Tag Archives: mental illness

Social Struggles and Being Single with Mental Health Issues

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I had only five people I felt I could tell anything to in my entire life until I went to college.  Two were school friends, two were grandparents, and one was a cousin.  I really didn’t have any true friends outside of my cousins until I was eleven years old.  But I guess that happens when you’re the odd smart kid who’s too proud and stubborn to hide your smarts and eccentricities.  Maybe I would have done better in an environment where I wasn’t the odd man out all the time.  But I’ll never know.  It was lonely.  But I eventually came to prefer to be alone most of the time because I didn’t fit in among my classmates. I didn’t learn much in the way of social skills until I was well into my twenties.  Even at the age of 35 I still feel like I’m behind the curve in the way of social skills.

Today none of my friends and confidants live in the same town I do.  I moved here because the job prospects and health care in this town were better than my home town.  I wanted to start over.  Yet the older I get I find the less opportunities I have for traditional socializing.  I have better socializing and more in common with anonymous posters on Facebook and youtube forums than I do with people in my hometown.  I really don’t like the idea of going back to work because 1) I’m tired of dealing with the same old office politics and low grade hostility I’ve faced at every job since age sixteen and 2) my confidence in my work performance is gone.

I really don’t like the idea of going to mental health support groups because the ones I’ve been to I’ve seen too many people who can’t or won’t learn from their mistakes.  I can’t claim to be perfect on this myself, but at least I don’t ask for advice and then just do the same old nonsense over and over.  I just don’t ask for advice anymore.  I won’t go to AA or NA because I don’t have drinking or hard drug problems.  I won’t go back to college because I can’t afford it and there really aren’t that many 30 somethings in college, at least not from what I’ve seen or will get to see.  I certainly refuse to do the bar scene.  Last time I was at a bar was three years ago at a New Year’s concert and some girl chatted me up and was all sweet to me just to make her boyfriend jealous.  I still don’t know how I talked my way out of receiving  a beat down on that one.

It seems there aren’t any options for singles in their 30s to socialize outside of work and the bar scene.  Don’t start with the religious organizations idea.  There aren’t any singles over 25 in those organizations, certainly not men (unless you want to be a Catholic priest or monk).  I might join a gym in a year or two after I lose another 70 pounds on my own and can actually keep up with some of those guys and gals.  When I was a gym member I felt embarrassed watching some of these people who looked like marathon runners and body builders and I was having a hard time doing thirty minutes on a treadmill.

I imagine there are lots of lonely and single people in there late 20s and older out there who would love to do some activity that doesn’t involve working, drinking, or church.  I read an article that stated that, according to the 2010 census here in USA, there are more unmarried adults than married adults.  First time in U.S. history that has ever happened.  Granted this includes divorcees, widowed, and probably live in long term relationships.  But I have no intention of ever marrying and I’m completely content with that.  Would have been cool to have married the proverbial college sweetheart, worked in medical research (I wanted to be a research scientist since I was five years old), had the 2.3 kids, cat and dog combo, and picket fence kind of life.  But that is an illusion from an era that no longer exists if it ever did.  But a lot of social organizations and businesses are flat out missing out in not trying to attract singles in their late 20s, 30s, and older.

I wouldn’t be surprised if within 10 to 15 years you’ll see a lot of single men and women in their late 40s and early 50s who were smart and tight with their money in their younger years who find themselves financially independent and able to retire if they want.  I imagine for every person who has $50,000 plus in student loan debts, there is at least one other who learned a trade at a two year program or someone who got out of a four year program with little to no debt.  I also know guys who didn’t even go to college who worked on oil wells, in mining, and farming and made close to six figures by their late 20s.  And these guys are saving most of their money.  I also know guys who started in the military in their early twenties and are staying in for the twenty years required for a pension and they’ll transition to civilian work in their early forties while the military paid for all their education. Many of these young professionals (currently in their 20s and 30s and thus invisible to most people) are living minimalist while being smart with their money.  In short, there’s a lot of potential business and money that is being completely ignored because singles in their 30s are not a traditional demographic with any real numbers.

