Getting Into the Solution
It is always so tempting to look outside myself for the comfort, stability and joy that I want in my life. I have learned however that those things are inside jobs; meaning that they have to come from inside of me. Now, that is not to say that I can’t enjoy things that come from outside my own cranium, far from it. What it does mean is that I cannot depend on things outside of me to make me happy. If I am always seeking outside of myself to make me content, then in the end I will always be disappointed.
It has taken me years to come to even begin to understand this concept. I believe it is fairly normal that we tend toward looking outside ourselves for things to make us happy, comfortable, and to solve our problems. If you think about it we are almost geared towards it from infancy. We are tickled and played with as infants, we cry and we are brought food, a toy, a diaper change, put down for a nap or whatever we need. We are shown that our needs will be provided for from outside of ourselves and that things outside of ourselves will make us happy when we feel sad, upset, angry, hungry, lonely, tired, etc. There really is no way around that as we are helpless infants.
So it doesn’t seem odd that we continue that same paradigm as adolescents and often into adulthood. We live in societies which bolster it. Kids are given more things today than I think most of my generation can have imagined having as kids. Many spiritual and religious practices also re-enforce seeking outside ourselves for answers to issues also. For ill or good we seem surrounded by things that encourage us to seek solace beyond our own skin and consciousness.
This is true of the issue that I face with my wild brain. I don’t know that I really thought of it in those terms until recently. This is true because the overwhelming anxiety that I face within my own skull. It feels like if I am the source of the problems then the fix must come from outside of me right? My brain turns against me on a daily basis so there is no way that the answer can be in that mess right?
The solution still has to come from inside of me because I am the one who has to do the work. That doesn’t mean that I can’t have help from outside of myself. The desire to change has to originate with me. No one can alter the essence of who I am from the exterior in. It has to be an inside job. That was an extremely difficult and costly lesson for me to learn. Damned if I still don’t struggle with it on occasion!
One of those Mondays
There’s a lot of stress at work right now with a major computer crash and all the attendant havoc a complete system washout causes. I think I am the one experiencing the most stress about it actually and I can’t place my finger on why. I have looked at it from every angle and honestly the best I can come up with is that it is just “one of those things” that the daily anxiety rears it’s head & pounces on to jack me up. Because when I look at it logically I know all it boils down to is a lot of data entry. No one is gonna die from it and while it slows some of the office productivity etc. it is not the end of the world.
Days like this are really tough for me as the anxiety can normally be overwhelming which can make it extremely hard for me to focus and stay on task. Why? Because there is this persistent anxiety in the foreground telling me to duck, cover, run, hit something over the head or just freaking hide and do it yesterday!
With being on the Anafranil (Generic: Clomipramine) the anxiety is still there but just in the background more so now. The meds give me the ability to take a step back and assess where the anxiety is coming from instead of rushing head long into fight or flight. There are still days that I struggle more than others, like today. On those days the doctor wants me to back up the Anafranil with Klonopin (Generic: Clonazepam) instead of upping the dose on the Anafranil since I am already having a lot of side effect issues from it. I am all on board with not upping that stuff if possible!
So, there’s a catch however. The catch is that I don’t want to take the Klonopin but try to control the remaining anxiety without it. I can do it sometimes and I never know until I try. Not to mention, adding the Klonipin makes me drowsy about half the time. These are the moments I wish they would give me a freaking prescription for Xanax (Generic: Alprazolam). I never had drowsiness side effects or any other side effects with Xanax and since I didn’t take it daily or even weekly usually there was no risk of addiction for me. I took it only when the anxiety would ramp up so far I could barely move. This is true of how I take the Klonopin but I have gotten a bit better about taking it sooner and knowing my limitations of what I can handle better now.
