Tag Archives: anxiety

Confessions of a Schizophrenic and Christmas

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Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, and Happy Birthday Sir Isaac Newton!  In short, just have a good day overall regardless where you live or how you believe.  I spent a few days in my childhood home village in rural Nebraska.  Didn’t really go anywhere because there really isn’t that many places to go there.  My parents and I had our Christmas celebration this afternoon over ham and pumpkin pie.  I hadn’t been anywhere outside of my current hometown for any real length since my grandmother’s funeral.  I almost forgot how much I enjoy road trips and traveling.  This was the first Christmas I didn’t have any living grandparents.  But most people lose their grandparents long before they hit their thirties.

Overall, besides of a short lived but hard hitting psychotic break a few days ago, this year was a quiet and rather uneventful holiday season.  I was purposely avoiding shopping malls and box stores.  Things are beginning to get back to more normal with my life.  Had my first psychotic break of 2015 in early October that was rather nasty but thank God short lived. Unfortunately, my psychotic breaks involved a lot of anger and shouting.  I never developed the ability to just break down and sob for my break downs.  I think many men with mental illness take out their issues on others in scary and unsettling ways.  For me, it’s actually a cry for help and desire for releasing tensions instead of wanting to come across as threatening and dangerous.

I am afraid that after my family passes away I’ll lose a major source for releasing tension and anxiety.  They are also a source of interesting and intelligent conversation as they are quite intelligent too.  Tragically I don’t relate that well to most people because I am not interested in the mundane and the issues of daily living.  I just cannot stand to rehash current events for hours on end.  I see five minutes of a minor news story that gets replayed dozens of times over a few days of a news cycle and I no longer wish to discuss it.  I also have little desire to complain about anything I can’t do anything about.  That’s why I don’t vent about politics, current events, the failures of my favorite sports teams, etc.  And it’s almost painful for me to listen to conversations between average people.  Especially so when people bring up the same problems over and over they have no interest in making better.  I fear the death of my family members as much as I fear the death of my best friends.

I have never gotten violent during even the worst of my breakdowns, at least never to other people.  When I was in college I used to punch wood doors and shelves.  But I have never gotten violent towards anyone even after almost twenty years of mental health problems.  I haven’t been in a fight with anyone since I was thirteen years old, and most of those fights were with my older brother and cousins.  I am afraid of winding in prison or getting seriously hurt in the wrong circumstances during a future breakdown.  In my case while the fire burns hot and bright, it also goes out quite quickly.  I only hope symptoms and problems with schizophrenia get less severe with age, especially if an outright cure is never found. I know some people with mental health issues like autism spectrum and others don’t care to be cured.  For me I would give practically anything to be cured from schizophrenia.  I would even sign up for experimental treatments and procedures if they ever became available.

In other news, I have gotten more focused and serious about dieting and exercise.  I lost thirteen pounds in the last two and half months.  I am back into exercising almost every day as my back is no longer hurting from my car accident.  I got my car fixed as good as ever.  I’m also sitting down and planning out my goals for 2016 as the year 2015 is drawing to a close in a few days.  I accomplished several of my goals for this year, namely getting my amateur radio license back, having more blog posts and visitors this year than 2014, got to be in my best friend’s wedding party, read a few dozen books and audio books, completed a couple free courses on khan academy,  stayed out of debt, and built up my savings more.  The biggest goal I didn’t accomplish was my goal of losing sixty pounds.  I weigh the same now as I did at the end of 2014.  So while I didn’t accomplish my biggest goal, I didn’t completely give up the lifestyle change.  I just have to do better in 2016.

Drama Free, Socializing, and Confidence

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It’s been quiet on my end for the last few days.  Haven’t had any real flare ups of schizophrenia or anxiety for several days.  First time in weeks I’ve gone more than a couple days without any kind of flare up.  It’s been strange not having drama in my life lately.  It’s just something I’ve gotten used to.  I’m actually amazed when I go through days when I don’t have to deal with some drama in my life or someone else’s overblown drama.

