The Not Happy Thread

@Alesia

I visited this thread to gain some insight into your dilemma. Can you encapsulate this critical mass dilemma you are experiencing? No job might be a real bad thing. A new one might open some new windows. Flipping burgers sucks. The managers are generally tyrants. Now the food chains are under fire to pay higher wages or face losing help. Have you looked at jobs that include writing from the level of assistance? Keep in mind, "Birds of a feather flock together." Maybe even a veterinarian's office could use some entry level help. It starts with cleaning cages and worse, but once you got used to some of those "wonderful aromas" you might find being surrounded by intellectuals instead of burger flippers, things might change.

If that's your own pic as your avatar, (6'-1"?... cool!) you're a beautiful young woman. Still, one can hardly ignore the dreamer engulfed in pain...

 

@Lewdog I know the feeling.

Update on the girlfriend situation: We now live in separate rooms (though we still uh.. share a bed occasionally. Is that weird for a busted up couple?) and refer to one another as just friends. Things have been well for the past week with no alcohol in the house (though I still go to the beer joint after work and have one or two every other day.) No more fisticuffs are a good thing eh?

@DrWhozit There's not much in the way of writing here in Jeff County, Tennessee. You either work retail, fast food, or at a factory. Knoxville is a bit of a commute for as low as the wages are there, plus with the want adds saying they expect a GED and 2+ years experience, it'd be kind of hard to break in.

My picture (old one) was a model used for the original cover concept of Alesia which has since been re-titled to Rain When I Die. I am a guy in real life, and an ugly one at that! My handle comes from my MC who was named after the Gaul city of Alesia where Caesar surrounded and purged the Gauls in 52 B.C. commonly known as the siege of Alesia.

 

@Alesia

That clears up a few things. Now, we can talk shop a bit. You might enjoy some of my own book "Tweak." It centers up on Sharpe's Ridge and involves a Knoxville much different in another 15 years and in another 800,480 years.

As I mentioned in the other thread, feel free to PM me. I'm an arm chair psychologist, but my other half IS a psychologist. I doubt if you'll find too many hawkers in a writer's forum. Most, like myself, are sympathetic or even empathetic to the needs of troubled lives.

 

I had sex for a long time with an ex after we separated. What can I say, the sex was good. But I didn't want to live with the guy. I broke it off when I met someone new.

 

I've been up over 36 hours now and I don't foresee myself going to bed anytime soon. I knew I was having the start of a manic episode earlier today because I was getting extremely sensitive to sound. I tried to lay down and it sounded like a busy train station in my head. I swear I could hear a cricket fart in my neighbor's apartment. My buddy opened my front door and I about jumped out of my chair. I felt embarrassed to go to the bank today because my eyes were so blood shot I could have been an extra in a Cheech and Chong movie. What sucks is I'm taking my medicine but it's pretty much quit working the last six months. Looks like I'll be playing a lot of Diablo 3 again tonight.

 

@Lewdog Know exactly what you mean. I get the sound thing too. Even the slightest noise can set me off when I get like that. Still, you are aware and that's half the battle. Nothing worse than it all going to shit and being the last person to be aware of it.

 

Wow! I know manic/depressive goes with the writing field quite a bit. You both can feel free to PM me and just talk. Pills suck! I wonder what would happen if one of us crackpots invented a centrifuge that induces vertigo till the person just passes out. Another method would be to lower the air pressure to below 15 psi.

 

I was up for about 48 hours before I finally fell asleep...and slept like 18 hours. OMG I hate doing this.

 

Maybe you need a med adjustment.

 

They just upped the doze of my meds last month after I had my last manic episode the end of September. The only thing different this time than last, was last time I was up about 54 hours straight, fell asleep two hours, was up 36 hours more, fell asleep two hours, and then was up 24 hours straight before returning to normal. This time there was no leveling out. I went straight from a manic episode to comatose. I'm not sure which is worse.

 

Bummer.

 

@Lewdog, I feel your pain; I didn't sleep last night either. I hate staying up all night but it's kinda hard to motivate yourself to go to bed when you know that if you do, you either end up lying eyes closed, unable to fall asleep, thinking about all kinds of shit, you experience sleep paralysis, you have nightmares, or you sleep for 14 hours straight and wake up with severe back pain. Gee, sleeping is so much fun. And this coming from someone who used to love sleeping. Oh well, something's gotta give sooner or later, for better or worse...

 

@Lewdog Insomnia sucks. It would only take you to look at the time codes of some of my posts to see how much it effects me. But.. I always try and see an upside. I write better at night anyway.

