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Monday, March 31, 2008
my chemical dependancy...
A couple of years ago, I had what a friend of mine called, "a moment of clarity." I suddenly had overwhelming feelings of happiness and contentment. At the time, I didn't think much of it, and ascribed the feelings to the positive music I was listening to at the time, or the May sunshine of 2005. I had the fleeting idea that I might be about to die...but as I've continued to live on, that idea hasn't come to fruition.
Something happened, though. I've continued to be at a higher place than I was so many years ago, but other things have crept in...I found myself unable to cope, from time to time. So much so, that I experimentally accepted help from my doctor in the way of Citalopram. My wife wasn't happy about my decision, and in truth, I felt like it was a failing on my own part, as well. But I didn't feel like I had the time or the mental strength to maintain myself like I should, so I allowed the chemicals to assist me.
Now, I'm not convinced that I have some sort of imbalance. I realize that for many, a medical condition exists for their anguish, anxiety, and often, depression. I'm not sure this is the case with me. It is now almost April of 2008, and I've been on the Citalopram off and on for the past two years. I'm still not happy about it, and not convinced that my problem is medical. But having the medicine in my daily pharmacopoeia has become habitual, and so I simply let it slide.
You may ask, why all the transparency today toadman? Why do you want us to know this dark side of your psyche? Perhaps because I don't want you to think that I'm inhumanly happy, or that I'm trying to project in this journal someone that I am not. I'm trying to be as real as I can without opening up my darkest secrets to anyone but my wife, without whose patience, persistence, and strength, I would be a long time substance abuser, most likely. She often brings me back around. She questions my feelings and my actions, as she should. She's not afraid to ask 'why?'. She's not afraid to say "you need to find another way of dealing with this, not for your sake, but for the sake of your family."
Here's the other reason for this transparency. I mistakenly, and unknowingly, allowed my prescription for Citalopram to laps sometime last week (I'm not sure what day I took the last pill). As I was filling the weekly pill containers Sunday evening, I noticed that the bottle was empty, and couldn't remember how many I'd filled in that same pill container the previous Sunday. Then, like a rush of anguish and anger, my actions of the previous Saturday became all to clear. I was anxious, nervous, lashed out loudly at the children, and was tired and cranky. The thought that this was due to the lack of anti-anxiety drugs in my system was actually more infuriating than anything else. Have I let myself go so far as to be physically dependent on this drug? Why have I allowed this to happen? It's just like the other things in my life that I've allowed to go unchecked, causing cascading problems. I could lower my blood pressure, and probably go off the two pills I take for it, by losing the seventy extra pounds I carry around, and exercising on a more regular basis. I could at least lower both my cholesterol medicine and my colitis medicine by consciously monitoring and changing my diet. What I lack, however, is self control. I freely admit that self control is my problem. I hope you don't think less of me.
It struck me this weekend when my wife looked at me and said "how would it be if someone had to cut off their own arm because of something that could have been prevented?" My family is a body, we are all together one unit. Losing one, would be like losing an arm. Function would be lost, and we would fracture. Doing this for me is no longer an option. People often tell me "you should be happy with how you look. Being fat isn't a sin." But that's not the issue. It's not about "looking good." It's about being healthy.
This morning we had about a half an inch of heavy wet snow swirl down from above. It was blustery, cold, and seemed like winter. This afternoon, however, the snow is gone, the sun is out, and it seems like spring. There are signs of spring all around, though winter tries to keep hold just a little while longer. By afternoon, all remaining snow has retreated to the shadows where the suns rays cannot transform it into liquid, letting it's moist goodness seep into the earth and nourish the waiting life.
There are other signs of spring, though. Namely, in the magazine basket by the toilet in our house. The other day, I coveted deeply the shed you see in the picture accompanying this post. If I had my druthers (whatever that means), and the means, I'd go buy that thing, and put it in my back yard and put all manner of gardening implements in it...I'd plant little seedlings under the glass, and watch them grow.
But, time won't let me do that, you see. Nor will our current means. That means I just have to sit there, on the toilet, and think of future springtimes, when our means might mean something different. When spring might mean more than just a new catalog in the mail, or a little crocus pushing up through the snow. When it means, "let's go crazy with gardening!!"
