Gary matters

 So long, summer, hello fall.  

It was a decent summer on my end, I guess.  A lot of folks would think, "well, if I had most of spring and all of summer off, I'd be pretty damn happy!"  Because I've been off since April 23 due to issues surrounding my mental illness.  Fact really is, it's been lonely.  My wife Janice was able to scatter her vacation days throughout the season so we could spend time together at various points through the short months, so that part of it was nice.  

But here's the deal... the spectre of being off work a lot longer is staring at me in the mirror.  I thought about things a little bit in depth the other day, and something occurred to me:  With every job I've had in my life, everything I did, the self-loathing, self-harm and crashing confidence has tailed me everywhere I went.  I can't actually blame the jobs I've had or any people I've worked with for my troubles on the job.  Work is where I largely can't center myself when I confront adversity.  It's just that at my current job, I encounter adversity a lot.  In fact, where I've been employed in retail for the vast majority of my working life, it's where the stress has heightened the most.  The more people I deal with, it seems, the more trouble I have.  That's a shortcoming of my own.  If there were actually issues with any given job, others didn't seem to experience them as much as I have.  Therefore, the issues lie with me.

The frequency of my anxiety attacks has lessened considerably since I've been off work.  But the fact of the matter is that they still happen.  Only twice since I've been off, however.  That doesn't mean that just because I'm not at work, they won't happen.  A couple of weeks ago, I got into a spat online defending a sibling of mine on issues related to the whole Covid mess going on, and the related vaccines.  I wound up being personally attacked by at least a couple of people, rather unfairly, and though I recognized this and tried to be conciliatory, it just seemed to get worse.  When multiple people... i.e. two or more... focus their anger on somebody like me for whatever reasons, I tend to join them.  I literally bashed myself.  It was late, and I got into this altercation with these two people I don't even know, and I wound up just leaving it and trying to go to sleep.  The way my brain works, though, it won't let me off that easily.  For whatever reason, I decided to try to sleep without my THC oil though, and a couple of hours later I was there in bed, awake, with my brain recycling what I just dealt with online.  It festered itself into me blaming myself for the whole thing.  I felt like I was the one who was wrong (I wasn't), and that I was being a stupid ass of a person, and that I really was literally stupid.  I do this a lot.  But this got out of control.  I smashed that can in my forehead multiple times so hard, that it bled in two places.  For a week I wound up trying to get my wits about me after it all happened, staggering around with my bad balance, and trying to come down from the horrific high point of self-violence.  It's hard to do.  I'm not myself for at least a week after something like this happens.  The worst thing about all of it is that Janice has to witness it all.  She's quite remarkable in how she handles it.  She stays calm and offers support in any way she can.  It's almost like talking a guy down off a bridge who's about to jump.  I don't know what would become of me if she wasn't around.

I'm pretty much back to where I was before all that happened now.  And I have to wonder... until when?  What will set me off next time?  Can I avoid it?  It's worth noting that, since this is a public forum for anyone to read, that I've never hurt anyone physically over this illness or anything else for that matter.  But the emotional distress caused, though involuntarily, can be just as bad, and I'm aware of this.  This adds to my guilt.  I guess you could say if you're holding a bowl while someone's filling it with hot soup, and there's one scoop too many and the bowl overflows, your hands get burned and you drop the whole bowl.  Perhaps a series of events is what touches these things off sometimes... the straw that breaks the camel's back, so to speak.

I've never really learned how to properly deal with it all, because throughout the last few decades, we've been in a state of recovery financially.  We weren't real good with money from the get-go.  We signed a lousy mortgage deal with a broker when we got the house (we were totally green), and we fixed that with financial advice from a debt consolidator, but not before we dug ourselves into a fairly large hole.  I blame myself for that, once again.  In the beginning, I was making our budgets, and failed rather fantastically at it.  But Janice took that over, and now we're here, with no credit card debt, no outstanding bills, and things more in balance than they ever were since we got together 30 years ago.  Thus, we can kinda-sorta handle paying for counseling maybe once a month, for now.  The fact that this isn't covered by medicare or our paid health insurance is disheartening, though.  If I needed medical attention for my burned hand from that bowl of soup, I'd get it no questions asked, for free even.  But since you can't see mental illness, not everyone believes it, and you're often on your own.  I have cuts healing on my forehead right now that actually allows you to 'see' it, and I've noticed that got all kinds of attention and support, which I obviously appreciate; but it illustrates my point.  I've had my GP looking after me since I admitted my self-harm struggles back in '96 after my daughter was born, and I knew I had to do something because she deserved a daddy.  Enter Zoloft, and not long after that, my mindset changed.  The severity and frequency of anxiety attacks lessened, and I was able to be more reflective of situations.  Zoloft quite literally saved my life, in tandem with Janice.  Whenever I tried to come off of the drug, though, once I was clear of it I'd wind up being the person I was before I was taking it.  The big drawbacks to taking anti-depressants are well-known.  Life becomes somewhat dulled.  Sensations are less sensational.  Apathy heightens.  Worst of all, the libido pretty much flatlines.  You kind of trade being subject to self-incrimination for being a zombie.  That might be overstating it a little, but anyone who's ever been on SSRI's knows exactly what I mean.  There's a trade-off, but I'll take the latter, because I get to still be alive.  

