Monthly Archives: March 2019

End of Winter and Renewed Hope

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I think I’m finally breaking out the depression and anxiety fuel irritability that I have been fighting for almost two weeks.  Got some good sleep the last few days, granted at odd times.  I still sleep eight hours a day, but I usually sleep from 8pm to midnight, rattle around for a few hours in the middle of the night, then sleep from 4 am to 8am.  Even though I have an odd sleep pattern anymore, everything isn’t going completely bad.  I started lifting arm weights in my home about two weeks ago.  The first couple sessions were tough as I hadn’t lifted regularly for over a year.  But I think it’s beginning to come back.  Picked up some multi vitamins, fish oil pills, etc. the last time I bought groceries.  I have to think some of my lethargy, aches and pains, etc. were made worse by an unbalanced diet.  For most of the winter I ate lots of lean meats, some soups, yogurts, canned vegetables, rice, and occasional baked potatoes.  I wasn’t getting much for fresh fruits or vegetables this winter.  So I been eating more fresh fruits and vegetables lately.  I’m beginning to notice a positive difference.  I don’t have as many unexplainable aches and pains and I feel mentally sharper and less scattered overall.  My favorite fruit is probably red grapes.  My favorite vegetable has to be tie between green peas and carrots.

I still don’t travel outside of my hometown due to the flood problems.  Many places are still cleaning up and still in danger of even more flooding.  I won’t be surprised if food prices start going up later this year.  It’s been pretty rough for a lot of people but I have been spared much of it so far.

March 30 2019

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Even though I’ve been sleeping more than normal the last several days, I think I’m starting to settle down and return to normal.  Sometimes a few days of extra sleep and minimal caffeine can help me recharge.  Got some of my disability pension money this morning, so I had to buy some groceries.  I don’t think I’ve been getting enough vitamins and minerals from my usual winter diet, so I picked up some vitamins, fish oil pills, and fresh fruits.  Haven’t had much for fruit this winter.  Could be why I’ve been more irritable than usual the last couple weeks.

Haven’t talked with much of anyone the last several days.  Been feeling short tempered and paranoid enough that I’ve more or less just kept to myself this week.  It does get boring and lonely at times.  But, unfortunately, so many people in my apartment complex and my life in general have just been feeling moodier than usual lately.  All of the bad weather and floods the last couple weeks have kept me in my town.  I really don’t want to go anywhere now or see anyone.  I just no longer want to be bothered by toxic and negative people.  Those types just drain the life and joy out of me.  At least online I can block those people and opt out of conversations without causing a scene.  Yeah, I’m the one trying to remain upbeat and optimist and people claim I’m anti social.  Anymore I’m my own best company, some days my only company.

Asking ‘Why’ and Not Caring About Popular Opinions

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I readily admit that I am anything but normal.  I wasn’t normal even before I became mentally ill.  One thing that definitely makes me abnormal is that I have to always ask questions.  I just have to know why things work or don’t work the way that they do.  I imagine in some aspects I’m the six year kid who asks ‘why’ to everything as a thirty eight year old adult.  I found people were annoyed at me as a six year old when I kept asking questions and they are even more annoyed that as a man entering my middle aged years I still ask ‘why’ to everything.

I never understood why people got angry when I asked questions.  When I don’t ask questions is when I don’t learn.  When I don’t learn I make mistakes in my school work, my job, my relationships, my dating life, etc.  And then people get angry because I didn’t ask questions.  I think this is strange at best and mind numbingly stupid at worst.  Do you want people to learn or not?  If yes, then how are they supposed to learn if they aren’t free to ask questions?  I guess that asking questions means you have ‘attitude problems’ or ‘don’t respect authority’ to some people.  I don’t understand this.

I don’t even understand people who don’t question much of anything.  Are they that compliant?  Do they not have any sense of wonder or curiosity?  And furthermore, why do such people feel a visceral need to condemn those of us who are asking questions and looking for ways to improve any and all things.  I have never taken authority as unquestionable truth.  And I never will at this point.  I was always told ‘get with the program’ or ‘wait until you’re an adult’ or ‘wait until you hit the cold cruel world’ when I was asking “too many” questions or trying to ignore things that made no sense.  Well, I am an adult who still isn’t with the program and I still ask questions and have a burning desire to learn.  The cold and cruel world has hit me more than it has some people, and the only time I am not an optimist is when I’m in the deep grips of the illness.  In short, I proved my critics and elders dead wrong.  I didn’t make their mistakes.  And I am a more interesting man and better conversation than they themselves could ever be.  It’s because I didn’t quit asking.  I didn’t quit seeking.  I didn’t quit experimenting.  I didn’t let my curiosity and sense of wonder be murdered by the short sighted demands and duties of adulthood.  My soul didn’t die in a job I hated that I did just to pay rent and buy food.  I didn’t become a bitter and angry old man because I had a few failed relationships and never got married.  I didn’t start condemning the “damn kids” when I became a man.  I remembered what it was like to be condemned as one of the “damn kids” as a teenager even though I was more ethical and had better morals than most of my elders and elected rulers.  It sucked.  I haven’t forgotten that even after all these years.  I never will forget.  I vowed when I was eighteen that I would never pull that on anyone.

