“she comes to me when i feeling down
inspires me with out a sound
she touches me, I get turned around”
billy joel
i am fortunate to have Mary. what an angel she is. she loves me, she supports me, she cares about me. most of the time i am unappreciative of those things, but always those three things are self evident.
as i walked by the newspaper stand this morning i saw an usa today headline for an amanda fox article. it read, “I have a life that i want to live”.
i do to. right now i think she is much closer to achieving that dream than i am.
i recently went from 50 mg to 100 mg with my lamictal. it is all part of building up to the therapeutic dose of 200 mg. i had two great and wonderful days. i had hope that this would be the beginning of something wonderful. then came the next two days.
they have been crap i tell ya’, efein’ crap. today, i made it out of bed just in time for my wife to get home. more like i got out of bed because my wife got home. i told her my day had been crappy.
she suggested a walk. i figured that might be good. the thing is, we have a difference of opinions on how to walk jimmy. i walk him untethered with a 10 ft leash. that way if he starts to get away, it’s easier to corral him. i have also ben training him with voice commands. for the most part, does a good job of listening. i don’t feel out if control. this freaks Mary out; she can’t handle it at all. she is afraid jimmy going to run off chasing something or another. he has a history of doing that, but he hasn’t done that while i’ve been working with voice commands.
then, it happened. jimmy took off for some bushes. the long leash worked as planned as Mary caught jimmy before he got to deep into the bushes. she insisted that jimmy be tethered. i walked away.
when i got home, i went for a drive. the drive took me over two mountain passes. the pass has beautiful scenery. after going over the first pass, i went through an agricultural area. i had fields of blooming apple trees on both sides of me. i felt a little peace from the crap of the day.
Mary and i texted back and forth, both of us digging in our heels. i stopped along the way and answered text as i didn’t have my bifocals; it would have been too hard to text and drive through the mountain passes. at one point, i told her what happened with jimmy felt like a cherry on a pile of hot steaming crap. she claimed to understand i had a bad day.
she kept pleading for me to come home. wait a minute. if she understood i had a crappy day, she would have understood why i walked away and why i had to get away. the texts kept coming including,”it’s hard for me to understand why treat me this way. i’ve been there for you. making me worry about the one i love just is not fair. i just don’t feel like i’m good enough. why do i feel like such a failure.”
fuck, i’m having a horrible day and she’s making it about her?
by that time, i had driven two hours from home. so, i had at least another two hours to get home, or so i thought.
though i had nearly ideal weather over the first pass, i got treated to a totally different experience less than 20 miles south on the second pass. even though it is rather late in the spring, i hit a heavy snow. a chains required condition got called which means all cars must chain up except all wheel drive. good thing i have my all wheel drive subaru; that meant i could continue my drive without the drudgery of putting on chains. the snow kept building as the road got covered with 4-5 inches of snow.
at one point, i had a car following me looking like they wanted to pass at the first possible chance. about that time, my car broke loose. “steer into the slide.” oh shit! i over corrected. now my car wandered about 45 degrees out of the direction of travel. “steer back the other way. gettin’ back under control.” one more minor correction and i again had the car moving in the direction of travel. not unexpectedly , after that, the car following me dropped back into the slow lane.
being an experienced snow driver, i thought i handled the situation well and went on my merry way. sometimes that stuff happens. the point is knowing what to do when it happens and doing it.
the snow continued to fall. at one point, i passed a fender bender on the side of the road. it’s a common place for such things as it comes just after an entrance from the ski slopes and people coming home get on the road and drive invincibly. they end up going to fast and crash into the side barrier. in those conditions, there is almost an iron clad guarantee that someone cracks up there. the snow kept falling and hard. i ended up driving over twenty miles in this snow storm. on a good day, the travel would have taken 20 minutes. but today, it took at least twice that long.
i made it home about 11:15 to a supportive hug from my wife. i’m not sured i wanted it, but i participated. we exchanged pleasantries and went to bed. it is now 1:30 and i find myself tapping this out on my iphone.
i gotta say, i have a new understanding for the people with rapid cycles. if you have never experienced it let me tell you, it sucks! i tell ya’, it sucks. ill take my 4-6 months of depresion any day. this not knowing where ill be tomorrow is hard.
now i have tomorrow to look forward to. Mary has decided to take the day off to support me. after today, i’m not sure i want it. she says she’ll do whatever i want. i don’t think she’ll like the idea of me laying in bed until noon, but if i had my druthers, that’s what i would do. should make for another stress filled day.
joy of joys!
give it a try. smile. watch those endorphins flow.
i actually had a good day. i can’t remember the last time i could say that.
my good friend had to put his dog down yesterday. i’m in pain.
my good friend, whom i admire, who seemingly is in a solid marital relationship, kicked out her husband yesterday. i’m in pain. Continue reading
hyundai europe has a car powered with hydrogen. It runs on a new technology called fuel cells. one of the drawbacks is hydrogen is hard to transport and also hard to find. the big advantage is the exhaust is 100% water vapor. nothing more, nothing less.
in my oh so humble opinion, hyundai has taken a questionable tack to advertise it. They show a man, running a tube, taping up windows and sitting and waiting. but water vapor doesn’t do the trick, so he gives up in frustration.
hyundai?? really?? trying to commit suicide is funny?? no. not funny. not funny in the least. the commercial insensitive. it’s outrageous!
hyundai europe has since backed track initially saying that they did not authorize the commercial. really? the commercial got put together by a wholly owned subsidiary of hyundai.
