OK, So I Lied

I've been nicely strong-armed back to a blogging group on Facebook in which we work to increase each other's blog awareness.

I've never been a part of such an effort but the people who run it, run it like schoolteachers. To wit: you get an assignment every Monday to link a FB post to this FB page. Then other members read and comment and like and well, I'm still trying to grasp it completely, but I thought it would push me in a more positive direction and keep me writing.

They are strict - do the assignments, don't fake it, or you're kicked out.

Writing is hard work. For me, it used to be a breeze but depression knocks the winds from your sails in many ways, especially bipolar depression and my traveling companion, anxiety. So it's very tough for me to write regularly - the muse comes in spurts. Heh heh (forever 12).

Anyway, I had a great time in New York City but when I came home I crashed very hard and am still not in a good place. The sick reason is that I was having so much fun I completely put work and all other troubles out of my mind.

You may think that's a good thing - but the way my mind works, when I came back on Wednesday, the shock of going back to work was too much. You see, when I worry, I'm prepared. Yes, I count the hours until I get back to work but it prepares me mentally for whatever may happen.

To forget my troubles for four days invites a sort of mental illness tsunami in which ALL of the worries come back at once. It's easier for me to deal with them continuously. As a consequence, I told my wife we'll probably not take a vacation like this for a long time.

Yeah, it sucks big time.

In addition since coming back, I've been having heightened anxiety and work flashback which have really thrown me for a loop since I haven't experienced those in many months. I see my shrink on Wednesday and we need to talk about this. The Ativan isn't working like it should - I'm taking more - and I feel like I'm on the verge.

Being 'on the verge' is not a good place to be, believe me. I even departed FB for the weekend because I realized beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was harming me. How? When I get really angry, anxious, worried or lonely, I post things that I should not - I'm trolling for attention and I become one of those people I dislike on FB. It also feeds a bad spiral that causes me to become more depressed, anxious and mad and post more.

I think it's therapy - it's not. It's coming apart in front of a small audience of friends, many of whom do not know how to take it, And I'm putting those friends in an uncomfortable situation. Facebook is a drug - it can be good or bad but when I'm in a serious state it's a bad drug.

Twitter seems different but that's because I try to avoid getting into flame wars and only deal with people in my interest circles. Yes, it's an echo chamber (so is FB) but people like me can't, and I really need to stress this, can't let their emotions drag them into something they regret. And when my emotions are on a hair-trigger, that is not a good thing to exhibit on a forum more public than Facebook.

I recently finished binge watching '13 Reasons Why' which will be the subject of another blog post.

PS: I told you all that my writing would reflect the mood I was in on a particular day and I wasn't kidding.

Funeral for a friend

My best friend in high school died over the holiday. He was my age. 

I hadn’t spoken to him since May of 2005 and I distinctly remember the phone call.

Frank apparently died alone in his apartment in Florida and was found two days later as a result of a health and welfare check. I hate that he went that way.

I don’t know what took his life. 

I met Frank in late August of 1977 when he plunked down in front of me in homeroom our Freshman year in high school. We were arranged alphabetically and this is just the way it turned out. We struck up a friendship that lasted on and off for decades. 

To say Frank was something of a free spirit misses the mark – he was a total goof off with a heart of gold. He had a wonderful habit of getting into scrapes due to his adventurous spirit. I could tell many, many stories of the fun we had but I will just recount one for now.

Back in 1980, the airlines were having fare wars. Frank, always flush with cash from his father’s Air Force inheritance, decided we (around the six of us who were close to him) should have dinner some night in Washington DC.

Of course we lived in the Cleveland area. Frank put down the cash and bought the tickets.

Now, none of us really felt our parents would be up to what Frank had planned so he did something deliciously sneaky – he had us going to the airport from school, taking the 5 p.m. flight to Reagan National, landing at 545, taking a cab to Hogate’s (seafood) on the Potomac (my idea), having a two hour dinner, then taking a cab back to the airport to catch an 815 p.m. flight to Cleveland that would get us home by 9 p.m., our parents none the wiser for the cover story was we went to the movies.

