Well...bad enough I wait TWO HOURS to see him(yes...TWO HOURS AFTER my scheduled time), but I got 8 minutes of time and was finally told he couldn't tell me why I was having those panic attacks, suggested I lay off on caffeine, nicotine and alcohol, was given an assortment of different meds to see what was right for me and told to come back in a month.
To be totally honest, I got more mental relief talking with Bobo (an affectionate nickname for my cousin. As you will learn, I don't dwell often on real names, usually nicknames and code names) some 8 hours later or any of my friends at the 'Sider on Thursday nights(The Barnsider was a restaurant in Providence, now gone, where I spent many a Thursday night hanging with new found friends and the Becky Chace Band...more about all of that in future posts).
Now, as far as the clients went, they kept to themselves. Good thing because this was not a collection of people out of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST as I led myself to believe. This was a collection of recovering drug addicts, both male and female, who were relating tales of what and who they did to score their hits, who they knew that had OD'ed, complaining about having their Oxy and Methodone amounts cut back and numerous other tales too gory for me to want to go into. Not to mention the one guy wearing only his bathrobe and his NEW MJ32 sneakers.
Realize that this was not during a group therapy session. this was in the WAITING ROOM while ESPN rattled off sport scores from the night before. Very, very strange indeed.
Oh...did I tell you about the working girl(a guess but I think a good one), dressed straight out of a bad 80's teen flick (teased hair and that funky tights under jean shorts look)who was sitting out in front of this place dry humping some guy in full view of both street traffic and those of us inside? Thought not...I would have remembered that!
What I discovered by all this was that there are truly people out there far worse off than I and that there are probably really good Psychistrists who help open up those needed channels and those who you might want to have a drink with but not have treat you.
I had the latter, but still wouldn't have invited to a 'Sider gig!
I guess the best thing about being unbalanced is that you realize you are and you try to go from there.
Wait let me clarify: I' m not insane just a little despondent and bewildered and unbalanced. Sometimes it helps me to say that I'm insane because it aids in answering those things I cant quite figure out.
The other nice thing about realizing I have a problem is that there is clarity within it all. After the whole debacle describe above, I got in touch with a Therapist who has been my life-line through really good and really reall bad since 2006. He had convinced me to get off the alleged "panic meds" I was prescribed and had gotten me into a more healthy way. Grapefruit juice and water has replaced caffeine; granola has replaced junk food-vitamins have replaced the meds.
So clarity has replaced the numbness. The pain still arrives and creeps in and still tweaks me out at times. But I fight it as best I can.
Not that I don't have my failures. The grandeur of clarity is that it allows me to feel. It lets me feel melancholy and enraged and contented and all the raw emotions surrounding it. So, if you caught me on a bad day and got caught in the crossfire, I sincerely apologize to you. It wasn't personal-just an extension of my already afflicted disposition.
I'm so glad I have the support of my family...Joan, Munchkin, my Bug, my dad, Bobo...the band(more in a future post). They are there for almost every step of my trials.
The beauty of clarity is you see and hear things in a whole new way. Last night, I sat on my front steps for an hour and watched the sky dance with lightning that looked like the landing of the saucer in CE3K. Very cool! Tonight, I just vegged out, watched TV and wrote this blog. I see the ridiculous behavior of the media and thank God I never followed that profession. I get angry at the way politicians feather their nest and line their pockets and try to work their way into your bedroom life. I bubble with glee at the way people think they can charm their way through life, knowing they'll end up bankrupt and desolate. Weeks ago, all of that would have washed over me and through me.
Today, I stop, dwell and process.
The round about way with all of this is that I rediscovered Marillions FUGAZI. Always my least favorite albums of the Fish era, I now know it was because I didn't grasp it. Its a dark, foreboding piece of work, which is bitter in content and context. I never understood it fully before now. Today, I wade through the lyrics and thoroughly embrace them. It's a masterpiece of sorrow and I'm sorry it took me two decades to ultimately recognize it.
So for now: I'm the Harlequin who wears the mask of a clown but carries the burden of responsibility in his pocket.
And this world, it IS totally fugazi!
I write this blog as a way of trying to make the feelings of anxiety slither back down the recesses of my mind. It's a daily battle and somedays I win and somedays the fear wins. My weekends always used to be stressful as I usually had a video to shoot. You can be 100% perfect and have an equipment problem and then you slowly watch your life and career slide into the loo. Always, especially AFTER the surgery, made it tough to get your head in the game if you afraid before you get on the field.
One of the things I have now discovered, as I continue to battle the demons within my mind, is that nothing in this world matters more than friends and family. Money, power, fame-its all BS in the scope of things unless youve got a raging hardon for having a huge obit youll never see and nice words on a tomb that youll also never see. Its nice to have delusions of it all, but when all is said and done, you can be like Cerebus-dying alone and unloved. Money is great and I'd be DVD-less without it. But money will not buy me a continued place on this earth. Ask Charles Foster Kane.
No-it is the love of family and friends which I find solace in. My wife and daughters fill the voids and even if I have to get up early to see them before theyre off to school, sacrificing much needed sleep, I do so because I just want to hold them and hear their voices. I relish in being with them: quiet moments with my wife and watching hours of movies and TV with the Munchkin and the Bug. Less lately as the Munchkin grows up and spends more time online and on the phone with her friends. My dad fills another gap. Part of my therapy is dealing with this separation anxiety thing.
