One Way Out

I had a pretty heavy session with my shrink today.

She agrees my job is killing me.

She wants me to find a way to quit. I'm supposed to talk it over with my wife.

I'm wondering what kind of world my shrink lives in.

I think my dream from last night convinced her. In my dream there was an urgent voice telling me it was December 22 and I needed to get ready because Christmas is almost here.

You need to wear something red and green, the unknown presence urged me. You don't want to miss Christmas. You are so unprepared.

You need to get presents, you need to find your Christmas decorations.

I wasn't at my present house. I felt that I was at my family home but then again, it wasn't really. Somehow I sensed my father's presence, but he wasn't the voice urging me.

I roused myself in a way one rouses themselves from a lucid dream.

Barely cognizant, I thought out loud. "It's August, what the Hell?"

And then I fell back into a deeper sleep and it started right up again.

It's December 22nd! You're unprepared! You need some red and green! It's almost Christmas! You need to get moving!

This time I REALLY yelled in my dream - 'It's AUGUST DAMMIT! It's not Christmas! It's not December 22, it's AUGUST!

This actually went on for awhile.

When I finally woke up completely, I remembered what December 22 was.

December 22 was the day the work police came to my office to question me about the 'concerns' of some other employees. It was the day I was ushered off the premises and would remain off the premises until March 11.

I have no idea what this means but it shook the hell out of me.

I told my shrink that July 8 (when the SWAT team came) and December 22 will always be forever burned into my mind and it is nothing that I can erase. Like December 13 when my mother died, ever year I will remember because my conscious and unconscious mind will MAKE me remember.

I told my shrink that despite the way things were going at work now, that in the six years I have worked at the VA, that job has sucked any joy I had left in my life right out of my system. And now it plays across my subconscious. This may seem to be overstating the case, but for me, but it is a form of torture; my own form of PTSD based on mainly those two incidents.

The obvious questions:

Can't you find another job in government locally?
I have really tried. I was actually interviewed at NIOSH (part of the CDC) in Pittsburgh last October and thought I had it nailed. The two jobs that were open actually went to two of my co-workers. No one can tell me something funny went on there. They talk under the radar and I'm sure the word was put out. I had, the summer before, actually been flown to Raleigh to interview with the CDC. Nothing came of it.

So even if I was willing to move, the odds are the word would or already has gotten out. And, seriously, they're not looking for someone my age at my rate of pay anyway. 

Can you find a PR job in private industry?
I have tried that over the years. I have no agency experience and they look askance at government employment in this field (and I understand why). Also: I'm too old and male. They like hiring younger people fresh out of college that they can pay cheap. The young man that was hired at NAMI (last blog post) is a perfect example. And I applied for that job and wasn't even interviewed. Even if I had been, my salary would have been less than half of what I'm making now.

I'm a dinosaur. There's no going back to print journalism or radio. Both of those career fields are as good as dead.

I tried telling my shrink that I'm trying to gut it out, play mind games with myself, use my copious annual leave and try to find something else to occupy my free time.

The problem is, well, the problem is the paranoia and anxiety I experience every day there, the quasi-PTSD from the two incidents and the growing intrusion of work in my dreams.

Again, it may seem like I'm overstating the case but when you're already working with bipolar 2 and general anxiety disorder the things other people have the resilience to overcome, people like me get ground down.

And yes, I feel like a loser. But I keep working, keep plugging away. I get up and march my ass back to the office and do the best I can. I should think that would count for something on the credit side of my life account.

But I think my shrink is worried about me. She wants me  to talk it over with my wife.

The session ended before I could get into why it wouldn't matter.

We need my salary to keep the house. Period. And pay the bills. Period.

When I got married I made a commitment to keep up my end of the deal. I do this because I love my wife and felt she deserved the life she had not had. I wanted her to have a house with a real backyard. A good car. Room to enjoy life. I wanted her to be happy.

