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Am I Too Hard on Myself?

A friend asked that question yesterday. I’ve certainly been accused of being too hard on myself before. My step-mother reads this blog and told me I should give myself a break. Steve Lambert, former editor of The Eagle-Tribune, said I was too hard on myself when I wrote the “One of My Biggest Regrets” post.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:0OXjHxbrmrkpvqudvzWlDR]

The short answer is that sometimes I am, most of the time I’m not.

When I was at my absolute worst, I knew my soul was in deep trouble and I hated myself for not having the will to do something about it. I call it my long road through self-hatred. Back then I would be hard on myself by wallowing in the corner or, more accurately, in my car, where I would go on many, many binges.

If I had the ability to cry it out back then, I would have probably binged less. But I’ve never been good at crying, so I’d let the rage fill me and I’d do my best to destroy myself. It’s not that I wanted to die. It’s that I hated and wanted to punish myself. Giving in to my addictions was a lot like taking a thick leather belt and lashing myself a few hundred times.

That’s what happens when mental illness and addiction burn wild with no management. You end up being hard on yourself, and nothing good comes of it. In fact, it just makes things worse.

Today I’m hard on myself in a different way. I come on here and write about what a shithead I was the day before, and in the process I fix my course and work on doing better. That’s much more healthy.

I was feeling stupid yesterday because I purchased a new pair of boots and a pair of pants on Amazon.com. I needed the boots, but not the pants. It was a splurge with money we don’t necessarily have. Call it no big deal, but I know better. Sometimes, when I’m not letting the food addiction or wine guzzling control me, I let the spending addiction control me. Or the Internet addiction.

That’s when I have to remind myself that I’m being a jerk. And then I try to do better.

When I put up my wall and fail to let family in, I need to come on here and remind myself that I’m doing something wrong so I can fix it. Same thing when I’m thinking about things in absolutes.

In the final analysis, I see nothing wrong with being hard on myself as long as it leads to self improvement.

It’s the brand that leads to self pity and self destruction that’s the problem.

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The Hole in Your Soul

A lot of changes to my program of sobriety and abstinence are under way, and I feel like I’m running on nuclear power. Last night was my first Big Book Step Study meeting, which is quite different from the speaker-discussion meetings I’m used to. It only took me a few seconds to realize why I had to be there.

Mood music:

A lot of times when someone sobers up or stops binge eating, it’s a white-knuckle experience.

It’s not just because you’re missing your junk and the momentary feeling it gives you. It’s because the hole in your soul — the thing that drove you to addiction in the first place — is still there. If you don’t deal with that hole, you might stay clean for a year or two. But sooner or later, you’ll fall right back into the old, insidious patterns.

Speaker-discussion meetings are a vital tool for the initial clean-up. You can’t start working on the hole until you stop the addictive behavior. It did me a ton of good and I still need to go to those events, but it’s no longer enough. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is all about dealing with the hole, and studying it more closely is a must if I’m going to stay clean.

Studying the pages will also pull me deeper into the meaning of working the 12 Steps.

I also have a new sponsor starting this week. Instead of me simply telling him my plan of eating for the day, we’ll talk about the deeper issues at the heart of sobriety and abstinence. I’m looking forward to it.

My life is full of Blessings. This program is the one that allowed for everything else.

I’m glad I’m starting to take it more seriously.

A guy at last night’s meeting noted that there are two types of addicts:

–The type who is doomed and DOESN’T KNOW IT, and

–The type that’s doomed and KNOWS IT.

The latter type has a better chance of escaping that fate, because in knowing you’re headed for disaster you might be willing to take action. I’m glad I was that type.

I had an advantage: Several years of brutal therapy for OCD. The tools I had to develop to manage that are a lot like those you need to clean up. And it was all about identifying the hole in my soul.

It’s still there, but I think it’s getting smaller all the time.

Because I keep working on it.

I’ll have to until the day I die.

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Midwest Center for Fraud & Bullshit

Cleaning out the trunk of my car yesterday, I came across a stack of cassette tapes from a period in my life when I was so desperate I’d spend stupid sums of money on anything to remove my fear and anxiety.

These tapes were part of a program that cost me some $450. Each tape, sold by the Midwest Center for Stress & Anxiety, is designed to help people learn the skills to defeat anxiety and depression without medication.

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I ordered the so-called free trial in 2006 after seeing all the late-night TV infomercials with Lucinda Bassett, mastermind of the program. I worked the program diligently. But overall, the program wasn’t even close to what I needed.