I begged off as we grew closer to the date. I just couldn’t imagine the grief I would catch from my father if I got caught. Knowing my dad, well, I had enough of his volcanic temper growing up and didn’t want to poke the bear anymore. 

Alas, Frank being Frank, he could not keep his secret to himself. After all, he had scored some major savings on these tickets AND scheduled the whole thing to wrap up in less than six hours on a weekday. You had to hand it to him. 

As an aside, Frank also had another idea, based on two of his favorite movies ‘The Gumball Rally’ and ‘Smokey and the Bandit’ for a race from the Cleveland area to Kentucky and back. Calling it ‘The O-K Stogie Race,’ the gimmick was, once in Kentucky, you had to buy a pack of smokes with the state’s revenue sticker on them to prove you crossed the Ohio River. Then, the first person back to Mentor, Ohio with the sticker was the winner.

It was quintessential Frank.

So on the day of the flight, Frank shows up in school with the tickets sticking out of his shirt pocket, loudly telling everyone “we’re going tonight to DC for dinner,” Frank attracted the attention of a few teachers who didn’t believe he was really doing this and one sorta-priest who did. 

I will only refer to this ‘pastoral counselor’ as Mark for that was his first name. Anyway, Mark alerted the Dean of Discipline (the former football coach and a really nice guy) and Frank was called down to his office where he was relieved of his tickets because in loco parentis and all that.

I mean, there were a few things Frank hadn’t considered: what if the plane was delayed for some reason? We’d need another cover story. What if we were delayed overnight? What if, God forbid, the plane went down and our parents had to learn about our fate from the local TV news crews? 

Stuff like that.

Well Frank came back from the Dean’s office to a class we shared and looking at his face I knew right away what happened. 

“Father Mark and Mr. Ward took my tickets away,” Frank sulked.

Well even though I was no longer on the flying itinerary, I couldn’t stand to see Frank this way so I did so. . .so. . . um, I did something in retrospect I’m not proud of but at the time seemed like great fun.

I pumped Frank up with indignation. I reminded him that those tickets were his property and what he did outside of the school on his own time was his own business. I could see Frank getting worked up.

“They had NO legal right to do that,” I told Frank. “Do you want the card of my mom’s lawyer?”

Well by the time I was through with him, ‘Fighting Frank’ stormed back in the Dean’s office 

demanding the return of his property. All that resulted was a shouting match, Frank not getting his tickets, and a possible detention, I really don’t remember.

Lest you think this shattered Frank, it didn’t. He would proudly re-tell of the shouting match for years afterwards. All I did was put a little starch in his shorts. It wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last because, well, if you can’t play asshole with your friends sometimes, what’s the point?

It wasn’t really the Dean that was this issue here. It was the smarminess of ‘Father Mark’ that galled us. 

Mark wasn’t quite through with us yet, but it wouldn’t go the way he wanted. First, Frank’s mom, after having her usual fuss and feathers explosion, quickly forgave her son with no apparent punishment. 

Then the next week at the football game, I played my card.

Before the game, I went up to Father Mark and remonstrated with him about what a low thing he did by ruining our fun and taking Frank’s plane tickets. Mark sneered.

“You know, you’re name was on one of those tickets,” Mark said. “What if I were to tell your father about this?”

“OK father, he’s right up there six rows from the top on the corner in the brown coat; can’t miss him,” I said. And walked away knowing a delicious feeling of triumph I would rarely experience in life.

See, when I finally told dad about the abortive dinner flight, he simply said “sounds like fun; I would have let you go.”

I remember feeling light-headed and wondering if this was some kind of Twilight Zone family. Seriously, you could have knocked me over with a feather (and I’m pretty fat). Had I known this, I would have been the one to take Frank’s tickets for safeguarding until the end of the day.

The whole idea was pure Frank and he had a million of them. We were young and full of ourselves and looking for adventure where we could find it. I remember those days and the things we dared to do that we wouldn’t now and I think we’re poorer for it. 

But Frank was the pied piper of the adventure and scheme. I know my high school experience would have been far, far duller without him as a friend.

In the end I lost him when he had to choose between his firefighter friends and me over some stupid shit having to do with hard feelings over a fantasy football club. Frank tried to make peace between me and them but couldn’t do it. After that last phone call, we never spoke again. 

