down the rabbit hole

down the rabbit hole

i don’t really want to write. why’s that? it a story about how getting a few ducks in row, and how just few incidences can send me scurrying down the rabbit hole. it’s a story i have to tell because i need to get it out of me. kept inside of me, it’ll just fester and get even more ugly. even though i will feel shame telling the story, at least it will be out. i also hope that someone else will read it and benefit from it.

those of you who read my last post, know that my wife has 1x1x2 mass near her knee. think of about 1/3 of a length a regular size plump hot dog. she got the results of the mri less than three days ago. it had scary words like suspicious and liposarcoma, sarcoma meaning cancer.

mri can only look for typical patterns. just because a pattern matches doesn’t mean it “matches”. For instance, i could give you one of 100 cards with shades of green. just because i gave you one of the cards, doesn’t make it a certainty that I gave you the true green. they all look green, but there’s only one true green.

just because Mary’s mass looks like a liposarcoma doesn’t mean it is. if may be green, but not the true green. it still is very possible that even though it looks like a liposarcoma doesn’t make it liposarcoma. mri are still too imprecise.

the next day, we took as a day of distraction. we went for a sunrise hike on a local trail, went to a movies in the afternoon and took advantage of coupon our real estate friend gave us and went to dinner. We had a pretty good day, having a good and fun time at each undertaking.

then, came the next day. i came face to face with my nemesises fear, doubt, uncertainty, sadness, disappointment, just to name a few. yesterday, they kicked my ass. that started a tailspin.

the tail spin continued in a weird way.

i was passing on some math riddles to a friend with a degree in mathematics. I passed the on for fun and entertainment. my friend felt lest than because they couldn’t figure out the riddles. I didn’t like that what I did troubled my friend. i quicker felt less that myself, feeling responsible for my friends struggle. all too quicker, i called myself a “loser”. it seemed like a huge leap but pointed to inherent instability.

and who would of thought things would get worse…

taking my nightly med, i stared down the openings of a vial to one of my meds. knowing the fatal dose, i made note that there wasn’t enough there.

nothing like that for a wake up call. not, but a week ago, things weren’t perfect but nowhere near unbearable. last night i contemplated my life.

that’s a precipitous fall in a very short time, in just a day, really. It also served as a wakeup called. It was face these feelings, no matter how scary or face the alternative of them controlling me.

I spent a lot of time conversing with friends, and getting real with myself. i gave name too the scary feelings. i talked about them. i talk about my precipitous fall. i talked about where I didn’t want to be. that day sucked but far less that the previous day’s suck.

sure, i still feel fear, doubt, uncertainty, sadness, disappointment, and the anguish of waiting. now, i choose to look them in the eye and not run from them. thankfully and for reasons not completely understandable to me, that process robs them of their power.

please remember my relearned lesson that i’ve had to relearn over and over again: running for emotions makes no sense. escaping from them is an i possibility. stop, and look those scary emotions in their eyes. they are likely to flinch before you do.

my wife’s mri results

hello,

i wanted you to know that my wife got back some results back from an mri last night and there is at least some cause for concern. not much is known right now, but this is what I know.

my wife has a mass about 1x1x2 near her knee. it was found by an astute pt. the mass is “suspicious” in nature. it could be what is called a liposarcoma or cancer contained with a fatty mass.

we are, no doubt, scared but hopeful. my wife’s sister had something very similar and it ended up to be a mass of baby fat. thankfully my wife sleeps peacefully next to me as i tap this out about 5:30 am, tuesday morning.

a needle biopsy is next and currently not scheduled since we got the results about 8:00 pm monday night. i will update you when there is more news.

keep us in your thoughts and prayers,

thanks.

yoda-wise beyond his years

do…or do not

yoda utters these words to luke skywalker when he was attempting to raise his x-wing fighter out of the swamp. (there is the final part of the line i cut out, “there is no try.” for the purpose of this post, it is not necessary.) yoda spoke to luke about taking action or staying on the sidelines. the in between leads too much struggle and loss of energy. maybe yoda was wise beyond his 900 years.

refinding holes in my heart

i wrote this in response to silent pen’s postdance with a limp.

i say that losing anything from a goldfish to a loved one, puts a new hole in your heart proportional to the size of the loss. too often, people try to fill the hole with whatever they find. additionally, it’s not until the hole gets filled with good stuff can the real healing begin.

no matter what attempts are made that hole cannot be perfectly closed. that’s why we might experience a twinge of loss long after the hole has seemingly been filled.

the world would be a better place if we would only fill your hole with good stuff.

in tears

not sad tears, mind you but happy tears.

face off

i’ve had a bad habit in my life of letting my bring-me-down emotions, my dirty dozen, control my life. fear would breed fear which would breed more fearand and so on. anxiety would breed to more anxiety which would lead to even more anxiety and so on. anger would breed mor anger which would breed to even more anger on so on. this pattern, would entrap me and i would seemingly get caught in an inescapable vortex, spiraling out of control heading for a nearly inevitable visit with depression.

a couple of months ago, i found myself swimming in anxiety, an 8 out of 10. I simply noted how anxious I felt. I stopped and spent 15-30 seconds with my anxiety, not giving it any more power. i went forward with my day. a few minutes later, i noticed the anxiety had left. cool! another time since, i left my anxiety behind by acknowledging the anxiety, spending a few seconds with it, not giving it any more power, and moving on.

