The Rabbit In The Wall

2019.05.13 12:00 pm Post Title: The Future Freaks Me Out

Hello to the possibly figurative people who read this blog. It's been a while! Life is still fishtailing between winding myself up for a panic attack and being generally OK with how things are going. Social life and work has me busier than ever but no more or less below the poverty line than I already am. Which in a sense eases us into the topic of today's blog and how it correlates with my anxiety disorder.

The Future Freaks Me Out is not only a fact of my life and the title of this post but the title of a song by Motion City Soundtrack. The song itself doesn't seem to hold the same feel for life other than the not joined lyrics of “I'm on fire” and “the future freaks me out”. In fact, if anything their song “Everything Is Alright” fits better since it has to do with dealing with an overactive mind and trying to keep it busy so you don't do something disastrous like catch the kitchen on fire.

Getting more into the actual topic at hand — yes I am constantly fretting over the unknown that is the future. This sort of thing is common yet I also find myself with this feeling that I am not going to live past 40 at the most and am oddly ok with that. Oddly being the only thing that I can think of to describe the feeling of dread and introspective horror at that fact. I'm not surprised though. For a long time, my stress had lead to suicidal thoughts. None that I acted on, but they were there all the same. They seldom focused on being mad or hateful toward me or anyone else though. Mostly it was just me being too overwhelmed by the fact that I had what seemed like no control over my life, everything was going to shit from my perspective, and I just wanted to not feel like I was being tortured all the damn time. Since the only thing I had control over would be my continued life status of “Still here” I guess it just lead me to wanted to just go all dark no stars for the rest of Christendom.

All the plans I had for my future unraveled and died in my junior year of high school then slowly but surely all my following plans until two years after I graduated college went to shit too. Now I have no plan, am hesitant to make any despite being encouraged to, and am freaking out on a weekly basis because I have no fucking clue as to what I'm doing anymore. Some days I can roll with it but like recently with all the things both physical and mental that kept me from writing in this blog — I find myself rising into what will probably be a nasty panic attack in a month or so. I have a job I like but do not love whatsoever since it pays very little and my boss doesn't trust me despite working for her for two years. They periodically think I am slacking off every other month and I have to explain to them that I have been working the entire time. Things just don't always go to plan and sometimes what seems like the smallest issues with tech, software functions, or website building can snowball into a larger problem and consequently a larger task timetable. While everyone does have boss issues and I know that — I am one of three people at this company. I have a lot on my plate because of that. I have had to pay over $1700 dollars over the course of two years in this job on a work computer and its accessories on a paycheck of $11.50 an hour 35 hours a week. All just to keep this job where I don't get paid well and my boss doesn't trust me. Add on to that the fact that I don't get paid vacation time or sick leave or federally encouraged 3 day weekends or even paid lunch breaks — I am stressed. I am very very stressed. But I am stuck with this job until someone else wants to hire me — and my job search of a year and a half has come up with no one interested. Add on to all that the fact that I'm nearing thirty with bad cholesterol, stress, and unexplained tachycardia problems and that pun intended deadline of 40 doesn't seem too far fetched or unwelcome.

So yeah. The future freaks me right the fuck out. I don't know what to do about it other than take things a day at a time, let the panic attacks happen when they do, and idly acknowledge that if I die in the next twenty or so years at least I won't have to deal with anything ever again good or bad.

2019.03.22 8:49am Post Title: Confrontation Makes Me Go Grey

The first post directly addressing an issue concerning high anxiety disorder. One of the big contenders for the top trigger is having to confront anyone about anything at any time. Whenever I have to give someone an old fashioned talking to about something they've done or something they've said I puff myself up with exaggerated anger. Like some weird cousin of a pep talk, I drag the issue around and around in my head dragging it through cerebral dirt and mud until I have enough nerve to speak my mind. All the effort to gain the result of me meekly going up to the person and wanting to apologize to them for even bothering them. I don't back down from the issue and I get it addressed, but the stress I feel during the talk itself constricts my chest just enough to hurt, and with no evidence that the person would react badly I always assume they will.

I don't like pointing fingers at people because I know that for a good part of how things have screwed me up in the past was due to my misinterpretation of the situation. While I can be very good at reading people and get an instinctual impression of them I have the tendency to color that impression based on the overhanging emotion I feel during some situations. Add a little penchant for feeding into drama and the truth based on memory becomes skewed and blurred.