What I'm going to have to do is take notes from my counselor, I think, and recite to myself the advice I'm given.  My consultations are actually over the phone, with the option of video chat, so if I can get my wits about me enough, I'll have to step up to that.  But I'm made to think of things in different perspectives, and that's clearly a good thing.  I originally decided to pay for counseling with the possibility of getting EMDR treatment, which I've been told about by several friends.  It sounds heavy, but I'm willing to try almost anything to get ahead of this.  A friend of mine, Mima, directed me to a video by a doctor who has a largely holistic approach to issues related to depression and anxiety.  Something I did pick up was a trick to learn to love yourself, with which I had no freakin' idea what to do.  But he said you have to love your brain.  Give it a name and talk to it.  It's only been a few days since I've done this, but it seems to help.  I call my brain "Gary", an acronym for 'gray', as in gray matter that makes up the brain.  So a negative thought will creep up on me, as they always do, and I'll have a chat with him.  "Gary!  Come on, you know better than that.  That's NOT how it is and you know it.  Snap out of it!  I love you, man!"  When I inject some humor into it, it seems to help, even.  I mean, frig, Janice and me give names to everything.  We call our Panasonic TV 'Ms. Viera', our car 'Big Red' (it's not big, but it's a male designation, so to personify Big Red we gave him/it the title to make him/it 'feel more confident'.  I know), our air fryer Nina the Ninja, even our laptops.  Janice's Hewlett Packard computer's name is 'Hugh'.  We pretend it always says 'we are Hugh!' after the famous Star Trek TNG episode with the Borg character with that name.  My 11 inch laptop is 'Little Ace'.  And we put words into our cat Marbles' mouth all the time.  Why not Gary??  

I overcame my fear of spiders years ago by personifying them.  I put myself in their spot.  A little thing looking up at this ginormous beast of a human being.  "You're not gonna hurt me are you?"  I'd say on its behalf.  Immediately, you're giving that little spider a sense of self awareness.  Now my wife nicknames me the Spider Monkey, because I love spiders and monkeys.  Whenever I see a spider in the house, I'll talk to him/her, gently escort it into a glass, and bring her outside where she's safe, and where all the food is.  I get the instant gratification of having saved a little bitty life, as well as a way to make peace with these little creatures.  Over the years, it's become amusing.  Just a couple of months ago, there was a spider in the corner of our bedroom, and she was just minding her own business, so we left her alone.  But the next day webs were showing up, so I literally spoke to her.  "K, look, I'm going to have to move you someplace else, because there'll be no mess in here."  She'll dodge the glass I try to corral her in, and I'll try the next night.  So then, the next evening, she wound up directly on the wall straight above my head (this kind of thing happens with me a LOT).  I was on my laptop surfing the web, no pun intended, and just let her be while she spied on me.  Not long after, she lost her footing or something on the wall and fell between my glasses and my eyes and scurried away.  I thought it was quite funny, I literally laughed out loud.  "K, look.... I know you didn't mean that.  I'll wait for you to come back and I'll try to help you tomorrow."  Tomorrow comes, and there she is, right on the wall on my side of the bed again.  She fell on the floor and I helped her into the glass ... "atta girl!  Now you're being good!"  ... and bid her farewell as I brought her outside.

That was a lengthy story to illustrate my point that, if you name something and personify it, you can form a relationship of sorts.  So I've started a relationship with Gary.  It's yet to be seen if there's any longevity to this strategy, but I'm willing to try anything reasonable.  The Gary Strategy has yet to be fully tested, but it's an active one.  And I like it up to this point.  And Janice thinks it's cute.

This, coupled with Janice and me going back to the gym since the beginning of August, and my therapy added to it, is all in an effort to calm down the racket in my head.  Since I've been dealing with this all my life, I don't expect to ever be rid of it completely.  But I do want to take extra measures to cope with it.  Not working is allowing me the time and space to do this.  In fact, just writing this is also an effective coping mechanism.  

What my future holds monetarily is the part that scares me the most.  I can't keep switching jobs because I'm having vicious anxiety attacks at work.  The source problem needs to be addressed.  Confidence is a major key to beating back this illness to a more manageable level.  Perhaps my admission that I'll never fully be recovered from this is also a step toward realizing this as a disability as well, because there's a large part of me that feels guilty for accepting that label.  Still, disability benefits would help keep me alive, but definitely not thrive.  And that's bothersome to think of.