I don’t socialize much but not because I don’t have the money to.  With zero debt and some emergency money now stored away, I could afford to go to the sports bars most evenings or to concerts on weekends.  But having nerdy dork interests in a small town setting doesn’t lend itself to good socializing.  I’m also interested in exercising but I don’t have the build to run marathons.  I’m the only person I know who lifts arm weights while watching Star Trek: Enterprise reruns.  Just because a dude is smart and interesting he doesn’t always fit in to all social situations.

Dealing With Uncivil Behavior With A Mental Illness

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I absolutely hate any time some fools feel like they are required to spout off and read off a laundry list of transgressions (most of which are exaggerated or imagined) that another group has committed.  I have never understood why ‘normal’ people seem to thrive on interpersonal conflicts and strife.

We see it all the time; liberals vs. conservatives, racial divides, capitalists vs. socialists, men and women calling each other out, religious adherents and atheists unloading on each other, nerds and jocks despising each other on every high school campus, the elderly thinking all young people are lazy and unruly while the young believing the elderly are all parasitizing via social security and not providing adequate guidance, etc.  etc.  Even those of us in the mentally ill community often have our issues with each (namely among the medicate vs. don’t medicate or the work vs. disability insurance routes).  The most ironic part of these interpersonal squabbles is regardless of what side of an argument you are on, each side has at least a few legitimate points.  In spite of our differences we really aren’t that different.  And the way we treat each other over these minor differences is really wrong and petty.

I definitely have my beliefs about many topics that we humans think upon. I will under no circumstances discuss anything of any intellectual weight or contention unless I am for sure that the discussion will remain civil and not devolve into a modern version of two bands of cavemen brandishing sticks and grunting at each other over who gets the last slabs of wooly mammoth meat.  I promise here and now if I ever make it to any kind of fame I will never volunteer to take part in any debate with another person or panel under any circumstances unless I am completely cured of schizophrenia.

To me, listening to debates is the same as watching monkeys at the zoo fling manure at each other. It makes a major mess, the monkeys get riled up for awhile, and nothing is really accomplished.  I may do a TEDx talk if I ever gained any kind of traction, but that is decades away.  I’ve seen too many debates and ‘Crossfire’ type shows to believe that any kind of informing, enlightenment, and mutual respect goes on.  Do not even get me going on politics and voting.  I intentionally lie to pollsters just to throw a small wrench in their numbers.  I know they interview thousands of potential voters, but since politicians have blatantly and knowingly lied to constituents ever since there were politicians and constituents I figure this is my little way of protesting without being labeled like one of these hippies from the 1960s or one of the Occupy Wall Street guys.  I probably shouldn’t lie as it violates the whole Golden Rule (and I don’t mean ‘he who has the most gold has the most rule’).

One of the religious teachings I agree with states ‘let the one lacking in sin (or faults) throw the first stone.’  I have no doubt that every belief system in the world has their own uniquely worded version of this.  It is one that while we do not practice all the time. If we did, at least 90 percent of our interpersonal strife would immediately vanish.  When we are actually intellectually honest we will acknowledge we don’t know everything, we don’t have all the answers, and we have faults in our beliefs.  We are not perfect, no one is, and we would be better off to not expect perfection out of anyone.  We know it is right to treat others with respect.  We know it feels good when we are treated with respect ourselves.  Do to others as you would have done to yourself isn’t just a feel good meme or ancient proverb derived two millennium ago, it is a basic pillar on which civilized life is built on.  The whole idea of I got to get mine and kill or be killed is a relic of pre history that would be best left in a museum, not practiced in our interpersonal, inter business, and inter national relations.