Going on disability goes against every fiber of my being. I have worked with only seven months total of unemployment since I was 16 - that's 37 years. I was taught that real men with all their limbs and otherwise healthy, do not sit at home watching TV drawing a government check. If I had been to war as a reservist (which I was, but never saw combat) and was wounded or disabled as a result of combat experience, it would be different. To look at me is to see no wounds. I don't see wounds. Other people have it far worse.

If I did this I would be ashamed of myself, fairly or not. I would have trouble looking my wife in the eye and everyone else. I will drag my battered psyche and my fat ass into work until I drop or make retirement which would be in seven to nine years, depending on the breaks.

And we could not keep the house on disability payments.

I am employed. I am lucky. There are people much worse off than I.

There is no way out for me except one. And my wife would rather have me alive.  But if grinding down my life is the price I have to pay some day to hold up my end of the deal, then I must be willing to pay it. I have two other failed marriages where I didn't make it work. I will be damned if I don't live up to my responsibilities this time.

So next week, I want to hear how my shrink thinks I'm going to quit my job while simultaneously finding a way to shit money out of my ass.

No matter how this ends, even if I drop at my desk, no one is going to accuse me of being a lazy ass who didn't work for a living. Somehow, someway, I have to find out how to make it work.

It's just rIght now, I haven't a clue how.

God bless and keep my wife. She remembers the day the cops came too: every time the phone rings when she's in the shower.

And while you're at it, please stop these dreams and the early morning panic that goes with them.

He felt her lying next to him, the clock said 4:00 am
He was staring at the ceiling
He couldn't move his hands
Oh mama mama mama come quick
I've got the shakes and I'm gonna be sick
Throw your arms around me in the cold dark night
Hey now mama don't shut out the light
Don't you shut out the light

(Springsteen, 1983)

How I Got Blacklisted by NAMI

NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness, which is great place to build a career, if you know what I mean) has a program for the mentally unbalanced like me to go and give testimonies (and free advertising for NAMI).

Unless you take offense to the way we treat you

Without knowing much about the actual program, I sent in my app and received a call from one of the honchos running the program. She was looking forward to seeing me. Two weeks later when I showed up, she had not only forgotten who I was, I looked up and down the table and didn't see a name card with my name on it.

You don't do that to me.

I had already applied for a job there that I was well-suited for - communications/outreach. Heck, why not? I worked at 5 daily newspapers, had a radio talk show, worked for three Federal government public affairs shops, AND - Bonus! I'm whacko bipolar 2. Did I mention I have extensive public speaking experience?

I never heard anything from my app until that initial meeting where they introduced the guy they hired. Unsurprisingly, he was half my age, thin, pretty and deferential and damn happy to have this job. Geez, I could have accepted it if they had just interviewed me.

Well, the woman who didn't remember talking to me, fussed around and made a hand-written name card which she plopped in front of me, and pulled an unused seat from the corner of the room for me to sit in.

Ever feel like Charlie Brown in real life?

Oh, I should also mention that for the last five months I had been coming to this room for a support group meeting for people with bipolar illness and their friends and family. My input was genuinely appreciated by the parents who were going through such a rough time. I wanted to do what I could.

I wanted to get involved.

So now I'm sitting here like a dork with my hand drawn sign, looking around the room and seeing many of these people already know each other (like a club) and then the moderator slaps a packet of information in front of me that was sitting untouched at another table.

Welcome to NAMI. Want a cookie?

At the first break, I left, but not before I wrote a little clue for the staff on the back of the form. Basically, I said, here I was, a guy with bipolar2 and social anxiety and you TALKED TO ME two weeks ago, promptly forgot who I was, lost my application, acted like I was an interloper of some kind, never apologized - do you wonder why I left? We're not supposed to treat our own like this, don't you think?

I never got a response and I never heard from the support group again - not even an email asking where I was nor a newsletter.

Blacklisted by NAMI. Well.

In the end, it was just as well. What became clear in looking at the materials I was given is that NAMI would strictly control what we would say about ourselves when out in public. Remarks had to be structured to a prearranged formula which needed to be covered from A to B to C. And the class would drill this formulaic speaking into you and make sure you followed the script by sending more senior speakers with you on your speaking engagements.

You know, to see if you're reliable.

