Closet time now, comments later.

I am working on an article about socialism, but it is overloading me. I have already been in the closet twice today and I am looking at a 3-peat very soon. I have been unable to search the news sites beyond what I got for the article.

Sorry.

I wanted to clear some things up about myself and my family and why I am not with them. It seems appropriate to discuss this with the holidays coming up.

I write this blog because I have difficulty putting my thoughts into audible words. It takes me several hours to write a piece like this. I write out several thoughts, then I have to put them into an understandable sequence and expand on them to make them comprehensible. This is one way I communicate with my case manager and medication nurse, my two major mental health caregivers. I have to because I can't fully explain myself during my appointments.

Dealing with a mental illness is a lot like being in recovery. It's something that you have to battle every day. Complacency about the problem leads to a relapse, which in my case can be fatal. A relapse for me means I eat a gun, or step in front of a bus, or something else equally gruesome.

I am still emotionally unstable. I haven't been stable since the first time I crawled into the closet. It doesn't take much to push me into the closet. The only thing the medication does is level my playing field to a hill instead of a vertical cliff. With everything I do to make myself as stable as possible, it still isn't enough. I still have to head into the closet on a daily basis to combat the overloads I experience.

My family has serious fears about me. My instability has already put them through multiple terrible incidents. Serious issues exist between my family and I and because I cannot stabilize the load I already have. It would literally be suicide for me to try and take on the additional burden of my families problems. Especially since I do not have the capability to actually do anything to help out. The most I could do is commiserate with them, which does nothing but stir everybody up. I can't do anything to help out because I would get halfway through solving the problem, then fall apart and abandon the project, leaving things worse than if I had done nothing at all. I know this because I have done it before on several occasions.

My wife and son love me, but they are scared to death of me. For the sake of everyone's survival, I cannot be in their life. They have cut themselves off from me for their own survival, both emotionally and physically. They are already in a bad situation right now, for multiple reasons. But as bad as things are, it would be worse if I was around.

More people commit suicide around the holidays and I can see why. This should be a time of great joy to spend with family and friends. My family is only 2.5 miles away, but for all practical purposes they might as well be on the moon. I see little reason to celebrate anything this year. With my family afraid to deal with me, there isn't a lot that keeps me going.

The only thing that does keep me going is the fact that my family is dependent upon my disability money. If I blow my head off, that money ends. And for as bad as things are for them now, it would get a thousand times worse.

I'm stuck where I am with little hope for improvement. I don't have any bootstraps to pull myself up with anymore. The drugs barely work and therapy doesn't address the issues hindering my progress. Even though I don't have my family any more, they are the sole reason why I get out of bed in the morning. They are the reason why I must continue to exist.

It's not a lot, but it will have to be enough.

Since the days that I had my Fat Mac, there is one particular sound effect that I wanted. Today, I finally got it. I downloaded the appropriate shareware, pulled out my DVD of Our Man Flint and got the ring off the Presidents' phone. I have wanted that ring since I first saw the movies back in the 70's.

I also got Ash's little quip, "Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun." Name the movie for Bonus Cool Points.

The bad news is my Buckaroo Banzai DVD is with the family. Maybe Blockbuster has it.

Now all I have to do is go through all of my DVD's before the shareware runs out.

As I write this, I have several open windows bookmarking things I want to comment upon. But I can't, I'm too busy beating my head into the wall. I don't know why, but I've been like this all day. So it's closet time for me and hopefully I'll have lots of juicy stuff for you on Sunday.

Attended the company Christmas party, Got my holiday bonus and won a tool kit in the prize drawing. I'm off for the rest of the day, but I have to go and deposit the bonus so I can commence with the holiday shopping. Bloggedy goodness to follow.

Any time I think I can really go back to work, I do several things in a row. This morning I did all of my personal grooming, vacuumed around the apartment, cleaned Rocket and Corkys cage, then walked down the street and paid the rent. When I started news scanning was when I fell apart.

That got me two hours in the closet. Oh joy.