Nevertheless, I will mention that I have more than mulled it over for years. As a bit of an incomplete intro lets just say my parents are recovering alcoholics. While they did raise me to the best of their abilities and hopefully succeeded in teaching me to be a good person ( a thing I constantly agonize over), there is the saying its not if you screw up your kids its how. I think this particular confrontation thing may be a result of that. The big thing about being around let alone being raised by recovering addicts is what they call “King Baby Syndrome”. It is the name of the addict's overall tendencies of being over controlling, self-centered, self-absorbed, insecure, and blaming everyone else for their problems. Being raised around the recovering community taught me a lot of good things: you can't help people who don't want it, if you can't take care of yourself you can't take care of others, and the big thing that pertains to this post is that while your recovering addict loves you and wants what's best for you their decisions are mostly going to be about themselves. A harsh reality yet one that needs to be made aware of those who are considered what the recovering community calls “Al-Anon”. I.e. those like me but not necessarily limited to kids. Al-Anons can be anyone living and or caring for a recovering addict.

Getting back to the point of the post — how this whole other side of my parents' lives factors into the confrontation issues I have is simple enough. My confronting them on anything had the tendency to end in a number of not so great ways: they belittling the problem, they becoming affronted and recoiling, and perhaps the most damaging — the conversation turning into a huge fight where very hurtful things are said on either side. Concerning my memories growing up, of course, all the times they hurt my feelings just for disagreeing with them or speaking my mind are going to be the most prominent regardless of how often actually civil responses happened. For a long time, I didn't introspect on the matter and just clung to the distorted view I had on my childhood. I became untrusting and volatile towards my parents altogether bottling up my problems, becoming resentful, and ultimately becoming squeamish toward, you guessed it, confrontation. My only argument toward my defense that seems like it has any merit is that if you grow up hearing your parents say that overall your problems aren't big enough to address, and you grow up agonizing if any problem you have is worth the possibility of it devolving into a screaming match — you become an adult who agonizes over little disagreements and quails at the thought of just asking someone to not smoke in the same room as you.

That Al-Anon lesson didn't get taught to me until my early twenties long after some very dark years of self-torment that I won't get into just yet. I know not to take the things my parents say so personally anymore. I even have a very good relationship with my mother in particular now. We can talk to each other about our mental health problems for the most part. She had told me that a lot of the time my having emotional problems in my life made her feel like she was failing me which had lead to her belittling, recoiling, or the fighting. I told her how it made me feel like they didn't care about me enough to help me with my problems. We both reassure each other that neither of our insecurities are true in reality. She helped me see a therapist over my issues which lead to my diagnosis of high anxiety disorder. Even though it has been some time since I've seen that therapist due to money issues and my moving 12 hrs away — overall things are better. It isn't always sunlight and daisy chains as my parents and I still fight, but distance and better communication mean it's not nearly as much as it used to be.

I still find I fight with myself over whether or not my problems with someone or something is worth mentioning or confronting people about. Its a natural part of living in Society that I recoil from and have to fight all the time. I don't see that changing, well, ever. I hope it gets easier as time goes. Maybe becoming older will mellow me out. Although, I've already gotten to the point in my life where I'm getting tufts of grey hairs. It doesn't seem to have heralded a new age of less strain so much as a new age of wondering how else my age is going to show. Just more fuel for my freak out rocket.

2019-03-21 8:34am Post Title: It's OK To Just Feel “OK”

So yeah this is a common occurrence in my life. I think there was a consistently all green point somewhere in the early years. I think it was around the time before I became allergic to all in the world that is pollen. Then for two chunks out of the year, I was gross from face slime and reclusive. Survival meant avoiding being literally blinded and breathless from nature's splendor. My favorite season changed from Spring to Winter respectively. An odd optimist meets nihilist humor set in, and what I've now come to understand as the Pastel Goth lifestyle became a life goal.

Returning to the main topic though, yes I'm OK for the most part. OK days mean I don't spiral, have body image issues, remember how terrifying people can be, or question my continued presence in what will be a necessary forgotten history. I say “necessary” because I don't want someone other than myself to log anything about my life. Certainly not to the point where it could count as “history” — and I'm rambling.