When they were younger, and more full of LSD, there wasn't any such thing as an iPod, but these days, I can listen to their old selves, or their new selves, on a whim. In my ears, the music carries me to where I'm happy.
And when I have some words This is the way I'll sing Through a distortion box To make them menacing
Three chords and the truth? Sure, sometimes. But some days I need five chords, an augmented seventh, three key changes and five/four time signature to rock my world.
Yeah, then I'm gonna have to write a chorus We're gonna need to have a chorus And this seems to be as good as any other place to sing it till I'm blue in the face
..and the words don't have to makes much sense, really. The truth is in the music, as always. The the music imbibes a feeling, an emotion, an emotive moment. In short, the music I like rocks me.
And for a second verse Of terse economy I'll brew another pot Of ambiguity
But, I often rock alone. In my own head. For some, the music I like is difficult, odd, eccentric, off beat, and hard to dance to...but my synapses are dancing, like lightening gods in a small space. I love the sounds, the movements, the time signature and key changes. They move me, rock me, make me smile.
Happy with what you have to be happy with you have to be happy with what you have to be happy with you have to be happy with what you have, happy with what you have to be happy with you have to be happy with what you have to be happy with what you have you have to be happy with what you have to happy with
It's not everyone's cup of tea. It's not everyone's thing, but it's my thing, and it makes me happy. It's just one of those little things that I'm odd about, I suppose. Like Tolkein in my brain, leather bound books on my shelves, and England in my dreams. It's just another eccentricity that's me. It repels some people, endears me to others, and causes others to ask me if I need help. But I don't need help, I just need a theme, a movement, a point of reference for my imagination, and the music takes me where it will, and I'll just follow along.
For some of you, this will be frightening and funny, and a little disturbing. I know it is for me. But, as Phil over at A Family Runs Through It did the video thing for the iPod giveaway, I thought I'd do a video thank you in return. I'm more comfortable typing my words, than speaking them (as you can see below), and I'm more comfortable in still pictures than moving pictures. I'm just plain socially awkward, that's all...still, enjoy (at your own risk, of course).
I'll tell you why it happened, I'll tell you why I quit, but I have to explain the history, first. You see, it's not as if I wasn't athletic at all, in early Elementary school, I was a lightening fast runner. I just didn't seem to have an aptitude for it, I suppose. I wasn't a weakling, I just didn't get it, I seemed.
In junior high, I was on both the Basketball team, and the Football team in my hometown of Boyd, Tx, where sports, namely football, was followed and venerated like a religion, sometimes to the expense of academics. Around seventh or eighth grade, I was as tall as I am now, but I was sixty pounds lighter. I was lithe, I was fit, I was bigger than most of my classmates towering over them at a heady 5 foot 8.5 inches. I haven't grown a single vertical inch since seventh and eighth grade, though my width and girth has filled in a bit.
Being of this size, I was a little too big and bulky for Basketball, so I was sidelined for most of the time...ok, 99% of the time to be honest. If we were winning by at least fifty points, and it was the last two minutes of the game, I, and a friend of mine who'd been sitting with me on the bench the whole time coming up with different Dungeons and Dragons scenarios, would be called into action. We'd rush on to the court, not even knowing which goal was ours because we hadn't been paying attention to the game, and promptly make mistake after mistake, helping the opposing team to regain some honor. That was our duty, and I was happy to carry it out.
Football, however, was a different story altogether. I was bigger than most of my classmates, remember. This meant that I was likely bigger than most of the opposing team as well. In junior high football, I played every play, of every game, from kickoff to final play. I never saw the game from the sideline even once, that I can remember. I was a lineman. I wasn't the center because that took too much skill. I wasn't a skilled player, remember, but I was big, and I could get in the way easily. I was the coach's blocker. Coach Cartwright. Old Stoneface, they called him. He never smiled and called us all by our last names. He especially liked calling me by my last name because, you see, my older brother had been a star player on Stoneface's High School team many years before. Stoneface had high hopes for me, and through junior high, I think he believed his hopes would come to fruition.
It was not to be, however.