I called the Midwest Center before the free trial period was up to tell them I’d be sending the tapes and DVDs back. No go, an impatient phone rep told me. They had already charged the card number I gave them. No refund.

Meanwhile, I received a package of vitamins in the mail with ingredients designed to reduce stress and balance the brain chemistry. At first it struck me as odd, since the concept on paper was a lot like other pills the center typically railed against. They weren’t anti-depressant-caliber pills like Prozac. They were just vitamins. I saw them for what they were: an expensive placebo.

I never asked for the vitamins. Yet there they were, and they were charging me extra for something I didn’t order or want.

The phone reps basically told me too bad, they had already charged my card and there were no refunds. I should have read the fine print.

So, the program to attack anxiety and depression simply made those things rage within me even worse than before.

At some point, I dumped the tapes in a box in my trunk, forgot about them and moved on. I found more lasting tools to manage my OCD and the resulting fear, anxiety and depression, and that was the end of it.

When I found the tapes, I chucked them in the trash along with the rest of the rubbish I was clearing out of the car.

When I came back inside, I found myself looking up articles about the Midwest Center and found some surprising items.

First, I found obituaries for Lucinda Bassett’s husband, David Bassett, co-principal of the self-help empire. The various reports were that he committed suicide in June 2008. Having lived through the horror of loved ones committing suicide, I’m reluctant to say anything bad here. I feel badly for Lucinda Bassett. To lose someone you love that way is one of the worst things you could ever go through.

Still, I couldn’t help but find it sadly, painfully ironic that THIS GUY would end his own life.

Here’s something I found that was written shortly after Bassett’s death. The author is STEVE SALERNO, author/essayist, musician, teacher, and blogger. (Check out his SHAMblog) He wrote:

This past June 7 (2008), 53-year-old David Bassett walked onto a California beach and ended his life with a shotgun. This took place not far from the home he shared with his wife, Lucinda. If the names sound vaguely familiar, it’s because David and Lucinda Bassett were principals in the Midwest Center for Stress & Anxiety.Not a few of those who left their thoughts were refugees from the Center’s in-house discussion forum, where their critical remarks had been expunged or edited; a few claimed to have been banned altogether. Collectively, they seemed to feel they’d been abused, if not conned. The gist was that the Center had used misleading claims and credentials to charge them a lot of money for programs that didn’t work (or at least hadn’t worked for them). To be fair, a number of Center apologists also weighed in, and for a while we had a spirited, thought-provoking give-and-take going.A prospective customer might reasonably ask: If the Center’s programs can’t even prevent one of the Center’s owners from killing himself…?

I also found a site known as the Complaint Board, where a fellow by the name of Alfred logged his complaints about the Bassett empire:

Lucinda and David Bassett flood late night infomercial TV with their overpriced Attacking Anxiety and Depression schlock program. They advertise a ’30-day risk free trial’ for just $9.95, the so called ‘shipping/Handling charge’ (inflated as any typical infomercial ripoff), the hook being that the S/H charge is all you pay for the 30 day ‘trial period’.Then when you aren’t magically cured by this collection of cassette tape in 30 days, send it back with no obligation to pay the $75.00 a month that they bill your credit card for the next 6-7 months. Do not believe this CRAP for a minute. They start ripping you off immediately with the inflated shipping charge and then start removing your money 30 days from the ORDER DATE which typically is 10-14 days BEFORE the 30 day trial period STARTS. By the time the ’30 day trial’ is over they have already taken the first FULL payment of $75.00 (+ tax) by 2 WEEKS, even when you decide you don’t want to buy this craprogram. One of Lucy’s top-secret cures is to ‘Drink 8 glasses of water everyday’ and ‘quit smoking and drinking’ DUH!! Gee for such wisdom it only costs 450 bucks! If these amateur Pyschobees had a grain of credibility would they operate so Don Lapre-like? It will take weeks to get your refund (if ever) A wiser approach would be to work for the Bassett’s. Then you can buy the ‘program’ for $20 and save yourself $425 just 90% off the ripoff price they charge everyone else.

That sounded a lot like my experiences with the program.

To be fair, this program probably has worked for people. I’ve seen plenty of positive reviews over the years. It’s just that there is no one size fits all. What works for one won’t work for another. It’s the same with medication. What worked for me won’t necessarily work for the next guy or gal.

There’s always that roll of the dice.