Yes, I know taking it sooner would have been more helpful but truthfully, with a long history of drug and alcohol issues, which ended with my getting clean over 15 years ago, I am not one to just pop a pill to solve a problem. That is one of the things that my doctor mostly understands and is simultaneously frustrated with about me because more often than not I wait longer than I should to take medicines. I told her from the beginning that I understand that medicine is not a cure all and that I still have a lot of foot work and such to do. I truly believe that. I also think that we are too centered on “the medicines will fix me” in our culture and many people forget that there is work to do simultaneously with taking medicines…no matter what they are for. *slips my soapbox back under my chair*
Moving along…
So, I am working to stay as focused as I am able to today and get the work done slated for the day and plan for the work later in the evening. I am feeling hopeful about my book again. Trinity and I went to tea the other day and talked about where I am stuck and ways to get out of the hole there. The weekend was busy enough that I didn’t get to any of them but I did get some other writing done that I have had running around my head for the blog here. 🙂
How…
do you rage against the machine when it is in your own mind?
Conversations With My Brain
5am after only 3 hours of sleep on a lovely May morning…
Me: I really need to go back to sleep. You aren’t going to let me though are you?
Brain: No, not so much.
Me: Come on, just for a little while longer. I am so exhausted, I just need to rest.
Brain: Well, maybe. But you need to make sure that you don’t forget some things.
Me: Ok, I promise I won’t forget. What do I need to remember? Just tell me and then I can sleep.
Brain: You can sleep if you do not forget the following:
Vacuum the car, transfer your laundry to the dryer as soon as you get up so you have something to wear, your doctor’s appointment Tuesday, empty the cat boxes, do dishes, solve the problems with world peace, clean off your desk, HIDE, go grocery shopping, finish writing your novels, pay your library fines, figure out how to stop pollution around the world, figure out what you are going to do about your friend and that mess, WRITE, fold and put away laundry, scrub the floors, solve your problems with your family and bring about family unity, work on the blog, bathe the dogs, vacuum the house, keep trying to not throw up all the time, rotate your tires, FIND A JOB, call your mom, figure out why people come to you to progress and then leave you, spreadsheets for work, take the dogs to the vet, mow the yard, ROOMMATE, clean out the fridge, go to the grocery store, research more on OCD treatments, make the tiny amount of money you have stretch for 4 months instead of 1, study politics and figure out how to fix them so that they actually work, clean the house from top to bottom and throw out crap, try dating again, work out, finish the painting that is 5 months overdue, call your dad, meditate, exercise, talk to your friends, bare your soul to the world and then wonder why you get hurt, groom the cats, fix your printer, order printer ink and wonder how you can pay for it, BE CREATIVE, help others, find time and partners to play with, travel to somewhere new, have friends over for tea, re-varnish the floors, re-paint the house, RUN, turn the well house into a studio, learn suspension, lay in the hammock and read, play with the dogs, figure out how to solve all the problems at work, leave a clean desk when you leave work, FIND A FULL TIME JOB, make your bed, cook healthy meals for yourself and actually eat them, finish writing the cookbook, write the course materials for the 8 classes you have in mind to teach, teach your friend how to install the lock on her door, HELP OTHERS, swim, learn to sew, fix the air conditioners that aren’t working right or are dying, fix the lawn mower, organize the library, catalogue your books, clean out your closet, study for the massage boards, catalogue your movies and music, play your drums, SHOW NO WEAKNESS, train the dogs to not jump the fence…
Me: But…
Brain: …fix the fence, take the dogs to the vet, write up notes for the doctor’s appointment, get a pool for the dogs for the summer heat, re-lay the brick on the dog patio, trim the fig tree, clean off the carport, re-do your window altar, call P to get CODA books for you the next time she is at the meeting, READ, look up the totem information on turtles, write about the pow wow, remember how good yesterday was, count your meds, paint your toenails, clean the shower, fix faucet, buy sheets, hang your pictures in the library, do the cut work for your vest, clean out the attic, forget that you know there is a loaded gun just down the hall, find some time to sleep if I and your body can agree when, look into sleep study grants or scholarships or pro-bono, research c-pap settings, DRAW, use your exercise ball sometime, fix the futon mattress, re-cover the couches, study tea ceremonies, wash the windows, trim the hedges, take the library books back, take up your camera again, ROOMIE, learn German and Russian, figure out how you are going to do SELF, get to meetings, keep modifying your plan of eating, keep in touch with people…
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This is just a sampling of what one morning in my head is like upon waking. There will be more conversations on many more days to come I am sure. lol
State of the Mags Address
9 June 2011
I figured that was better than “Temporarily Out of Order Part 2”. lol
So, if you are just joining us, you may want to read the original post here.