A big part of the reason was my stubbornness and self-justification that I was right and had a right to be aggrieved. And then, 11 years later and thanks to Facebook, we had a chance to reconnect. 

We almost did, but we didn’t. I tried to friend him on Facebook but he never accepted and I didn’t really push it, thinking he was still between the rock and the hard place I had put him in a decade before. I had hoped he would come to the class reunion. He didn’t. I had no idea that my window for reconciliation was going to be so short.

So, of course, I feel like an asshole, as usual. 

Frank’s family is planning a memorial service up in Ohio in the coming days. Many if not all of the people involved in the fantasy football group that I used to so enjoy being a part of will be there. And I think they still despise me, so I don’t know what to do. I don’t do well in public gatherings and old animosities don’t help.

But I want to say goodbye to my friend somehow. We went through too much for me not to pay respects. I know it sounds hokey, but a part of my past and a part of me died too. In the weeks since Frank’s death I keep remembering all the shit we would get into and all the fun we would have.

He was the best man at my second wedding.

Wherever you are Frank, I hope you can forgive me. If it takes all the Ativan in my storehouse to make it through, I will be at your service. But I want to know where you’re buried because I want to make it more personal than a memorial service. Whether you’re remains are in Ohio or Florida, I need some time there to say a prayer for you, just the two of us. 

It’s the least I can do.

Happy Bloody Thanksgiving!

The latest thing in journalism and sociology on the eve of Thanksgiving is writing ‘survival guides’ for dealing with relations who may not share your political beliefs. This isn't anything new, but after this election, many familial relationships are turning fratricidal.

What I mean is that people are being threatened with hellfire, being disinherited, having their college money pulled and things of that nature. This is really getting sick and the country is getting sicker by the day. Thankfully (ha!), I won’t have that issue this Thanksgiving as my wife, my son and I are in total agreement.

After dipping my toe in enough political talk on Facebook, I’ve had enough. I will enjoy my bubble of personal friends and acquaintances while keeping my eye on the Trumpsters through the Internet. Life is too short to argue with intractable hateful people.

Just try not to think about it

Anyway, so I had a Thanksgiving family memory to share. I call it ‘Thanksgiving 1975: The Year of Blood on the Turkey.’

It started out as a usual Thanksgiving. Mom was struggling with the whole turkey dinner and tension was growing between her and dad. This happened for many reasons. The first was that my mother was a failed cook in the eye of my dad’s mom, who could create the greatest feasts known to man and boy I miss them.

Not our family

Mom had a tendency of boiling everything which accounts for my dislike of most vegetables that are good for me: asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts – all boiled to limpness. The smell of such atrocities still makes me retch so my wife has standing orders never to prepare those dishes, well, like my mother.

So my mom would try her best and inevitably fail. WE never said anything but my dad would occasionally offer a small critique here and there, just enough to set mom’s teeth on edge. Inside she knew, she KNEW she was being judged.

Another reason was when my father decided it was time to eat, it was time to eat. However, inevitably, mom wasn’t quite finished with everything and kept rushing back and forth to the table to put the rolls out (inevitably burned), the side dishes, etc. My father would yell “Jeezus Christ, would you please just SIT down already – we’re all (I’m) hungry.”

And, also without fail, the tension would get to my mother by Christmas which would be observed by the annual ritual of her smashing a dish to the kitchen floor and screaming “Merry Christmas God-damn it!”

Yeah! Like this. Except, um, not her.

Well anyway, the tension was so thick this particular Thanksgiving that you could cut it with a knife which was exactly what my father did.

As the former Marine who should know something about using knives started to slice the turkey, he cleanly sliced into his own thumb, going almost to the bone.

Do you remember that old Saturday Night Live bit from the 70s with Julia Child cutting herself spurting fake blood all over the kitchen? Well, that’s pretty much what this looked like except the blood was real.

After this I don’t remember too much except there was a lot of yelling and screaming to get a towel to wrap the thumb in and for mom to drive dad to the ER.

My sister and I sat and looked at the Turkey which looked like it had been freshly butchered except we knew whose blood it was and it was gross.