If I'm going to talk about my illness, it's going to be on my terms on my time. Picture a stand up comedy routine married with a TED talk. Sort of. I'm good at it. I used to entertain thousands before I pissed off the cops and politicians by telling the truth about them.

But being well medicated and understanding my history, no one would have any worries about my public speaking.

But I will not get in anyone's straight-jacket. Yes, that's intended.

I guess I should not have been surprised by what went down. It's happened before in other venues. I've read comments in Psychology Today and other mags bemoaning why is it that the people in the 'helping professions' are such Machiavellian assholes to their co-workers and within their profession? I'm picking on NAMI here, but I've heard the same thing about other organizations where careerism overcomes service.

Mentally ill people are not 'props' to expand the empire of a local MI (mental illness) organization or public profile of that MI organization's executive leadership. They are autonomous individuals with hard won pride and dignity whose 'stories' do not fit into any speech outline.

They are also people who should be treated with the utmost respect by members of those MI organizations. After all, they're the reason for your expense account.

The Default Emotion is 'Meh' -- Life Without Passion

One of the problems with this mental condition is losing enthusiasm for things I used to enjoy.

Over a period of time, I seem to have lost my former passions for the following:

'71 Ike non-silver dollar. Worth $1 but fun to hold

1.       Coin collecting – it is a shame that American silver, my favorite collectable, is only in fashion for the worth of its silver content. I have bundled all of my silver together and plan, at some point, to sell it. Right now, silver is at roughly $20 an ounce on the London spot market, which means if you sell to a silver broker or a coin collector, you’ll be lucky to get $16 an ounce (or less) and it’s really not worth it. I had fun in the past, taking my collection out and looking at it and wondering who passed these coins or bills in the past and where. Much of my collection came from childhood and in many cases, I remembered getting a coin from my grandfather’s collection, or, in one case, the coin display at the old Chardon Woolworths. Now they just sit there, for the most part. I find the paper money more fascinating to look at. My ‘first dollar’ pinned to the wall of my basement bar is a 1957 issue $1 silver certificate.

It has its advantages

2.       The basement and bar itself. After a while, I’ve pretty much been able to complete the bar and the basement. There is little left to display or buy, save a lighted beer sign from the early to mid ’60s, one more wine and glasses rack I’ve had my eye on from Amazon, and a few more newspapers that may be found here or there. I should, perhaps, have not moved so fast to fill the room and bar but I’ve had this strong inclination to finish it, probably due to a lifelong feeling that I should do what I can as soon as I can since one never knows how much time we have to enjoy it. I go down and stare at the whole menagerie and think it well done. Then I go back upstairs.

It's . . . cooler than me.

 3.       The Mustang. Sadly the glitter has faded. Don’t get me wrong: I still like the car, but do not love the car. It has turned, for me, from a lifestyle choice to another, albeit pretty cool, set of wheels that gets me from point A to B. I knew this would happen, so I am not in the least upset. I was always told: do not fall in love with a car; it will not love you back. But I also think that the infatuation with the car fell victim to my habit of having short-term passions about everything – a problem I have had throughout my life but has been more severe in the last five years.

4.       Reading. Another reason for sadness. As a former bookstore owner, I still have quite a library of hundreds of books I have not read, nor probably ever will. I still occasionally buy an actual book (and leave it partially or totally unread) but lately I have bought Kindle books, which I would have never thought I’d do. The thing is they’re so much easier to read in bed. But I rarely read in bed anymore. My love for reading started by hiding books underneath my bed and then taking them out and reading them, sometimes by a night light, until I was tired enough to sleep. You would have much time in the evenings to read if your parents put you to bed at 7:30 p.m. until the fourth grade. Then it was 8 p.m. I find it a great effort now to pay attention to what I’m reading. I tend to read books in dribs and drabs and grow bored with them quickly. This is in part because of my love affair with the Internet which is perfect for people with short attention spans, which, again, I have developed within the last five years. This happens when watching TV as well. Most of the time, the TV is now background noise while I peruse the Internet

5.       Writing. Since my last job in journalism ended in 2005, I have not had the need to write regularly until I came up with this idea for a blog. There have been several other aborted blogs stretching back years but this is the one that I have stuck with and, in it, done what I consider to be my best writing. However, again, I lack the discipline to write regularly and my motivation comes in bursts. If I have a sudden idea for a topic and I’m in front of a keyboard with enough time (which is what happened with this entry), I will write a very fast piece before I forget what the main points were I was trying to make.

