When Anxiety Overrides Anticipation or Surviving Springsteen

It’s becoming more difficult lately to put a smile on my face, I’ll grant you that. 

I look at most of the blogs in Pittsburgh Bloggers which I write alongside and other blogs of this type and I see most of them tend toward more uplifting subject matter or practical advice. Outside of them, to be popular among mental health community blogs, as I have written before, it helps to write stories of triumph and happiness (however illusory) if one wants to be popular and published in the mainstream.

It also helps to be young and photogenic, as I have also written before, although I’m sure people will use that tired old defense of jealousy to defend against that charge. A short perusal of these blogs is all one needs to back up my assertions. I also write at levels far above the sixth grade comprehension that has been so in vogue since America decided dumb was more profitable. My work would be difficult to edit down to ‘see Spot run’ level.

I have decided to be who I am and write what I believe is true for myself.

So today, a bit of introspection and perhaps a clue for those who ask the question: how do you know when you are in bad shape mentally?

One of the aspects of mental illness of any sort that fascinates people is how self-aware we are in measuring whether we’re in a better or worse state, depressed, manic or mixed episode of bipolar, and in need of greater self-care. It’s a good question because many people with mental illness either live alone or with people that aren’t really trained to help the afflicted person in their various stages of funk.

For that reason, among others, many afflicted people land up quickly going to their doctors or a mental health ward. The unlucky ones get arrested or worse.

Tomorrow night, my wife and I have tickets to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. This will mark, with my bad memory as a caveat, about the seventh time I will have seen the band live. It is an experience, as a longtime fan, that I have always eagerly anticipated. There’s nothing like seeing Springsteen live. Ask anyone.

Except now. 

I had tickets for the show last winter here in Pittsburgh. While serving my banishment from work and not knowing whether I would lose my job, I decided the responsible thing was to sell the tickets to a friend. 

I swore that no matter what, that wouldn’t happen this time, as opportunities to see the band live are getting fewer and farther between.

But rather than being excited, I’m worried. 

I know – how in God’s name can you NOT be looking forward to this?

Try this:

I hate going downtown. The traffic bothers me and I feel unsafe. So my wife is driving.

I got the closest parking to the venue I could but still am worried about getting mugged walking to and from the parking lot. 

I no longer feel comfortable in crowds. I also have less of a tolerance for certain noises at certain times. I doubt that either of these will be that great an issue once I get inside. Unless, of course, the people around me are obnoxiously drunk. Thankfully, the Springsteen audience has grown older as I have and this possibility is a lot less than going to a typical Steelers game.

And finally, with my sleep problems, I’m worried we’ll get two hours into the show and I’ll start having trouble staying awake. I trust the normal energy of these shows will outweigh that problem. And I have an appointment with the shrink the next day at 2 p.m. which should allow enough recovery time. I’m already fretting about having to compact a weekend’s worth of yardwork around the concert and recovery and I think it’s just not going to happen so the grass will get long and I will feel guilty. 

You would think a normal fan would be overjoyed that the Boss is still doing four hour shows. I just hope I can make it without viewing the encore without stifling yawns and rubbing my eyes.

If all of the above disgusts you as a fan or concert-goer, it disgusts me too. I didn’t use to be like this and, no, really, it’s not age. Well, maybe a little, but that never affected the anxiety levels. 

I hope to enjoy this like it was old times. I hate that I’m preparing more to endure the experience. I hate this and I hate myself for being this way. The guilt and shame become a vicious circle. 

I don’t go out much anymore for all of the above reasons. After the mental toll work exacts, I usually come home, feed the fish, eat way too much and go to bed by 8:30. And then I get up and repeat the process until my three-day weekend where I justify my existence by doing endless hours of house and yardwork, so come Tuesday morning, I’m exhausted and strung out which is a great way to start the work week in a job that’s killing my will to live anyway.

This is why I can’t wait for winter – a break from the endless cycle of yardwork. But we bought a house and with it comes the responsibility of upkeep. I need to hold up my end of the bargain for my neighbors and my own sense of duty.

I have digressed a little from the topic, but just enough to give the reader an idea of the various stressors that I deal with on a weekly basis: stressors that normal people can deal with but for me, turn into a weekly battle to the death.