I don't know about you, but I have a reasonable grip on the mania and depression. (I thank my friends for that, as they are so well acquainted with my condition that they give me a prod when they see that it's starting to get a bit one step beyond, and I can implement my coping strategies. I've had thirty-two years of practice. )

What I need to be very careful of is slipping into a mixed episode. This happens, more often than not, when I'm starting to to slip from a manic high. My brain is still on full throttle, but my energy levels have dropped through the floor due to lack of sleep. The irritability this causes is most unpleasant, and sends my thoughts into very dark places.

After years and years of readjustments of meds, I finally decided I'd had enough. It's not a route everyone that suffers from BP should take but it's worked out well for me. It's been 10 years now, and my quality of life has dramatically improved. For the ten years prior, despite the meds, I was either up or down with very little leveling out in between. I was unable to work, became an utter recluse, and even the fact that that I didn't have a decent income and means to adequately provide for myself, fed my feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness.

I think what I mean to say, is just don't sit around passively accepting what is happening with you. There is always an alternative. If the meds you are currently on aren't doing the trick, even with adjustments in dosage, perhaps your PDoc needs to take a look at why these combinations aren't working and look for alternatives. There are many differiong opinions on the uses, and combinations of anti-convulsants, anti-psychotics, depression pills et al.

It's hard to view oneself as a driving force in the handling of the condition. We need to push when sometimes that urge is the last thing on our minds. (I'm a big one for avoidance, which usually manifests as lying in my bed with my duvet pulled up over my head.) Force yourself to believe it can and will get better. Don't ever allow yourself to believe that this is as good as it gets. Don't settle. Always challenge any decision made that you don't feel is benefiting you. And if you can't trust in yourself to do what is best, enlist help from the people who care about you, who will help provide the necessary motivation.

 

Feel like I am being put down a lot. It is either one way or nobody's way. I cannot pursue my passion without hearing comments that make me want to do nothing but hide in my closet and sleep.

 

At least you have the closet option. The stuff I've received at times, not even public, has me wanting to gather all my 'puters close, pour gasoline upon them and me both then flick my Bic...

Yes, though, I feel your pain. You hang in there and I will, too.

 

Our neighbor passed away today. Mr. Park was a wonderful man, and I've known him since I was just a kid. He and his wife had been married 47 years. The fact that this happened just a day before Christmas is really hard to believe.

He was also a big follower of the Zen philosophy and was the first person to teach me about it. So I thought I'd share this poem by Kozan Ichikyo:

 

Sorry to hear that @thirdwind. The poem is nice.

 

@thirdwind That's so sad, my condolances.
I like the poem, too. I had never come across it before, but it actually starts quite similarly as one of my favorite Finnish poems from 1932. I wonder if the author Uuno Kailas knew about Kozan Ichikyo, though he writes that 'we start our journey barefoot, and end it barefoot.'

 

Arguing with my right wing friends and relatives about my choice to make the MC in my latest manuscript a lesbian. Never have I seen such a bitter, hateful group of people in my entire life.

 

Then you are fortunate indeed! It sounds like they on;y hate with words.

 

I dunno. Some of the men in my family I have no doubt in my mind if they say a gay man they might try to physically harm him.

 

So much fear and rage is usually tied into insecurity over one's own standing. For example, racists may fear people of other racists may be stronger, smarter, better than they could ever be. Or that the "othrs: will take their jobs, their homes, their women/men...

Hate and fear are different projections of the same thing, like cubes projected from a rotating tesseract.

 

Welp, woke up this morning and three friends I've know for over ten years defriended me on Facebook and claimed they erased my number, email, IM, etc... In other words disowned me simply because I happen to (gasp!) accept people who happen to be gay as HUMAN BEINGS that have the same rights as the rest of us.

Bear in mind, I was raised to be homophobic by my religious parents, and as long as I agreed with them everything was fine. Once I met a few LGBT folks and started to figure out that maybe, just maybe they weren't as bad as I was taught to think, then it was oh no, can't have that. Not especially happy about loosing some friends that have been good to me over the years, but if they want to sit there and miss out on a friendship because they are too busy wallowing in their own bigotry, that's their problem. Like the Buddha said: "Holding on to anger is like holding onto a hot coal with the intent to throw it at someone - you are the one who will get burned."

 

Good for you! I support and admire your decision.

 

Who needs friends with that kind of acquired craniorectal infarction?

You should be as happy to be rid of them as they apparently are to disavow any connection to you.