Even though it’s almost winter, I’ve been getting out of my apartment more.  I make it a point to not socialize much in my apartment complex.  I still have a few problem neighbors who like to keep the drama stirred.  I never understood why there are people who can’t live without drama or irritating others.  I was brought up that if I couldn’t get along with someone, it was best to leave them alone.  Makes it tough to trust some people when I have trust issues.

Oddly, some of my best socializing comes just from bantering and joking with cashiers and store clerks.  I didn’t do this in my twenties at all.  But as I have gained social skills and figured out that not everyone out there wants to take advantage of others, it has gotten easier and even fun. Found that the ones I get the best reactions out of our night shift clerks and cashiers in the 25 to 45 bracket.  The younger clerks take a little more priming before they’ll joke with me.  The older clerks usually won’t joke with me at all.  And this is even with my jokes not being of the unsafe for work categories.  I’m finding that many younger people just don’t seem that confident at work.  I certainly wasn’t when I worked in my twenties.  I never thought that others had that problem.  I didn’t gain any real confidence in myself or even appreciation for my abilities until I was thirty.  That was also the age when I came to the conclusion that I did not have to tolerate poor and uncivil behavior from others.  While I was still figuring my way through my delusions and irrational fears, I thought I was the only one who had these problems.  I just never knew that even those without mental illnesses had problems with not having confidence.  Unfortunately that’s stuff I couldn’t learn in any book.

 

 

A Sense of Calm During the Holidays

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It’s been a long time since I’ve had a sense of calm and normal.  But things are finally starting to settle and slow down.  I’m progressing enough in my chiropractic therapy I go in only twice a week.  My EoE is being treated and I’ve altered my diet to account for many possible food allergies.  So my stomach feels better and I’m not as easily irritable as I was earlier this fall.

After a couple hectic and stressful days last week, things started calming down yesterday.  I made no attempt to fight the mobs on Black Friday.  Instead I stayed home, watched football, listened to audiobooks on youtube, and drank a few cups of black tea.  Found that black tea is easier on my stomach and gives me just enough caffeine to keep sharp for those late night research sessions.  I’ll probably switch over entirely this winter.

My back isn’t hurting anymore.  Even the tail bone injury I had years ago in high school has cleared up.  I always thought it was one of those things I was doomed to live with.  Too bad I didn’t get it worked on shortly after it happened.  But chiropractic treatments were even less mainstream then now.

Now I have my car back and it looks as if the accident never happened.  I have also more or less begun my winter routines.  We’ve already had a couple light snows.  Found my car handles well on ice.  That was one of my concerns going into the first winter with a different car.  But this car is low enough miles it should last me at least ten to twelve years.

I’ve now come to the acceptance part of my grandmother’s death.  I was more easily irritated and depressed for probably three months, which I think was part of my grieving process.  But she was a positive influence on my life for years.  And I was talking to her right until she had a major stroke about ten days before she died.  She was mentally sharp at her birthday party in June but she wasn’t very mobile because of physical health problems.  It has to be tough being mentally sharp but feeling your body fall apart.  It was bad enough for myself knowing my ability to process stress and social situations because of my schizophrenia while my cognitive ability remained relatively changed.  Being in a car accident didn’t help with the irritability and short temperedness.

I’ve also come to the acceptance that, barring some miracle of future science and medicine, I’m not going to ever be able to handle any kind of job where I can use my natural intellect.  Coming to this acceptance has only happened recently and it was by far the toughest aspect of my life I had to accept.  I grew up believing that if one found their niche and developed that niche, then good things would happen.  Found out at a very early age I had some unusual intelligence.  I also learned I had almost no bodily coordination and hated athletics.  So I never had any dreams of playing pro football.  I wasn’t very good with my hands but was excellent with ideas and scientific concepts.  I decided I wanted to be a scientist even before I started kindergarten.  Unfortunately that dream didn’t come true.  After gutting through almost two years of biology and chemistry classes while fighting a mental illness, it became painfully obvious that I wouldn’t get to pursue the dream any more.