So I need fun and relaxation which is where activities like this concert are supposed to come into play. But instead they provide more anxiety and exhaustion. Fun and relaxation for me comes from self-medication, sleep and occasional forays into ‘safe’ activities.  

I hate being this way more than you can imagine. If I could flip a switch and go back to the more energetic, optimistic me of 15 years ago, I’d do it in a heartbeat. 

But I have written all this to give the reader an idea of how some of us think, feel and experience life, warts and all. I hope instead of disgust, people will understand. 

THIS is how I know I’m not in good shape – fear and dread instead of normal excitement and anticipation. And I can tell you there is no pill or mental tricks I can play to make it better. I’ll only know that I’ve enjoyed the experience when I get home safe and sound.

Remember that September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. If you know of any depressed people, cheer them up with some ice cream. It’s happiness (however brief) in a bowl. 

PS: I forgot to work into this post about the upcoming Springsteen autobio and his recounting about how he dealt with his depression. You can read about some of it here. I guess he put Patti (his wife) through a lot. I feel dumb not having guessed at how bad it was for a long time. If one tracks the song lyrics over time, you can see his depression and stress reflected in his music. Tunnel of Love (one of my favorite albums) has for years been regarded as dealing with his doomed marriage to Julianne Phillips (which I wonder if he did because he thought this is what he had to do at this stage of fame). But there is so much more there through the years that provide clues. 

I haven't always been strong, but never felt so weak
All of my prayers, gone for nothing
I've been without love, but never forsaken
Now the morning sun, the morning sun is breaking

-- Bruce Springsteen 'My Depression'

September Song

It's September and It's National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.

Don't get me started. . .

BFD

So you may ask: why so sarcastic.

Here's two stories that buttress that sarcasm:

She didn't kill herself but it illustrates a larger point:

Young woman's journey ends tragically in mental hospital

No she didn't. But the system cares more about preserving it's own budgets than the life of any one person:

My mother didn’t have to die 

The point is we can  have all the 'months' and press kits and hollowed-out shells of social service agencies but if we don't think of each other as our own brothers and sisters, if we don't really the value a life other than its ability to produce revenue, then it's all a sham; a feel-good exercise that happens every year and improves nothing.

My experience with the local NAMI chapter always reminds me of that. Careers! Budgets! PR! Isn't it any wonder that non-profits have such a bad reputation as being snake pits to work in?

So there's this video on The Mighty.

It's typical of the kind of slickly produced feel-good videos they make that are supposed to have a salutary effect on the lightly disturbed. I say lightly, because I have a real problem believing these are intended to be effective with people in the depths of the hell that is their own personal illness.

It also plays on the latest gimmick of 'showing notes' to music, a technique that has been beaten into the ground.

I know its against the whole zeitgeist of present-day feel-goodism about mental illness, but why don't we take a realistic look at what might be the reply to some of these 'notes.'

1. . . .it really does get better; I promise you won't regret sticking through it. -- well, that's a hell of a promise to make and who are 'you' anyway? I've been waiting for it to get better for 40 years. How long before my magic unicorn arrives to deliver me to 'wellness land?' If I have to look forward to seven more years in that pit of hell I call my job, you're not doing me any favors.

2. You deserve to give yourself one more try -- 29 psychologists/psychiatrists, 25 different medications. Where's the 'pharmaceutical unicorn?'

Oh speaking of which, HALFTIME! (H/T Drew Megary) Enjoy a funny video:

OK, fun's over, back to The Mighty:

3. Open up. . . let someone in so they can find a way to help you through your tough times -- don't try this at work, OK kids? Also, for many, don't try this with your family or even your spouse (I'm lucky on that one). And remember the only reason your shrink listens to you is because you're PAYING them and most social service agencies see you as a numbered cog to get more funding. We clear on all of this? Oh wait, your church? Be serious here. They expect Jesus to cure you. Went that route too. Good luck to you because if Jesus won't cure you, the church figures it's part of God's plan. . . that you be miserable, perhaps to provide a warning to others.

4. Please reach out -- see above.

(and what's with that nail polish? so distracting)

5. Suicide is not a solution/it doesn't fix anything -- I keep finding it amazing that groups like The Mighty and the rest ignore the dirty little secret of suicide - people kill themselves to MAKE THE PAIN GO AWAY. Geez, why is that so hard to admit? Everyone has their breaking point and people who commit suicide have reached theirs. Perhaps they just needed another video. Or month.