Ultimately, time will tell whether this path I'm currently on will lead me to sunnier days.  Odds are it won't, but I can't give up hope either.

If you've been kind enough to read this and/or offer your support, please know I acknowledge it.  A lot of people have indeed given up on me and are just 'peripheral' friends.  And that's fine, we all have those.  But I know I'm a lot more challenging to have as a friend than most others.

GARY!!!!  Smarten the fuck up!!

There's what I'm talking about.  

Thanks for reading.

the abyss

 Not going to make this too long.  

I suffered a pretty bad anxiety attack a few days ago.  I've been in 'recovery mode' since, and I'm finding it hard to get back; but I will.

But I'm so tired of having to be resilient.  I hate it when it happens, so much.  What can be a gloriously wonderful day can turn on a dime by a trigger that pulls you right back into the abyss.  And it seems the only way out of that abyss is purging via self-harm.  The very, very worst thing about it all is that my wife often witnesses it happening.  And she feels helpless to stop it when it happens.

Sometimes the stress is remarkable.  Right now I'm dealing with lack of support from my employer by being cut down to part time (from 40 hours/week to 28, which they claim is the bare minimum full time hours; part time to everyone else).  This leaves me feeling unwelcome to go back.  I see the writing on the wall, and I've seen it for a while now. The company I work for is cutting my position in most locations, but my former boss stood up for me because of my loyalty and quality of work.  But now he's gone, and so is my support.  Many others left because he did.  In the end, it means I need to find other work.  It's a feeling someone like me, who's afflicted with this anxiety/PTSD/depression illness, has a hard time dealing with, or finding a positive outlook on.

I did just find a page that very much describes what people like me deals with, and it hits the mark right on the head.  For those who have a hard time dealing, or understanding, it's kind of a must-read.

Thanks for dropping by my humble little corner of the web.

Dear Michael

 Boy, is it ever tough to find help for this mental illness crap.  I'm getting stonewalled at every turn, and I'm getting beyond frustrated.  I'm even willing to pay for it, and I'm STILL getting stonewalled.

But I did get to see a psychologist in '17, for three sessions, before my coverage ran out.  So it didn't yield a lot of results.  However, there was one assignment I was given that I kept, and just found in my drafts in my e-mail folder just today.  It touched my soul, again.  The assignment was to write a letter to my 12 year old self.  If I could talk to him, what would I say?

So I invite you to share in my very personal story that I shared only with my wife and psychologist up to now.  

Thanks for coming to read.  Be good to yourselves.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Michael,

I know Dad just died.  You haven't really grieved; maybe you don't know how to.  Maybe you don't know what just hit you yet.  Something I have to tell you, though, as you will find out in the years ahead, is that Dad's dying isn't your fault.

You watched Mom and how upset she was that morning when she found Dad lifeless in his bed.  You saw him too.  When you heard about him sitting on the curb on the street in front of the McGivney's house down the street the day before he died, it was because he was troubled by things going on.  Dad had a hard life that you don't know about.  The things you saw in your short, but perhaps long at times 12 years, are things a 12 year old should not have to endure.  No normal kid should have to go through this.  

I know the attention that you got from Dad was nice, and he wasn't really very mean to you, but he lost his cool with your mom, brothers and sisters a lot.  Don't feel guilty about this.  Perhaps Dad realized that it was wrong all along, and that that sort of thing could not go on.  Still, I know you witnessed him abusing your brothers and sisters and your Mom.  That all comes from a place in Dad that he didn't have much control over, because of his experience in the war, losing his brother overseas, among so many other things.  Dad was simply overwhelmed and didn't have the tools to deal with things then that are available later.

You have to know as you grow from this point forward, that none of it was your fault!  You're just a little boy, trying to learn and find his way through life.  You're about to experience your teen years without a father.  If Dad were alive and you had to live with those conditions through your teen years, it might be worse, for both of you.  The fact is, Mom is there, and she's stronger than anyone you will ever know in your whole life.  And you need to also be there for her.  And you will be.

As the years come, you will experience some trouble relating to some people.  It's only because of those first 12 years you went through with your family.  They will all be there for you, and you need to have patience with some of them.  After all, they are dealing with many issues relating to Dad that you won't, or can't, know about.  Mom tried all she could to help, and she will be there for you.  You will also be there for her.

Don't be hard on yourself when other kids come down on you or fail to understand what you've gone through, because they all also have their own stories to tell that may never get told.  It's why there are bullies.  Not everyone has a mother as strong as yours.

The fact that you've been sexually abused is making you question your masculinity, and it will for years.  You have to know, that person who did that to you also was abused.  That person is a victim, too, who doesn't have a clue how to deal with what happened to them.  That person will also be okay, and believe it or not, you will too.  'X' did not ask for what happened.  Neither did you when X took it out on you.  But that cycle of abuse will stop with the both of you, because you will both become heroes in spite of what you endured.  Heroes because you halted the cycle of violence and abuse.