I just don’t think it should cost someone $450 to handle the dice.

Here’s the real problem, though:

You can tell a person to read the fine print, but a depressed, anxious person isn’t thinking about the fine print when they’re up at 3 a.m. watching those infomercials.

A person like that is desperate, and when they see a TV program telling them how easily the program will work in their lives, they’re not thinking about the fine print. They hear the words “free trial” and dash for the phone with credit card in hand. They figure the credit card number is just a placeholder. They don’t expect to actually be charged. Sure, they’re engaged in stupid thinking. But when you’re mentally and emotionally sick, stupid thinking is a way of life.

That’s what this program is: A money-sucker that preys on desperate people.

The lesson here is that you can’t go for anything packaged as a quick fix.

Nothing — and I mean NOTHING — will cure you in 15 weeks or even 30.

Getting truly well is a process that takes years. And you are never cured.

That’s my personal experience, anyway.

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A Year in the Life

This isn’t a post about New Years resolutions. I don’t need a holiday to make changes in my life. IT IS about lessons I’ve learned in an effort to make resolutions.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNUU8jHXLMg&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

There’s been plenty of unpleasant stuff this year. I’ve watched two marriages fall apart. We had a couple months where money was painfully tight. My recovery has never been easy. But that’s life.

A big fistful of goodness slammed down on me, too. Me, Erin and the kids took two drives to the DC area and back. During the first trip we got a private tour of the White House West Wing, seeing the Oval Office, Rose Garden and press briefing room. I got to meet up with good friends in San Francisco, Toronto, New York and Chicago, among other places. My recovery was tested daily, but I held it together.

Making New Year’s resolutions used to be a compulsive activity for me. I was always so desperate for something better that I fiendishly and feverishly made lists of what I would do in the coming year:

–Stop binge eating

–Stop worrying about what other people think of me

–Stop trying to please everyone

–Stop letting my mind spin with worry

–Face down my fears

I used to go crazy about all that stuff, all to no avail.

By the end of the first week of a new year, these resolutions were cast aside. The eating resolution went first, then the bit about worrying about what others think.

Thing is, I eventually tackled everything on the list. But it was a much longer process than the instant-reset fixes we have a habit of pursuing at the start of every new year.

As far as I’m concerned, there is no reset button. The journey begins when you’re born and ends when you die. Case closed.

In that spirit, I promise to KEEP AT the following:

–I will keep drinking coffee and savoring the occasional cigar. I put down the food and have sworn off alcohol. We all have a collection of addictions, and my approach is to hold firm against those that cause me the most dysfunction. Coffee suits me just fine, and the cigars are infrequent.

–I will keep listening to metal music, because it keeps me sane.

–I will keep enjoying a good humorous tale, especially the off-colored variety. 

– I will keep up and increase the devotion to my wife and children. In doing so, I will keep up and increase my devotion to my Faith.

– I will keep feeding my appetite for history and learning from the hardships of those who came before me.

–I will write a TON of articles in the world of cybersecurity because it’s what I do and what I love.

–I will keep trying to be a better friend and colleague, regardless of the date on a calendar.

–I will keep working the 12 Steps, because it is essential to my well-being.

– And I will keep writing this blog, because it’s good for me and many of you have told me it’s good for you.

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From Confusion to Wisdom

I’ve crashed many times while blasting down the road of life. The car is in one piece now and I’ve learned to throttle back some. And when I hear the following words of wisdom, I KNOW it’s the truth:

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agn4y-M1rjA&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

ACCEPTANCE

?”Holding onto resentment is like drinking poison and expecting it to kill someone else.” – Matt Baldwin, Snow Rising (thanks, Cheryl Snapp Conner, for pointing this one out.

“People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.” – Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” – Carl Rogers

“The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.” – Warren Bennis

FAITH

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” – Helen Keller

“We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.” – Marian Wright Edelman

“Faith is not belief. Belief is passive. Faith is active.” – Edith Hamilton

“Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.” – Mary McLeod Bethune

FEAR

“Hate is a disease. It is fear’s messenger and it makes us do terrible things in a shadow of our better selves, of what we could be.” – Colin Farrell

“The robb’d that smiles steals something from the thief.” – William Shakespeare

“Every time we choose safety, we reinforce fear.” – Cheri Huber

“Worry gives a small thing a big shadow.” – Swedish proverb

“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.” – Rosa Parks

“I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.” – Louisa May Alcott

“You must do the things you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

FORGIVENESS

“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee/And I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me.” – Robert Frost

“Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.” – John F. Kennedy

“In the Bible it says they asked Jesus how many times you should forgive, and he said 70 times 7. Well, I want you all to know that I’m keeping a chart.” – Hillary Rodham Clinton

“It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.” – William Blake

ADDICTION

“A grateful heart doesn’t eat.” — Over-eaters Anonymous saying.

“Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.” — George Carlin

“when you can’t climb your way out of such a hole, you tend to crouch down and call it home…”
— Nikki Sixx (The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star)

“What’s worse? Being strung out or being fat?” — Nikki Sixx (The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star) 

“When You’ve lost it all….thats when you realize that Life is Beautiful.”
— Nikki Sixx

“If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.” -AA saying

“I spent a lifetime in hell and it only took me twelve steps to get to heaven.” -AA saying

MENTAL ILLNESS

“Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness” -Richard Carlson

“Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all.”
– Bill Clinton“My friend…care for your psyche…know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves” – Socrates

“The main symptom of a psychiatric case is that the person is perfectly unaware that he is a psychiatric case.” – Oleg P. Shchepin in the New York Times, Nov 1988.

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding about ourselves.” – Carl Jung
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Talk Therapy: Sane or Satanic?

I touched a nerve with my post about the pros and cons of the therapist taking the patient through the same things over and over again. They didn’t slam my perspective outright, nor would they. But they flagged some dangers in this technique that are important to share.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZzus86pdls&fs=1&hl=en_US]

What makes their feedback so valuable is that they are therapists themselves. The following responses came my way by way of the LinkedIn NAMI group’s discussion board.

Thanks for sharing, my friends. Readers: See what they have to say and do what you will with the knowledge. There’s more than one way to skin this cat, as the comments show.

First, you should watch this video, which I put in that last post, because that’s what really hit a nerve.

In one of my favorite TV series, The West Wing, Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman undergoes a long, brutal therapy session:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23dBqzo2aYY&version=3&rel=1&fs=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1]

Kathleen Hockey, Author, Speaker, Mental Health Professional: It seemed to me Josh already knew what happened and the therapist was forcing him to be honest about it, to the therapist and thus to himself. This is good. However, I question the therapist who forces a client to hash over and over in his/her mind things in order to get at what is not remembered. That kind of digging is questionable practice. Also, not found in the West Wing piece (for drama’s sake obviously) is that the therapist’s next step would be to help Josh change his beliefs about the traumatic event and emotionally disconnect from the experience. Talking about the painful experience incessantly without this piece does make a client relive the experience, which is not good.

Me: All valuable points, Kathleen. I agree it’s questionable to rehash things just to get at what’s not remembered. From my experience as a patient, the rehashing was (or certainly seemed to be) designed to make me be honest about things I was dismissing on first and second brush. My experience is that a good therapist always seems to tell when I’m not being honest with myself. That’s when the rehashing happens. It was helpful to me, though I didn’t like it much at the time.That said, everyone is a little different in how they’ll respond to certain tactics. Thanks for your input.

Elena Yobaccio, Private Practice as Elena Yobaccio, MA – Psychotherapist: This therapist is fairly aggressive, which makes for good drama but effective trauma therapy does not (imo should not) progress like this and can be damaging. one of the theories behind “retelling” the traumatic event is that the therapist can help ground and moderate the client’s overwhelming emotions, help them take the story in digestable chunks of whatever size, and reintegrate the impossible-to-accept story into “normal” narrative memory so that it can finally be put to rest and associated memories and emotions, while painful, are no longer interrupting and disrupting life on an involuntary basis. i personally believe this is true and that our minds and hearts will only safely “remember” when we are strong enough, and with a safe enough person–not because we are pushed into it. with that said, encouragement, support and validation are all crucial to the process.

I have worked with many, many severely traumatized patients. I have rarely actually done actual trauma therapy because i have rarely been in a position to perform it safely. i have been through poorly done trauma therapy myself, and I have seen it done well and and done poorly with peers. I do know many people who have told me they avoid seeking therapy precisely because they are afraid they are going to be rushed into a feeling state they already know they can’t tolerate. or, they think that they are going to have some kind of massive cathartic remembering that is going to “cure” them so they try to hasten the process and succeed only in retraumatizing themselves. I think these kind of dramatic reenactments make for entertaining footage but don’t really help people understand what therapy actually is and does.