Monday was the last dosage bump until I go back to the doctor on July 12th. When I saw her last week, pre-bump, I told her that we needed to get me to the therapeutic level (150mg) and leave me there for a while. I need to know if these side effects are going to go away. I told her that I can deal with it to get me where I need to be but I can not live this way all the time! She totally understood.
In less than a month I have lost enough weight, from not eating much of anything because I am always nauseous, that the jeans I got as a birthday present on the 13th of May are sliding down to my hips and dragging the floor a bit. Yes, yay for losing weight I say! But damn, couldn’t it have not been through barely eating for a month. Though I have to say, having my roomie Wolf stand over me and say “EAT!” is kinda amusing at times. He gets that uber serious face of his and crosses his arms looking all mean and stuff. For some reason he is not amused when I laugh….no sense of humor toward the sick chick I tell ya! lol
The being light headed has eased up but not the shaking like I have palsy. sighs There are still other side effects in residence but I am holding off any judgment for at least a couple more weeks. I have a hard time focusing still and that is why I am still not online much. I am trying to keep up with e-mails if nothing else but even those I have been slow to respond to so don’t take it personally. It’s just that my brain is not fully functional right now. I read stuff and by the time I am done reading it I can’t concentrate enough to craft a reply that makes cohesive sense. For a wordy cuss like me, that is hell! For example, it has taken me three times coming back to this to get it completed and gods I hope it makes sense. sighs
I am having a hell of a time keeping up with my basic commitments etc. I have been working the last few months to clear some things off of my plate to make life more manageable right now by getting back to the bare basics. So, if you see some things change in regard to groups etc. don’t wig, it’s just me doing what I need to do to get some balance. I am still around and I will be out as much as limited budget allows.
Speaking more openly about what I am going through with all of this is VERY tough for me. It is hard because there is always the fear that there will be judgment or ridicule. OCD is made fun of in media or over dramatized toward the symptoms. Hell, I have made fun of myself to throw attention off of the reality. No more. Only people who see me regularly, or daily, (My poor roomie) really understand to some extent what it is like for me living with OCD, long term PTSD and other things. Even then they are not in my head with the jumbled & repeating thoughts.
I have managed really well most of my life without meds but as with many things that go untreated, in time they progress. That is what has happened here and I am not going to let it win!
I am going to start a blog about my experiences, the struggles, the wins and learning how to live my life differently in a positive way. (And here is where Free Range Brain was born.)
This is my life and I am taking it back!
~Mags
Temporarily Out of Order
19 May 2011
I am still here, sort of. The new OCD medicine is kicking my ass from here to Cairo & back again. I am struggling with constant nausea which goes from low grade to a spike for several days when they up the dosage (and amusingly I am supposed to take it with food twice a day lol), along with shaking, being severely light headed and several other non-thrilling side effects.
Sadly, I didn’t get the ONE side effect that I REALLY wanted…in 5% of patients the medicine can cause orgasms when you yawn…I am SO not kidding! I WANTED THAT ONE DAMN IT! 😀
This is all to say that if I am slow to e-mail etc. lately please don’t take it personally. I am just temporarily out of order at the moment. :-j
Living Uncomfortably in Your Own Mind
From 4 May 2011 after my doctor’s appointment.
I had decided before going that if the doctor was unwilling to work with me as a partner in my treatment that I was done trying.