Ian Tonkin, a spokesman with Hyundai U.K. said, “Hyundai understands that the video cause offense, We apologize unreservedly. The video has been taken down and will not be used in any of our advertising or marketing.”
this is hyundai america’s response.
We at Hyundai Motor America are shocked and saddened by the depiction of a suicide attempt in an inappropriate European video featuring a Hyundai. Suicide merits thoughtful discussion, not this type of treatment.
Some who lost their dad. warning: to avoid insensitive responses, don’t read the comments.
i hate were i’m at. this depressive cycle sucks! sucks, i tell ya. sucks! it really does.
i guess i should be thankful i’m not suicidal. why the hell not. this is the worst i’ve ever felt. my thoughts today went to leaving my life behind, all of it. finding a nice comfortable bridge to live under. now i understand why so many people with mental disorders end up on the street. somehow in my sick mind, that would make everything all better. sick i tell ya, sick.
i guess i’m thankful that i’m not suicidal. for that reason i know i’m not completely filled with despair. the despair needle has to point to something less than 100%.
what’s in the other part of the tank? the opposite of despair, HOPE. There’s got to be some hope there. that’s gotta be the reason i’m hanging on.
right now i feel a little like george in it’s a wonderful life,
“help me clarence. get me back. get me back, i don’t care what happens to me. get me back to my wife and kids. help me clarence, please. please, i want to live again. i want to live again! i want to live again. please God, let me live again.”
the second time in a week, a headline grabs my attention. this time mental disorders are equated to an “illness”.
tell me, are people with cancer considered ill? a heart condition? a thyroid condition? none of these conditions evoke a description of illness. why are mental disorder so often singled out as being and illness? this continues my work of education, to break down the misconception surrounding mental disorders. it is those misconceptions that cause stigmas. it is those stigmas that cause a reaction similar to a newfound compatriot. he didn’t tell his boss that his wife went into the hospital because of a mental disorder. he made up some other condition, instead.
this article appeared in the seattle times. the author continually uses the shortcut of mental illness to describe people with mental disorders.
the article discusses a new program put together by the king county sheriff’s office. this program got put in place after a rash of shootings and deaths by local police departments when dealing with people with severe mental disorders. the program keeps a of list people with mental disorders so police can be more knowledgable when coming to a situation. don’t thing big brother, here. this list is a voluntary list and used so the police can be more aware and make connections with treatment providers.
so, i’ll continue on my journey of education. i plan to contact the author and the sheriffs department, especially the officer in charge of the program to let them know of the stigma they are potentially perpetrating.
Let’s face it, i am no more ill than someone with cancer, a thyroid condition or a heart condition. this madness has to stop! an i’ll try one person at a time.
all you closet writers reading this, are you like me? does your critical voice take over? oh, i gotta fix that misspelling right this second or the world will end. is that verb tense correct? is this sentence flowing correctly? am i making sense?
that’s the critical voice. the critical voice can be a burden and an enemy. the critical voice does a wonderful job of breaking the flow of the thought process. the break in the flow can get in the way of getting thoughts down on paper, or if you are like me the bytes to the screen. if the worry goes to correcting something, perhaps that fleeting thought will “fleet” away, never to return.
what if i could show you a way to turn off your critical voice while you mashed on the keyboard. now how much would you pay?? don’t worry, i won’t charge you a red cent for this wonderful idea, and it’s a money saver, too! what more could you ask for?
turn the screen off. that’s right, for the first draft, turn the screen off. fade to black. don’t worry about what you are typing. i imagine the first time you do it your critical voice will be freaking out like the first time i tried it. your critical voice will revolt. it’ll throw a fit. it’ll tell you this is all wrong. don’t listen to it; it’s a liar. the world will not end.
“if I do that, there is no chance i’ll get everything right on the first pass”, my inner critic will say. let me be truthful; i have never got it right on the first pass. that’s the perfectionistic mindset coming into play and i somehow think perfection will come out of my keyboard the very first time. let me tell you, in ain’t gu–nuh happen. ever. heck, most of the time it still isn’t right on my fifth pass.
don’t worry, this is only a first draft. after getting the train of thought out, if the box car looks better in front of the tanker, switch it around. who said the caboose had to come at the end? some stodgy old english professor’ i’m sure. my uncle, a english professor by trade, told me sometimes rules are made to be broken.
and you know what? when you get done with the first draft, all the misspellings will still be there, waiting to be corrected. got a misspelling? fix it. verb tense wrong? fix it. bad flow? fix it. not making sense? fix it. it’ll okay. you’ll have the opportunity to fix problems before hitting the publish button.
so, my challenge to you: on your next first draft, turn off the screen. let the thoughts flow. turn off the inner critic. give it a try. and when you do, make sure to comment about your success or failure.
facing off with the big d 