able to run an errand. Sometimes it is much bigger. I can not commit to anything down the road. Who knows where my brain will be in four months? And I can’t have four months of worrying about it every day. So… no plans for nice trips.

Fear.

Why start something I will not finish? I never finish anything. But I keep trying… as much as I can. Trying smaller things, that don’t matter so there is less to lose. Chores… but nothing else really matters. I have to make things not matter. I have to believe all these things don’t matter.

“It doesn’t matter.” Are words I speak far too often. Fear makes us stop caring. We have to stop caring before we get swept under all the failures.

Some things haunt us… things we are drawn to do, but can not. We might spend hours thinking about it, without ever being able to accomplish anything.

But… I keep trying. J

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.

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.

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.

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…