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There are so many opportunities to live uncomfortably; all you have to do is just be open to them. I know some people have certain things in mind for living uncomfortably. For myself, there are a few specific things but more than anything it’s about taking the opportunities as they come. I have one such opportunity come to me yesterday afternoon. This is something I have been working on for almost 10 years, and now that it’s here are it seems quite terrifying… but in a good way?
A joke pretty freely about my OCD with people I know and even those I don’t. I’ve worked hard over the years to overcome some of the difficulties I faced because of OCD. I learned a long time ago to make peace with my demons invite them in, give them a cup of tea and get to know their story. What’s the old saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Because my OCD is the butt of many jokes, from myself and others, many people don’t really understand the day-to-day battle that I face. And in truth, I make sure a lot of the time that people don’t because of the way that I grew up. Now days people don’t think so much about it because doctors know more about OCD, have treatments and therapies and the mainstream populace is familiar with it to some degree (though most of that seems to be Jack Nicholson’s character in “As Good as it Gets” and a few other such movies).
The problem that I have faced over the last decade since coming to terms with the fact that I do have OCD, (and other things) is that if you aren’t locked in your home checking all of your windows and doors 25 times every hour, doctors tend to blow you off. They see you as highly functioning and therefore not in need of as much attention, if any. At least that has been my experience. And yes, I’ve talked multiple doctors about it though admittedly in the last few years I had pretty much given up hope. Our Western culture wants to treat symptoms rather than root causes very often and that was the case with me. I am very proactive in my own healthcare, spent a good deal of time researching my condition, and went to the doctors fully armed with the intent of being an integral part of my own treatment. Doctors don’t seem to like this idea very much…perhaps it threatens their God complex. Who knows?
I grew up with a father who has OCD and other members of my family as well; when you’re surrounded by that those behaviors don’t seem odd. It wasn’t until my 20s that I really started to get a taste of the fact that those behaviors were very unusual. I’ve spent a great deal of my life camouflaging those behaviors so that no one ever saw them because I constantly got in trouble for many of them even within my own family and especially in school and other public venues. I learned very quickly that being the odd one out can really suck and so I did everything I could to minimize that. However, in my 20s I discovered that I was going to have to do something about this order was going to make me crazy. So, I did what I always do I started reading I started researching and I started looking for answers. I began on my own and through some assistance in therapy to modify the behaviors that I could and let me tell you I’ve come a long way baby! But also to do all of these things without the assistance of medication and behavioral therapy has taken a great deal of energy, time, blood, sweat and most definitely tears.
I’ve known for a while now that it was time to take it to the next level, I have reached a plateau that I was not going to be able to pass on my own. So, back to the doctors I went. Once again I met with apathy for the most part or an unwillingness to allow me to be a partner in my own healthcare which I will not abide. I had almost given up. I had an appointment scheduled at the beginning of January for one last go round and some things happened that were unavoidable I canceled the appointment and did not reschedule. However three weeks ago I knew that I had to reschedule the appointment, I had to push myself out there in live uncomfortably in this just one more time. My point was yesterday morning at 11 AM at 10:30 AM I was seriously contemplating canceling the appointment. I just didn’t think I could go in there and have the same type of conversation will more time. However, I forced myself out the door, got there on time and proceeded to wait for an hour and 15 minutes…it is the doctor’s office after all. Lol
The fact is that it’s been a very frustrating journey for me to even get a doctor to have an intelligent conversation with me about it. Well, yesterday that finally happened. I don’t know what was different but the doctor finally listened. I found myself wanting to rush forward to make sure I got everything in so that she had all of the information that I wanted to give to her while she was in the space to listen. I had to really pace myself, calm myself, and try to be clear. It was almost a little bit surreal to finally have someone actually talk to me about it rather than down to me and to work with me in a way that I am comfortable with in my own healthcare.