I will continue to evolve and ask questions no matter how old I get.  I refuse, flat out refuse, to be one of these bitter old codgers screaming at the kids on his lawn and pining for good old days that were quite lousy in many ways for many people.  I don’t even see owning a lawn as an old man even if I do get rich.  Jack Kerouac once said if you need to own a welcome mat, then you own too much.  I don’t know if I’d go that extreme but I did like Brad Pitt in ‘Fight Club’ saying “The things you own eventually own you” and “once you’ve lost everything, you’re free to do anything.”  I don’t know about that extreme either, but for my own personal experiences I have lost most of what modern society deems the hallmarks of decent living.  I lost my career because of schizophrenia.  I lost the chance to ever become rich because of mental illness.  I lost most of my physical health because of schizophrenia.  I lost the chance for marriage, relationships, sexual intimacy, children because mental illness made me impossible to live with.  I even lost my ability to drive a car in high traffic areas because of mental illness.  Most of my countrymen would think I am a complete loser just because of these measures and stats on paper.  But, with mental illness and entering old age, I have learned that I don’t have to care what others think any more.  As a result, I don’t care what others think.  I don’t want to impress people.  I don’t really care if I am liked.  I don’t even care if people believe me anymore.  I have found that usually when people think I’m lying the most is exactly when I’m telling the most truth.  That, and I’m just ahead of the curve.  I don’t care to stop asking why.  Not now, not ever.  I also no longer feel a visceral need to impress anyone.  I will continue to ask why until I die.  And I don’t care who likes or dislikes me in the process.

Frustration With My Schizophrenia and Apologies

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Haven’t been doing well lately.  Spent the better part of the last week and a half being a hermit and trying to avoid everyone else’s drama.  Decided to venture out today.  First thing I see as soon as I leave my apartment is several of my neighbors involved in a major argument.  It was bad enough I should have called the police on these people.  But it wouldn’t have done any good and would have made me a marked man among my neighbors.  I rarely long for the past, but the level of civility I see among my neighbors and friends is pathetic.  I’ve say they are like children but even children don’t act as bad as what I see and hear on a daily basis.  We say to ourselves “I ain’t sparing the rod on my child because that ain’t what my daddy did.”  I see more adults who could use spankings and beatings than I do children anymore.

I have reached my breaking point.  I have spent months more or less alone because I no longer want to deal with rude and irritable people all the time.  And when I do get out to socialize, I am constantly bombarded by negativity and stupidity.  It’s enough to make a man pull his hair out.  It is healthy to cut negative people out of your life, I am living proof of that.  But, when the vast majority of people near you are in a negative and toxic mood, it makes for many long days at home alone.  Maybe I just have too much compassion.  Maybe I just have too strong of feelings and passions.  I definitely am a passionate person who will speak his mind even if it is unpopular.  Been this way since childhood.  It made me an outcast as a child and got me ignored as a young man and now it’s driving wedges between myself and my neighbors and friends.  I hate having strong passions and feeling.  I hate having schizophrenia make these feelings even stronger.  I am sorry I am what I am.

Struggles in Dealing With Stupid and Rude People

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Been weathering so so overall.  I sometimes sleep out of boredom.  Sometimes I’m kind of irritated and short tempered.  I haven’t had any breakdowns yet though I’ve come close a couple times.  I guess I’m starting to go stale and crazy from the forced inactivity.

Haven’t been able to lose weight this winter.  Been having too many depressive days of not wanting to exercise and too much comfort food.  At this point I’ve come to accept that I’m probably not going to lose weight while on anti psych medications.  I’ve tried to for twenty years now.  No success.  Any weight I do lose I gain back within months.  I’m terrified of going to a general practitioner anymore.  I know I’m just going to hear the whole “Lose the weight or die” b.s.  Well, no kidding.  You try losing weight while on psych medications.  And you try to manage severe schizophrenia without psych medications.  I tried the herbal remedies when I was in high school.  They did nothing for me.  I even tried the Kevin Tredeau ‘natural cures’ b.s. before he was exposed as a fraud.  I never want to hear about natural cures and how evil science and medicine is ever again.