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Anyway, as a mentally ill person I have a hard time dealing with uncivilized behavior and heightened emotions (namely negative ones) without the whole deal feeling like it is becoming a personal attack.  I literally feel physically threatened and scared to the point of anger (anger often is just a mask for fear) during heated discussions.  As a man who is much larger than most, I don’t think it would bode well for anyone if I went Ice Age Neanderthal hunter on an unsuspecting person who is either trying to win a discussion or  just being a troll.

In short, to my mentally ill friends and readers, feeling like melting down on someone in a heated situation may be unavoidable, but never act out on it.  Ever.  Fortunately I haven’t been in a fight since sixth grade, long before I got a mental illness or twice the size of most humans.  Sometimes a person just has to cut their losses and run, especially when dealing with mental illness.  Dealing with people who refuse to act civil and risking an assault charge because you had a mental break is not worth it.

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.

A Sense of Normal With Mental Illness

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This summer has not been a typical summer for me.  I served as a groomsman in a friend’s wedding.  I lost a grandmother who influenced my life for nothing but the better.  I also got kind of lazy about watching what I ate and gained 15 of the almost 70 pounds I had lost overall.  But I also went through the entire summer with only one flare up of the schizophrenia.  This happened back in early July.

Summers are usually tough times for me.  This is when I feel my most irritable and easily agitated.  Some of my worst flare ups occur in July and August every year like clockwork.  I’ve seen research suggesting that a good portion of people have more problems with mental illness during certain times of year.  I think my problems in summer are made worse by the heat of summer.  It’s a dry heat most of the time in my home state of Nebraska.  When it does rain the humidity can be rough.

Things have been settling down and getting back to more typical for the last three weeks.  I’ve gotten serious about dieting and exercise again and have lost 10 pounds since my grandma’s funeral.  My problems with irritability, anger, and anxiety are subsiding again.  We also had a week when it was unseasonably cool in the middle of August.  It was an early preview of the fall that will be starting in a few weeks.  We haven’t had an unbearably hot summer this year but it was hot enough for several weeks just enough to limit outdoor activity more than I would have liked.

Dealing With A Death In The Family While Having Mental Illness

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On Tuesday, August 4th my paternal grandmother died in her sleep a few days after having a major stroke.  She was 97 years old.  Grandma Foster was one of these people who was always looking out for other people almost like they were her own kids.  I can imagine as the oldest of eight siblings growing up on a farm in Nebraska during the Great Depression she would have developed those skills of caring for others and making that a huge part of her life at an early age.

Every summer my brother and I would spend a few days with her in her hometown.  After my Grandpa Foster died of a heart attack at their farmstead in the early 1980s she moved into town.  While I can’t remember the farmstead she, grandpa, and my dad lived on, she and my dad both used to tell us stories about life on their farm.  Grandma was one of these farmers’ wives who could do a little bit of everything.  She said she could have taken a chicken from the henhouse and cooked on the dining room table in about an hour.  She also did quite a bit of the same farm work my grandpa was doing during the first few years of their marriage right alongside him out in the field.  This was back in the late 1930s when  the corn crops where still being harvested by hand well into the winter.

During World War II, after my grandfather couldn’t qualify for the army as in enlisted soldier because of his age, grandma and grandpa went to Wichita, Kansas to work in an aircraft factory.  They both worked in that factory for the duration of the war.  A few years after the war ended the family moved back to Nebraska.  My grandpa farmed for the rest of his life.  It wasn’t until a few years ago that I realized that grandpa and grandma never owned their own land and instead farmed for others.  In addition to being a farm wife and a worker in a aircraft factory, Grandma Foster worked for a number of years as a payroll clerk in an automotive parts plant.  In the 1960s and 1970s she was filling out those payrolls by hand, doing several hundred of those every two weeks.  She didn’t have much time to enjoy retirement before grandpa had his heart attack but she did enjoy having her grandkids and the kids of her extended family around as much as possible.