It may seem like your sister is cruel to you, but in fact, she's likely just acting out from the abuse she's endured from Dad.  She will grow out of it.  I know it's asking a lot to endure your teen years in front of you, because they may be a bit tougher than some of the other average teens.  But you are strong and resilient, and will come out as a stronger adult in spite of the rough times you've had.  You will understand others so much more.

Lastly... don't be afraid to grieve over Dad.  It's not something you've had to 'learn' to do, and you shouldn't have to.  But it's healthier, and will help you to understand life a lot more.  Don't worry so much about your grades in school -- just don't quit, because Mom doesn't want you to.  An angel will come into your life later on to make everything right and reward you for your patience and love for everyone else.  You will marry her and be much happier than you've ever been.

Be tough, Michael, because you ARE tough.  More than you know; perhaps more than you ever will know.

Love, 

Yourself, 51

Watching the Wheels

 The doctor's taken me off work for eight weeks.

I guess you must have an idea how this blog post's going to go, eh?  That eight weeks off isn't due to any kind of physical injury, though some of that went on.  But this year's been a shit-show for me up to this point.  Things are happening that I dreaded for a long time might happen.

Don't get me wrong, there are things I appreciate in my life despite the crap that's orbiting it these days.  My wife has been my rock, first off.  She's my voice when I can't find my own.  She's my backstop when I feel like I'm losing my balance.  Our cat Marbles is always at home to greet me when I come through the door.  I like to immerse myself in cable news to try to make sense out of the bigger pictures.  

But one thing I did this year was shut down social media for Lent season.  That did help, and it made me realize how toxic places like facebook have become.  I refrain now for the most part on commenting on political issues, because it's just preaching to the choir.  Those who don't want to join the choir never will no matter how much you coax or plead them or enlighten them.  What you see as light is dark to too many others, and I'm just not energetic enough to change anyone's mind anymore.  There are opinions and there are facts, and the line is increasingly blurred between the two in this world today.

That being said, it makes for a far more stressful world, and it certainly doesn't help people with a condition like mine.  When you're in the water walking towards the ocean and the water's getting higher and you can't swim, there are less and less people around you to help.  Some of them will shove your head right under.  And I can't swim anyway, so....

It's been three months since I've had a new manager where I work, a job I've had for 10 1/2 years.  I won't put blame on any one person, but my job has turned upside down.  The corporation that owns the place is quite cold and greedy, slicing jobs away every year in the name of shareholder profits.  This leaves those who are left to work extra hard.  And look... I already work extra hard.  Always have.  Add more work to this equation and you'll get a reliable formula for stress.  This year I've had the finger pointed at me for things I didn't do, or am responsible for.

I don't want to draw this out too long, so I'll just say that one day, April 22 (unfortunately in this case, my dear daughter's 25th birthday), after a highly stressful day at work, following a highly stressful beginning of the year, I drove home praying to God to give me strength to withstand what I was feeling.  When I got home, I went to give Marbles his treats when I stumbled for a moment, flew into a rage and dropped my body cold and flat on my back on the hard floor.  I thought I broke my ribs in my back.  I was barely able to crawl to the couch and message 'help' to Janice several times.  She rushed home and found me hunched over on the couch, struggling to breathe.  I felt horrible, but I didn't know specifically what was wrong, other than I suffered an overwhelming anxiety attack.  My back hurt, my chest hurt, and I couldn't talk. I managed to get to bed and lay flat to try to calm down, with Janice's help and coaching.  As it turns out, I was sent for x-rays which turned out negative.  Still, I can't sleep on my left side or do much with my left arm because of pain.  After Janice talked to our doctor, he took me off work for two months so I could try to center myself.  This I found out today.

The year started off innocently enough, with me taking two weeks off for throat surgery, only to find out I have to go back and get it done again.  But when I went back to work, a lot had changed.  I was warned that it would.  That didn't make it easier to deal with.

Now I'm left wondering... this has happened a lot.  Ultimately, I don't think it's just work.  It's ME.  There's a lot wrong with ME.  And as time goes on, it seems to be getting more difficult to handle.  I doubled up my meds, which helped, but I feel like I'm chasing my tail.  Like there's no end to this vortex I'm stuck in.  And I don't have anyone professional to talk to outside of my physician.  

It leaves me wondering: is permanent disability in my near future?  I really, really, really don't want that.  I want to be a productive member of society and earn my keep.  But why is it so hard to find work that I don't hate?  I'm admittedly devoid of skills.  I'm not a professional at anything and don't think I ever will be, but I won't count it completely out either.  I just don't know what to do at this stage in my life.  It's a bit of a crossroads, because I don't know how smart it is to go back to the job that seems to be triggering all this darkness in me.  

