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Change of Season, Change of Mood, Change With Age

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The weather is cooling off, especially over the last few days.  The nights are almost as long as the days now, some farmers are beginning the harvest, farmers’ markets are open all over the place, and I’m getting outside more.  I’ve had my windows open the last few days and I’ve pretty much stopped using my air conditioner.  Yes the change of seasons is upon us.

I for one am glad that summer is over.  Mentally I’m just not very stable during the summers.  And I never could figure out why.  I didn’t experience any true tragedies or trauma as a child.  I was bullied in school but I know kids who got it worse than I did.  I’m thinking many of my problems during the summers stem from dealing with the heat and humidity.  I never did like hot weather.  I like spring in the fact that there are still cool days but not weeks on end of hot weather.  And I like fall because of the cooling weather, the fall leaves, and I’ve always enjoyed fall activities more than summer.  I’m sure that being overweight doesn’t help in dealing with hot summers, let alone dealing with a mental illness.

Mentally I was more stable this summer than most previous summers.  Even though I couldn’t do much with a bad back I was still pretty stable for the most part.  Now that I’m healed from my back I am getting outside more.  I am also eating less too.  I can tell my stamina is coming back, more slowly than I would like but it’s still coming back.  I think that I have made it through the roughest part of the year already.  I hope that things keep getting better.

I have noticed a few changes with my mental illness over the last few years.  I can tell that things that used to bother me real bad don’t bother me as much.  If I had dealt with a problem a few years ago, I’d be angry for an hour or two.  Now I’m over such things in only a couple minutes.  I’ve become more accepting of the illness now.  I’ve accepted that I’ll never have a great career or a family of my own.  This used to bother me real bad as recently as five years ago.  Now I’ve just accepted it and planned accordingly.  Since I see that many of my friends are having problems at their jobs and marriages, I’m actually thankful in some regards that I never got to go that route.  I have the problems of a mental illness but I don’t have the problems of a stressful job and hectic married life.  I have a mental illness but I don’t have as much stress and pointless drama as my friends.  And I love it.  I don’t have much money or prestige but I do have peace of mind.  I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

A Sense of Calm with Mental Illness

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It’s been a quiet and calm week for me.  I can tell the weather is starting to cool and that autumn is only a few weeks away.  School has already started in my hometown.  I was at the Wal Mart on 10pm on a Friday night and the place was packed with high school and college students doing last minute back to school shopping.  Years ago when I was in school, it seemed like the place to be on the weekend before school started was parties that amounted to the last fling of summer.  Maybe the younger people today have better priorities than what previous generations had.  It was also the first time I used a self check out machine.  Just scanned my items, swiped my debit card, and bagged my purchases and left.  Sure this may put some cashiers out of work but who dreams about being a cashier working for minimum wage when they are kids?

From about early July to the first week of September has traditionally been rugged times for me.  Both times I checked myself into a mental health hospital were in early September.  Many of my major flare ups and breakdowns have come in July and August.  The first time my parents saw me break down was around Independence Day back in 2000.  I didn’t have the serious breakdown last summer besides yelling out a store clerk in early July (which I immediately apologized for).  Originally I thought I didn’t have the breakdown last summer because I had extra resiliency because of my grandmother’s death.  Besides yelling at one friend over the phone for a couple minutes and writing a nasty email to a second friend last month, I really haven’t had many problems this summer.

I still don’t go out as much as I had previously.  Anymore I’m somewhat content to just stay home, read books, write blogs, play computer games, and Facebook with friends. I call friends and family on the phone almost daily.  I am having more frequent and longer conversations with my best friend from college.  We usually call each other every Sunday night and chat.  For the first several months after he got married I kind of backed off and just gave him and his wife their space.  He’s a huge history and sports geek (just like I am) so it’s not uncommon for us to be discussing baseball statistics, the ancient Greeks, 19th century German philosophy, and American foreign policy within the same phone conversation.  I love people like that.  Tragically I don’t find many people with those kinds of interest.  My old friend Pastor Verne was one of those types.  He was fluent in both ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek from his days in seminary.  He was a brilliant man.  I’m glad I got to know him.  I hope to be that interesting and sharp if I ever make it to that age.