Gratuitous Sarah Palin turkey photo here

I went off to watch the Cowboys-Lions game and we waited for dad to come home. When he did, he had his entire hand wrapped with a metal splint to keep the thumb in place. He would wear that for week and then spend weeks more squeezing a rubber ball in his hand to get his strength back.

Mom offered to clean off the bloody parts of the turkey and re-heat it but we had long stuffed ourselves on mashed potatoes and rolls and wanted nothing to do with the bloody beast. After all, the blood had now soaked even deeper into the bird.

“Christ Con(nie) just throw the damn thing away,” my father said. Not quite as dramatic as old man Bumpus’s dogs hauling the carcass away but my mother had this look of eternal sadness that was shared by Ralphie’s dad in ‘A Christmas Story.’

You will never know the feeling

It wasn’t her fault, but in her eyes, it was.

And we did not go out for Chinese. At the time there were no Chinese restaurants in Chardon and dad was expecting a big ER bill anyway so he wouldn’t have spent the money.

All in all, it really sucked that year, but I learned my lesson – buy an electric knife and let it do the work for you.

I actually have this exact knife - Parents wedding gift

I hope none of you deal with a Thanksgiving disaster in your life and for God’s sakes, toss the giblets. Who the hell really wants to eat those?

Hospital stay

Addendum: I need to mention something that may have gotten lost in this post - the staff, nurses and doctors at the hospital were first rate all the way and I am grateful for their care.

I'm home after over 24 hours in the hospital. It still feels like I went a few rounds with Mike Tyson. I'm sore about everywhere and have three IV holes in my arm. I thought it might be a heart attack (I had almost all the warning signs), but that was quickly ruled out by an EKG. 

Well, if you're me, you start running up a big bill for nothing

Then the frustration built: lots of blood work: all normal; CT scan: normal. Finally barium fluoroscope: normal. And yet when I was in ER, the pain and discomfort were so bad a nitro tablet did nothing and I need 2 mg of morphine (yes) to get the pain down. 

After all that, I'll be left with a big bill and a provisional diagnosis: well since you have had esophageal spasms before, this must be another one. But it wasn't because I know myself. The E spasms come on quick and hard but leave after 5-10 minutes. This was a whole other kettle of fish. Yes there were some E spasm issues but they were light - it was a whole different chest and stomach pain with lightheadedness and nausea. 

After all those tests I can only conclude one thing - the E spasms are often (not not always) triggered by stress. And so was this.

This had been building up all week - even though this was a three day week (which I find embarrassing). But when you never know when the next blow will come from, where the next little paper from your boss and HR will drop for something you said but forgot weeks ago, when all these people smile in your face when you find out what they do behind your back, knowing that yearly job review is coming up and wondering if that will be the next thing they'll use to get rid of you, when the date for appealing your case to a director is coming up (10/31) when your union rep says it'll be futile anyway, knowing that the letter being dropped in your file means there is no escape from this constant stress, still remembering all that has gone one before including the lasting repercussions to me and my wife over the SWAT team raid. . . . well . . .I've said this place will kill me and people just grin a little and think I'm kidding. 

And let me be clear because I've been told the Gestapo at work read this: I don't have to do anything to myself. The stress and worry alone will do it. Slowly but surely, when you work at a place full of smiling faces you cannot trust, wondering if every assignment you get is meant to trap you, having to watch every.single.word you say - well, how would you do? 

Added to my bipolar2, depression and generalized anxiety disorder, I'm actually, in a weird way, proud of myself for not dropping from a stroke or heart attack yet. I still stand. Not just for myself, but for my wife whom I love so dearly that I would give the world (and my life) and for but for every hung out person in the whole damn universe (h/t Bob Dylan) who has to put up with a brutal and ignorant workplace every day without the nominal protection of a union. 

I read their stories everyday in numerous websites and Facebook sites for people with mental afflictions. They are my people, my brotherhood, and, for once in my life I can honestly say: I feel your pain. I will never understand why some people get such a charge from being sneaky and cruel. I can't understand how I could have worked for over 35 years and only run up against this kind of reaction from my current employer. I don't understand, with all I have done for them including defending them on camera when no one else would, what horrible thing I have done to be treated this way? 

