Tag Archives: phobia

Just Keep Swimming, Just Keep Swimming

Dora was right.

I am still swimming.  To be honest, I feel absolutely horrible this morning.  But I know this will pass too.  If things fall into place the way I think they will (could?), I will be able to get better.

My psychologist said I had an “undying optimism”.  It is one of the things that has allowed me to get this far.  I still believe.

It is difficult, and some times I want to give up.  But I always pull back together, and keep moving forward.  It is a huge drain, but it has worked for a very long time.  And it continues to give me enough energy to be able to keep trying.

So… not to worry… I will keep going.  And maybe things will take a great turn for the better today!  Or tomorrow… but it will come.

Some Things I Know

I know what I want my life to look like.  I know how I want to spend my time.  I can see the good life.

But I can not do it.  I keep telling myself I will get there, but things have gradually got more difficult over the last couple of years.  If you read this Blog often, you know that.

I have the audacity to believe I can get there.  And I will.  I have not yet found the way to go.  But I will.  I have too many days where all I can do is get thru the day.  Literally.

Even that will get better. 

Nowhere To Go

There is nowhere for me to go.

I am tired.  I am trying to build up some reserves.  I will have to go out this week on several errands.  And I still have a sick cat to deal with – he is okay.  He just needs some tube feeding because he is not eating enough yet.  There are many things to do…

Things will get done.  But I am a little worse each week.  There are things I need to do to start getting my life in order.  But they require a huge leap of faith.  Faith in other people… including people who have let me down in the past.  I do not have the reserves for that.

Additionally, I am trying to keep from completely breaking down mentally.  There is a daily struggle.  I am trying to stay alive.  I am trying to get out of the Pit.  But I guess that is not so important if you are not me.  Unfortunately, I do happen to be me. 

So I have to work on my problems, and not just be trying to recover from the week.  I still have a true vacation coming up.  I just want to make it thru the few days.

Addendum

It has been pointed out to me that I am “in no way” taking care of Lori’s needs.  That is true.  What I should have said is that there is an expectation that I will.  There is at the very least not going to be anything for me…

I know I do not meet Lori’s needs.  I can not even meet my own.  But my point was that there is NO support system for me.

See… even my Blogs get argued with, and bring not support.

I Would Rather Have the Nightmares

All in all, I would rather face the nightmares of sleep, than my real world.  I do not belong here, but there is nowhere else to go.

Whenever I sit to write a Blog, I have to be careful… I have to filter what I want to say.  I leave out some important points because I do not want to upset anyone.  I have few enough friends as it is… I do not need to push any more away.

I do not have a plan.  I do not have any direction to go.  My biggest problem is that I lack a support system.  There is no-one I can turn to for support, and know it will be there.  Most of the time I have absolutely no support at all.  I have to get thru everything on my own – then try to take care of Lori’s needs when she comes home for the weekend.

On the weekends, I have to get even more done in order to reduce stress around here.  So there is never a time for me to get what I need.  And let’s face it, I need a lot.

Until I can build some kind of support structure under which I can have room to fall back if I need to, I can not take any chances that could disrupt my precarious balance.  So I wait.  I have been waiting for a long time.

Everyone has their needs.  When you have a stressful life, and work at a difficult job, you need time to relax and recover – weekends.  My life is… very stressful, and I do not get that weekend.  I understand.  Each of us has to find our own way of making it thru the hard times,  I have not found mine yet.

Time is growing short.  It gets harder and harder to take action.  The worse I get, the harder it is to take chances.  Then I become even more isolated.  It is a terrible cycle.  And it only gets worse.

So I sit here, as patiently as I can, waiting for the opportunity to come along.  But… it has to be a very solid base now before I can even plan a step.  It’s not going to happen.

Always be Prepared!

I try to be prepared.  When there is something really important to be ready for, I can plan it out, and usually make it happen – within reason.  That is what I did last week.

I was going to try a short shopping trip to a new place, and one I have been to many times.  It was all set for Friday.  But Wednesday I started working on preparations for something else.