6.       Rock music or the music of my youth. I wrote about this briefly in my last post. I pay for Sirius XM in my car and have all the music channels that play the songs of my life programmed, but most of the time I’ll just listen to the local classical station. The songs of the 70s just bore me now and even my favorites like Springsteen, Segar, the Stones, ELO, etc. fail to raise the old passions. Again, I find this saddening, but it is what it is.

7.   Food. Funny thing, since the incident of July 8, 2016, my loss of 55 pounds went to hell as one of the things I sought solace in was food. But it's not like I'm enjoying it like I used to. It just fills up an empty space. All that's left that I really crave is ice cream. It is depressing. 

Best. Antidepressant. Ever

There are other things I’ve lost my passion for, but I’ll stop there. I sense this is a dry enough posting anyway. 

One of the little secrets is that I tend to write in the style of the last book or piece of writing I have been reading. In this case, I have been reading Ernst Hanfstaengl’s memoir of his association with Hitler in his early years. ‘Putzi’ as he was called (ach, to have a complex German last name!), was a cultured and erudite person and when I read something in that style, I write in that style. 

This is why the style of my writing changes radically at times, from one blog post to another. This is also the result of my mental condition which also sees me affect different personalities and manners of speaking at times as well, based on the last person I have been with or talked to.

My writing is also affected by whatever mood I happen to be in that day. This has nothing to do with multiple personalities. I have no idea why this happens.

Back to the subject of losing passion.

I would say much of this is the fault of medications which are designed to smooth out the rough edges of bipolar and depressive traits. You no longer flail about trying to finish four major yard projects in one day or suddenly get the urge to take a road trip to Florida (both of which have I have done in the past). Also, you don’t get so depressed that you start looking for the right doorknob on which to hang yourself.

This is all good, but the downside is, what many call a ‘flat effect’ of personality. Most of the time, my mood is caught in neutral. I can get up and down still, but rarely move to the extreme edges of behavior. And, of course, I literally no longer have a passion for anything. Interest at times, yes, passion, no. 

In many ways I miss that often childlike enthusiasm for things. I suppose in my first two marriages I must have acted very childlike at times when a more sober manner or reasonableness was called for.

Being unreasonable was a hallmark of my behavior through the years and it would come and go. Such is bipolar. Of course, the depressions were awful too, but add to that a lack of restraint and it’s a wonder I had either a wife or friends. 

Too bad it's not true.

So I must accept this. The last time I tried to wean off certain meds (I was taking an improv class and thought my meds were affecting my ‘creativity’), the results were disastrous and my career in local comedy died stillborn. At that point, like most other people with various mental illnesses, you finally give up and admit that you’ll have to take these meds the rest of your life, like it or not. 

Mental illness can steal a lot from a person. One of the worst things for me has been the stealing of my passions for things I used to enjoy. And I know I’m not the only one. 

Even the president needs passion
Everybody I know needs some passion
Some people die and kill for passion
Nobody admits they need passion
Some people are scared of passion
Yeah passion

Turn the %#&*# Noise Down

I can sympathize

One of the more irritating ‘little’ things about my condition is noise sensitivity. I don’t think this topic gets talked about or studied as much as it should. Perhaps it’s because for most people, they can’t imagine the insane irritation the condition engenders.

The volume control in our home’s television is the main indicator of my waxing and waning sensitivity. Sometimes, I have the volume set on 16 and it’s perfectly fine. An hour later, it’s maddening. It can go down to 12. 

The even numbers are a leftover of the severe OCD I had as a child. That is another subject altogether but I have a comfort with even numbers which my wife tolerates. 