I got my insurance settlement this weekend.  I wasn’t planning on anything extra from the accident besides getting my car fixed and coverage of my medical bills.  But I am now sitting on top of a wind fall I wasn’t really expecting.  I imagine most of it is going into the emergency fund.  One of the positives of being debt free is I don’t have the pressure of having to make payments every month.  It feels good to not have debts, to have an emergency fund, and a few options.  Those are the best stress busters I have ever found.

As this is a lazy Saturday afternoon in late August I currently have a college football game on in the background as I’m writing this  Football is one of my guilty pleasures.  I’m not obsessed over it but I do like to have a game going on in the background on idle fall weekend afternoons.  I do kind of feel bad about watching young men maim themselves for my enjoyment.  But at least it’s not as violent as Roman gladiators fighting.  I can tell that summer is all but over now that I’m watching a football game.  From the Summer Olympics to fall football within a few days of each other.

 

My College Years

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I see that many schools in my part of the United States are starting their school years again.  The college in my hometown starts next week so we will have 18 to 23 year old college students trickling in throughout this week.  I actually enjoy my hometown more when the college students are back.  I used to go up to the 24 hour Wal Mart during the school year just to see what the college students were up to.  Many college age people spent their overnight hours at the Wal Mart just doing goofy college aged stuff.  I know I’m old enough now I wouldn’t pass as a college student but I do find the overnight crowd watching entertaining.  Reminds me of when my friends and I used to do similar things when we were in college.  I’ll probably restart that tradition when school gets going.  My friends and I often went to the all night diners on Halloween to see college people and older in their costumes.  I didn’t go to the bars on Halloween because the music was always too loud and I don’t deal well with drunk people.

I readily admit to being more nostalgic for my college years than my high school years.  For one, most people in college were there because they wanted to be and not because they were legally forced to.  I loved college because I, for the first time in my life, wasn’t penalized for being smart and eccentric.  I met some eccentric and cool people who made me look neurotypical.  One of my friends in college was an incredibly intelligent girl who made me look like I was mentally standing still.  We were in a class together that involved lots of writing and class discussions.  She always made it a point to keep everyone on our toes and sharp.  She had less tolerance for ignorance than I.  I miss her and I regret that we had a falling out.  I had another cool friend in that class that was really sharp and a real pleasant girl to be around.  She had a kind word for everyone regardless.  She had her beliefs but she wasn’t as abrasive about hers as I could be about mine.  Especially before I became diagnosed I tended to be as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face when I thought someone’s ideas weren’t sound.  I never learned the fine art of diplomacy until my college career was almost over.

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I enjoyed the all night conversations in the dorms.  It wouldn’t be uncommon for me to be up until sunrise talking with my roommate, my neighbors, or just random people in the dorm and still be on time for an 8 am class after a couple cups of cowboy coffee.  My best friend in college managed to sweet talk the dorm dad into allowing him to have a coffee maker in his dorm.  I slept a lot in the afternoons so I could be up all night with the rest of my dorm.  I spent a lot of time playing pool and trivia games at the student center.  I got to where I was decent at pool but developed a reputation for being so good at trivia games that no one wanted to play me.  My friends and I played lots of board games.  Trivial Pursuit, Axis and Allies, and Risk were quite common for us.  We didn’t play a lot of card games until I moved off campus for my senior year.  I didn’t go to any wild fraternity parties as I went to a Christian college and we had an officially dry campus.

I did pledge a fraternity in my freshman year and was active for a couple years.  I went independent in my junior year once it became obvious to me that I had to spend more time studying if I wanted to graduate, especially with a mental illness and changing my major.  I didn’t do any sports in college besides intramural softball.  I still managed to do lots of flag football and ultimate frisbee on the campus green when I was in school. Ruined many t-shirts and gym shoes because of playing in the rain and mud too many times. They should make ultimate frisbee an Olympic sport.  It is a real sport.  I knew a couple guys who got broken ankles in those games.  I enjoyed lifting weights in the school fitness center.  I didn’t drive much in college except for road trips.  My roommate and I went to New Mexico over Thanksgiving break one year to visit his long distance girlfriend.  My best friend and I went trout fishing and hiking in the Black Hills a couple times during Spring Break.  Sometimes we’d go to the next college town over and hit the cheap movie theaters.  Since most of my friends weren’t drinkers we didn’t do the bars in college.  Besides the music in bars is far too loud for any kind of conversation.