Of course, Rocket and Corkys incessant screeching didn’t help either. They got three trips to the bedroom this morning. The only way to get them to shut up is to either put them where they can’t see me, or let them out so they can fly over and sit on me. When I let them out, I have to wear a towel over my back and shoulders so they can chew and poop on that instead of on me.

I have such an exciting life, don’t you agree?

I have to work today, but I don’t have to go back until Tuesday. Don’t worry, I’ll keep posting. It’s not like I have anywhere to go. My parents are gone, my sister is 750 miles away in Ohio and my family won’t have me.

Enjoy your family. You never know how dear they are to you until they are gone.

I have been having a lot of compulsive thoughts lately. That’s what drives me into the closet. I need the darkness and the quiet to get my racing thoughts under control.

I forced myself into a minor manic swing this afternoon, running around the apartment. I was picking up and rearranging minor things so I wouldn’t have to deal with the obsessive thoughts. I lost. I ended up in the closet anyway.

Obsessive thoughts are like a significant other that won’t let an argument drop. You’ve given in to all the demands, you’ve said, “I’m sorry” a dozen times, but they still don’t let it drop. Your SO is still in your face, telling you all kinds of hurtful things, and you can’t turn away or stop it. You’re stuck in the middle of it and the best you can hope for is a comfortable place to ride out the storm.

This is what prevents me from rejoining the regular workforce. I doubt a regular employer or coworkers would understand why I have to spend lunch curled up and whimpering under my desk.

I did some shopping this afternoon, enjoying a nice walk in the beautiful weather. Ever since I got back, my condition has been deteriorating. I’ve already spent a couple of hours in the closet, I’m out for a bathroom break and I’m going back in, probably for the rest of the night.

Something is wrong, but I can’t put my finger on it. I know I don’t feel right, but I can’t explain it. I really wish I could see my case manager twice a week. At least I could bounce stuff like this off of him, and let him make the Mental Health Professional decisions for me. I used to see him twice a week, but budget cuts did away with that.

I want to write, I’m beginning to think that I need to write. But it doesn’t help when your side-effects deny you the ability to concentrate. My eyes and other muscles twitch, it seems like someone is playing around with the volume control with my hearing, it feels like I’m always tired. Things like that, and that’s just what I can think of through the mental haze I have right now.

Back in I go, trying to conquer the obsessive thoughts.

I seem to have developed a weird side-effect of my Abilify. I keep waking up throughout the night. Before I started this drug, I would wake up once about 2:30 am, roll over and go back to sleep. Now I seem to wake up every 30-45 minutes and not fully fall back to sleep.

I’m still getting up at 8:40 and feeling okay (other than my normal side-effects) but this sleep thing is really starting to get me upset. I like to sleep. It gives me a break from all of the obsessive thinking I do about all of the problems in my life.

Let me clarify what obsessive thinking is. When you are presented with a problem, you define the problem, think about some general possibilities for a solution, then work within the general solutions to make the specific solution that addresses the problem you defined. Then you go out and fix the problem. You do a lot of this process unconsciously.*

Well, I get stuck in the “define the problem” stage. I am up to my eyeballs in this problem and all I can do is spin around in circles like a dog chasing its tail. This is where I’m in the closet crying and banging my head on the wall. I spend a lot of the time in my closet.

*It was part of my Navy training as an Electronics Technician to be a problem solver. I carried that system throughout my life and it has always served me well. Before I was sick, I used to be the “go-to” guy when tough problems came up. I usually solved the problem with a subtle, inventive solution. At work.

At home I used the brute force approach and upset my wife to no end. She knows how inventive I can be, especially at work, but when it comes to personal problems I act like a bull. Head down and charge forward. “If brute force doesn’t work, you’re not using enough” and all that.

I don’t know what to do. I’ve gone through this at a low level of Abilify (10mg/day). Now I just started 15mg/day and I am wondering if this sleep problem will get better or worse. Maybe it will stabilize in a week or two, I don’t know. I’m stuck with it for at least another 3 weeks.