In terms of relational talk therapy, the key to successful trauma processing is not just remembering, it’s repairing the flow of memory so that the “trauma” is not sitting around un-inegrated in our minds. i think of traumatic memory as kind of an iceberg with big jagged edges free-floating and tearing through the fabric of the soul and the present moment. IMO talk-therapy dealing with trauma should and can only be done by a trained professional after a very strong alliance has been built with the client to provide them with the emotional bond necessary to endure and successfully experience and transform traumatic affect.

With that said, there are also alternatives to “talk therapy” for trauma, such as CBT and EMDR, which at least some people are reporting extremely helpful for PTSD treatment. CBT has never worked well for me, but I know it works well for some and has nothing to do with “telling and retelling” – it’s all about managing symptoms such as phobias and flashbacks; not my speciality either. And I have not personally tried EMDR.

I don’t know that any of this addresses your original point about repeatedly going over old ground, I just wanted to address the TV clip which is pretty representative of how media commonly portrays therapy and trauma therapy in particular.

Me: All great points. Thanks.

Gerry Hughes, Owner, Neuro-Linguistic Learning Center: When working with trauma or PSTD, our first rule is to NOT allow the client to associate in the memories and never allow the client to re-experience the emotions of the event. That type of ‘talk therapy is hack therapy, It is outdated and I think you could make the case that it is abusive. It is the very reason most sane people avoid therapy. 

There are solid techniques to release the emotional charge on traumatic events without re-traumatizing the client. EMDR can be extremely useful especially when the past events are mixed and confused.

NLP and TIME Techniques are awesome at releasing traumatic events. I average about 12 hours (4 sessions) to completely remove the fears, flashbacks, etc. associated with a traumatic experience.

Me: Thanks so much for the insight on NLP and TIME techniques. Fascinating and very helpful information.

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Readings From The Book Of Crap

I’ve noticed a sad phenomena in the halls of recovery. And I’ve had just about enough of it.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60J6HlvfePM&fs=1&hl=en_US]

A lot of my 12-Step brothers and sisters have a saying: “I’m taking inventory.” It’s supposed to be about reflecting on your own growth and behavior. But it’s really about trash talking other people. One person is doing too much of it lately.

Everyone who walks into an OA, AA or NA meeting is a little crazy. If we weren’t a little bit off, we wouldn’t have to be there in the first place. We’re entitled to our faults. But when someone corners you all the time, pushing the AA big book in your face and quoting from its pages like you’re desperately in need of hearing them recite it, there’s a problem. Especially when it’s clear they’re not coming from a healthy place.

Anonymity is an important tool of recovery, so I’ll keep the person’s name out. The person cornered me after Saturday’s OA meeting after I shared about needing to tweak my program. Me seeing my needs as they are turned into a tirade about me being in denial. He tells me to read page whatever in the 24-hour book and page something-or-other in the Big Book. After awhile, it’s like David Koresh pushing a Bible in your face and telling you what it means, just before the compound bursts into flames.

As I looked at the clock and saw a half hour going by, I felt something I haven’t felt in a long time: I wanted to punch the guy. Hard. That IS NOT OK.

This fella is having a lot of trouble relating to people lately. He walks around asking people for money and then spends it on cigarettes. He tells you we have to bomb the Chinese and the Iranians because Israel is going to be nuked and it’s in God’s plan. He goes on about how this person demoralized him or that one betrayed him simply because they called him to the carpet when he decided to interrupt or speak out of turn.

Most disturbing, God is becoming his excuse for every bad decision he decides to make. It’s an old story, people using God to justify their bad choices.

I bring it up not to flame anyone, but to point out something vitally important for anyone trying to hang onto their sobriety and abstinence. When someone needs help, you try to help. But when someone needs SO MUCH HELP that they latch on and suck the life out of you, calling several times a day and making a crisis out of every little thing, it’s time to back away.

A person like this is not evil. They need to be loved, and we should love them and try to guide them. That’s what God wants.

But in any program of recovery, limits are everything. Limits are meant to protect you from relapse. 

And when you let someone bring you down with crazy talk all the time, you’re putting your own recovery in jeopardy.

Relapse and you hurt your family, your friends, your livelihood, and your faith. And once that happens, you’re no longer in a position to help anyone else.

You can’t help yourself, for goodness sake.

To be of service to the most people, you have to cut ties with a few. It may not make sense, but it’s true. That’s what I have to do.