When two-a-days began a few weeks before my freshman year in High School, I was presented with a dilemma. Band, or Football. I'd been playing in the junior high band for the past two years, and it was fun...well, it was something to do, at least. Two-a-day's in the August heat in Texas were brutal. I did not enjoy it, and I came to the realization that I didn't like football all that much, nor did I like the people I played football with. They were aggressive, they were bullies, they made fun of people, and didn't like band fags.
One day, after practice, I made a simple decision as I change out of my pads and listened to the bullies make fun of people and things they didn't understand. I decided that this wasn't for me. I picked up my pads, emptied my locker, and took the stuff to the coaches office. Stoneface's office. I tried to escape without him hearing me, but he looked up, steely eyed, and said 'what are you doing?'
"I'm going home." I said, and I turned around and walked out as he yelled my last name and said "you come back here right now!!!" I didn't. I kept walking. I never turned back. That's the kind of person I am, I suppose. I walk away from things that I don't like. I avoid confrontation, I avoid it like the plague. I remember the disappointment from my brother, and others in my family. But their disappointment dissipated rapidly. Coach Cartwright never spoke to me again, however.
Most change is gradual, step by step, little by little, inch by inch. We move from one mode of thinking, to a new mode, over time, years, decades. Sometimes we leap ahead, just a bit, but not much. Sometimes we suddenly decide to stop crawling, and start walking. It's like a switch goes on in our complex brains, creating the sudden leap to feet from all fours.
Change comes to me slowly, and yet, I watch my children grow, and it seems like it was only yesterday that they were all in diapers, crawling, cooing. Now they've become, a sassy eight year old, a funny almost-five year old, and a burgeoning walker. My heart swells when I walk, holding my child's little fingers in the warm sunshine. After the long winter of cold gray, the change is good, it feels good. This spring, I'll continue to fight my own inner demons, try to make gradual changes toward bettering myself as a husband, a father, and a man. But for me, change is gradual. Internal change, that most difficult of changes for me, can often be glacial in it's pace. But, I cannot lose sight of my goal...the increased happiness of my wife and family.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone! I'll leave you with the video below, and as always, there's more videos where this one came from, here: [video-toadman]
this is why I support barack obama...a rare and blatant political post...
I still support Barack Obama, despite the fact that Geraldine Ferraro said:
"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color), he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."
Obama's response, heard this morning on the radio, made me laugh. He said:
"The notion that it is a great advantage to me to be an African American named Barack Obama and pursue the presidency, I think, is not a view that has been commonly shared by the general public."
THAT'S funny stuff, actually.
And yes, Hillary, he does use a lot of words. Good words. Some people maintain that he's used more words than actions. But this is politics. It's a divisive and wordy game. What Obama has or hasn't done in the past, pales in comparison to what he could get us to do as a nation in the future, through encouraging words. Through meaningful words. Intellectual words. Some think it's just platitudes and speeches, but it's so much more than that. He seems to be working on changing the culture of politics. I hope I'm right.
So, Hillary, let me be honest with you for a bit. Sure, you'd probably be a fine president. You're intelligent, experienced, and you've been places and talked to people. But your words, while well thought out, fall flat on many ears. My fear is that during a Hillary presidency, we'd spend so much time fighting the battles of rhetoric with the right and the left over skeletons in the closet of the 90s, that the business of running a nation would get clouded. It's not that I'm against a woman president. It's not that I think you'd be a horrible president. It's just that I think you carry a lot of baggage around with you, because of your associations and past. I'm sorry.
Let me be clear, though. I'm not saying I don't have any cynicism in reserve for Barack. Politicians have lied and fleeced America for a long time. Why should Obama be any different, right? I don't know. There's a good chance that he's just like all the others. I hold out hope, though, for hope is a better feeling than the alternative. If my hopes are dashed, then so be it...nothing will have changed. How could it get any worse anyway?
I found the following at ObamaIn30Seconds.org. It's Barack Obama's 2002 speech against the war, delivered by supporters. He was dead on in '02. I was right with him in my opposition to our shift of focus away from Afghanistan to a "dumb" war in Iraq. We hadn't finished with Bin Laden. We hadn't wiped out Al Queda yet, before we got distracted. We're still not done today...why?