I’m doing some heavy duty maintenance on my computer, so I probably won’t post again until Monday afternoon or so. I have to wipe my primary drive and reinstall everything. [sarcasm] I am so looking forward to this. [/sarcasm]

I think I lost my family. I walked up last week to pick up the wifes prescriptions so I could have them filled, and an argument ensued. The details are unimportant, but during the course of events I was insulted rather severely and unnecessarily. In the few emails that followed, she said things that reinforced the insult.

So, I wrote her an email plainly explaining how she insulted me, as well as several other things that again reinforced the insult. I told her I would not do anything for them until I received an apology. She responded, calling into question my remembrance of the facts and basically called me crazy.

What really hurt was the fact that she picked this fight, no doubt about it. I think I had access to them just because I had the vehicle, so I could be their on-demand transportation. Now that the vehicle is dead, I am worthless, so she drives me away to make sure I won’t bother them any more.

While I have told most of this to my case manager today, (he’ll read the rest of it tonight when he visits here), you are the only people whom I can tell this to.

Thanks for letting me cry on your shoulder, I’ll try not to do it again.

I visited my medication nurse today, and voiced concerns about the side-effect problems I have alluded to you before. She responded by cutting my Geodon by 2/3rds and starting my on another anti-psychotic, Abilify. While I don’t have schizophrenia, it does have properties useful in treating biploar disorder as well. I hope it addresses the issues so I can get a modicum of normalcy back in my life.

While the urge to blow my brains out is taken care of, the cost in side effects is a serious life-impacting problem that calls into question why I am going through the effort in the first place.

Living with mental illness is like being in recovery. You have to beat it every day, it’s never far from your thoughts and your life is forever changed because of it. The cost if you fail can be catastrophic, not only for yourself but your family as well.

For some reason, I am peaking out at 8 on the depression scale. No reason, but I am contending with thoughts of hurting myself. I am cowering in the closet hoping this will pass soon. Until it does, no posting.

Today pulled the wind out of my sails and I’m not up for my normal witty analysis. I promise to make up for it tomorrow before my case manager shows up.

There is an important difference between broke and poor. If you’re broke, you have a temporary cash flow problem. You anticipate having money flowing again in very short order and you are willing to do anything legal to do so. Being poor is a mental state that says you can’t do any better. So, you don’t try to change the situation because you believe there is nothing you can do to make things better.

This article, HUD Orders Public Housing Tenants to Volunteer asks for eight hours a month in community service.

“This is not volunteer,” Tanner said. “This is mandatory work and we really shouldn’t try to confuse the two. This is very much like workfare.”

I have always held the belief that you should be worked like a dog if you’re on welfare.

If you have a job, you’re working as hard as you can and still can’t make ends meet, that’s one thing. I commend you for it and don’t mind supplementing your income to help out. That should be the definition of welfare.

If you are physically or mentally disabled (myself included) and are unable to work, I have no problem with my tax dollars supporting you. * (see note below)

If you’re stupid on purpose because you dropped out of school, or you didn’t pass your classes, if you have had two kids before you turned 18, I want to work you like there is no tomorrow. I want to work you 60-80 hours a week so you think a regular job is easy.

Once you apply for welfare, you have 6 months of no work, because your job will be to find a job. If you don’t have at least a GED, you get 6 months of intense schooling before that, and/or job training. If you are still on assistance at the end of your free time, then you start working for welfare, 40 hours a week. Heavy, menial, backbreaking work. You work on the weekends so you have two days off during the week to look for a job. After a year of that, you start working 60 hour weeks, wearing an orange jumpsuit. If that isn’t enough, you start pulling 80 hour weeks. If you aren’t going to work for yourself, you’re going to work off what you owe the taxpayers. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid. Period.

I don’t mind welfare being a safety net, but I do mind it being a safety hammock. To get paid for not working when you can work just boils my blood. It runs counter of everything I was brought up to believe in. Between my military and civilian job careers, I put in 20 years of hard work. I was never unemployed for more than 3 weeks, because when I looked for a job, I went through the want ads like Godzilla did Tokyo.

When I got out of the military, I actually made the Navy Times. That’s a weekly military newspaper. They had an insert on transiting to the civilian sector, with several people and their stories profiled. I made the cut because I told them exactly what I told you with the Godzilla crack. When I looked for a job here in Memphis, I went through the Yellow Pages and wrote down the name and address of every computer related company in town. I made a resume for each of my listings. I then started at the top and worked my way down. It just so happens the third place on my list hired me on the spot.

