Seperation Anxiety

My lady has recently asked for a separation. Not a trial separation, either, but a full out we are getting divorced separation. She was right to ask for a separation, because we needed it, but I am unsure whether two people who still love each other as much as we do should be going for a full on separation to divorce.

It seems strange and unfair. I have stuck by her and all the difficulties she has gone through and made myself sick in the process. And she decides to end it without giving it a real try. I know life is not fair, but it should be fairer than this.

I miss her.

Freedom Sucks

I have sprung myself from the clutches of a mental institution (I finished my program there) and the real world is way harder than living in the institution. People do not understand how easy the world is when you are inside an institution. I am not sure, but people coming out of jails, juvie, long hospital stays and work in mine/lumber camps often feel the same way. In the other place everything is organised; your meals are prepared, there are people to look after you and there is a predictable schedule.

And then there is the time-dirty reality outside the walls. Where life has no schedule except what you give it and no one is looking after you. It is a harsh switch to have to make. I am trying to keep myself to a timetable, but it is hard when there is no one but yourself to keep you on track. My life has now become an attempt to keep me occupied and doing the things that will keep me healthy.

Wish me luck,

Goonius

Self Esteem and Mental Patients

Being a mental patient is a strange experience for me. I am in a wonderful hospital with wonderful staff, volunteers and various strips of crazy folk. I feel strange. There is a new stigma attached to me, in addition to my mental illness and learning disability. Now, I have been in a funny farm. I am trying to cut out the labels from my life, trying to cut out words like "broken", "wrong" and "outside" as they apply to me. Self esteem building is what I am trying to do. Unfortunately, there is no formula for fixing self esteem, no process by which self esteem can be generated externally. It needs to grow from within.

And it is delicate. Fragile like a southern flower in Timmins. The smallest thing can pull me down and it can take weeks for me to grow myself back into shape. But I am becoming more resilient. Thanks to being a mental patient in a mental institution. Treat food and exercise as medicine. Do not isolate yourself. Reach out and help as that will help you.

I am trying to be a good citizen and get back to being productive. I am months away from that, but I am getting better. I hope you are all pulling for me.

Goonius Maximus

Feeling Good

Today I woke up happy. I did not feel numb, not broken, lost or out of place. I did not even feel content. I was happy. For the mentally ill in the western world, Christmas is a loaded time. In addition to what ever difficulties one is already facing, the Christmas need for good cheer can be overwhelming. now that Christmas is done and over with, I can feel myself easing up on myself and the restrictions I place on myself.

The week prior to Christmas, my lady and I went and exchanged gifts with out friends. That was a very good thing, but seeing so many people in such a short period of time was difficult. I was so tired of painting masks over myself that I did not get to spend the time with my sister-in-law and her husband that I wanted to. And I hid out at home playing Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood with my doggies.

I am sad that I missed out on that opportunity, but I needed to chill out on my own. Sorting out my place in the world, redefining myself, all that bullshit that keeps me hiding in my home away from the world. My place is fluid in the world and I am trying to realign my thinking to that end.

Sorry for the rambling post, but I hope you will understand that I needed this on "paper" to remember that I had a Happy Day.

Thanks for listening,

Goonius Maximus

Darkness within Darkness

I find myself at the precipice of losing my mind to anxiety or depression again. My new head shrinker has me on a very good new med that is keeping me more focused, but it sets my heart racing. This feels much like an anxiety attack and so I now have no clue weather what I am experiencing now is a proper anxiety attack or a side effect. The med is assisting my focus; I have been cleaning the house up on my own for the first time is a long time. I find myself sliding back and forth between feeling very good about myself to feeling like Golum of Lord of the Rings. A hated, slimy, dark thing that when exposed to the sun is seen to have the hydrocarbon coated soul of a deamon. A thing even the goblins feared.

And fear. Never in my life have I known such fear. The fear of being noticed doing something out of the ordinary, the fear of being too ordinary, the fear that someone will find out the black truth about me. Yet, the truth is that I am not a hated, slimy, dark thing. Though, goblins do still fear me. Those things do not keep the friends that I have. The friends I have who stay with me and believe in me and try to push me towards a mirror so that I might see myself as they do.

Whom do I trust if I cannot trust myself?

Circles of Shadow

I stand apart, looking out
past a shadow clinging to me
eclipsing my personal light

Looking around, I see
bright glows from others
their shadow seems less

The air resists my movement
a wind felt only in the pressure
against my struggle for change

When I have found a suitable
resting point, my shadow again falls
forcing my sight to look out again.

Looking at the world
I wish
I was part of it.

Renewed Wrong

I have tried to post here for some time. My life has spiralled away from me, and talking with you seemed to help in the past. I am at a loss.

I am again off work due to brain issues. I panic at the thought of responsibility, when once I coveted it. There seems to be a stain on my personality that I am attempting to cover up. I am scared, even in places where no one knows me, that someone will see through this wrongness in me. That they will notice the stain and... mock me or something. Three shrinks are working on me now and progress is being made, but I know that depression/anxiety is more like diabetes than a broken arm. A broken arm heals and is whole again, where diabetes must be managed as an eternal condition.