If there is a point to my ramblings about my college years back in the pre wireless internet ages, it is in spite my problems with mental illness I still had a good time in college.  I made some pretty cool friends I still hear from and have some pleasant memories.  I was able to have a better time in college than high school because we were just more accepting of other people and their quirks.  People accepted me despite my issues and problems and I accepted them too.  I don’t think back on those years often enough.  But I certainly feel good when I do.

Being Alone With A Mental Illness

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It’s been months since I’ve had any kind of normal for any real length of time.  But I think I’m entering a phase of normal in what has been traditionally a tough time of year for me.  I am still diligent about what I eat and I still make an attempt to exercise daily.  I have started lifting arm weights a week ago.  I can feel my stamina from lifting weights begin to rebuild even after only a few sessions.  I feel pretty stable mentally for the most part.  And when I do feel flare ups coming on I make it a point to isolate and avoid people.  I would definitely hate to have a mental breakdown around someone who doesn’t understand mental illness.  In my apartment complex we had an individual who got belligerent with a fellow tenant and it got so seriously out of hand that the police became involved.  I have had my problems in the past and I still isolate and avoid people when I feel the mental illness coming on.  But fortunately the police have never needed to be involved with my problems.  Which is a good deal as I have an unhealthy paranoia about the police to begin with.  I just don’t trust them or any other authority figures.  I’ve had too many bad experiences and too much paranoia to trust anyone with any kind of power.  Makes life tough but I don’t any other kind of life being available to me.

I still don’t get out of the apartment complex much as I fear dealing with irritable and short tempered people.  We now have an overabundance of irritable and short tempered people living in my complex.  I have decided that I no longer want to deal with that kind of nonsense.  It’s no different than the kind of nonsense I dealt with in high school when I was dealing with my angsty peers who had a complete lack of empathy.  I don’t feel sorry for the people who live in my low income apartment.  Anyone who ever said there is virtue in poverty has never lived in HUD housing.  I face the same cross section of jerks and losers as every other social class.  The only difference is I can’t run away from these people.  No one knows how tough it is to be really smart but have a mental illness that prevents you from working.  It sucks.  I can’t even do the day rehab and group activities offered because most of it is at such a remedial level I feel like I’m back in grade school with those programs.  I can’t interact with normal people because of my mental illness and lack of a family.  And I can’t interact with mentally ill people because I am usually much smarter than most of the people the outreach programs for mentally ill people were designed for.  I am mentally ill but I am not stupid.  Stop treating me like I am stupid.  I would give anything to have someone I could interact with locally who had some kind of intelligence.  I am just tired of always having to discuss the weather  or politics because that is all most people can deal with.  I am tired of having no one to talk with.  I am tired of being always alone.  I am tired of being the only smart person I know.

 

Feeling Better and Memories of College

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It’s the first really cool day I’ve experienced in weeks.  It’s nice enough I’ve had my windows open since last night.  It’s been a good day to run some errands and watch some Olympics.  Saw mostly swimming and cycling this afternoon.  Did a little cleaning in my apartment as the workers may be in my apartment within the next week or two.  Weather feels almost like early fall today.  But I do know we have at least four to six weeks of hot weather left.  School will start in a couple weeks again.  So the town will really come back to life again.

I’ve always enjoyed the falls and winters in a college town than the summers.  But that is what happens when a sizable portion of my town’s population is college students.  Even though I haven’t been a college student for almost a dozen years I still enjoy seeing the college kids come back.  I can’t imagine how much college has changed just since I left. Had some of my happiest memories in my college years.  I enjoyed the all night odd conversations, the trips to the all night diner for studying and conversations, spring afternoons watching baseball, snow ball fights in the winter, playing flag football in the snow and rain on the campus green, and going to Saturday night concerts to see the campus garage bands.