Now I have a couple of months to figure out what to do next.  In this current job market, I don't have a hell of a lot of options.  Perhaps I'll take up writing more, sending out op-eds to national news outlets and seeing if anyone notices.  It couldn't hurt.  The worst I could do is not try at all.  Maybe I could finish writing the story I started that's half done.

One thing is for sure, I'm infinitely grateful for the patience Janice has shown me through this.  Not everyone has that kind of constitution.  I have a lot of friends who couldn't be bothered with some whiny nincompoop who can't seem to outrun the storm clouds over his head.  I don't blame them.  But I appreciate those who actually show they care at all.  And I still love all the others.  I guess it's me that I don't really love.  

But I don't for the life of me understand the whole "self love" thing.  I don't know how that works.  I don't know how to administer love to myself or pat myself on the back or anything.  I guess that's what professionals are good at, helping you love yourself.  But I can't find any.  Psychologists cost money, and psychiatrists do too, unless you want to be put on a waiting list and be seen by one seven years later, like I did.  And even then, there are only two... "2".... psychiatrists in this city.  One of them dropped me.  And the other isn't taking any more patients.  That means pay to play, or go home.  So, home it is.  The self-help thing is a non starter for me.  It's too cold and lonely and unsupportive for someone as deeply damaged as I appear to be.

Anyway, I now have an abundance of time to figure out how to navigate work life and personal life before I try to dive back in.  It's pretty scary.  I'm not a young pup anymore, and uncertainly like that at my age is quite frightening.  I'll have to watch the wheels go round and round and see where they'll roll.

Thanks for reading as always.  And God bless.

Nobody nodes the trouble I've seen...

 March 7... already.  Funny how time seems to be flying, until you think about this whole Covid thing, then it seems like time is crawling.  I guess it's because we feel like we're being cheated of the time spent battling this thing.  It seems like it'll never end.

When I last left off in my blog here, things were looking up.  I seemed to have a handle on my whole depression/anxiety/PTSD issues.  But then, reality hit.  And I took a sharp left turn at the beginning of the year, and I'm struggling to get on the right track again.  I'm still not there.  It's very hard.

I mused that the holidays are hard on me every year last post, and that's a fact that remains, but I think most of us noticed a difference around us this past holiday season.  December in general is a hard month to get through.  For one thing, where I work, Christmas season takes a toll on you.  But it was even worse this time out because people's tolerance is already being tested with the current restrictions around everything.  Still, it did make me stop and think for the first time why I get so anxious at that time of year.  I wondered if I actually do have PTSD.  There's a friend of mine who was a cop and retired, and told me some stories of why she acquired PTSD herself, and that, I truly believe, is what she has.  She experienced serious trauma on the job and her healing is ongoing, but thankfully, paid for because of what her line of work was.

That made me think... she thought actually that I have PTSD.  This was a while ago, and I entertained the idea that I might have it, but ultimately dismissed it.  Until I started thinking about this last December.  And it all makes sense when I realized that, man, a lot of crap happened during the month of December in my past.  

When I was a little boy, amongst a family of 6 siblings and my parents, every Christmas almost, I got sick.  Like, really sick.  The worst being when I was five or six, when all I did through the holidays was barf.  I threw up so much that I couldn't get to the bathroom on my own.  In the holiday seasons following, I got sick at Christmas some more, until I got into my teens, finally.  Dad died when I was 12, so that jumbled up any kind of normalcy life might have for the teen years.  But when I turned 14, in the same days when John Lennon died (maybe the exact day, I'm not sure), I spent two weeks in the hospital after being hit by a car and went into a coma for a night.  Scary times, for sure, but my God, what Mom must've went through.  They did take this particular concussion seriously, because it was quite serious, as you might imagine.  I seemed to deal with it okay, until time went on and revealed other issues.  But it was a very tough time for me, too.  Nightmarish. 

So with all of this in mind, it makes sense that the holiday season heightens PTSD symptoms.  It's why I withdraw more, get anxious with people, and generally just feel more agitated than I might if it was summer or something.  Take, for example, what happened with me a couple of years ago, when during Christmas season at work I took it on the chin from a lot of rude and irate customers.  Actually took it on the heel a couple of times, when seniors would ram into me to attempt to make me move.  I told Janice about it and I think she half believed me, until she actually saw it for herself one day when one old man did just that.  But retail can be a very, very challenging place during the holidays.  If you're mentally compromised like me, that just adds more ingredients to the toxic soup.  I wound up self-harming myself to an alarming degree, in that it was visible to everyone.  I pleaded with my boss at the time to let me have weekends off, since that tended to be when most of my incidents happened.  That was rejected, as I expected, and when the new year hit, I made the call to take myself out of work for a week or so.  Upon seeing my doctors, they decided to take me off for three months.  When I went back eventually, I was finally offered weekends off.  That was a bit of a game changer.  I stabilized substantially, and kind of reset myself when I went back to work.  Still, the point of all this is, a lot of the trouble originated during December.  