So when someone tells you we have to start bombing China in between reciting direct passages from the AA Big Book, it’s time to look them in the eye and tell them, as politely as possible, that it’s time to grow up.

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Read This…

My good friend Jennifer Leggio has started a new personal blog that chronicles, among other things, her battle with the weight demon.

I know that demon well. More of us do than we care to admit. Jen took a bold, somewhat controversial step to slay the demon and went under the knife. If you want to see courage — and the excellent writing — check it out. Now.

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Black Rain

Rain is pelting my living room window as I write this. As a child, the sound was comforting. Today, it’s the opposite.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=663L-GWQdws&fs=1&hl=en_US]

As a kid, I found comfort in a cloudy sky and rain. I suppose it made me appreciate the inside of my house and gave me a cozy feeling. The overcast sky was like a blanket. I wanted to hide from a lot of things back then: the Crohn’s Disease raging inside me, the unhappy chatter coming from my parents as their marriage fell apart, the sound of my brother gasping for air during one of his asthma attacks. The sound of my mother yelling at my sister and slapping her around.

For some reason, the clouds felt like a blanket I could pull over my head to blot those things out.

Somewhere along the way, something changed.

Now the sound of rain hitting the window makes me feel uneasy and a gray sky fills me with gloom.

This time of year it’s worse because it gets dark so early.

Part of it is age. As I get older, I prefer hot, dry weather and maximum sunlight. Deprive me of that and my mood tanks.

The rest of it is about the twists and turns my mental health has taken with time. 

Does weather impact one’s mental health? You bet your ass it does. My moods almost always hit the depths when there’s too much rain, snow, cold and darkness.

In the book “Lincoln’s Melancholy” by Joshua Wolf Shenk, we see how long periods of gloomy weather drove Lincoln to suicidal thoughts in the 1840s, two decades before he was president.

I’m doing what I can to combat the weather problem. My medication helps. My program of recovery from compulsive overeating helps a ton. Occasional visits to the therapist help. Writing helps. And yes, the happy lamps Erin bought help.

I feel much better overall than I have in past Novembers.

But in the end, you can only do so much. So despite all the work I’ve done on myself, this morning’s weather has me in a rut.

It’ll be a brief rut. I don’t fall over from depression for days and weeks at a time like I used to. Now it’s more like minutes and hours. That’s progress.

The best medicine is to move along and get to work.

And if I can get a nap in somewhere, all the better.

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Me and My Wall

When I get tired and angry, I have this wall I put up. Erin is usually the one who crashes into it.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpAbUvl3eTk&fs=1&hl=en_US]

She’s been building a freelance editing business for the past year, and the hours she puts in would kill a lesser person. I’ve taken on a lot of extra things around the house to help, and for the last week or so the fatigue and frustration has set in.

Not frustration with Erin. Frustration over the situation.

This is a much better situation than what we faced several months ago, when all the freelance work dried up and we couldn’t figure out how we were going to get all the bills paid. Now there’s a ton of work, and at the end of the day we’re both wiped out.

The problem is that I don’t immediately catch on that I’m frustrated. I figure it’s just me going into OCD mode. I’m just tired, I figure.

That’s when I become a prick.

Erin will try to engage me in conversation and I’ll shut down. I put the wall up. I don’t realize I’m doing it, and that’s a problem.

For all the sharing I do in this blog, sometimes it’s still ridiculously hard to open up to those closest to me. I’ve worked hard on fixing that in recent years, but I’m far from there.

One reason is that I’m still a selfish bastard sometimes. I get so wrapped up in my work and feelings that it becomes almost impossible to see someone else’s side of things. That eventually blows up in my face.

I also don’t like to be in a situation where there’s yelling. There was plenty of that growing up, and I tend to avoid the argument at all costs.

I’ve gotten better at this stuff, but I know I still put that wall up at times. Putting up a wall can be a bitch for any relationship, because sooner or later bad feelings will race at that wall like a drunk behind the wheel of a Porsche and slam right into it. Some bricks in the wall crack and come loose, but by then it can be too late. The relationship is totaled. 

I’ve come to realize this will always be a danger we have to watch for. It’s a danger in any marriage. Carol and Mike Brady never really existed. If they did, they could have used a few good fights. They wouldn’t have wasted so much time sitting up in bed reading boring books.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, it’s time to put the big-boy pants on and get back to work on that wall.

Maybe one of these days I’ll tear it down once and for all.