But it is a double-edged sword for I have discovered that much of my dread comes from events which has surrounded my family. That and Wednesdays. I loathe Wednesdays. This hump day is when I have my worst attacks. And they coincide, if I dig deep enough, with major events in my life. I had surgery on Wednesday. I lost my GiGi on a Wednesday. Made my Moms funeral arrangements on a Wednesday. Bobo vacated The Cottage on a Wednesday. I learned that the son I wanted so badly would not get a chance at life on a Wednesday. So Wednesdays have become Pluto on my mental calendars. What the hell-it got downgraded and desperately needed a place to go!
To augment them, I have my friends. Mike and Ann are family in every sense of the word except for blood relations. but they now have two children of their own and we haven't seen each other in several months.Same with Russ, Gail and Sean. Fun to be with, laugh with and just be dopey with! But they have been hard at work earning a living and working on a movie which is now getting ready for general release. FOOTPRINTS-go see it! My co-workers are few and far between on the "tight" list. They know who they are as they are.
It's a bizarre life I live now: beating away the demons and trying to take comfort in each day. This page is therapy too. Its an open book if I let it. With that in mind, I always recall where to step to avoid the minefields. And still dwelling on the little things in life that make me shake my head and laugh.
Life can tend to throw you curveballs, sometimes you hit them, and sometimes you let them slide past. I finished this blog with the story of a curveball that became a change-up and, while it did not become a Grand Slam, became a hit unlike any other.
Back in early April of 2008, an incident at work led to an honest to goodness shot at a promotion. I had turned down and avoided most promotion since a life changing blackballing at the hands of a project manager. I do not take it personal-the project manager pretty much blackballed everyone involved with the project.
However, it took the taste for promotion out of my mouth. Nevertheless, in April of 2008, I allowed myself to be courted by all the things I tried to avoid and took my shot at and was awarded a lucrative promotion. Prestige, money and power: that is what it's all about.
However, I quickly learned that, as Peter Parker would tell you, with great power comes great responsibility. I quickly found myself working 6 days a week and putting in no less than 50 hours a week. In a salaried position, mind you.
Cue to the phone call from our new Social Worker on the day my wonderful wife was preparing to take her final exam to receive her Master's Degree in Education. Before that day was out, she had passed her exam and we had a brand new baby girl in our life, hence referred to as 'The Bug'. Put an infant into you life with 5 hours notice and see how your priorities change.
Over the next week, the joys of that new life became conflicted with the stress of the job and the two came to a head in an ugly fashion. I found myself putting in increasingly more time and energy at work and found myself waking at odd hours in the middle of the night, not because of the cries of an infant but because of the panic setting in within my mind. As 'Bobo' put it during a visit during that period: "We didn't laugh during this trip. We always laugh a lot when we're together." It was one long day after another.
It got so bad that I was actively pursuing employment elsewhere. I was truly ready to take three decades of employment in one company and do the change of career thing as quickly as I could. I didn't care if it meant a part-time job or a major pay decrease. I needed to get out from under the pressure as soon as I could. Let's put it this way: I was so desperate to get out that I was looking at ways to get me out permanently. It was so bad that my therapist gave me a week to get out or he would have me committed.
It all came to a head on a Wednesday approximately 6 weeks after I began the new job. I called my corporate Human Resources and told them that I was a long time employee who had been diagnosed with a Bi-Polar Condition and Panic Disorder and I feared I was suffering from the beginning of a nervous breakdown. Their advice, what little they could offer, was to step down from the position or seek medical leave. Medical Leave would normally have been a wonderful thing: get out of the job and do whatever I had to do to get my head together-with some sort of a paycheck attached. But that option would not play well with the folks at Social Services who had just placed a child in our care.
So after a lengthy discussion with my boss, who was as understanding as one could be, it was decided to allow me to step down, with a pay decrease and go elsewhere within the firm. No managerial responsibilities, for the first time in nearly 20 years. I would just be a regular guy.
So it was. I stepped out of management and became a regular time card associate working like a dog with the rest of the pack. No alarm calls at night. No early openings. No dealing with angry clients. Go in, do what I was told and when the end of my eight hours were through, go home.
One month later, I was moved again to my current position. I found myself a little more visible to the client, but was still working like a regular guy with regular responsibilities. I still have not gotten all of the blackness out of my soul, but I am working at it. I have fun with my life.
And I have been able to watching my infant daughter become something more of a real personality. Three and a half years later and I still manage to enjoy life and, at my age, realize that I won't live forever and it is important that I enjoy those moments and not be chasing the almighty dollar. By accepting that high profile position, I allowed myself to believe that it would be less stressful, that I could enjoy a good work/life balance and that the money and the power were the end goal. In actuality, I discovered something I already new: this is my job and this pays the mortgage. It is not a career to me. My family is my career and everything I do should revolve around them above anything else.
Bottom line: all of us need to do what feels right in their lives. Sometimes the money carrot makes us feel good. Sometimes it doesn't. And I know I will be paying for this remodel to my home until the day they box me. However, that's okay. Because I know I can come home at the end of the day and be at peace with myself and enjoy this home and those within it.
With great power comes great responsibility. And with great responsibility comes great power. I draw my power from my life. My life is my family and my family is my life.
It all depends on how you see that curveball.
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