I have always been extremely aggressive when it comes to job searches, and I will never understand anybody who isn’t. If you don’t want to invest in yourself so you can get better jobs with more pay, then you’re exactly where you deserve to be. I plan on starting to take advanced computer classes in the near future so I can solidify my resume. I got most of my jobs because I was already working at those levels, so the lack of training was made up for by real-world experience.

* I wanted to explain this without interrupting the flow of what I was saying. I receive a fair amount of Social Security Disability, because of what I made before I was sick, the fact that I’m married, and that I have a child. I work as much as I can, because if I got paid any more than what I get paid now, I lose my disability. In order to have the same amount of take home pay as I do now, I would have to have a job that pays about $48,000 a year, about what I made before I got sick. I can’t just jump into such a high level job like that, not with a 5 year gap in my resume. So, I am stuck in my situation with very little options. I know that $48K sounds like a lot, but remember that’s pre-tax, plus health care and supporting two households. There is very little fat in our budgets.

UPDATE: I am sorry to say that while I included my income from my part time job, I didn’t tell you I did. I realize it sounds like I am getting paid an obscene amount of disability, but it really isn’t.

I’m sorry that I don’t have anything today. It started out with a power outage, then a 90 minute trip to get to an important doctors appointment for the wife. Then I had to invest time in a family crisis. The crowning moment was on the way back, the transmission died. I have a mechanic friend who will do it for a lot less than if I had it done at a dealership, but that doesn’t mean it will be cheap.

As if my life doesn’t already have a lot of excitement.

Well, further evidence that the Wellbutrin XL is working. I actually fired up my Usenet reader and got caught up to date with rec.models.rockets. Which is something that I haven’t done in months.

Which leaves me in a quandary of sorts. I am beginning to see a crunch on my time. There are 5 major things that I want to do at the moment, each of which can absorb several hours a day.

They are:

1. Reading Mechwarrior message boards.
2. Reading other blogs
3. Reading news sites and posting on this blog.
4. Working on rocketry projects.
5. Reading Usenet boards.

This is the order in which I have expanded myself. I have moved from one to the next, and it seems the time between expansions is shrinking.

Thinking about the quantity of these things and the speed in which they are piling on is staring to scare me. If I am not careful I could go manic, and that would be very bad. I can’t tell you how doubleplusungood me being manic is. Dangerous bad.

Come to think about it, I have had to fight down some rather annoying impulses to spend money. The fact of me wanting to go next door and buy a soda for 80 cents is nothing next to the urge to do it. I also bought $45 worth of rocket motors Sunday. It doesn’t matter that I had enough rocketry cash to do it. The fact that I did do it without my normal second and third thought is. The budget I live on is tight enough to use it as a trampoline. Most of the spending money I get is from incidental purchases from my family. I break a $20 to buy dinner or something and I get to keep the change.

This is a rather disconcerting development, one that I must watch like a hawk. Every action must be double checked, every motive scrutinized. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. If it wasn’t for this blog, I would not have recognized this change in behavior until much later, if at all.

This article, FDA Warns of Possible Suicide Risk With Children’s Anti-depressants was a red flag to me.

As someone who has been and is on antidepressants, you do not use them lightly. My current condition is because of a severe side effect of the first antidepressant that I tried. I remember the doctor almost chuckling about how “classic” my symptoms were as she wrote my Prescription of Death. I say it that way because my life, who I was, everything about me, died when I started taking Effexor.

I have listed those antidepressants that came in the article, and next to them I gave the brand name, because that will be the name the doctor uses with you. They are: citalopram (Celexa), fluoxetine (Prozac), fluvoxamine (LUVOX), mirtazapine (REMERON), nefazodone (Serzone), paroxetine (Paxil), sertraline (Zoloft), venlafaxine (Effexor).

Be careful with these. They can change your life either way.