I realize I am rambling a little stream of consciousness here but sleep has been hard to come by in the last 48 hours and I'm still dopey from the meds and the constant interruptions of hospital life. But I just had to get this out of my system this morning. 

At least as long as I can come in and work, I have one thing I can do I feel really helps the Veterans I'm supposed to serve. When Vets write their Congressional representative with an issue they feel hasn't been resolved any other way, the aides write me and I get to work getting a solution or at least a response from the department of our hospital that can help. I feel an immense satisfaction with a Veteran get a home modification they need, a bill paid, a appointment made. 

That's the way it should be - for everyone. But that is 20 percent of my experience and all the other stuff easily overwhelms the good. I was a Army Reservist, my father was a Marine in Korea. This was never just a job for me.  I remember when I was called and offered the job how thrilled I was. I was literally jumping for joy - a chance to work on the side of the angels and honor the people who signed Uncle Sam a blank check. I had no idea how naive that sentiment was. And it saddens me. 

So I'll go in Tuesday and do what I can even though I get the willies just approaching the front gate. I actually have this worry in the back of my mind, the cop at the gate will ask me to pull to the side and. . .well. . .

I got a form letter response from the Federal job I applied for a few weeks ago. It doesn't look promising but it was my last chance until the letter drops in my file. I wanted to give them what they wanted - rid of me. But it is not to be.

Like many in this situation, all I can do is what I can do - go in and work as much as I can. 

But the next time I start collapsing like I did Friday morning, I'll assume it's just accumulated stress and I'll try to take leave and get myself out of the situation for awhile -- take some deep breaths and some rest. I will never go to the ER again unless I get dragged there. If, someday, it really is a heart attack, well, whatever. Nobody lives forever.

Goodbye to all that

First, an announcement. 

I think it is best for my own mental health at this point to drastically cut back my participation on Facebook. There are several reasons for this that I won’t bore you with but I would say the main one is that it does nothing to help my depression or associated conditions. In addition, I spend far too much time on it that could otherwise be spent on more productive activities, such as writing.

In order to help myself break this addiction, I have taken it off my sign in page for Firefox.

I find that the longer I spend on Facebook, the more depressed and upset I get. One of the things that has bothered me for a while is the constant reminders by Facebook of past posts which I would rather not be reminded of. In addition, pages that I have made for other reasons are constantly popping up in my main feed to sell me more eyes on.

In the last few days, I have pestered by Facebook to buy ads for one of these pages, featuring a photo of a woman I have never seen before.

I can be found on Twitter although I am prepared to curtail my activity there if things get out of hand, which, so far, it hasn’t. Whether it is a good platform to promote this blog is too early to tell but that is the main reason I am remaining on the service.

For many people like myself, I think we come to the point that the longer we participate in social media, the worse we feel and the more our interactions with the real world fade in obscurity. For some, this is a godsend, for others, it is dangerous to their mental health.

In the past 18 months, I have experiences a number of negative events that have put me into a position where perhaps, some pulling back of the reins can be interpreted as self-care. One of the main reasons I increased my presence on Facebook this year was not just to promote this blog but to try and enlarge my circle of friends, having lost all chance of forming lasting or even decently superficial relationships at work.

I have found, at least in my case, that it is true that you can’t go home again, nor should you try. The nature of human relationships in the digital age has changed drastically from even 15 years ago and social media, for better or worse, forms the cornerstone of our relationships to each other and the world around us. I believe this is dangerous for one main reason: the desire to be loved and accepted engenders the creation of an unreality in the way people present themselves on social media. 

For instance, old classmates are not the way your remember them. They have re-engineered themselves to the point where you wonder where the past left off and the present presents. In any case, Facebook presentations have become the digitized versions of those god-awful end of the year Christmas letters we used to get telling us the grand, glorious and god-like experiences of some distant in-law's family over the past year. With Facebook, that sort of nauseous shilling is now a 24/7 proposition. I don't know about you, but it must be exhausting constantly tending to one's personal shop window.

And, after all, this is what life is all about anyway, right?

In short, nothing is what it seems. This is not just for individuals but for corporations, media outlets and pretty much any other human endeavor that uses social media to grow their brand or whatever the term is today.