You might remember my brush with my “friend” from a few weeks ago. i did the unthinkable act of expressing anger to a friend. that would have been unthinkable, just a short while ago. they ended walking out on me. i convinced myself i had done nothing wrong, which is true since all i did was express an emotion, a perfectly legal and legitimate act to take. i’m not giving the situation many spare cycles; they walked out on me. they haven’t tried to contact me btw. unfortunately, i don’t think i’ll hear from them ever again. their loss.

a couple weeks ago, i was dealing with one of those emotional dropouts, you know, when every seems to be going well them boom! the bottom drops out. Where the hell did that come from? while doing a brainstorm with a friend on how i could handle something like that, I doubted any good would come of it. One of my suggestions was to just be with the drop, not giving any more power. I moved on from what seemed be a lame exercise.

later that day, it finally dawned on me the parallels between how I handle anxiety and how i proposed to handle the emotional drop outs. because of the discovery, maybe the brainstorm exercise wasn’t so lame after all. a few minutes later, another revelation happened. Why can’t this method be used with my dirty dozen; anger, sadness, anxiety, fear, frustration, feeling judged, feeling less, abandoned, lonely, criticized, rejected, and stressed? would that be a dream? yes it would. if it would get an upper hand on my dirty dozen, it’s worth the old college try.

last night, i had another one of those most enjoyable emotion dropouts. i tried my new method. i acknowledged i dropped out, had a few moments with it and tried to move on. Is mostly worked, not as well as my try with anxiety, but i still felt i recovered more quickly. and after going through the process, i felt less controlled by the dropout. i went to bed hoping to held by Mary to finish my recovery. she laid there in sound asleep. i didn’t get my hold, my recovery completed before falling to sleep, though.

today, i went cross country skiing for the first time this year. even though I had skied for over 25 years, today i just couldn’t stay over my skis. after brutal wipeouts, and, god forbid, taking my skis off do go down a couple of hills, i had myself convinced that i had skied the last time for the year. i noticed how frustrated i was. i acknowledged i was frustrated, spent a moment or two with it and moved on. the energy quickly dissipated and i went on with my day. The topper? by the end of the day, i actually had a fun and good time. the frustration which would have sunk my day many times before, became barely a blip on the screen.

maybe there is something to, for lack of a better term, not fighting my dirty dozen. when they show, i treat them like the obnoxious guest at a cocktail party. i’ll give ’em a nod from afar, and move on to people i’d rather talk to. in the analogy, that will make for a much more pleasant cocktail party and for life, a little less tumultuous journey. the would be a good thing.

coming to terms with the thing that imprison me

have you ever noticed the spinning cycles of depression which seem to be there whether in cycle or not? I surely have.

sadness leads to sadness which leads to even more sadness. sadness seems to become an all encompassing self-fulfilling struggle.

fear leads to fear which leads to even more fear. fear seems to become an all encompassing self-fulfilling struggle.

roaring one little roar at a time

last week, i developed the idea of roaring or standing up for one selves. people who didn’t learn to roar, like me, sometimes run into troubles standing up for themselves in adulthood. after these discoveries, i decided i was going to locate my roar, to stand up for myself. here’s a couple of my roars.

happy birthday??

long time no write. i must warn you, i’m feeling down.

today’s my birthday. i feel reflective.

i feel down, way down.

uncertainty rules the roost, both in the near term and the long term.

in the short term, i’m having some interpersonal problems. a co-facilitator, someone i could trust, had three violations of my trust in one day. you might try to say well, it was just one day it’s okay;. it’s no biggie. it’ll blow over. don’t. they were totally uncalled for and hurtful. in an tempt to practice fairness, i got waylaid, bushwhacked, cut off at the pass, tanya harding-ed. i really want to resolve this, like by tomorrow. tomorrow is our meeting. i don’t want to go to the meeting where i’ll let here get away with some half-ass contrition that leaves me unresolved. i don’t want to go because it’s would scream there’s something wrong and i fear she may try to rush in to fix it with some half-ass contrition that will leave me feeling unresolved. i want more than an admission of wrong, i want an apology for the wrongs done, for the hurts the events have caused.

oh, sure i’ve been trying to get something lined up with the group coordinator. she’s been on vacation along with we just crossing paths, leaves a potentially short window in which to get things done. i do recognize about 5 potential outcomes and i have an action plan for each. doing that gave me incredible peace. i know and trust the coordinator to allow me to speak my peace and would stand by my side until i feel resolved. just that it’s dragged out so long and has the potential of dragging out even long kicked up the uncertain, uncomfortableness, and serious anxiety producing levels.

 i have a support group that go to every second wednesday. today happens to be that day. i really want to go to the meeting to get support for were i am at. on the other hand, it’s my birthday; i can miss a day. on top of that, to top it off, there’s uncertainty of what Mary has planned for the day. normally, that wouldn’t be a problem if i were in a healthy state or even a depressed state. just finding myself in what feels like a transition state, takes this one tiny happening and adds it to the fires of uncertainty. i still can’t tell you what i want or will to do with this evening.

uncertainty begets uncertainty.

all this short-term uncertainty have got me asking the three deadly questions: where have i been?, where am i now? and where am i going? being this mixed state has caused me to look at these questions with a little too much cynicism, pessimism and lack of optimism. in the past, i see opportunities missed, wrong decisions made, and unfulfilled potential. in the present, i feel lost, unresolved, inadequate, and afraid. with the future, i feel mostly afraid, afraid of what lay ahead, afraid if i can handle it and i finding myself asking the question, “how?’.

as the beetles say, they say it’s your birthday. i wish it wasn’t. all this uncertainty and the anxiety it generates casts a pall on the day. i know it doesn’t always happen, and i know it’s not likely not happening today, but i would like a day full of happiness, joy and peaceful and gentle reflection.

losing control- why it happens, what happens and and regaining it

what do auto accidents, breaking up with a girlfriend/boyfriend, feelings of frustration, loss of a job, loss of a bet, dealing with a fire, depression, medical conditions, breaking and arm, spraining an ankle and the list goes on and on all have in common? at some level, they all to some degree represent a loss of control.