We talked about options for treatment and the things that I will need to do to augment the treatment. Drug therapy for anything like this is very scary for me and not something I take on lightly. I am not of the school that a pill or an operation will fix everything. A happy little pill is not going to make this all go away, not by a long shot, but it will give me more of a fighting chance. I am simultaneously petrified and hopeful. This is a very scary thing for me to put out there on this level because I’ve worked so hard to camouflaging over the years and most people don’t have any idea. But if my putting this out there helps with one other person not feel so alone, not feel crazy, not feel like it’s their fault and maybe take one step towards helping themselves then I will take the risk of looking like a crazy fool.
This is not something I asked for, it’s not something any of us who have OCD ask for and it doesn’t mean I’m crazy. The fact is I have OCD and it is incumbent upon me to do to the healthy things that I need to do to lead a fulfilling and happy life that I want. Things will work out as they should, I always believe that’s true. They may not work out the way I want them to, but that doesn’t mean they won’t work out as they should. Lol
Having faith or being brave doesn’t mean that I’m not afraid: those are myths. The truth is having faith and being brave means that you turn toward those fears and on some level you know that once you face them and walk through them is going to be better on the other side. The anticipation of the fear is always worse than facing it. So, here I am turning around facing the fear that if I am open and honest about this people are going to run for my life in droves. In truth the people who are closest to me already know and I know they’re not going anywhere. It the people that I am not close to and don’t really know the day-to-day turn away from me and run then I know where I stand. Where I stand will be surrounded by the people who like me and love me for who I am and where I’m at in my life just as I do the same for them. In the end no matter where I end up standing the important thing is that I will be stronger for this experience. It doesn’t matter if I end up standing completely alone: I- will-be-stronger.
The Order of Things
I will be posting some entries from the last couple of months to bring the blog up to date with where I am at with some things. These entries will show some of the progression of things since beginning treatment in May of this year.
The Beginning….
So, the song from The Sound of Music Do-Re-Mi, comes to mind at the moment. The song begins with the lyrics:
“Let’s start at the very beginning, A very good place to start”
The beginning is that I have OCD-Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, ADHD-Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, dyslexia and CPTSD-Chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. That’s a whole lotta disorder in one little sentence isn’t it? And that’s just the stuff that they have decided is wrong within my cranium at this point in life.
So, why the blog? I have had a journey through coming to terms with my free range brain and all its components that has helped make me who I am. And for the record, I happen to like who I am most of the time. I want to share it for many reasons, a few of which are: helping anyone else I can to not have to go through as many years of crap as I did, helping me delve deeper into who I want to be, and finding the keys I need to transition to the next phase in my life. Ya know, the little things in life…lol.
I will focus a good deal on what the current journey is like in finally getting treatment for my lifelong OCD, etcetera and how I got to where I am. However, that will not always be the focus. My brain loves to wander many places, do many things and write about them so there will be much of that as well.
I have sat down no less than 50 times to start this blog in the last several months because I think it’s important. However, every time I get something sketched out in my head or even written down and then I get what I have begun to term “whiteboard”. Whiteboard is when I am going along with a wonderful thought, plan, etc. and then my brain looks like nice shiny new whiteboard in a classroom with not a single mark on it. It drives me bonkers when this happens.
You may say, “But Mags, just go back to it later and finish the thought.” Well, that’s a dandy thing to think and I so wish I could. Alas it doesn’t work that way of late. Once I get the whiteboard it stays that way on that thought process. I can come back to a topic later but the thought process won’t be the same. I have tried every way you can think of to get back into that thought track and finish it up. To say that this makes me very not happy to feel like I have begun to lose control of my brain is a vast understatement.
Throughout this blog if an entry is going along nicely and then it ends in “whiteboard” now you will know what happened. I am still working on overcoming this so don’t think I have given up because I absolutely haven’t.
Something you will soon find out about me is that I like to try and take a situation and turn it positive no matter what it seems like to other people. When something goes wrong, not my way, completely against plan, and is just generally what most people sit and cry over their beer about, I try to look at it and figure out what I can learn from it. If I can learn something then it is not a lost situation. If I can take something away from a situation that I can use in the future and build on then I consider it a good thing, even if the overall event was something that others would consider terrible.