Science and medicine is why we no longer have half of children dying before adulthood, you idiots!  I hate people who make no effort to learn anything, especially science.  And since I live in a nation where learning, knowledge, and wisdom are routinely damned by even our elected leaders, I just as well be living a real life Idiotocracy.  It’s frustrating, it’s so frustrating.  Makes me think there is no reason to be intelligent and knowledgeable, at least not in this current time and place.  I’ve seen it my entire life.  And it gets worse and worse every passing year.  I’ve given up on my countrymen.  And don’t give me the love it or leave it b.s.  We already have nine million expatriates living overseas.  It ain’t just USA and two hundred “hell holes” anymore, not that it ever was.  This ain’t the 1950s, no matter how bad my elders want it to be.  I’m just tired of seeing nothing but stupid and belligerent people all the time.  I actually fake being in a foul mood sometimes just so I don’t look like a total weirdo to my neighbors and friends.  Normal people suck.  I refuse to be normal.

Nebraska Spring 2019 Floods / Dealing With Natural Disasters with Mental Illness

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Been quite crazy in my home state of Nebraska the last several days.  Had real bad flooding over most of the state for the last five to six days because of all the melting snow and ice.  Since it had been one of the coldest winters in over thirty years, the soil was still frozen and all the melting ice and snow didn’t sink into the ground like it usually does.  So most rivers, creeks, lakes, etc were overflowing and spilling over.  Many smaller villages and towns, especially those close to rivers and lakes, have been evacuated.  Even bigger towns on the Platte and Missouri rivers had forced evacuations, namely Fremont, Norfolk, Columbus, etc.  The Air Force base at Omaha evacuated all their aircraft before all the runways were flooded.  Omaha, being on the Missouri, has bad flooding in some neighborhoods and bad ice jams on the river.  A nuclear power plant an hour drive south of Omaha was shut down for a while as a precaution.  I think it’s up and running again.  Dozens of bridges, levees, dams have broke and washed out.  Road damage is wide spread over the entire state, namely the eastern half.  Some ranchers lost their entire herds of cattle and pigs due to the floods in the east and the last blizzard in the western half of the state.  For a couple days, the main superhighway in our state, east and west bound Interstate 80, was closed from the city of Grand Island to the Wyoming border.  Many villages and towns have to boil their drinking water as a precaution now.  Many places lost power.  And several of the Native American reservations in the far north east part of the state were hit real bad.  Seems like most of the state is either soaked or just starting to dry out.

Fortunately my hometown avoided most of it, at least from what I can tell.  I haven’t left my house in the last three days.  Just decided to stay off the roads and out of the way.  We never lost power or water.  But I have just been staying near home and off the roads as a precaution.

Of course it has been stressful for me the last few days.  I have a few friends in Omaha and still some family in my childhood hometown.  As my parents now live in Oklahoma, I let them know right away I was alright.  Been sleeping more the last few days.  Managed to diffuse a couple potential breakdowns.  Been a little more irritable and short tempered than I would prefer.  I am hoping this mess dries out soon though the near term forecast doesn’t sound very hopeful as we’re supposed to get more rain over the next few days but it’s supposed to be more early spring like.  It does get old just staying home and playing the waiting game.  But not much else I can do right now.

Random Thought on an idle Friday afternoon

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With it being a Friday, I am reminded of posts by friends of how much they love weekends and how much they hate their jobs. Maybe I got lucky by having a severe mental illness and being on disability. Perhaps I did, especially with how much I read about how people hate their jobs and their spouses. I also probably got lucky in that becoming disabled made me not marriage material. Yet, as it were, losing everything civilization told me to value made me fearless and optimistic. Once you lose everything, you are free to do anything it seems.

My Thoughts On Working Life — A Life Of Mental Illness

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It’s now been four years since I last held a regular job. Even though I don’t need the money from a job as I am debt free, I do miss the daily structure that having a job gave. I do not miss dealing with office politics. It seemed that nothing I ever did at […]

via My Thoughts On Working Life — A Life Of Mental Illness

End of Winter, Maybe

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Getting out of the apartment more than once a day now.  For awhile during the fall and winter, there would be times I’d go entire days without leaving my apartment.  But I guess that spending my days chatting with online friends, reading articles, and messing with computer games and programs gets stale after awhile.  A change was due.  Right now much of my region of the country is getting bad blizzards.  I personally have only a couple inches of snow, some ice, but terrible winds.  Fortunately it isn’t as cold as it could be, otherwise it would be Ice Age revisited.  And this happened right as most of the snow we’ve had since before Christmas was melted.  But, this being a late winter blizzard, should be melted soon.  Then we’ll worry about flooding.  So it goes.

Now that I actually want to leave my apartment and venture out, I can’t because of weather.  I’ve been bound to my town all winter just because it was too risky to travel.  My car doesn’t do well in snow.  So I pretty much stay inside most of the time.  I do force myself outside every few days just to get what little sunshine and fresh air I can.