The worst part of coming to this acceptance was knowing that I did everything right in life and I still would never use my ability.  I didn’t drink, I didn’t do drugs, I didn’t have sex, let alone date much, etc.  I spent most of my weekends and evenings studying for my classes while many of my classmates were out partying and screwing around.  And I was well on my way of making something positive out of myself.  But it never happened because of schizophrenia.  It took pretty much everything from me.  And it even messes with your mind, unlike most physical diseases.  Well schizophrenia is the result of brain issues.  It was rough seeing everything I worked for gradually destroyed piece meal.  For a long time I tried to figure out what I did wrong.  Once I came to the conclusion I did nothing wrong, I blamed others for the illness happening.  Once I got past that and accepted it was what it was, I have settled in for the long haul.  Now I’m trying to keep even keel and make the best of a lousy situation.

 

Thoughts on the Holidays with Mental Illness

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The end of the year holidays are upon us once again.  For some it means going back to the old childhood hometown and gathering with family.  Others will go out in the pre dawn hours to fight the hordes in one of the greatest and time honored of American traditions, buying junk.  Spent one holiday shopping season working as a retail store clerk years ago.  It gave me a renewed appreciation for store clerks working at such a hectic time.  We were often understaffed and running out of popular items.  Not very fun.  I was quite a cynical Scrooge when it came to the holidays for several years afterward.  To a degree I still am cynical about the holidays.

The holidays have long been a stressful time for me.  I really haven’t enjoyed the holidays since I was ten years old.  By the time I got to high school I saw the holidays as little more than a series of senseless rituals and activities attempting to capture an unobtainable ideal of happiness and joy that exists only in fantasy.  Part of my stress comes from watching others strive for this fantasy ideal of the perfect Christmas or Thanksgiving and they try to include me in that nonsense.  The holidays aren’t going to be perfect and to expect them to be is insane. So is going to any store on Black Friday.  I can imagine just observing the mob mentality in any major mall or box store would be a good case study for any psychology class.  But maybe in the future the crush of crowds in stores will be replaced with online realtors’ servers getting overloaded during the holidays.

For me going to even the supermarket between Halloween and Christmas is stressful.  Too much sensory overload and stimulation from all the decorations, piped in Christmas songs, and Salvation Army bell ringers.  Too bad there aren’t any really cool Halloween or Labor Day songs.  And the only places I ever heard St. Patrick’s Day Irish songs or Cinco de Mayo Mariachi music were in pubs, Mexican restaurants, and bars.  For me, the real fun of the end of the year holidays come after Christmas and watching college football bowl games every night for two weeks.  My New Year’s Day ritual is pretty much grilling steaks or brats and watching football all day.  So it’s not like I’m a total Scrooge.  I’m just selective about being Scrooge.

The sensory overload and overstimulation while working with schizophrenia during the holidays often make the holidays tough for me.  Anymore I’m just happy with going to my old hometown for a couple days and enjoying the extended family.  Actually the family gatherings aren’t that stressful even though I enjoy the Easter gatherings more because of the better weather.  But to all my readers, Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Kwanza, Happy Winter Solstice, Happy Saturnalia for any student of ancient history, and Happy Birthday Sir Isaac Newton for my scientifically inclined friends.

 

 

Baby Steps In The Direction of Normal

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A few changes have happened over the last couple days.  First I got my car back on Tuesday.  It wasn’t in the shop as long as I thought it would be.  As far as I can tell it drives just as well as before the accident.  The guys at the auto body shop did a top notch job.  I can’t tell any difference from the car body appearance.  My car was struck right on the passenger side front tire so I was afraid some engine damage would be done.  I was actually afraid the car would have to be completely totaled.  But once everything was done the car was fixed just as well before the accident.

I had my esophagus scoped as well on Tuesday.  After the doctor took a couple biopsies, he came to the conclusion that I have some inflammation that could possibly be caused by food allergies.  I can’t recall the name of the condition right off hand but it goes by the abbreviation of EoE.  You can Google EoE for more information.  As it looks right now, if these problems are caused by food allergies, I’ll have to severely reduce my intake of foods that contain wheat, corn, dairy products, and other foods known to promote allergic reactions.  I have known for a few years on days I don’t eat bread I feel better physically and mentally.  I haven’t drank milk or ate yogurt on a regular basis for years.  But it looks like I may be having to give up bread and most other foods with wheat.  Have to be reading labels much closer now.