6. This world needs you -- I used to think that. I really wanted to be of service to the world; whether is be as a journalist, radio host, civil servant. But they don't want to put up with my 'crazy' so most of those careers died in the fetid bowels of HR.

(I'm skipping a few here)

7. Getting help is easier than the alternative -- seriously? Unlike what you read in The Mighty, in the real world, getting help is about as easy as depicted in the two Post-Gazette stories I linked to at the top. And God help you if you live in a rural area AND don't have health insurance.

8. It's a thought; don't listen -- OK, for some people, it's be a 'thought' for years. They listen, they just don't act on it. Until they do. One of the biggest problems with many mental illnesses is the difficulty in turning off those thoughts. And the drugs that do turn off those thoughts pretty much turn off the ability to think and operate in the real world as well.

9. Someday the light will come, blah, blah, blah -- just stop already.

Our culture is full of feel-goodism because it's a whole lot easier than shifting spending priorities to really fund agencies that are less concerned with empire building than doing the job they supposedly were created to do. And to do that, you have to find people with a real passion for it and pay them what they are worth. And we also, as a society, need to stop looking at people as economic units and look at them as . . . well, for you Christians who hate paying taxes, God's creations (stop laughing). And of course, there's the stigma, all the stigma. But it makes for great reality TV.

Oh, by the way, here's what you can expect when you 'reach out' and 'tell someone' about your 'suicidal ideation:'

1. You may be forced into a mental hospital, pumped full of drugs until you're 'cured' or your insurance runs out, then you'll be thrown out into the street to arrange your own aftercare. Remember, in America, you're pretty much on your own for most of your mental health care.

2. You might lose your job and spend the rest of your life on public assistance begging for the help and medication that Medicaid thinks you deserve.

3. You might have certain employers or 'helping agencies' overreact to a report you may be suicidal and send cops to your house to actually assist you in the act, or set in motion points 1 and 2.

4. You might lose your friends or at the very least, you'll find out who your friends are. After all, people are busy and have their own problems. You got bootstraps? Pull 'em.

5. Points 1-4 may actually make you more suicidal than you were before.

Are you aware of suicide now? Good. They did the job.

Call me a curmudgeon but I'm genuinely sick of it all. Suicide prevention awareness month? We don't mean it, so let's stop pretending we do, OK?

The Manifesto of the Disturbed Person or Making a Friend of Death

Warning: this is a long one. Pour yourself a drink and settle in. 

'Have you now or ever talked about putting pins in outlets as a kid?

I had my interrogation yesterday (background here). The HR prick had talked to everyone in my section over the past week to suss out just how crazy/dangerous they thought I was. It was like taking a fun poll to him, I guess. 

A lie of theirs was that the previous Administrative Investigation was only about the petition circulated around the staff saying they thought I was crazy/dangerous but providing no specific incidents at all for their allegations.

But that interrogation covered a wide range of incidents going back to when I was almost killed in front of my wife by a SWAT team tenderly dispatched by the VA (I’m going to be blunt about who did this to me) because they were soooooo concerned about my well-being. 

So prick HR man says the results were a ‘mixed bag’ and then, in all seriousness, told me “some of the people you think are your friends are the ones who complained about you.” And no, the photo here isn't lying - saying that I stuck so many metal objects in outlets AS A KID that its a wonder to God and my mother how I didn't land up killing myself was actually reported by one or some of my coworkers as a 'disturbing' remark.

So from now on, I will refuse all holiday parties and staff get-togethers. I’d rather walk into a pit of vipers. 

Am I hurt? Yeah, but I shouldn’t be. People generally suck and in our culture and especially at the VA, destroying people is a sport. Pick on the weakest and ruin them. It’s fun!

If anything, I believe I am owed an apology. If not for almost getting me killed, at least for my wife. She has never been the same since the incident and has suffered greatly along with me. She is also upset because some of the people that did this to us we welcomed into our home or I gave a ride in my new car. But I won’t hold my breath for an apology. That would be the decent thing to do and the VA never apologizes – they pay out. 

I just don’t care anymore. Yeah, I have bipolar/depression/anxiety disorder. I never asked for it. It influences my behavior in ways I can’t always control. If it makes people feel any better, I hate myself for my inability to control it and all the lost opportunities it cost me along the way.