Been having a few minor flare ups of irritability and depression lately.  Fortunately I’ve been able to constructively deal with these.  I do have to sleep more and severely limit my caffeine.  I haven’t had coffee in over a week.  While I do feel less irritable, I do sleep more and feel more scattered.  Fortunately I don’t get much for back pain anymore.  Maybe I have lost more weight.  I exercise some every day.  And I make it a point to stand up or lay down every couple hours so as to break up the boredom and long days.  Been a tougher than usual winter.  Physically it’s been tough because of the snow, cold, wind, and lack of physical activity.  It hasn’t been too terrible mentally.  The last several days have been the toughest.  But I’ve been socializing more too.  And I admit I get more irritated with rude people than I should.  I almost never respond to rude people except to avoid them at all costs.  I have enough going on already without dealing with unnecessary rudeness.

The unexplainable aches and pains are becoming less common.  I guess I’m taking more preventative measures now.  I no longer sit for more than two hours at a time. I sleep in my recliner half of the night to rest my lower back.  I sleep lying down so not to get leg cramps from sitting too long.  I take hot showers at least twice a day now, mainly to keep my joints warm and loose.  Sometimes a few minutes of hot running water on my knees, lower back, and hands will work more wonders than even a couple Advil.  And making a point to get up every couple hours to do even simple things like walk to the kitchen to get a cup of water or walking to check my mail every evening can keep my joints loose.  I think one of the problems I was having with my back and unexplainable aches was that I didn’t move around enough.  I went through a state of excessive paranoia and anxiety for much of 2017 and all of 2018.  I was scared to drive my car, I was scared to talk to my neighbors, I was scared to leave my apartment after dark, I was scared to walk my neighborhood, and I was even scared to check my mail.  Most of my mail is junk mail now that I do everything online almost.  The 1 percent that wasn’t junk mail was usually from social security or my landlady.  I always felt a tinge of anxiety with those letters, and any time I was called before anyone in authority.  I’ve had too many bad experiences with short sighted, heartless, and irritable people in authority over me.  I just don’t trust authority to not abuse their power and influence anymore.  And, yes, it is unnerving and scary.

Winter is almost over, at least according to the calendar.  And it isn’t happening too soon.  I’m beginning to get cabin fever real bad.  I guess even strong people have their breaking points.  I am convinced I would feel much better when the weather warms up and there are options to how to spend my days.

Successful Anger Management and Dealing With the End of Winter

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Had a little bit of a flare up of irritability and anxiety this afternoon.  Sometimes these can be started if I have too much caffeine in a real short time.  And since I’ve been drinking more coffee and vanilla flavored cola the last several days and not sleeping as much as I usually do, it was only a matter of time before it caught up to me.  Fortunately I navigated out of my flare up without taking it out on anyone.  After a few minutes of fuming and fitting and ranting (though not yelling) and taking my irritability out by punching a few pillows and doing some arm weights, I think I’m back to my usual self.

The weather is quite decent today in spite being windy and partly cloudy all day.  It’s been above freezing the last few days, so the snow and ice melts during the day.  But it still gets below freezing after sunset, so it does make travel at night kind of unnerving for me.  I never could have made it as a truck driver with as much as I don’t like driving in bad weather or heavy traffic.

As it is, it’s days like this that remind me that winter is just about over.  And the start of Lent season for my Catholic friends is another reminder too.  A college friend of mine teaches school in Netherlands and went to Italy for a few days this last week.  He visited the Vatican and got to hear the Pope speak on Ash Wednesday.  Definitely something on “the bucket list” for anyone with an interest in history and culture.  The closest culture thing of that kind of magnitude I ever did was visit ancient Aztec pyramids and ruins when I visited Mexico City as a teenager.  So glad I got to travel some and see a few cool things before the mental illness got to where it put a cramp on my physical health and ability to travel for days at a time.

Spring is about here.  Baseball starts in a couple weeks, two of my closest friends have birthdays next week, my brother’s birthday is later in March, and the last season of Game of Thrones gets going, ironically on April 14, the day before tax deadline here in USA.  April, May, and June have always been happy times of year for me.  It’s isn’t icy or cold like winter, not too hot and humid like summer, and not the rush of activities that fall is with the start of school, harvest, preparing for winter, and fall sports seasons.

I didn’t get as much hard reading done as I would have liked this winter.  Sure I made it a point to read every day, but I read mostly online articles for science and tech sites.  Too bad more of this isn’t reported on the large media outlets, though they are getting better about it recently.  I look forward to warmer weather and more sunshine.  We went almost a month in my town without getting above freezing point.  One of the longest bitter cold streaks I can remember.  But the beginning of the end of winter is here.