And that sucks.

Fighting Boredom

Bored.

Bored, bored, bored, bored.

Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored.

My ennui is growing lately. I am trying to find excitement, but it is eluding me. Like the reflection of a spark on the water when I reach for excitement I find the cold and wet feeling of fear. I feel lost and alone. Again.

Hopefully now that I have named this, I can go on to confront this. I do not wish to lose myself again, not when I have so recently found myself.

Thanks for listening,

Goonius

Paying Attention in a Failing Economy

One of the most frustrating limitations that I have as a person is that I do not pick up on hints. It is not something that I can do well. At work these last couple of months, there has been an impression of words going over my head again. That is more that a bit frustrating. It becomes even more frustrating because I have a difficult time distinguishing between slips of the tongue, back handed complements and actual praise.

Now work is slowing down for me. There is work on the horizon, but not work right now. And so I wonder if there is a layoff in my future. I do not think so, but the possibility is there. So, I now am worrying about that and what people say to me seems layered with meaning. And I am not in a good frame of mind to decode secret messages.

Fuck 'em. I will continue to do as good a job as I can, and let the chips fall where they may.

New Trumpet

I have joined a local concert band. My trumpet playing is not great, but it gets the job done and I am enjoying it. But, I do not own a trumpet of my own. So, a deal was struck. My lady needs a soprano sax. I need a trumpet. If we save, we should be able to afford those sometime in mid-April. It should be noted that my lady already owns an alto sax and a tenor sax. Also, a soprano sax costs about $3,000, where my trumpet costs $300. At some point I will have to leverage this disparity into something. Suggestions are welcome.

Goonius

Things for the Good

I am going to try a positive post, as I have noticed that my last few posts have be been rants of an angry sort. This is not the frame of mind I am trying to project these days. So, the good things that are happening (in list form);

1. I have a great wife, who is becoming more and more comfortable with herself and me.

2. I got a raise. Not a huge raise, but money is money.

3. I have job security, which in this time is important to remember.

4. There are two dogs that are generally good and like me.

5. I have a large and widely scattered group of family and friends who will back me up even if they have not seen me for a long time.

I am doing good. I just need to remind myself of that.

Thanks,

Goonius Maximus.

Merry Fucking Christmas

This Christmas is going to be awkward. My in laws have just begun divorce proceedings. Whee, that makes a great topic for the dinner table after exchanging gifts. "So, your marriage of 30 years is down the tubes? I am sorry to hear that. Pass the gravy, please?"

I don't quite know how to respond to this. My family is far from perfect, but my mom and dad are together and have always been together. They may have hunted dinosaures together back in the day. They still are wandering around the North West Territories together. And I thought the same of my in laws. But there was always something not being said around the table, the missing words an undercurrent to all that was being said. I have come to know that my mom is unique in dealing with things as they are in a family situation. Dad can hide his thoughts a bit, but will gently try to find the source of the problem. And I get pissed off with dealing with only symptoms.

In this case, it is not appropriate for me to go digging for the truth. I have no real clue why my in laws have split up. But, I don't think that the split will actually solve any problems. I know there was no infidelity, no abuse, no concrete reason I can find for them to have gone there separate ways.

I am left confused and unable to sate my curiosity. That is the root of my discomfort. But the symptoms rough as well. With whom does my sister in law stay when she comes up? Where will Christmas dinner be? If my lady has difficulties that she needs a parent for, where does she go? Will the other parent be upset for not being picked? Many of these questions have been resolved for this Christmas, but they will have to be revisited for every holiday from now on.

Questions without answers. That is the untidy part of my world these days.

Thanks for listening.

Angsty Poetry

As I crash into the void of my heart
A thought occurs:
If this is nothing,
Why does it hurt?

Sex and Drugs

Sex should be fun. Sex should not be something to hide from, not something to cause one to cringe away. However, due to what has happened with my lady and the meds that I am on, that is what sex has become for us.

The brief moments of sensual connection are replaced by fear on my part. I am afraid that I am pushing to hard for sex, that I am moving to fast and will trigger a flashback in my lady. But I deserve something physical, right? I am her lover.

She is afraid that if something does not happen, I will be disapointed and leave her. Then, the dissapointment she feels with herself sets in. "Why can't I do this? It is natural and good, right? But I feel all disgusting and ashamed."

And so the situation spirals out of control. I want something natural, cannot have it and pressure her without meaning to. My lady feels the pressure, tries to act in concert with what she is feeling and realises that she cannot because she feels broken and unworthy. And unless one of us is in a perceptive mood, this spiral can only end poorly.

The most frustrating part of this is that my lady wants some good lovin'. She does get aroused, but the feelings confuse and frustrate her. She is unable to act on those feelings or to acknowlage them as being normal. And my meds make it difficult to "get off". So, those rare times when we can be intimate, she can end up feeling even worse because I do not finish.

Thanks for listening.