I don't know why I didn't think of it before.  So much trouble happened for me during that month over my lifetime.  I even wound up with a bleeding ulcer in December of 84 when I was in my later teens.  I was white as a ghost and dangerously anemic, and almost didn't seek help for it until my mother heard me nearly pass out in the bathroom after I'd filled the toilet with blood.  I was close to developing a perforated ulcer, which would've been even more serious and potentially more life threatening.  Thankfully, the wonder drug at the time, Tagamet, healed my ulcer up and I was good to go in January.  I missed school for most of December because clearly, I wasn't able to attend.  Anyway, my point being, December has such a stressful history for me, that I stop to ponder that if I really do have PTSD, it flares up the most in that month.  I would tell my psychiatrist this info if I actually had one.  

Recent revelations have forced me to ponder what to do with myself regarding my health in general.  I went to see my ENT over voice issues I was having that were getting progressively worse.  As it tuns out, I had 2 polyps on my vocal cords that needed to come out.  The doc told me they were 'singer's nodules', which I find amusing, since I'm not much of a singer at all.  Anyway, I had to take a Covid test before surgery, which was less than fun.  It almost felt like they were trying to impregnate my brain with a cotton swab.  They just have to find a better way to test for coronavirus than this, as I know it makes a lot of people hesitate because it's quite well known how difficult it can be.  But, it came back negative, so the surgery was a go.  It was just day surgery, thank God, and I was in and out of the hospital within two or three hours.  But the rest of that day was very rough to get through.  I took a bad reaction to what I think was a combination of meds; but I was okay the next day.  I was off work for two weeks to let my voice recover.  But here's the thing.....

.... It didn't.  My voice even seemed to have gotten worse.  When I went for my follow-up appointment with the ENT, she sent a camera down my throat and found yet another polyp that developed since the surgery.  That started a discussion.  She wondered why it just popped up like that so quickly, so she told me she was sending me to a gastro doctor to find out if I have excessive stomach acid issues.  I told her that stress is likely playing a role and that I have anxiety issues, without going too far into detail.  She told me to seek out a psychiatrist she specifically named - which is one of two in the city, the other one being the one who stopped seeing me.  So, I got a burst of optimism about that particular issue.  But the revelation that I also have a polyp in my stomach now, along with the mystery polyp in my throat, put my worry into overdrive.  I'm still waiting on an appointment with the gastro doctor, which my ENT noted to be as 'semi-urgent'.  That's not terribly comforting either.  She told me I'll be seeing her in six weeks to figure out when the newest nodule in my throat will come out via surgery, but she wants to get to the bottom of why it's there in the first place, hence the gastro doctor.  I'm not extremely worried, now that some time has passed, but I am anxious to get it behind me.  

The new manager that I work for isn't turning out to be the source of stress I expected, but changes are happening, and that leaves me agitated sometimes.  Still, change doesn't always come smoothly, so I accept that.  As it is right now, I don't feel there's any threat to my job security.  My new boss tells me quite frequently that I'm doing a good job, so that much is good.  I've found that some staff are kind of banding together in support of each other, including me, as we adjust to new things.  Still, stress is still a factor at work, which is detrimentally affecting me via digestive issues.  The whole Covid mess just compounds everything.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a sense of hopelessness as we try to get through this thing.  My wife thinks we'll be wearing masks all the time from here on out.  It sure feels that way sometimes.  

Plus the beginning of the year left a mark on me that I can't seem to shrug off.  Suffice to say that my self-image has taken a nose dive that resulted in changes to my behavior that some might see as making me seem more withdrawn, even boring.  I recovered somewhat, but my self-image issues are worsening, and I don't know how to pull out of it.  As it turns out, the new psychiatrist I was supposed to see won't take any more patients, so I have no one professionally to turn to now, leaving me to self-treat as best I can.  I've even been told I'm unapproachable.  So I guess I'll get help from..... NO ONE.  Despite what Bell's Let's Talk campaign might brag to you about, treatment for mental health is getting worse and worse every year, and I don't see it getting better, despite public outcry.  

I'm not writing this stuff to get sympathy or something, either.  I'm writing it for the record and for a point of reference.  If I ever get to see a professional again, I can point to this blog to help explain things as pertaining to my own state of mental health.  Not to mention, to reach out to anyone who might be reading this that they're not alone if they're dealing with similar issues.  The fact is, though, I have no fucking idea what to do now.  I even wondered if I'm headed for permanent disability over all this.  That's not something I want.

I guess I'll have to sit tight and see what my near future appointments serve up as they relate to all these issues.  I'll try to be cautiously optimistic.

In the meantime, I give thanks to my family and friends for any support they've shown, and especially to my wife for enduring ... well, ME.  I realize all of this doesn't exactly make me look terribly attractive.  Not that I ever was.