Even though I have been fighting a mental illness for my entire adult life I’m not as distraught by her death as I thought I would be.  That might be changing soon as my dad, my brother, and I will be spending the weekend cleaning out her apartment.  I’m also going to be one of the pall bearers.  I was a pall bearer at my maternal grandmother’s funeral too.  But as I have been working with a mental illness for quite some time I know myself well enough that often anticipating some bad event will not only lead me into a downward spiral, the anticipation will be worse than the event itself.

So as of right now I’m not thinking about cleaning out the apartment or the funeral or being a pall bearer or the visitation the night before the funeral.  It helps that we had a small birthday bash for her a couple of months ago and she was as mentally sharp as ever then.  She had been hampered by arthritis for the last several years that made walking without a walker or a cane very tough.  As much of an extrovert as my grandmother was this had to be tough.  But she managed to stay in contact with her many friends and family members through Facebook and phone calls.  She was one of these who wasn’t afraid to use new technologies while not losing the old style compassion and empathy for others.  Grandma used her Facebook account to show her caring and to keep others aware of what went on in their social circles.  A couple years ago she said that she went from being in awe of the Ford Model T to looking at flying drones just in her lifetime.  Who knows what my nephews and niece will see in theirs.

At this moment I’m not completely torn up that this compassionate sweet lady has died and is leaving a void that will have to be filled by others.  In time that void will be filled by others in our family and among her friends as it is natural for others to step into rolls that others filled after a death.  Rather than being distraught about her death, I’m grateful that she and those like her lived and impacted as many people as they did.

Purpose and Agency

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This blog entry is going to be about the importance of finding a purpose for your life and having agency.  By agency I mean finding something that you can do with your given skill set that gives your life meaning.  We as humans do not exist in a vacuum.  We have to interact with other people and the environment around us.  How we interact can either be beneficial or destructive.  I have found if I just try being neutral and not standing out I become miserable.  I cannot go through life without working toward some goal. I have to have something to work toward or even work against.  I get lost into thinking ‘why am I here’ if I have no purpose.  This is true of all people, especially men.  That is why we throw ourselves into our jobs, our hobbies, our projects, our families, and our beliefs.

Having a purpose can be either good or bad.  Having good, constructive, and beneficial purpose leads people to build businesses, create great works of art, think up great ideas no one else came up with, and strive to better the lives of others.  Bad and destructive purpose, however, can lead people into joining street gains, terrorist groups, crime syndicates, and commiting atrocites.

I think of people as bundles of energy.  Direct them into things that allow them to channel energy into creative endeavors and you’ll ultimately wind up with civilization and means to improve civilization.  Yet do not allow them to channel energy into creative purpose, it will be expressed in destructive acts and chaos.  Part of me fears the reason we are seeing so many heinous acts of violence like the recent shootings in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Louisiana is that many people, especially younger men, feel like they have no place or purpose.  Granted not all people are not going to resort to murder or joining groups like ISIS because they don’t have a life mission or they feel they aren’t making a difference.  Others may be using their pent up energy to less obvious destructive means, such as small time hustling, petty crime, or even computer hacking and internet trolling.  It could be possible that one of the reasons that mental illness is becoming prevalent is that many people no longer feel they have a purpose or belong to anything bigger than themselves or no longer feel connected to their communities.

One of the things that gives me agency is writing this blog.  I write to explain mental illness to others who don’t know it personally.  I blog to give advice to others with mental illness who may be recently diagnosed or having serious problems for the first time and not know what is going on or what to expect.  I write to be an encouragement to others who, like myself, have been dealing with mental illness for awhile and still have ups and downs.

As my Definite Chief Aim, to borrow a term from Napoleon Hill, I am seeking to inform and enlighten others as what having a mental illness is like from the mentally ill person’s point of view.  I have always done well at explaining ideas and concepts to others and I have no fear of speaking up in public.  And there is a percentage of the general population who has mental illness, I think close to 5 percent for serious, chronic mental illnesses like schizophrenia, bipolar, autism spectrum, major depression, borderline personality disorder, etc.  Many of these mentally ill individuals are unable to express the issues of their illnesses.  This is where I, and other bloggers come in.