I may have different ideas theological, metaphysical, lifestyle or otherwise that you don’t share. Take what you like and leave the rest. There will be a time that you won’t agree with me nor me with you and that’s ok…how we handle that lack of agreement is what matters. I shan’t be rude with you if you won’t be so with me. In truth, I likely will not be rude with you even if you are so with me. I do not appreciate bad manners or even a lack of manners.
So, welcome to my free range brain. Pull up a chair; wander the halls and gardens, delve into the fridge, come out on the patio and have tea…generally make yourself at home. Let’s converse, share ideas, be creative and learn more about each other.
Conversations with My Brain
Me: I really need to go back to sleep. You aren’t going to let me though are you?
Brain: No, not so much.
Me: Come on, just for a little while longer. I am so exhausted, I just need to rest.
Brain: Well, maybe. But you need to make sure that you don’t forget some things.
Me: Ok, I promise I won’t forget. What do I need to remember? Just tell me and then I can sleep.
Brain: You can sleep if you do not forget the following:
Vacuum the car, transfer your laundry to the dryer as soon as you get up so you have something to wear, your doctor’s appointment Tuesday, empty the cat boxes, do dishes, solve the problems with world peace, clean off your desk, HIDE, go grocery shopping, finish writing your novels, pay your library fines, figure out how to stop pollution around the world, figure out what you are going to do about your friend and that mess, WRITE, fold and put away laundry, scrub the floors, solve your problems with your family and bring about family unity, work on the blog, bathe the dogs, vacuum the house, keep trying to not throw up all the time, rotate your tires, FIND A JOB, call your mom, figure out why people come to you to progress and then leave you, spreadsheets for work, take the dogs to the vet, mow the yard, DON, clean out the fridge, go to the grocery store, research more on OCD treatments, make the tiny amount of money you have stretch for 4 months instead of 1, study politics and figure out how to fix them so that they actually work, clean the house from top to bottom and throw out crap, try dating again, work out, finish the painting that is 5 months overdue, call your dad, meditate, exercise, talk to your friends, bare your soul to the world and then wonder why you get hurt, groom the cats, fix your printer, order printer ink and wonder how you can pay for it, BE CREATIVE, help others, find time and partners to play with, travel to somewhere new, have friends over for tea, re-varnish the floors, re-paint the house, RUN, turn the well house into a studio, learn suspension, lay in the hammock and read, play with the dogs, figure out how to solve all the problems at work, leave a clean desk when you leave work, FIND A FULL TIME JOB, make your bed, cook healthy meals for yourself and actually eat them, finish writing the cookbook, write the course materials for the 8 classes you have in mind to teach, teach your friend how to install the lock on her door, HELP OTHERS, swim, learn to sew, fix the air conditioners that aren’t working right or are dying, fix the lawn mower, organize the library, catalogue your books, clean out your closet, study for the massage boards, catalogue your movies and music, play your drums, SHOW NO WEAKNESS, train the dogs to not jump the fence…
Me: But…
Brain: …fix the fence, take the dogs to the vet, write up notes for the doctor’s appointment, get a pool for the dogs for the summer heat, re-lay the brick on the dog patio, trim the fig tree, clean off the carport, re-do your window altar, call P to get CODA books for you the next time she is at the meeting, READ, look up the totem information on turtles, write about the pow wow, remember how good yesterday was, count your meds, paint your toenails, clean the shower, fix faucet, buy sheets, hang your pictures in the library, do the cut work for your vest, clean out the attic, forget that you know there is a loaded gun just down the hall, find some time to sleep if I and your body can agree when, look into sleep study grants or scholarships or pro-bono, research c-pap settings, DRAW, use your exercise ball sometime, fix the futon mattress, re-cover the couches, study tea ceremonies, wash the windows, trim the hedges, take the library books back, take up your camera again, DON, learn German and Russian, figure out how you are going to do SELF, get to meetings, keep modifying your plan of eating, keep in touch with people…
Free Range Brain 