When Did This Start

Friday August 17, 2012  How This all Started

I think I remember when these episodes of depression started.  The seed was in a decision I made and I remember thinking it might lead to chronic depression, though not in those words.  I was a toddler.  And my older siblings had discovered something about me of which they were pleasantly surprised, that I could talk.

I had been thinking in words in my head for quite some time and every now and then I would speak a word or phrase but I had not yet committed.  I was either a precocious toddler learning to speak early or a developmentally delayed kid who still couldn’t talk yet; I no longer remember the details but it turns out there’s a thin line anyway.

The decision I would make would be to enter the social world by speaking words rather than gibberish.  I previously spoke a type of gibberish that was full of energy, drama, personality, and mirth.  What I had to give up was the freedom to blab and spit out any sounds the mind and body desired to instead form my lips and thoughts to those confined terms that everyone else uses, called language.  And I was aware that the necessary self control might deplete my ego reserve and leave me chronically depressed.  But it was becoming lonely speaking gibberish.  Being the youngest, it wasn’t long before I was the only one who spoke it.  So I conformed and luckily before being labeled developmentally delayed or another of those self-fulfilling prophecies we force on youth.

The lack of freedom, energy, and vitality of this new way of communicating had the effect of making me sarcastic.  I thought everything I said should at least have a second layer of meaning.  Who could stand to be literal?  Reality already offers readily the prospects for emptiness, boredom, and depression without us making things worse by asking everyday for a drink of water meaning only to literally drink a cup of water as needed until the day we die.  Is not water the life-force.  Were not the slaves brought across it, did not the savior walk upon it?  Or is it just that floridated chlorinated draft from the tap.  How unpoetic to add fluoride and chlorine to water, outright blasphemous!

Being In The Moment

To be in the moment, fully aware, not trapped in the past of the future, has become a goal of mine.  It’s amazing how much time we spend in the past.  We build our lives around the past.  We doom ourselves to these tiny, enclosed patterns of acting and doing, barely venturing from the chair we sit at the type or the couch where we watch TV.  It’s those habitual patterns that are literally like a prison.  A lot of us intentionally confine ourselves to a small room where we do most of our activity, be that an office or a living room or a bedroom.  How is that not like a prison?  It is a prison made of the past.

To be in the moment means to seek out new experiences and not live in those preconceived mechanical patterns of acting.  It means each day is a mystery, each moment is new, and there is no telling what will happen. 

Consider this, how is it that we are all born babies, totally helpless and with no money.  We undertake to obtain things in the world having no guarantee that we will get anything.  It is only by the grace of others, loved ones that we even survive.  And in our turn we will take on some wealth but it is only to borrow, we can’t keep it and take it with us after death.  So we are born broke, we borrow some money from others, then when we die, we pass it on to someone else.   And none of this is planned in advance.  We simply have faith and hope that we will be capable of obtaining at least the means to survival and in that game we suffer all kinds of tortures and humiliations or for some of us it comes easy.  The point is life is uncertain.  We must not live to plan for the future, but rather in the moment, taking it as it comes, each moment being totally new.

The catch is how do we live in the moment and still get the advantage of planning for the future.  How do we dedicate our mind and feeling to what is happening in the moment and still mechanically plan for the future?  We most often do it the opposite way, spending our minds worrying about the future, about contingencies most of which will not ever even happen.  How do we instead devote our feeling to the moment and still plan for the future without becoming emotionally involved with the planning as we understand that the future is uncertain and why be in fear or misery over things that might not even happen.  And is there not always something in the past of future to worry about?  Could you not always dream up some terror or final reckoning in the future?  Instead we plan for the future but understand that it is uncertain and focus our mind and feeling on the present moment.  This is easier said than done.  How do you do it when you are able to accomplish it?  Say you have a speech to give and you’ve already practiced it and right now there is four hours until the speech.  Can you live those four hours in the moment, as it unfolds, rather than spending it worrying about the speech you have to give?  That is the challenge.  We sometimes accomplish it.  How do we do it when it works out for us?  What do you think?  How do you do it?  Please leave a comment.

DF Seldon

MS, NBCC

Longevity, Job

Longevity has been one of my recent interests if for no other reason than I have been pleasantly surprised how potentially easy it might be.  The holy grail of longevity is simple: caloric restriction, simply eating fewer calories.  It will only get you a few extra years of life, but potentially lots of extra years of health.  Some other tricks, lithium and anticonvulsants (structural relatives of gabapentin).  I even found a nice source of natural lithium that comes from a town near Atlanta, Lithia Springs, GA.  It's like a fountain of youth. http://lithiamineralwater.com/

In other news, I’ve been looking for a job, the type where I can transition from being disabled to working in an environment not so hectic and dog-eat-dog.  I’m a little nervous about the prospect of getting back to work.  I understand how not to take a failure personally because it’s a matter of fit.  If a job doesn’t suit you, you don’t need to be there.  But I’m running out of options.  I’ve worked everywhere, done every kind of job, and they’ve all had their ups and downs but fit…I wouldn’t say any of them fit like a glove. 

That may have been a side effect of having been ill most of the time or it may be in the very nature of ‘job’ jobs.  They are strange creatures.  To show up and do over and over again some task with very little relevance to your existence except that you need the paycheck.  I’ve had some jobs that were inspiring but the mechanical part, the profit motive, always overwhelmed my desire to do something meaningful.  Even in counseling, the bosses are crunching numbers, not meaningful realizations and progress.  I’ve even seen it to where the bosses didn’t want progress because that would mean the client could stop coming to the methadone clinic and that’s just an ugly situation to be in.  My desire to do something meaningful unfortunately put me at odds with the establishment.

It doesn’t pay, literally, to turn out to be right in those tug-o-wars I’ve discovered.  Just last year, I fought the truck driving school and won.  I can say no more about it because I’m legally bound never to speak the details but I will say it was not a satisfactory victory.  I would rather have gotten my CDL even if I did nothing with it but hang it on the wall and dream of getting an RV.  So many jobs are set up to take advantage of you and if you’re an ultra conscious person, you figure that out pretty quick.

It goes without saying in my mind that I have to get back to work, but under much better circumstances than my previous forays.  It’s not even a matter of pay this time.  I’ve fried burgers at McDonalds, jogged paper at a book binder, shipped pesticides, taught high school, substituted for grade school, counseled persons addicted to cocaine and heroin, run an after-school program, tutored college students, moved furniture on a military base, worked for Parks-and-Rec, worked from home selling trips to Israel, worked at a wastewater treatment plant in Atlanta, worked as a forklift driver on the loading docks, and worked on an assembly line putting together gas grills, among other things and I’m only 30.  I often worked two jobs at a time while going to college; I really wore myself out no doubt about it.  There was usually the manic phase of getting the job and being very productive, then getting no sleep, and finally crashing into a bipolar depression.  Then it was time to leave till I recovered and get another job or two.

It is hoped this time around I have better doctors, better understanding of my conditions, and a much better medicine cabinet.  So I’m going to apply for some jobs, write a business plan to start a business, and write another novel for good measure.  This time I have a treatment team to fall back on so hopefully I won’t crash.  Wish me luck and longevity.

DF Seldon

http://bpainfreetherapy.hubpages.com/