If I were asked what I am working against, it would be ignorance and cruelty.  Too many people don’t know what mental illness is like for us or what a hinderance it can be.  Some people even refuse to acknowledge it even exists.  Yes, it does exist.  I, and others like me, are not making up our problems with crippling anxiety, our problems with alternating between crushing sadness and euphoria, or dealing with delusions to where we have to work to distinguish between what is reality and what is within the constraints of our troubled minds.  We do not make up these problems because we want attention or we are angry about our childhoods.  Our issues are not simplistic type problems that can be overcome only by feel good memes and other quick fixes that try to put a Band Aid on a gushing wound.

It is an understatement to say I do not respect ignorance and cruelty.  We live in an age of nearly unlimited information on any topic imaginable.  I have far more information at my fingertips through a $400 laptop computer and $32 a month wireless internet service than the scholars who set up the Great Library of ancient Alexandria could have imagined even possible.  Medieval scholars would have killed, and sometimes were killed, for having access to a tiny fraction of a fraction of the information I can call up at a whim.  There are no more excuses for being ignorant.  In 2015, ignorance is not a matter of destiny, it is a matter of choice to paraphrase William Jennings Bryan.

In closing, writing and researching for this mental illness blog gives me some sense of agency and purpose.  Ignorance and the resulting cruelty are two of the ‘enemies’ I ‘fight’ against.  We all have things we are passionate about.  We all have things we can do for others and ourselves.  It is a matter of finding those things that give us agency and purpose and then going to work.

Happiness, Love, and Mental Illness

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Happiness, Love, and Mental Illness.

Sleep Problems And Mental Illness

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One of the early warning cues to future mental health problems is changes in sleep patterns.  I’ve been sleeping only five to six hours a night for the last two weeks.  I usually average eight hours a night.  Usually when I sleep too little, eventually I’ll have problems with irritability and anxiety.  When I sleep too much I’ll have problems with depression and lethargy.

While not needing much sleep usually allows me to be more productive, it comes at a price.  In time I’ll become more anxious and easily angered.  After dealing with mental illness problems for almost twenty years, I’ve come to recognize long term trends and problems before they arise.  One way I’m trying to get back into a more even sleep pattern is reducing caffeine.  This is a tough one for me as I love both coffee and black tea.  I also won’t eat at least four hours before bed because, for me, eating anything gives me a boost and makes me stay awake later.

But this time it isn’t the late nights that are the issue.  It’s the early starting mornings.  I have literally been awake before sunrise probably all but two days in the last two weeks.  Not sure what to make of this.  I’m thinking it’s possible that all these years I was convinced I was a night owl was really my caffeine addiction talking.  If I was smarter, I’d go a couple days without any caffeine and see if that resets my sleep patterns.

In short, my sleep patterns have been heavily slanted to not getting much sleep lately.  I can tell it’s starting to take it’s toll.  I’ve been slightly more irritable, anxious, and more short tempered than usual.  It’s time to change this trend before it leads to more serious issues.

Worry and Stress

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Worry and stress hinder the mentally ill and the neurotypical alike.  No one can escape it.  It served us as a species well for most of our history when hunter gatherers needed successful hunts and fight other bands.  Otherwise they would die.  Worry and stress are natural to us.  It allowed humans to go from barely surviving to modern civilization.

Yet our natural inclinations to worry are deteriorating our quality of life.  The old fight or flight mentality isn’t serving us as well.  We are seeing more people going through depression, panic attacks, anxiety problems, and physical health problems brought on by mental stress.  We haven’t yet developed the ability to mentally let go of worry.  This skill is not natural to us.  It has to be learned.