I’m now two weeks into my chiropractic program.  Doing some at home exercises in addition to getting my back worked on in the office three days per week.  Looks like I’ll be doing this chiropractic routine well into the winter.

We got our first snow of the season yesterday.  Got at least five inches of snow after a steady rain.  It was tough navigating the streets in the snow as I had appointments for chiropractic and had to run other errands.  But we have at least four months of this ahead. The first snow is usually the one that catches everyone off guard.

Between the ongoing chiropractic therapy, getting my car back, getting my esophagus scoped, and adding two new medications as a result of the esophagus scope, it has been anything but an average week.  But getting my car back is a step in the right direction of my desire for a return to a sense of normal.

Physical Therapy

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Completed my first week of chiropractic therapy today.  One week down, eleven more to go.  The x-rays on my back show that my hip and shoulder are slightly out of alignment.  Same x-rays show I have little to no curve to my spine.  The doctor said that the car accident only made things on my lower back worse. In addition to going to the office three days a week, I do neck and back strengthening exercises at home every day.  Getting my back into proper working order is going to be another of my winter projects.

Next Tuesday I am getting my throat and stomach scoped again to see how bad my ulcer problem is.  So it looks like I’m going to be getting real familiar with hospitals and doctor’s offices in the coming weeks.  Talked to nurse this afternoon over the phone.  She took down essentailly my entire medical history.  After I get scoped, who knows where we go from there.  I’m not even sure how ulcers are treated.

Right now it is possible I might not get to settle into the routine I so desperately crave.  Nothing in my life has been routine since at least late spring.

Return to ‘Normal’ with Schizophrenia

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It’s been a week since I was in the emergency room for getting my esophagus scoped.  Had to take it easy for a couple days but I’m back to normal.  At least as normal as things are going to get with schizophrenia.  It’s been two weeks since I had a third anti psychotic medication added.  It appears to be doing the trick as I haven’t had any kind of upsets or flare ups in anxiety or agitation for several days.  I’m even sleeping better now.  I still keep odd hours as I typically do better at night when there are less stimuli and fewer people out and about. I can say things are starting to return to normal again.

It has been some time since I was able to have any routine for any length of time.  I had my best friend’s wedding in July.  In addition to the wedding I had the last of my grandparents die.  While I wasn’t completely torn apart by my grandmother’s death, I know it effected me in other ways.  I got out of a regular sleep pattern, which makes mental illness problems worse.  I became especially lazy about watching what I ate and didn’t exercise as much as usual.  I was more irritable and short tempered too.

I had what has essentially become my late summer or early fall mini psychiatric break in early October.  Traditionally I have my break downs in August or early September.  I was hoping to make it through the rough patches and lack of routine without a breakdown.  No such luck.  Fortunately I was able to talk down and burn myself out.  For most people as bad off as I was, going a mental health hospital is the best option.  Since I have such a great support system in my immediate and extended family, I was able to talk my way out of my flare up.  I don’t know how my family is able to deal with my flare ups and break downs without taking them personal.  It has to be hard.  It’s hard enough for me when I’m going through them.  I am concerned for when my family members begin dying off and I have to find different support people.  This is a fear of mine.  Perhaps by then treatments will be developed that are even better then what are available now.  Maybe there will even be a cure.  In the meantime I keep moving on and attempt to keep a since of normal with schizophrenia.

Recovering From Several Rough Days With Mental Illness

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lisa_sobaka

Had several rougher days than normal lately.  One of those days involved a bad episode where I was close to checking myself into the local psych hospital.  Fortunately one way for me to break out of bad episodes is to just talk my way out of them with friends and family, literally allowing myself to speak out of my distress.  It is a tough process for all involved but it does work, at least in my case.  I do not recommend this for most people because there can be many hurt feelings on the part of support people, friends and family.  I think the reason it works for my case is that I grew up in a stable family who would drop everything for one of their own at a moment’s notice.  My family handles these problems like champions and saints.  I don’t know how they do it without taking these episodes personal.  After I’ve burned myself out I make it a point to tell them that it’s nothing personal and I’m sorry for what happened.