My efforts went very well.  Friday I was able to calm myself enough to remain relaxed thru the day.  I cut back my plans so I could do just one thing.  Things did not work out though…

Saturday I struggled just to make it till today.  I did… I always do.  But I have fallen into depression.  There is only so much energy to get things done.  I try to figure out where it goes, but that does not always work.  It did not this week.

I do not know what to do.

It Was More Interesting When…

When I was in therapy, I generally had better things to write about here.  There were plans and ideas.  I had things to reflect on, and new thoughts to share.  There were many positive things in my Blogs, even when I was not feeling very positive.

Now I mostly write about the boring – the everyday stuff that fills the empty places in our lives.  It’s okay… but there is not as much to learn from it.

I need to get myself back on track towards something.  I need to be learning about life.  And I need to write about that part of my life.  Not so much this part.  I can do that!

There are a lot of things I need to get back to working on.  I am not sure of the complete list.  Though I suppose I have run thru a lot of it the last few months right here in these blogs.

I have started writing a Blog about things I am planning to make it easier to do more shopping.  I have been thinking about that a lot, and I am ready to try a couple of things.  I may even start tomorrow with one simple idea.

So tune in and see something a little more promising.

I am Depressed

Sorry for not having a snappy title.

Yesterday was not very good… it was not a disaster.  But today I have fallen into a depressive episode.  I got up from a nap totally flat.  I did not feel anything.  Now I am not sure what to do.

I may go back to bed.  Or I may just sit here.  Sometimes I sit here in my office, and just stare at the floor.  I also like to stare at the green light on the smoke detector in our bedroom.  And virtually nothing goes thru my mind while I do that.

I should feel better tomorrow… or the next day.  But it will be back.

Okay… I Think I know What I am Going to do. (Besides Weird capitaliZation)

It has become increasingly clear what direction I should go.  I still have a lot to think about, but at least I think I have a direction.  I am not ready to write about it, but it does make me feel better to have decided.

I think I am ready to DO something this week, or early next week.  I need to discuss it, and think about it.

My Weekend

Friday was a mixed bad of emotions.  I started out feeling a lot of stress about figuring out what I could do for the weekend.  I wanted to go out, but had to figure out what I could actually get thru.

Late in the afternoon, I finally had it!  It felt really nice to have a doable plan.  And it would be fun too!

The problem was that I had so drained myself during the day, that I was a wreck by late evening.  That is when I crashed – 11pm Friday night.  I did not get up until 7am Sunday morning.  That was 32 hours of sleep – on and off.  Sunday I lasted only about 10 hours.

I did not eat very much all weekend either… but that does not bother me very much.

Now it is early Monday morning, and I do not know what to do.  I feel mentally drained, and I start the week pretty much empty.

These things happen.

A Log From the Edge… and Beyond

I do not know what will happen in my brain.  I think I will get better, but this Blog could record my decent into madness… not likely though.  So… not to worry…

I have been sleeping too much.  The bedroom is a sort of sanctuary for me.  It is easier to relax and let the day fade away.  But it means I am not spending much time up, and active.  I do not have much energy for it.

There are many times during the day when it is all I can do to stay awake – I want to sleep.  Everything has been getting harder, so I have to push myself more, and that uses up energy.  And the days get shorter.

I have not finally decided what to do about therapy – except that I need it.  My psychiatrist thinks I will need more meds too.  But I need to get my thoughts straightened out before we can be sure.  I only see her for meds, so I will need to find a new therapist… or try to go back to the old one.

Neither of those 2 thoughts hold much attraction. Contrary to what some people believe, my loss of my psychologist was mostly the result of a misunderstanding.  But it still hurt too much.  And maybe I should try someone else anyway.  But it is so hard to find the right person – especially now.  I know more about what works and doesn’t work for me, so I need the right person.

That search will create many new problems, and anxieties.  There will be plenty of opportunities for failure.  I may have to try more than one therapist.  I am not looking forward to that.

This is going to take months to work out, whatever I do.  The Fall is sort of set aside for it.  I can not really hope to do much else.