I’m also watching reruns of ‘The Big Bang Theory.’  I really haven’t paid much attention to that series.  But I feel a weekend of binge watching on netflix coming on.  I like the fact the characters are quirky and really smart.  I feel like I can relate to those characters even if I don’t read comic books or do calculus for fun.  I haven’t been around quirky and smart people on a regular basis since college.  I forgot how fun it could be.  What can I say, I’m a quirky dork myself.

It’s been quite a long summer for me.  But it’s cooler days like this that remind me that summer is almost over.  Since summers are usually my hardest times I’m glad for a return of a few cooler days.

 

Visiting Family and Finding Normal

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Saw my nephews and niece yesterday.  We had a picnic lunch and we went to a museum.  It was an pioneer trails museum as most of the old pioneer trails like the Oregon and Mormon trails ran through what is now my hometown.  It was also were the first transcontinental railroad and first Atlantic to Pacific highway ran through.  It was a good way to spend an afternoon and I got to keep the leftovers from the picnic.  It was a good way to break the boredom  that had been my life for the previous two months.

I talked to my best friend from college this afternoon.  He has a few more weeks before he has to be back at teacher inservice for the fall term.  I was invited to his place in the Black Hills of South Dakota for a few days during the middle of the month.  Ideally I’d like to go after the motorcycle rally in Sturgis is over as I really don’t look forward to dodging thousands of motorcyclists.  But this is probably the only time I get to see him again until at least next year.  So I’m thinking I may have to go really cheap for the next two months or break into my savings and make that trip a reality.  My back is fully healed so I won’t have to sleep in a recliner anymore.  I haven’t slept in a recliner for over a week now.  I’m still slower than I would like to be in the morning from stiffness in my lower back.  But it clears up after a couple minutes in a hot bath.  I suppose I am now in my mid 30s, so maybe things are starting to fall apart on my body.  I’m no longer growing a beard as I have found some grays.  It just didn’t look good with a few grays.  I have a friend who’s the same age I am and she already has arthritis.  I’ll probably get arthritis as my grandmother had it bad and my dad now has it bad.  But as bad as chronic aches and being slower to recover from injuries is, I prefer being an adult to begin a teenager.  I especially like the fact that I’m old enough now that I’m not as ruled by my hormones and emotions anymore.  I’d have skipped my teens and twenties had I known my thirties were going to be more settled.

Overall things are looking much better now than they were a month or two ago.  I’m feeling better mentally and physically.  I’m getting more activity.  And I’m getting more socializing.  Things are looking better all the time.

 

Recovering Doom Junkie

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Rarely can you turn on your tv or log onto your internet without seeing some piece of bad news.  Any given day you can hear about some mass shooting, some terrorist attack, or some natural disaster.  Yet we rarely pay attention when something really good happens.  Whenever we get poor customer service we usually get upset with the company and feel free to tell all of our friends and coworkers.  But the vast majority of the time we received good or even great service, it’s nothing but silence.

I don’t think it’s ingratitude that cause people to pay no attention to good things and good news.  It’s how we are wired.  We are much more likely to pay attention to bad news than good.  It served us well when we were still prehistoric hunter gatherers trying to forge a living in an unforgiving environments.  Not so much anymore.  We make little note of the facts that we are much less likely to suffer violence in our lives or cheated in business.  We pay more attention to these facts because we hear about every murder and every foul business practice. ‘If it bleeds, it leads’ is still true today.  And I am convinced constantly paying attention to these needless fears and anxieties are not good for our mental health.

I had to consciously stop watching the news because I knew that everything that is going on is not being equally reported.  About all I have heard on my news feeds for a year now was election this and election that.  Seriously?  That’s the only thing that matters in our world for the last year?  You have got to be joking.  We’re sending probes all over our solar system, just finished digging a huge tunnel under the Swiss and French Alps, are testing medications that could severely slow down degenerative brain diseases, the Olympics are starting in early August, the Chinese are about finished building the largest radio telescope in history, Nicaruaga is building a canal to compete with the Panama Canal, we’re testing vaccines for HIV, and we’re discovering new exoplanets all the time.  And that is just a short list.  We are living in really cool times and the media isn’t even covering most of the good stuff.  All the news that’s fit to print, right.