Anyway — people want more than OK and I can't give it to them. I sometimes wonder if people are flailing on the inside because I'm not happy but just coasting on flat contentment for the most part. It's not like I don't have happy days at all. I do. May hand to whatever runs this universe — science? Let says science. My hand to science, I do have happy days and when I do that's great. Yay for me. I just don't understand the need to try and be happy all the time when I'm doing just fine feeling OK. There are too many people in my life that recoil then awkward laugh at my admissions of “Eh, I'm ok” like I'm hiding some dark sadness and am crying for help. I do have a dark sadness, correction, I have a lot of them. I seldom cry for help though, and mostly because I don't want help with it. I'm the type that loves watching sad movies and favorites books, shows, music, and other media that brings me to tears because I am comfortable with both my empathy and feelings of sadness.

However, if I'm feeling OK I am not feeling sad, angry, hateful, or overjoyed. I'm leveled out. I'm not bothered, but I'm not numb. I'm letting things go without suppressing any feelings. I'm OK and having people treat that feeling like a bad thing just reminds me of the common dialogue:

A: Are you mad? B: No. A: Are you sure? B: Yes. A: You seem mad. Why are you mad? B: Well “A” I'm not mad, but I am annoyed. A: Why are you annoyed? B: Because you won't leave me alone about being mad when I'm not. A: Well sorry. You just seem mad. B: Well I am now. Thanks.

I often have to tell people that I appreciate their concern, but I'm fine when I tell people that I'm just feeling OK. As if I need to tiptoe around their insecurities about things not being perfect around them. While I want to reassure the people I care about because I do love them and want them to be OK — I want them to just accept it at face value and drop it most of the time. Not in an “I don't want to talk about it” way, but a “stop reminding me that I have times when I'm not OK” kind of way “because I would like to savor these times when I can be OK” kind of way. Being OK is a good thing for me and, at least from my perspective, I think it's good for most other people.

To all the OTHER other people out there who don't know how to handle your beloved mental messes like me let me reassure you that your care for us is indeed appreciated. We — or at least I — understand that you are trying your best with people who often find it hard to not keep their problems bottled up. Thank you for your care and service. Please let us savor the times when we can just be OK. We won't think any less of you. You don't need us to be happy all the time for you yourself to be OK. You're awesome in your own right.

We're OK. You're OK. It's going to be fine.

March 18 2019 @ 8:00pm Post Title: So this is a thing...

So this blog is exactly as the description under the site's title says. In case you have any browser issues rendering the description invisible, this is a blog I decided to write to vent out the complicated thoughts and emotions I experience on a chronic basis. Whether or not they are a result of my high anxiety disorder or some other twisted part of my brain's functions — who can say other than perhaps a decent therapist.

I decided that this first post should be on a good day, at least relatively speaking. I thought it best to be in a level mindset when I warn you guys that this may get dark, heavy, nonsensical, spiraling, and a number of other potentially offending moods. My next warning will be that I don't intend to force posts on a periodic schedule. Timing will be random and post quality will fluctuate. I will not be taking responsibility for any effects this blog may have on others, nor will I accept any grief either good or bad from potential readers should I not post for long periods of time. I tried to make this whole process as secure as I can tolerate it so that while I can view what I like about the process (i.e. I can see that there may be others out there that actually feel something from what I write) without being weighed down by what I detest about it (i.e. the endless supply of internet trolls that target blogs like these as if it is their mission in life to drag people already in low places into even darker depths). I'm even going so far as to only have one person I know to be aware of what this blog is called so that I can avoid the risk of most persecution based on me being honest and seeking some form of peace in those not too close to the issues themselves — and that individual is only aware of it because I needed advice on how to make this process secure. Furthermore, they have already proven that I can trust them. Whether it be my manic and depressive, or even some of my mundane thoughts with a level of supportiveness regardless of levels of agreement that I have come to appreciate.

Trust me when I say I know to some degree how all that sounds, but this blog is meant to be therapeutic more than anything else. While I like the idea of having others read my work and knowing that fact via quantifiable evidence — I'm too paranoid and prone to depressive moods to knowingly open myself up to attack.

So just to put the final arrow in the practice dummy. This will not always be a light mooded blog, it will not be prone to scheduling, and I have no obligation or responsibility to those who may or may not read it.

— Good night for now.