Sometimes I just want to have the silent simplicity of nothing more than the land, the sky, a simple wood frame home, and a warm hearth and family. All this humming buzzing flickering meaningless petty dress coded work-a-day clickity clackity becomes overwhelming. The political he said she said backy-forthy lefty righty talkity talkity televisioning is more than I can sometimes bear.
Tomorrow I'll learn to write with a pencil again...if I have the time. I have a lot to re-learn, as I currently type faster than I can talk.
We are, in this time and space in history, enduring more than our share of images, words, electrons, conveniences, intrigue, petty squables and infighting, reality programming and grinding historical changes. It's too much for some of us. When I see the plain dressed women in the grocery store with the long dresses, the long braided hair, I don't want their religion, I don't want their beliefs or their restrictions, but I want their simpleness. I want the peace of mind I fantasize them having.
Sometimes I want all this... and sometimes I just want an iPod and a pair of headphones.
Wow.. that last post was a bit of a downer. Since I don't want you all to think that the toad is depressed, I'll post something light hearted. However, I have to warn you, when I tell a joke at home, both my children and my wife look at me and say "oh, was that a joke?" So, well, you get what you get...the toad doesn't seem to do funny very well. Maybe it's the constant reference to how I've been looking for Uncle Ben's version of condolezza rice on the shelves, but it doesn't seem like anyone carries it anymore. See? Groan. Still, it's a great side dish.
Recently, our oldest son, our eight year old, raised a few questions with my wife:
my wife to eight year old: "Boys have a penis, and girls have a vagina" eight year old to my wife: "Wow! It must be HUGE!" my wife to eight year old: "Uh....why do you say that?" eight year old to my wife: "Well, if they call it a vagiant it must be huge!"
People say funny things around me. Like back when my parents were in Africa and I was there visiting. You see, the Swahili language's English accent has the same foibles as many Asian languages. Meaning, L's sound like R's, and R's often are mispronounced as L's. Well, there was a nice missionary couple named Roy and Rosalie. They were visiting a rural church. The Swahili speaking pastor, as he welcomed them to their church from the pulpit, asked his congregation to give "Loy and Losalie a nice warm Crap."
Oh my.
Language foibles are funny things. Our middle child had a problem pronouncing an S sound for a time. He'd replace it with a T sound.
middle child in the car to me: "Hey Dad, Spokane is a really big..." me in car interrupting child: "...CITY! Yes... it's a really big CITY."
So you see? Funny things happen around me. I say funny things. My wife says the funniest things, usually about me or to me.
the hardest person you'll ever fight, is yourself. the most difficult task you'll ever undertake is internal change. turning inward is never easy, stripping the layers back to see what and who you are, what makes you, what molds you, and holding in your hands your own internal strife and problems. when you do, you've started. at least it's a beginning. at least you're self aware.
self awareness doesn't always help. combined with self control, self worth, self meaning, it does. but simple awareness, is meaningless without being propped up by the rest. awareness is the beginning, but it's not the finish.
we all have it. those internal things about us that we know are there, those ugly things, those selfish things, those secret things. we all know those traits that we loath about ourselves. overcoming these is hard, it's harder for some than for others, I gather. I can only speak for myself, though. for me, it's hard. for me, its difficult. lifestyle changes take time and effort. and patience.
I just walked. I walked through the day, through the starlit night. I walked through cleansing rain showers and the warmth of the sunlight. The path I was on seemed right, somehow. It seemed right because I was always surrounded by the natural beauty of plants, trees, the flowing clouds above. This was right, this was real. But, it was never ending. There was no direction. It couldn't claim a purpose other than survival and mere existence. What else could there be for a wanderer in this wilderness?
Movement was the key. Back with the man at the cabin, I was too sedentary. I spend too much time thinking, too much time trying to change things, fix things. That's not what this was about, that was only a tiny part of this. A means by which one moved on to the next...something.
Like a cathedral, the trees arched above me. It brought to mind the naturalistic cathedral of Antoni Gaudi in Spain. An unfinished naturalistic masterwork. He knew, I thought. He'd been here, maybe. He knew that the natural world, while it was only a backdrop to it all, was somehow the keyhole through which all this was supposed to pass. This, what, though. The gnawing question of where I was, and who I was, was still present, though the pain of it had lessened. I somehow knew, I was on the right path...the natural path.
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