People wonder why I haven’t watched cable news in almost ten years.  I have enough going on in my own life and I see enough cool stuff going on through non traditional and specialized media sources to pay attention to the cable news dinosaurs.  I really don’t know anyone under the age of 40 who watches cable news on a regular basis.  My brother and most of my friends don’t even have cable or satellite tv.  I wouldn’t have it except I get it with my apartment.  All I watch on traditional tv is live sporting events.  Cable news companies, if you want to quit losing your audiences try reporting something other than calamity and politics.  Some of us actually want an easy source to find out about science and tech advances and humanitarian efforts.  The latest violence and the politician who got busted in a scandal doesn’t matter to most people.  It certainly doesn’t matter to me anymore.  That’s why I’m no longer a viewer.  And that has gone a long way in helping me manage my depression and anxiety problems.

 

Routines, Reflections, Dollars, and Desires

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This summer has been anything but routine for me.  I hurt my back in late May and I was out of commission for six weeks.  I rarely spent any time outside and didn’t travel.  I went to the park maybe three or four times in the six weeks my back was mending.  Normally I go to the park three or four times per week during the summer.  I haven’t done any traveling as I haven’t been outside my hometown since late May.  I haven’t driven much and have actually developed a slight phobia of driving.  I guess I never gained my confidence back from my accident last October.  While I got my car fixed I still haven’t heard anything back from if I can get any kind of settlement.  Progress is insanely slow in some cases.

I haven’t been outside around the complex much this summer.  It seems that most of my neighbors have been more short tempered and irritable the last several months.  I don’t know what to make of that.  I still have the one neighbor who always in a foul mood and never has anything nice to say about anyone.  Apparently he won’t be moving out any time soon.  It’s kind of tough living in here anymore.  Three of my most interesting friends in here died in 2014 and 2015.  Since I live in low income housing, who we get as neighbors is luck of the draw.  There are days when I’m depressed I would love to move out and start over.  But I don’t think any where else in my hometown would be any better.  With my mental illness and disability pension I can’t afford to move to a larger city.  I don’t want to move back in with my parents as their hometown has far less to offer than my current town.  I really don’t know if I can move to my brother’s hometown because of my disability pension and transferring to a different state.  If I were to move to another city, I’d love for it to be to a place with reasonable public transit.  I hate driving anymore.  I’d never drive again if I had the choice.

I don’t suppose schizophrenics do well in large cities.  I hear horror stories about people with mental illness ending up homeless or in jail in large cities. My schizophrenia being what it is, it’s not like I can start over with a job that pays enough to give me a decent living if I were to leave disability.  I was anxious working as retail store clerk and factory worker. I used to have panic attacks so bad I’d vomit from the anxiety before I went to work.  I fear the idea of working with the public.  I have been verbally abused enough by customers and coworkers in my previous life as a customer service worker that I never want to experience that again.  And blogging about mental illness will never pay the bills even if I am providing a good service for others.

It’s not the money I care about, it’s what the money can buy that I’m concerned about.  I don’t need the status of a high paying job to satisfy my ego.  I don’t need the large house in the suburbs or the high end penthouse in a skyscraper.  I don’t need the large pickup truck or high end foreign car.  I can get around just fine in a twelve year old four door sedan that is as good on gas mileage as anything besides the really small Japanese cars.  If I need to move something with a pickup truck, that’s why I have friends and family members with pickup trucks.  It’s amazing what one can accomplish with a phone call, a little elbow grease, and offering to buy lunch or a tank of gas.

I really have my basic material needs but I can get by with almost no splurging.  I have learned to live inexpensively on my disability pension without a job.  I am happy wearing t-shirts, sneakers, and pants from K-mart and Wal-Mart. I can get all the music I want for free via youtube or pandora radio. I don’t even have music CDs anymore.  I haven’t even downloaded music from iTunes in over a year. I would rather watch Netflix at home, sit on my own couch, and eat a delivery pizza than go to the movie theatre. I would rather go for a walk in the park or shovel snow in the winter than spend heaven knows how much on a gym membership.