Please don’t talk to me of stigma. I’ve had it right up to my eyeballs and I’m here to tell you, it’s not going away any time soon. People in American culture just love to bully the weak and different too much. 

I never should have tried to educate people. It was like handing your enemies a sword and asking them to run you thorough with it.

But sometimes the bipolar do and say things that are genuinely odd and, as for myself, I always apologize and I felt trying to explain why these things happen would be a good idea. I probably would have got more understanding if I blamed it on doing lines of cocaine. 

But I don’t’ care anymore because at 53, I’m tired of being perceived as a freak and I’m tired of trying to get people to accept me for who I am. 

So fuck ‘em.

I want to be around the hurting and broken; the people who have been through the fire, taken society’s shit and are still standing, wobbly, bruised, cut, but still standing. They are the ones I identify with, not the people our society holds up as being examples to us all. Most of them are insufferable egomaniacs who were born on third base and think they hit a triple. We’re told to envy the Kardashians (and people like this) and respect corrupt cops, politicians and others among out ‘betters.’ You know, people like this. Don’t worry about Brock. He came from the best breeding and he’ll be on Wall Street making big bucks soon enough.  There are reasons these people climbed to the top of the greasy pole as Disraeli said. And it is not because they were angels on earth.

I will no longer try to get in shape to fit in. In fact, I will eat whatever I like whenever the mood moves me. I will get fatter and fatter. With a few brief exceptions, I have always been this way and I will die this way. Please don’t waste my time talking to be about my health. I fully realize what I am doing. Our days are numbered anyway and I’d rather go with a Ding Dong in my mouth than quinoa, thankyouverymuch. 

Oh, you’re angry that you’ll have to pay for me? Well, I’m angry I have to pay for your space weapons and other tools of death that make connected defense contractors obscenely rich. So fuck you. If it makes you feel any better, by the time my arteries are nearly closed, I’ll probably take myself out to save your precious health care money for the more deserving. I don’t want to grow old in this culture anyway and the dirty little secret of you ‘achievers’ is you’d like us to off ourselves anyway. Then you’ll scream at us for daring to thwart ‘God’s plan’ by selfishly killing ourselves. Gives you a psychological two-fer to feel all smug and self-satisfied.

Well, I guess this has turned into a genuine rant of sorts. This will never be accepted as a article by BP Hope or The Mighty or any of the other sites supposedly dedicated to the bipolar or mentally ill. They want happy stories of overcoming by photogenic young people not screeds, however truthful, from fat middle aged white guys who haven't been published in Huffpo. Go ahead and check them out and tell me I'm wrong. You'll only get the bitter old crazy middle aged fat guy viewpoint right here and nowhere else! Bookmark it!

Well, what else am I not going to do? Ah yes, pretend to take political or social stands I don’t believe in to keep ‘friends’ happy on Facebook and other places. I realize that my views are probably the opposite of what mainstream society thinks is ‘acceptable’ but I have allowed my need for friends to put me in this prison. 

Speaking of acceptable, see what Youtube is doing? De-monetizing videos they claim are ‘not advertiser friendly.’ Meaning, ones that don’t challenge anyone’s thinking or biases or present subjects deemed unpleasant to social justice warriors or their mirror-image counterparts, angry blue haired Christian women in Kansas. Yes, you're two sides of the same coin.

I have always believed that the natural end of capitalism will be fascism.

I have always believed that the natural end of socialism will be slavery.

The fundamentally flawed human race cannot exist under any economic system without allowing our seemingly natural desire for wealth and power to fuck it up.

We’re doomed no matter what. Take a good, honest look at the planet. We’re destroying our own planet so a tiny minority of people can remain unbelievably rich. We deserve what we get.

I must now realize that people like me simply cannot have the friends we always wanted. I have been consciously aware all my life that there are things about me which, in time, repel people. I understand what these things are: they are the weirdness that erupts when I have failed to keep my condition under control. Or, they are the times that my real feelings about things finally burst through. 

Example: I lost a bunch of friends I used to be very tight with back in 2004. Some were from my high school and their extended friends included a firefighter and a cop. We were in a fantasy football league that went back to 1994. On the night before the draft, we’d get together for a big backyard cookout at the firefighter’s house and then play poker for most of the night. God, what fun.  One of those evenings, the cop was talking about how he’d trick stupid (read: poor) people into revealing they had pot on them in order to make an arrest. One of my friends high-fived the cop. I was horrified. And said so. And that was the beginning of the end of that.