It was different in the past since there were fewer channels of communication that built more of a commonality of experience. Those of my generation remember that we had three news networks to watch, for instance, a presidential debate. Now there are countless avenues to experience this event, but more importantly, you can choose the political ideology you identify with as a lens with which to view the event.

Many herald this as liberating, and to a degree, it is. Those who claim media bias are no longer bound to watch anything that doesn’t agree with them. What they don’t realize is the way they have ghettoized themselves into their own little echo chamber that continually reinforces their worldview to the point of paranoia and fanaticism. This works for the left as well as the right, and the amazing thing is, neither side can bring themselves to admit it.

For those of us who give living in American society at least some of the blame for exacerbating our mental conditions, the only way to protect yourself is start to disengage. Merely being careful consumers of news and culture, while always recommended, is not enough. It is too easy to be influenced by repeated images, slogans and propaganda without even being consciously aware it is happening. 

The effects can be felt long after exposure, and tend to manifest themselves with anxiety, depression and even rage that seemingly comes from nowhere. These messages, even though they may reinforce our worldviews, can be so disturbing to our gentler natures, that they overwhelm our sense of empathy and rationality some point where they are generated from our subconscious in relation to some stimulus. 

I would say that the world is mad. The ongoing train wreck of this year’s presidential campaign is simply the latest and the most egregious example. Although there has always been a dark side to the Internet and social media, the tribes that Americans have sequestered themselves into are now so sharp that we are seeing raging, hate-filled flame wars between family members and long-time friends online that we have not seen since the Civil War. 

"the Democrats left us defenseless against the aliens, impeachment is the only answer"

Without going to deeply into the subject for now, I believe we stand at a very perilous time in American history. Some have described it as a turning point, which can be good or bad. I believe that no matter who wins the election, the fabric of commonality that used to unite Americans to some degree has been shattered and cannot be rebuilt. Even if there were, say, an invasion by aliens, I believe we would see furious arguments between the warring factions of the left and right on the right way to fight the invasion and who is responsible for our unpreparedness, even as our world is being destroyed.

As it is now, by our hands, being destroyed. 

It does not do me any good to continue to try to influence public opinion by way of social media. I believe now, that that way lies madness. It may be that this vast odious sandbox was indeed constructed to corral public opinion in such a way that all energy would be expanded by wars within the system, keeping them out of the streets. The fact that this has not worked in all cases, specifically with the anti-police brutality movement, is a testament to the helpless frustration of those in underprivileged communities who feel they have nothing left to lose.

Self-care for the terminally anxious and worried folks can take many forms, some of them self-destructive. But I think pulling back from the madness that is enveloping us, not a surrender to the forces of darkness, but a simply acknowledgement that for many of us, over the course of our lives, we have done the best we could. And, the effort has degraded our energy and our souls in equal measure and that it is time, in the necessity of preserving whatever peace we can find left in our souls, to disengage. 

I have fought this for a long time but I have to admit that as time goes by, I lack the will to care anymore. I cannot stop what is happening. But I can stop the deleterious effect these events are having on my state of mind. Forever addicted as a news junkie, I know that I will never totally disengage, but I will withdraw as far as I can.

For all my friends, acquaintances and those who stumble on this blog, I leave you to your own battles and wish you well whatever your cause. But I can’t and won’t be part of your crusades any more. You would find my true feelings to be offensive anyway, and best we just take care of our own concerns.

Thank you for visiting my grave - but first a word from our sponsors

This blog, despite what some may think, was never meant to change social or political history. My radio show was supposed to do that and, although the effort was a good one, at a for-profit enterprise, it was doomed. What the blog is all about is (1) therapy writing for me to express things that I am reluctant to do personally and (2) a diary of sorts that acts as a written gravestone or testament. 

You may know that there are some cemeteries that will sell you an interactive gravestone that flashes images from the deceased’s life and audio of their words and others that knew them. This, of course, is somewhat crass but understandable from a society that has taken the idea of ‘personal branding’ even to the grave. 

If some people wish to give a spin on their thoughts, beliefs and actions through that medium, fine for them. I’ll do it the old fashioned way, with words and stories.