Splurging for me is grilling bratwursts and spending cool and overcast autumn Saturday afternoons watching Nebraska Husker college football games on my flat screen tv.  Splurging for me is buying a bucket of KFC and a couple side dishes instead of eating off the dollar menu.  When I need new furniture I talk to friends and family who are moving or having estate sales.  I got my couch, lamps, and recliner after my grandfather died.  I got my bed and dresser after my grandmother died.  I got my house plants from helping my mother.  All I had to do was help my family clean out their places for a weekend.  The most I gave for a piece of furniture was $50 for my all purpose heavy duty table I eat from and use my computer on.  So a person can live quite inexpensively if you use your family and friends’ connections and help people out once in awhile.  The only time I go to restaurants that aren’t fast food is when I’m entertaining out of town family and friends. I have stayed out of debt for two years even without a job.  I managed to save up some emergency money that could fund my life for a couple months even without a disability pension.

So I’m not concerned about getting rich.  For the first few years I was serious about writing, I was hoping to make some money as a writer, travel on the speaking circuit, and donate a bunch of money to my college as some of my happiest memories are from my four and a half years at York College in York, Nebraska.  Now that I know how to live on less than I thought I could and I see how much stress my brother is under with his job, I know it’s not the high paying job or successful business that I need or even want.  The big thing that I want now is for my experiences and writings to make a positive difference for whomever happens to read these entires.  I have no delusions I’ll make much money writing a mental illness blog.  Schizophrenia my involve delusions but that’s not one of my delusions.  I don’t care if I make money off  my writings and blogging.  I really don’t even care if I make above poverty level wages.  I just want to make a positive difference in the lives of whomever reads my blogs, whether you be a mental health patient, support person, or just someone who cares about the problems of the mentally ill.  I don’t desire riches.  I desire to make a positive difference in at least a few lives.

First Day Back Exercising

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Today was the first day I did any real exercise since I threw out my back six weeks ago.  I can tell I have gotten real rusty and out of shape in the six weeks I spent mending my back.  I walked for only ten minutes, enough to get the blood moving but that’s about all.  I’m not sore from walking but I can tell I am out of practice.  It is quite hot in my hometown as late July and August are always the hottest times of the year.  I’m still not quite adjusted to the heat as I haven’t been outside much while my back was mending.  And it was quite a cool and wet spring this year, so I was used to exercising indoors this spring.

I’m going to start lifting arm weights again.  I’ll start that tonight.  It has been kind of an odd tradition for me to lift arm weights and do stretching while watching Star Trek reruns. A friend of mine got me started on that last summer.  I’m most of the way through Season 3 of Star Trek: Enterprise.  But when my back was healing I didn’t lift any arm weights or do much for stretching.  I’m sure I’m going to be just as rusty with the weights as I was the walking.  I’ll have to use the light weights for a couple weeks until I’m back to normal.

I also starting tracking what I eat again.  I got discouraged for the last few months and was lazy about tracking.  I was especially lazy when I couldn’t exercise outdoors and then after I hurt my back.  Before I hurt my back I had some unexplained foot pain that limited my walking for over two weeks.  So I haven’t been able to exercise hardly at all since the weather warmed up.  And I had to exercise indoors this spring because it was chilly and rainy almost every day.

When I was at my psych doctor last time, I had gained twenty pounds since the start of the year.  That was one month ago.  I’m sure I’ve gain some more as I was not exercising because of my back.  But my back is good again.  I can sleep in a regular bed again after weeks in a recliner.  I get more sleep in a regular bed but I fall asleep faster in my recliner.  I can’t figure that one out.