But I know I have to find a way to get going again, and start recovering my brain.  I can now also see that I will probably always need someone to help me sort thru things.  I think way too fast, and about too many things for my own good, and I need someone to slow me down, and keep me on track.

My friends will be there for me… though I am not good at asking for help.  Some things sound good, or fun, but just drain away too much energy.  So I pick the things I feel sure I can do, and work on them.  I am tired of letting people down, and cancelling at the last minute.  It is not fair to others.  So I tend to avoid plans with most anyone.

It does not help in the long run, but makes it easier to get thru the days.

My Biggest Motivator

Fear

Yup… that is it.  And I am not alone in that.  There are many of us.  Fear completely over-runs all other motivations.  It is far too powerful for mere humans to overcome.  At least for this human.

Fear comes in to play as anxiety.  It can spike up so high I become immobile.  I can not move… My body will not respond to my thoughts.  It is a very strange feeling.  There is a lock in my brain that stops signals from getting to my legs.  There is something deep going on.

Anxiety to the actual stopper… but fear is the greatest anxiety producer.  And I have a lot of fears – going out, crowds, dogs, meeting people, failure, heights… the list goes on.

There are things I try to do that combine some of those into one.  It gets pretty bad.

If I just stay home, I don’t have too many problems.  But even here things happen.  Staying home saves a tremendous amount of energy because of so much less anxiety.

The issue then becomes – can I live a good happy life this way?  Yes… I can.  I can still go out locally for things I need.  And I can still go on trips, and visit places I want to see.  There are issues with those trips, but they are well worth it.

So why should I push harder?  I am happiest when I can just life my life at home.  I do need to find ways to make some things work better, but I can do that.

That is my goal… at least for now.  Once I get this working, then I can think about ways to get out more… perhaps.

Tacos and Margaritas

I don’t know about you, but that sounds good to me.  Especially going out with a friends to share them.  It would be fun!

Alas… it is not something I can do.  I would love to do things like that.  How great would it be do be able to go out on a nice weekend day and have fun with fun people?  Not going to happen.

I am stuck here.  And pressures seem to be pushing more in that direction.  I have less energy, and I just can not push myself as much as I used to.  I can not go out.

But DO NOT confuse that with a desire to not go out!!!

Make no mistake… I am here because my life dictates that the cost of going out is just too high.  Usually too high to even start.

Too Tired to Go On.

I have struggled with anxiety, and depression all my life.  I had my first full-blown panic attack in the 2nd grade.  I can still see it all happening very clearly in my mind.  I started having bad depressive periods in middle-school.  Of course I did not know what they were at the time.

I am almost 60 years old… I do not have the energy I once did.  But life demands that I do as well (or as badly?) as I always did when I was younger.  There are things I can not do anymore.

I can not play volleyball, or racquetball… I can not hike high mountain trails.  And I can not push myself mentally as far as I once could.  So what do I do?

One of the first things I learned in session was to pick my battles.  I can not solve everything… some things I will never be able to resolve.  But the most important point of this is that I have to pick which things I can improve, and which things I can’t improve.  But I also have to look to which things are more important – which will give back the most rewards.

A few months back in session, we worked out a plan for cutting back on things that were disproportionally stressful – things that cause way more anxiety than they were worth.  And that has been my approach the last several months.

It works great!!!  Now I am getting far more done on my own at home.  And with far less total anxiety.  This does not deal with my phobias, or depression, but it is mostly the anxiety the stops me.  So things have taken a decidedly positive turn in my mental life.

But there are other battles, and I am losing them.  Even my first success is falling into question.  I can not keep following that path.  I have to get “better” and get back to doing more – doing things I used to do.  So rather than moving forward, I now have to move back to putting more energy into going out for errands and such.

That means less energy for all other things… including the having fun part.  Once more into the breach… with no hope of success.

I have responsibilities that I can not ignore.  Not that I have actually ignored them.  I have been trying to obtain balance.  But I have to balance that with the lives of others as well.

So I need a totally new plan.  What I really need to do is be like I was 20 years ago… well… only the good parts of it.  I need to be able to DO more.  I will have to deal with the turmoil in my brain some other way.