Saw my psych doctor on Monday afternoon.  We added a new psych medication and a temporary medication to aid in sleeping.  Haven’t been sleeping terribly well lately either.  The psych issues and the sleep problems just feed on each other no doubt.  But I’m a couple days into a recovery.  Things look promising again.  I hope things keep going better.  I’ll keep you posted as I document these last rough several days and my attempts at recovery.

Reflections On Being a Recovering Doom Junkie

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handhearts

As I’ve been laid up for the last few days with a sore foot that is only now starting to clear up, I have been allowed the opportunity to reflect back on all the changes that have happened over the last several years in my lines of thinking.

I turned 35 years old this summer.  Even after being a college graduate, working for several years, and being on my own for a dozen years, I’m still not as smart as I thought I was at age 18.  But, I enjoy being an adult.  I also have enough years of experience that I’ve survived several supposed “end of the world and collapse” type scenarios that I chuckle every time I see such drivel. After seeing the ’88 Reasons for the Return of Jesus in 1988′, the Branch Davidians, the Hale Bop Comet cult, Y2k, 9/11, the tech bubble, the stock market bust of 2008 and subsequent Great Recession, the Mayan apocalypse of 2012, listening to my grandparents’ stories of the Great Depression, Dust Bowl, and World War II, and seeing ‘evidence’ that every U.S. president since at least JFK was supposed to be the Anti-Christ, I’ve developed the attitude of “Meh, let it come.”

I suppose this is an advanced line of thinking, especially since I am prone to unhealthy paranoia.  But the older and wiser I get, the less time I have for doom and gloom nonsense.  I spent a couple years researching some of that doom nonsense myself and even thought some of it possible.  But then, I used to think that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, magical elves, pixie dust, and Disney fairy tales were possible too.  When I was a child I thought and acted as a child.  Now that I am a man I put foolish and childish things aside.  Wise words, St. Paul.

As I’ve experienced changes over the course of my 35 years I’ve come to the conclusion that change is the only constant.  I’ve come to embrace it and actually hope for even more. I’ve also accepted that there are always going to be hustlers and well meaning fools that are convinced that the ends of civilization and humanity are just around the next corner.  If I live long enough I’m probably going to see blogs and youtube videos, or the successors to blogs and youtube, about how the manned missions to Mars are hoaxes, how greedy elites are hoarding the proceeds from asteroid mining for their evil purposes, how we’re all going to die from nanotech and anti-matter experiments gone bad, etc.  I’ve seen enough of this before.  Nothing new.  Since our ancestors survived several ice ages and bubonic plagues I know at least some people will be able to whatever comes our way in the future.  One could make a fortune not betting against humanity.

Return to Normal With Mental Illness, Part 2

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Fall is just a few days away after a long and eventful summer.  I saw my best friend get married and we buried the last of my grandparents.  Partly because of these developments I became lackadaisical about my exercise routine.  I was taking so much time dealing with externals that I neglected to take care of myself and gained some weight.  Fortunately I made it through the summer with only one relapse into schizophrenia and even that lasted only an afternoon.  This time two years ago I had just gotten out of a mental health hospital after a voluntary commitment.  Two years in a row now I’ve made it through the roughest parts of the year without a major problem.  I’m feeling pretty good about that.

The leaves are starting to turn, the weather isn’t as hot now, and the corn harvest will be going really hard and fast within a few weeks.  I have always enjoyed this time of year, almost as much as spring.  My mental health always improves in the fall and I seem to get a lot done in these times.  Recently I sign up for khanacademy.org and am working though a few of their free online courses, namely chemistry and world history.  This will be one of my fall projects.  My winter project will be to get an General License in ham radio.  I already have a Technician License that I studied for last winter.  With the increased exercise I have my projects for fall and winter already lined up.