I know I haven’t made any personal updates for a while, I just haven’t been up to it. Plus there really hasn’t been anything new to report. My sleep time is still skewed at the 1am-9am slot. I’m awake by 7:30-8:00am, but I cower until 9 or so.

I’m 2 weeks into taking Wellbutrin XL, an anti-depressant. I’ve taken “plain” Wellbutrin before, without effect. I don’t know what they do to make XL different from the regular stuff, but they tout XL as having less sexual side effects. A couple of side effects that I am concerned about is loss of appetite and weight loss. I used to weigh 230, but I’m under 200 and still losing. It seems that I can’t drill holes in my belt fast enough.

The good news is I think this stuff is starting to work. The last time I commented on my Depression Scale, I was at a 6. I think I’m up to a 4 now. What I think is helping is I wasn’t very consistent with a morning Trileptal dose. I’m 100% compliant now, because I must take the Wellbutrin.

I think it’s working because I’ve done a lot today. I visited with a rocketry friend, did some rocketry shopping, then came back and did some rocketry stuff that I’ve put off for months. I’ve done more rocketry stuff today than I have done for almost the entire past year. I also cleaned a bird cage and swept up in the apartment. Normally I’d be having some closet time about now, but after finishing this entry I’m going to continue puttering with my rocketry stuff.

I can’t say I’m feeling good, but I’m feeling okay, and that’s good enough for today. I’ll go for good tomorrow.

ATM Skimming – Consumers Beware! details in yet another way your electronic identity can be stolen.

I don’t understand how the extra swiper is being employed at ATM machines. I know that unscrupulous restaurant employees who you hand the card to can have a hand swiper that steals the information, but unless the whole ATM is a fraud, I don’t understand.

Anyhow, I only use ATM’s that belong to my bank. I live next to a Stop n Rob (Memphis slang for convenience store) and I picked my bank based on the ATM in that store. I only use other banks machines in extreme cases due to the ATM fees, and I never use third party machines.

Let’s be careful out there.

Until I landed in my apartment, stable on my medication, I was homeless off and on for three years. There were the big blowups that got me into the hospital, but there were lots of smaller blowups that resulted in me grabbing my backpack and walking out of the house for three days to a week. I’ve slept under bridges, in doorways, in missions and libraries, in summer and winter. It was an experience that you should do your best to avoid at all costs.

Telling The Truth on the ‘Homeless’ talks about the underpinning causes of homelessness. You can’t solve the problem with the Liberal solution, which is to just give housing to the homeless. You need to treat the problem of why these people are homeless. The right thing for the wrong reasons and all that. Normally doctors treat the symptoms to cure the disease, but in this case that doesn’t solve the problem. You have to have a patient who is willing to address the problems as to why they are homeless, or confine them to long-term care facilities where they get the treatment if they like it or not. But that money and facilities simply do not exist. Psychiatric facilities are there to treat acute problems, not the long care stuff.

Because I had a family that was dependent on my disability money, there was nothing left over for me to use for the long-term care that I really needed, such as a care home or my own place to live like I have now. It took the fortuitous break of getting a job where I could support myself and walk to work.

While my family and I still have a long way to go, my relationship with my family is at it’s best since I became sick.

I have been dealing with some rather personal issues over the past multiple months. Being depressed, I never thought about it much, thinking it was just a by-product of the depression. Well, after my appointment with my Medication nurse, I spent some time with my family. I mentioned my problems with my wife again, and she went to my computer and looked up the side-effects of my medications. Sure enough, all of my issues were the uncommon side-effects of one of my medications.

The medication in question is a ‘last-resort’ medication, the one to go to when everything else has failed. This has given me pause, and now I will spend the next month thinking about the subject on whether or not to change this medication. I will be bouncing this off my Case Manager. While these side-effects are seriously impacting the quality of my life, I worry about the impact of a bullet with my brain even more. Decisions, decisions.

Wow. That ‘something’ to help me with the insomnia laid me out like a sledgehammer to the forehead this morning. I made it to work, but I was in no condition to drive. I came back to the apartment and I didn’t get up until 2pm. I’m still pretty laid out but feeling better.

I’m slowly looking over the news, and working on an essay or two. Later.