It’s time that, rather than running from that part of me to appease others, I should embrace it. I’ve been conforming for all of my life for one reason or another and I’d like to spend what little time I may have left actually being comfortable in my own skin for once. 

Looking back, it amazes me the things I was actually able to do despite my condition (although in almost every case, my inability to control my condition led to early exits from these jobs): I was a sportswriter, a columnist and a pretty damn good reporter for five daily newspapers. I was a radio talk show host and a popular one who could have been a national talker if not for. . .well. . . I was a soldier once, in military intelligence in the Army Reserve, but again, being true to myself, well. . . And it’s not what you think. It wasn’t political. I got into a shouting match with the 1^st Sergeant because I had the temerity to believe that letting reservists get drunk on a field exercise and drive around in armored vehicles wasn’t a very responsible way to run a company.

Management in any organization doesn’t like being told they are wrong/incompetent/evil. I never played that game and paid the price over and over for it. I’m actually kind of proud of it. In our culture, we make the worst people management because they’ve proven their reliability over their competency. Always remember the Peter Principle and the Iron Law of Institutions. They never fail. 

I realize that as a result of this, I will find myself more and more in my natural state: alone. And that’s OK. Looking back, I’ve found that my fondest memories have been being by myself, in my room, with my books, music and scratch pads. I have a wife who gets me and that is the luckiest thing that has ever happened to me. I hope she understands as I slowly shut myself off from human interaction and I hope she will not let that stop her from going out on her own with her friends and having a good time. She deserves it after putting up with me. 

I have come to believe that to lead a life that is truly free, you don’t need to live off the grid as a survivalist (although I get why people do that). I believe you have live your life as if you are already dead (or soon will be, take your pick). Admittedly, it gets easier the longer you live because you have fewer people to impress to make a living and living itself becomes more of a dreary slog. And, after awhile you realize that most of your prestige is based on what others can gain by knowing you, your friends will drop you like a rock over trivial matters and getting stuff doesn't make you happy, even if it is the car of your dreams.  I know what many readers must be thinking now and you are right. You’ve heard this somewhere before.

But the ‘already dead’ thing? Well, that comes from another movie (well, TV miniseries) and it concerns how soldiers at war can get over their fright. It’s what I would have done if I had been called to the Iraq War back in 1991: the minute you step off the plane into the war zone, believe you’re already dead. That enables you to do the things you need to do as a soldier. A corollary is something I’ve lived my life by which many regard as being disturbed thinking (but it works for me): always prepare for and expect the worst. If it happens, you can handle it better because you were psychologically ready for it. If it doesn’t happen, the relief and, perhaps, happiness, is that much more magnified. 

Remember: whether you know it or not, for many of us, life IS war. We fight every day against our own conditions/compulsions and against a society that doesn’t understand or want to understand us. We have to fight these little wars on several fronts: against our families, our friends, our workplaces, the government and other authority figures, and, of course, ourselves. We didn’t ask for war but in order to remain true to ourselves and survive in a world WE don’t really understand; we have to fight it – everyday. No wonder so many of us develop hypervigilance.

Some people can successfully fight this war to a natural death. That is a great accomplishment but no one with a mental illness leaves this world without deep and hurtful wounds. But they have won a great personal battle. Some fight as long as they can until they choose to make the pain end. Society calls them selfish cowards. They call these poor unfortunate souls those names because they don’t want to face that their society really doesn’t live up to our ideals that all of us is connected to everyone else. They also want to feel superior – that could never happen to them. 

If you believe in a creator of the universe, or whatever you call it, believe this: the creator didn’t build everyone with the same amount of steel. Some have more than others. It doesn’t make them bad people. In many cases, it gives them the gift of empathy, a rarer and rarer gift nowadays.

So for my lifelong war, after I saw this part of the movie ‘Band of Brothers,’ I have now adopted Lt. Speirs’ philosophy as my own. Let him explain:

ADDENDUM: Today's depression comix:

This is almost literally what I said to a coworker the morning of July 7, 2015 that brought the SWAT team to my door the next morning and started the 14 months of hell.

That co-worker can fuck right off with the rest of them.