Learning how to let go of stress and worry, even with years of practice, won’t be perfect.  I have been taking steps to lessen my worry for several years and I occasionally slip into old habits.  Things I have found helpful include keeping journals, engaging with negative people as little as possible, venting slightly on occasion, and never watching news broadcasts.

When I keep journals, I don’t hold back. I write my frustrations, my anxieties, my annoyances, my fears, and the delusional thoughts that sometimes accompany my mental illness.  I get it out of my mind and onto paper.  But I don’t share these with anyone.  It does me much better to vent on paper rather than hold these worries in and drop them on someone else all at once.  Many of our problems with stress, I am convinced, come from the idea that we aren’t allowed to vent or have to put up a good front at all times.  I can’t change how anyone expects to act in public.  What I can do is vent in the form of pen and paper, get it out of my mind, and then move on.  Once the notebook is full, I throw it away.  Been doing this for at least two years.  It helps.  Sure I occasionally have problems and just dump my frustrations on family members.  But that’s the nature of the beast of mental illness and I do my best to minimize those blow ups.

I vent to my friends and family as needed to.  I used to be one of these people pleasers who listened to and try to solve everyone’s problems.  But I wouldn’t tell my problems to anyone.  It made me resentful and feel like I was being used.  I can’t remember when it was but during a conversation with someone I finally said, “I’ve heard enough of your problems.  Now you’re going to hear about mine.”  Fortunately for this relationship I wasn’t malicious about it.  But being resentful of listening to others problems while I didn’t stand up enough to have others listen to mine cost me at least a couple friendships.  My friends have problems.  I have problems.  We are now more balanced in talking about our issues.  I don’t just do all the giving while not taking some of my own anymore.

I don’t watch any of the 24 hour news broadcasts.  Haven’t for a few years.  Why should I?  I already know there is a lot of trouble and mess out there.  Always has been.  Always will be.  I have no need or desire to know every little bit of trouble going on, whether it’s halfway around the world or halfway across my country.  Seriously, why give myself more stress and anxiety then I already have?  I can’t solve all the world’s problems.  I’m not that good.  Anyone who has any kind of awareness knows that there are serious messes in the world around them.  Just because the world is messed up doesn’t mean I have to be.  Since I learned to let go of things I didn’t personally cause and can’t prevent, my life has had fewer worries and fewer stresses.

Winter Inactivity and Longing for Spring

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Winters are usually a time stability but boredom for me.  This is the third winter when I wasn’t working some kind of paid employment.  So I’ve gotten used to the idea that winter is a time of forced inactivity.

I usually do most of my physical activity, socializing, and at my happiness in spring and early summer.  Most activities I enjoy like walking, fishing, working outdoors, going to barbecues, watching baseball games, going to the park are almost impossible in winter in the part of the country I live in.  January and February are times I’m usually mentally stable but because of the weather of winter, it is also when I’m least active.  I tend to be one of these people that can’t sit still and force myself to be inactive.  If I’m not out walking, I have to read a book, play some strategy computer game, or watch something that’ll make me sharper on youtube.  I just hate having to force myself into physical and mental inactivity.  Monks that teach meditation would hate students like me 🙂

One blessing of my mental illness, if you can call it that, is the seasonal aspect of mine is late summer instead of winter.  Even while the weather is lousy and travel is questionable, I can usually feel well even if I have to be inside for long periods.  Many mentally ill people I know have a seasonal aspect and it’s often in the winters.

Luckily, as I am a writer/blogger, I can fulfill my mental activity needs even if I can’t get out and walk or go fishing.  A significant chunk of what I have written has been in the winter months.  That helps quite a bit filling the voids while I’m waiting for spring.  As a baseball fan I am glad to see that spring training will be starting in less than two weeks.  I prefer the laid back nature of baseball to a lot of other games and I like how if a team loses, it can’t be dwelt on since they have to play again tomorrow.

I’m already over half way through winter.  Only six more weeks of bitter cold and probably eight weeks until the last snows.  We’re getting there as we always do.