As a side note, please get your Covid vaccination when your turn comes up so we can all get out of this awful mess we're in.  Don't buy into alarmists trying to tell you Bill Gates is trying to plant microchips in you or that you'll turn into Frankenstein or something.  Trust science.  It's fact based.

Thanks as always for reading.  I value every person who cares to check this blog out.  

God bless, and stay safe, and don't give in to hate.

GET UP, and get that COVID outta here

 2021 is here!  Finally.  But let's not kid ourselves.  We ain't out of the woods yet.  We're still in the thick of it.  

Covid pretty much sucked the life out of the year, didn't it.  That was rhetorical.  But every holiday, every birthday, every day off, was tempered by this historic illness.  We weren't allowed to be around a lot of people.  Folks died alone in their hospital rooms because no one was allowed around them because of how contagious this damned thing is.  And there are/were deniers and skeptics that this is actually happening, which just floors me.  Since '16 when Trump was elected, trust in media has eroded very quickly in favor of bullshit false 'facts', when in reality, only the fringe news sites and stations that support the authoritarian-wannabe were truly guilty of mass falsehood spreading.  The weak-minded bought into it, but even more scary, people you would expect to come out against this kind of scary fascism actually wound up supporting it.  It got scarier every year since then, and now it's coming to an explosive end later this month.  Make no mistake... the U.S. is the country seen as the leaders of the free world, but even countries around the world watching them feel sorry for them and are frightened at what they're becoming.  Being in Canada, we're direct next-door neighbors, so what happens there has the biggest effect on us first.  No one in the media outside of Canada's own seems to recognize that fact.  

On a personal level, things haven't been too bad since I last posted here on Ragnar.  This in spite of a crazier than usual holiday season.  You might have heard that some companies actually thrived during the pandemic, while others simply shut down.  I work for one of the thriving companies, where business actually went bionic.  My wife had it the same.  Her postal outlet that she runs is experiencing record business, thanks in no small part to how she operates the place with our daughter and one other who handles a shift or two a week.  Myself, I've worked overtime pretty much every week, and my job's quite physical, so I go home every day wiped right out.  We quit the gym because of too many restrictions due to Covid, and we'll go back when it's back to normal.  Whenever that is.  

Regarding myself and my head's state, I've actually kept things together through the season.  Only one panic attack... and I don't even remember it, because I guess I had it in my sleep.  Janice witnessed it, so I can't really say what I did, except that I appeared to be 'convulsing' before I actually got up and whatever happened.  All I remember is taking THC oil that Janice administered to me.  I think during that day, signs of an attack were there, but I just didn't really pick up on it.  I was fidgety, annoyed and as Janice would say, had the 'jimmy legs' where I was twitching all the time.  I remember coming around and feeling exhausted, though, because those attacks are exhausting.  I'm quite wary of what can happen when I experience one of these phases.  I often dream about them -- dream of going through them.  But this was the first time I know of that I acted one out in my sleep.  

But I don't know what exactly to do about that.  I have no psychologist, because it's not free and quite pricey.  I have no psychiatrist because he bailed on me.  And my own doctor only really believes me if Janice vouches for me.  In other words, I'm on my own.  I don't believe in pseudo self-help books or videos or news clippings or anything, because each and every one of us experiences something different.  I can be watching a video, for example, of somebody telling me something related to a person with depression and anxiety, but it does not address me because my circumstances are so different.  As I've exhaustively stated before, I've had multiple concussions throughout my life, along with a number of traumatic experiences.  YES, people have been through worse.  But no one experiences the same as another every time.  I'm quite lucky to be alive.  Thanks in large part to my wife and my daughter.

Anyway... apart from that 'phantom' anxiety bout, I've maintained the course quite well.  There are other health things to be addressed.  My ENT sent me for a barium x-ray of my digestive tract, suspicious that the nodes on my vocal cords, which I'm having removed via surgery January 18, might be the result of acid reflux.  I don't believe that to be the case, but getting a closer look at my stomach isn't something I object to, in order to rule out everything.  She thinks I might have a hernia in my tract.  If that's true, that could be yet another surgery, though only laproscopic and nothing too major.  Getting my nodes taken out isn't terribly major either.  It'll leave me voiceless for a couple of weeks, which takes me out of work for that time.  It seems the beginning of the year is where I have to watch it.  Last year in February, I broke my wrist.  A year before that, I was taken off for stress leave for three months.  Before that, I had one year that started with sinus surgery, followed by knee surgery, plus multiple bouts with kidney stones that required multiple surgeries.  So the beginning of every year these days gives me the heebie-jeebies a little.  