Because of my back pain and lack of activity I’ve been more depressed and irritable than usual.  I’m sorry I don’t make a very good patient.  But in the handful of times I’ve been in a hospital I make it a point to never get irritable with the nurses and doctors.  I force myself to be on good behavior I suppose.  When I’m healing on my own I can be more short tempered and depressed than usual.  I got angry with two of my best friends over a week ago.  I’m still embarrassed about that.  One of these friends I got mad at I hadn’t ever had an argument with and we’ve been friends for fifteen years.  Another was my best friend from high school and we have raised our voices to each other only a handful of times, mostly when I was in the grip of a mental breakdown.  I’m embarrassed I let those things happen.  I grew up in a family where we rarely yelled at each other and never had instances where we stopped talking to people.  We may not talk to each other every day but we will drop everyone for one of our own in crisis.  Even my extended family is like this to each other.

I’ve mended from my back issues, finally.  It was one of the longest six week stretches I was ever part of.  I’m beginning to exercise again.  I’m starting to socialize again.  I’m beginning to track what I eat again.  I haven’t yet got my blinds fixed but that is coming.  I might even get new carpet by summer’s end.  After months when almost nothing seemed to go right I think I’m starting to turn the corner.  Maybe things will start to get better.

 

 

Socializing One on One (We Are Not That Different)

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I have been trying to figure out normal people for most of my life.  I have tried to find a basic statement to make sense of my fellow man, much like Einstein’s theory of relativity or the equation Force equals Mass multiplied by Acceleration.  The only real conclusion I have come to can be summed by Tommy Lee Jones in the first Men In Black movie when he said, “The individual is smart, but people as a group are stupid, panicky animals.”  Ever since I was a young child I have found taking my fellow humans one on one much easier and enriching than dealing with crowds, groups, or cliques.  I have always gotten along with most of my school mates and elders when working with them one on one.  Not so much when they were in large groups.  People have always seemed more civil and easy going if I could talk to them one on one or even in small groups. Sadly we seldom ever get to talk with our neighbors, extended family members, coworkers much on a one to one basis.  There are times I’ve had more in depth conversations with people from different nations over Facebook than with people in my apartment complex.  I like the digitized friends I have in some of my interests pages groups on Facebook more than I do my own neighbors.  But I didn’t have much say in who my neighbors were.

Some of my happiest memories from junior high and early high school came from the weekend ‘lock in’ parties that my school and church participated in.  We’d have movies, snacks, board games, card games, and just stay up all night and chat with the fellow school mates.  I used to get into those extremely in depth conversations with my classmates I may have not had much to do with on a regular basis during the course of a school week. I would talk with people I thought I had nothing in common with until my voice was raspy and my throat hurt. Those times made me realize that everyone else has their own problems, fears, and hangups.  We as students, or the community as a whole, may stick us in groups like jocks, nerds, cowboys, preppies, party animals, thugs, basket cases, beauty queens, conservatives, liberals, artists, rich, poor, etc.  All the window dressing and nonsense aside, people actually have far more in common with each other than we are lead to believe by our culture and leaders. One guy at these lock ins told me that he was under constant pressure from his parents to be a great athlete because his father was a great athlete years before.  Another kid told me that even though she came from a devoutly religious family she had her skepticisms and doubts.  A third kid told me even though he came from a wealthy farming family he had little interest in farming once he was done with high school but would probably do so to please his parents and grandparents. One kid told me he was envious of how smart I was and I told him I was envious of how popular and handsome he was.  Who would have ever guessed?  Another kid I was envious of because he got excellent grades, was handsome, and wasn’t lacking in confidence by any measure (not that I could tell at least) that he was envious of me because of my smarts, my not being afraid to take unpopular stands, and because of my friendship with my female best friend.  One way he put it went something like, “Neither of you has to worry about ever finding dates for the weekend.  You can always ask each other.”  Another guy told me about my female best friend, “You two go together so well you get along better than most married couples.” I may not have had a lack of dates in high school, but they were usually with the same girl and always casual.  I had far more dates in high school than college, but most my dates even in high school came before my mental illness took full effect.  But too much stress is placed of finding love and trying to get laid, especially in high school.  I miss those lock ins and opportunities to get to know my classmates on a less structured and formal basis.  It’s about the only thing I miss about junior high, but I definitely would love opportunities to get to know my neighbors better.  Perhaps we in the modern world suffer from too much structure and formality.  Maybe that is why we are more irritable and short tempered than we should be.