Of Muck and Mire

Over the last three days, I was doing a good job. I came home and the good feeling left me. When I have been away for a time at work, I sometimes have a rough time adjusting to being home again. My lady has been sick to her stomach for some time now and is a bit touched in the head from her last therapy session. And I am exhausted. If you can avoid it, never go tramping about the swamps of northern Ontario in November. Try to keep your sanity and knock your face into a wall. It is less painful and is over faster.

I don't know if because I am a big boy with small feet that I sink into swamps easier, but I spent most of Tuesday with two boots full of cold water tramping about looking for snow concealed muck pits. My toes may never forgive me. Add to that, I was having difficulty eating. I never managed to stir my lazy carcass out of bed with enough time for breakfast and I worked through the lunches. I had big dinners, but I missed my three squares a day for no good reason. All this, plus being away from my support makes maintaining my mental health difficult.

So, the Muck and Mire of my title is not only in the real world, but in my mind as well. I am beginning to want to write black poetry and my wrists are itching to be scratched open to let the bad out. I have been putting one foot in front of the other with out a plan for too long, I think. Now is the time look to the horizon, to get the itch to move out of the mire and on to other things.

Fair winds

Meds and Control

I hate medications. Their value and contribution to society cannot be understated and the increase in my quality of life has been substantially improved by meds. However, I hate taking them. It feels too much like allowing control of my body to be passed onto a chemical. This reluctance to allow chemicals into my life also contributes to an irrational reluctance to eat and drink. I am Goonius, I need no food nor water!

This whole feeling of helplessness in the face of chemicals has also led me to be somewhat contemptuous of some safety concerns around chemicals. I am Goonius, I can take it. Given that my job occasionally takes me into some nasty industrial areas, this is not a good concern. This struck home to me when my brother, who has very similar feelings towards medicine and chemicals as me, caught arsenic poisoning in his place of employment. His work at the time involved cleaning up arsenic and he would then smoke, inhaling the arsenic on his hands into his lungs. Now, the company he is working for has regular arsenic tests, so this situation was caught before it could become a real health problem, but this has changed my outlook on chemicals in general and pharmacology in particular. I realize my meds are not taking control of me, they are allowing me to take control. And safety is always the priority.

Changes in Life; Changes in Me

My lady continues to improve. Her strength and determination are an inspiration to me. I, however, am devolving somewhat. If you have been reading this rant for a bit now, you will know that my lady has been going through some rough times lately. She is strong and improving, but little things get her down sometimes. And our sex life is... complicated and rare (but improving and exciting).

Yet, I am finding myself more and more run down by work. I am attempting to assert myself at work, but it does not come naturally to negotiate with authority. Generaly, I have been a good little cog in large machine. I work as I have always worked; push untill I break. That is no longer going to be my operating model, and the bosses here are having some difficulty coming to terms with that. These assertions are not made easier by me wanting to loose my cool or beginning to stutter as I approach a the key point I am trying to make. But I am making these points and becoming more confident. I have managed to secure vacation time longer than a long weekend this summer for the first time scince my honeymoon five years ago (not counting time off for crazy). I am improving, but I see that I have a long way to go.

Thanks for listening,

Goonius Maximus

Confessions of a Nerd.

Has anyone heard of Star Fleet Battles? (crickets) It is a board game I played in my misspent youth, based on the original Star Trek series. It is one of the most complecated games around. I personaly still have a 3" binder of rules (and I don't have all of them). After some heated arguments atempting to resolve the rules, the game was abandoned by my associates and I. I have discovered a lighter version of Star Fleet Battles called Federation Commander. And I have fallen in love with it.

The game manages to keep the flow of Star Fleet Battles while losing the many complications that bogged down the game system. I am really enjoying this game. Now, I just need to con some friends into coming out and playing a fleet action...

Self Worth

I have fought to be where I am. I have a good job, good chances for promotion. I have a wife who is on the mend in a most enjoyable way, and I still feel shattered. I don’t like that. It feels like I am becoming less instead of more, shirking rather than rising to the occasion. I am attempting to rise. But, there is no buoyancy in me. It escaped, fled rather than play with me.

My soul is hurt and I cannot find the wound. And the wound does not matter. It is the scar that matters. I am a good employee. I am not afraid of hard work. I am a good husband and dog owner. I am a good brother and son. I have many skills to go with my flaws. I am told that my good bits out weigh the bad bits. I must prove this to myself in order to overcome this.

I am a good person. I am worth something.

Seeing What You Have

Good things are coming to me. It has taken some time for these good things to be realised or appreciated, but they are arriving. I have a job in which they have let me be as messed up as possible with out criminal charges, and they still want me. I have a good, growing and spreading group of friends. They are literally from coast to coast to (almost) coast. My lady is continuing improving her attitude and is becoming more … intimate.

The difficulty is that my life still feels stuck in stasis, held in place or cuffed to something large and heavy. I don’t feel the motion of my life, but if I look back I can see improvements. Sandra is becoming quite the tease, which is fun. But, at work, were I am having some difficulty shaking loose from the materials manager. I am trying to spring free of him, but as he has been unable to keep any other techs, and I have become “the guy” in his mind. So, I have been getting into mine closures and hydrology. And I think I have managed to impress other people in other departments in the company, so hopefully I will shake loose now.

Thanks for listening.