Commercials are the bane of my existence. I don’t monopolize the TV remote because I’m some kind of sexist pig but because my wife understands how disturbed I can get with the rising volume of TV commercials and lets me swing the volume up and down as it pleases me.

For this I am eternally grateful.

By the way, don’t EVER let anyone tell you the volume isn’t raised for commercials. My hearing is sensitive enough to make a strong case.

The worst are car ads but they are not the sole offenders. These ads usually come with a wall of noise provided by either shrieking electric guitars or some kind of machine press noise ratcheted up to the level of a jet plane taking off. Well, at least to me.

Pussy cow, pussy cow, pussy cow. Californians will get it

I know the trick is to grab the viewer’s attention. It certainly works with me but I make a mental note of the worst offenders and vow never to buy anything from them. 

One of my golden rules is this: never buy anything from someone who yells at you in the commercial. That goes for radio and Internet as well. Also, and this may anger some, be careful of any ad using country music as a backdrop – it indicates the audience they are looking to attract, especially with car ads. I like older country music (think Buck Owens, Edward Arnold, Conway Twitty, et. al.) but the nonsense that gets played is a transparent play for people who lack buyer’s sophistication. In short, they are insulting their intended audience, but if it didn’t work, I suppose they wouldn’t do it.

To wake you from TV stupor and BUY!

But I digress, obviously.

I’m amazed the lettering hasn’t worn off the volume buttons on the remote. 

The other problem is tinnitus. Most of the time, I’m aware of a low-grade machine-like whine in my ears but since it’s so constant I can ignore it. Except when I can’t. I have noticed that my noise sensitivity seems most pronounced when the tinnitus is at its worst.

I have never mentioned that to any of my doctors. I guess it’s because I never considered it worth complaining about, and besides, what can you do about it?

Well yeah, kind of like this

The strange thing is I rarely adjust the volume of the radio that controls the sound system in the house. I almost always play classical music on the radio so maybe that’s a clue. I don’t know.

Right now, the ringing in my eyes is pretty bad. It’s somewhere between a machine whine and a high pitched whistling wind. I have no idea why I have this issue or whether my medications impact it. 

In any case, I have the same issue in the car. Again, I have to thank my wife for my volume fiddling habit which would drive most people nuts. Up and down, up and down. She can usually tell by the pained expression on my face.

It’s hard to say exactly what it feels like. It’s anxiety, yes, but a different sort than the normal anxiety which is more of a worry thing. What I feel from noise is like someone holding a joy buzzer to my head. That’s the best way I can describe it. 

The sad thing, at least to me, is that I used to like my music LOUD, especially rock. Whether at home or in the car, especially when I was alone I would crank up the Stones or Springsteen until it shook the floors. 

One night coming home from a party, my mom said she could hear my car radio 30 seconds before I got in the driveway.

I have no idea if the loudness of my youth hurt my hearing and left me with this condition. I don’t think so for another reason: I rarely listen to rock or pop anymore. On Sept. 11, I’m going down to Consul Energy Center to see Bruce Springsteen, consistently my favorite rocker. The Boss and I go back a long way and I’ve seen him and the E Street Band five other times throughout the years.

I’m hoping I can get the old feeling back – the excitement, the arousal, the enjoyment. I also hope I can take the noise level. 

Please let the magic happen one last time. . .

This whole issue started with the problems at work, circa 2011. To soothe jangled nerves, I started listening to the old standards like Sinatra, the big bands, the crooners etc. I also started listening to classical music. Never in a million years did I think I would have become a classical fan, but it happened. 

The depressing thing is, I can’t seem to go back to the rock and roll I loved so much just a decade or so ago.

Age? Or mental condition? Or a little of both. I used to make fun of my mom watching The Lawrence Welk Show after her devotion to the music of her youth (the 50s). Now I take it all back. I get it. 

If it's too loud, you're too old, right? No. At least I hope not. 

But still, I have a problem with silence, except at work, where I prefer quiet so I can think and chew gum at the same time. And yet, here I am, typing this blog entry with the TV on in the background.

I don’t get it. But I’ve already changed the volume six times in the last 30 minutes.