I guess I can take solace in the fact that every time I was confronted with something, after it knocked me down I always got back up.  When I did see a psychologist before my coverage ran out, she told me I was resilient and should tell myself that.  If I was told that story about someone else, I would tell them they were resilient.  Why wouldn't I say that about myself?  But I can't.  Most of the time, I feel like I deserve what I get.  I have quite a guilt complex, I guess.  If I have bad "karma", I'd like to know how much more I have to pay.  And with what.  But, alas, I don't believe in karma.  Too many really bad folks get away with everything, and too many good folks never get a break.  It's nonsense.

One challenge facing me in the new year is my manager at work.  The guy I've had for ten years is leaving, and a new one is coming in.  Nothing at all against the new guy, I don't even know him.  But the boss I know, knew me.   He knows my medical history and all the quirks related to it, and was very supportive.  I think I've been quite lucky that way.  When I leave for surgery in a couple of weeks, the old boss will be going and the new one stepping in.  I guess I'm kind of nervous because I've dealt with many asshole bosses since I left driving for BJ's Subs and Catering in '07.  Two of those bosses made me seek supplemental help for my anxiety and mental issues.  I guess I'll remain hopeful and be cautiously optimistic.

Anyway, the road ahead...  I'm looking forward to getting this vaccine, and hoping to God everyone who's against it comes around and gets it too.  There sure are a lot of conspiracy theories out there against it.  One thing I've found about conspiracy theories (ever notice the very word contains the words 'cons' and 'piracy'?) is that they're always bullshit.  I used to love that stuff.  It was great entertainment.  But not a lot more than that.  For too many, they've taken the place of facts and useful information and science.  It really pisses me off with so many of these church goers saying they're above the law and that God will protect them when they go to mass.  Never mind that you're not supposed to put God to the test.  You can be faithful and still go by the rules that society presents when things like Covid go awry.  

How well the world prospers in the year to come depends solely on how many people take the vaccine against this crushing illness.  I'll lean toward the positive side, and hope that this coming summer brings us back to some semblance of normality.  I refuse to accept the term 'new normal'.  This is NOT normal, and I do not accept it as such for any length of time.  We've had to make adjustments to deal with this abnormal situation.  To say it's the 'new normal' is to relinquish hope.  We will get back to normal, but this is not normal, what we're dealing with right now.  But... we won't get back to normal if we're going to constantly remain divided.  Division is borne from far right politics.  And by far right, I don't necessarily mean conservatives.  Far left is just as dangerous... but there is no far left.  You might argue that with me, but we've never been in any danger of going that way.  We ARE in danger of slipping into totalitarianism and authoritarianism.  The Progressive Conservatives in Canada, for instance, gave way to just Conservatives.  Removing 'Progressive' from the title is everything.  The PC's, at least, were very aware of environmental issues; even if I didn't agree with much of their financial credo.  When the PC's became C's, Harper came in and annihilated scientific records related to preserving the environment and deregulated many of the laws and rules people had to follow to protect them.  Trump is doing even worse to his country.  I still feel a stir of anger in me when I think about when Harper made a clandestine meeting with Trump at the White House at the beginning of his presidency.  No one knows what they discussed.  I suspect no one ever will know.  But Stephen Harper scared me the way Trump does.  He's basically Trump with a brain.  I have hope with the Conservative's new leader Erin O'Toole, though, he at least doesn't seem as mean spirited and confrontational as his predecessor.  The only way I'd want to see the Conservatives take over right now is with a minority government; although really, that's how I like all my governments.  The people  in power need to stay accountable that way.  It's why I'm glad Trudeau's Liberals are a minority.  Too many in his cabinet don't know their asses from their elbows.  Bill Morneau, his now former finance minister, buried Canada in debt long before Covid did.  If they didn't have a path to getting out of our $20 billion deficit before Covid hit, how are they supposed to get us out of this $400 billion tsunami?  The Conservatives would bring in austerity measures, which are highly unethical when Harper pulled it.  That's why I say. sure, give the Cons a shot... with a MINORITY.  I can just imagine where we'd be if the Liberals pulled off a majority last election.  All this being said... I'm still Green all the way.  They're the only realistic party out there; though the NDP impresses me more and more these days too.

When Lent comes along in February, I'm going to be making a few 'sacrifices'.  I'll be cutting down drastically on meat consumption, like we do every year, but also, I'll put social media completely on hold.  Facebook has become Hatebook.  I never took to Twitter because that's the most toxic place of all of them.  I'll have to be more active with my e-mail.  But there are far too many lies and hatred spewing from my computer screen these days.  It's downright sad.  If I have any friend on social media that shows crazy negativity without any facts to back it up, they're gone.  I hate doing that, too.

Anyway, the new year is here, we're scheduled to see KISS in Bangor in August, which was postponed from last September, and it'll just be nice if we can get to a place where we don't need to wear a mask or count the people who are around us.  This is not how we're supposed to live... but it's how we have to live until this virus is defeated once and for all.

Thanks for tuning in to read this.  I wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year.  Better times are on the horizon.

Till then, fire up the colortinis and watch the pictures as they fly through the air.

Good night.