Getting out of a funk is tough, man.  Real tough. Sometimes, it’s funny how much effort I will put into actually not fixing my state of being, just so I don’t have to come up with novel ways of solving what is by now an extremely intractable problem: anxiety is occasionally running my life.  I’ve been in a state of almost constant analysis (never-mind the fact that I have no qualification to make any judgements on mental disorders) since it really got cranked up, so long ago now.  All my effort has been tied to finding (and neutralizing) some point of contact, some environmental impact, that occurred at some point in my life to cause a fairly easy-going guy like myself to transform so utterly into a mess of nerves, jangles, and jitters – and, yeah, occasionally a full-blown “anxiety attack” (if you want to call it that, which I obviously don’t).

One of the ways I have improved my situation is just by no longer being ashamed of my condition. I also quit bullshitting myself that I really used to be “easy-going” as claimed above.  I’ve always been a worrier, but I had adopted a tendency towards stoicism as a sort of primary operating principle, and when things are going well enough, it’s not that hard to maintain a facade.  Man, I wish I could pin it down, the exact reasons for my little problem, but just because I cannot explain it doesn’t mean I can’t claim it, to turn a phrase in the style of the Very Reverend Jesse Jackson.

I’m not sure that all my analysis has gotten me anywhere fruitful, but what I have noticed is this: I have been wrong about the process of thinking.  I have thought and made various claims for a long time now that human thinking is single threaded: we have one thought at a time, through a field of time, which is linear and sequential.  Now of course time does take a linear path so far as we can perceive, and it does seem evident that one can only have one thought at a time, which occurs through our language as a set of modules that we construct on the fly to build thoughts, words, sentences, concepts, whatever.  All of that does appear true.  But what I have more or less neglected until now is the importance of this other less obvious thread that weaves in and out of the thread of thought, which is like an emotional thread.  I used to think this thread was only functional in that it responds to what happens to a person in life, but now I’m starting to see that, when things are going really wrong for me, it’s because the emotional thread is going off and doing its own thing, out of alignment with what is actually occurring to me.  In a way it’s like a person is two separate beings, one which is responsible for outputting thought, and one that precedes, predicts and responds to thought.  I think in a normally functioning human these two things are supposed to line up just so, but sometimes they don’t, which causes what we call “cognitive dissonance”…..which for people like me causes an intense feeling of SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT HERE.  My anxiety does not always start or stop through the same process: sometimes I wake up with it, sometimes I’ll see a picture or read a sentence that starts it up, sometimes it will happen in traffic or driving at night (all things just seem more dangerous at night, and my confidence in myself seems misplaced), sometimes I’ll walk into one of the many places in this world that doesn’t sit right for me for whatever reason (usually big box stores, large college campus buildings) and that will trigger an immediate sort of sense of HOLY SHIT WHAT THE DEAL YO, GOTTA RUN FAR FAR AWAY RIGHT NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW. And of course sometimes you can’t run away without losing face.  And, historically, losing face is a big deal for me.  I do have some pride, and I do have a vision for the way I expect life to progress. Anxiety opposes all expectation except getting and maintaining safety.

When it gets really bad like that, I usually will have some warning, but sometimes not enough to stop it. And sometimes the things that stop it are entirely mysterious to me, as if that second thread is just easing up through some chemical process, or maybe some awareness that doesn’t escape the subconscious level.

There’s a question of what works, then, to head it off at the pass, and that really seems to be the one key thing I’ve got to figure out.  I hoped I could reason my way out of this little maze (never worked before, sure, but it’s just my first line of defense for when I’m still trying to cover everything up and act as if nothing is wrong), but the  reason this doesn’t work is because of that second thread I was just defining a moment ago: you can talk yourself out of the reasons for your negative feeling until you are blue in the face, but if that thread that runs behind the thought doesn’t match up, you’re just whistling out of tune.  So the thing to do would seem to be to somehow grab ahold of that second thread and make it do right, make it respond to the environment – as I believe it’s supposed to – instead of its own whims.  Can you take an SSRI and retrain that thread with therapy?  I’ve had not much luck at all with drugs that aren’t addictive.  Xanax works like a charm but it does run out rather quickly, not to mention that most doctors will not prescribe it for very long: there’s a liability there that I do not fully understand or agree with but have come to accept. And I’ve not done much therapy, but I’m actually getting to where I’ll give it a shot just because, why not? The SSRIs I’ve taken for years have never once led me to conclusively feel that I ended up in a significantly better headspace.  There have been long stretches of feeling really great, which twice coincided with the taking of SSRIs (among other things), but doling out credit for that to a drug has been tough for me to nail down.  Now with the latest evidence showing that SSRIs do not seem to have much advantage versus the placebo effect, it is getting more and more difficult for me to even accept the possibility that a new SSRI is going to do the trick for me, though I do accept the notion that for some few people they are really great.

I wish I was one of those people.  Instead I seem to have a condition shrouded in mystery and misery, not knowing when or how things are going to begin or end. Well poor me, I guess.  Back to the drawing board, and avoiding the depression that will follow along with this latest setback.  So far I’m actually doing well in that regard.  I’m trying to cultivate the resolve that none of this is a very big deal, while at the same time continuing to take steps to seek treatment.  After all, it’s a very fine line indeed between stoicism and neglect.

When I was in IT I longed for a stationary desk job.  Now I have one, and I long for life on the road.

When I was out of school, I longed to get back in to finish my degree. Now I am doing so, and I can’t wait for it to be over.

There is a lesson in these two examples.  I’m trying to decipher what it is besides, “It is impossible to ever be happy with anything.”

The feeling is just one of constant discomfiture: I imagine it’s something like an addict feels when he hasn’t had a fix.  A nervous, skin-crawling on-edge sense of preoccupation with a thing which seems initially to have revolved around driving at night, or going to large public places, but which has just now taken over large parts of my life.  At work, and even at home, this feeling is taking up a majority of my waking life.  For how long?  I don’t know, I hope it is short and ugly, like it has been times before, but to be honest, I fear I won’t be that lucky.

I don’t normally like to talk about these episodes, and so I doubt I will much change that habit, but be aware that if I do not write much in the next little while, the reason is that I am trying to get myself well again, and that I hope it will be very soon.

I’ve been mired in Fall semester classes for several weeks now at ASU, here in awe-inspiring, historic Augusta, GA.  Man alive, it’s only two classes but it’s going to be harder than I thought to get all A’s this time around.  I’ve got two professors (make that one professor, and one BROfessor), both of them are relatively new adjuncts here, and both seemingly have the agenda of proving themselves to be hardasses in order to get better positions athe University.  Well, I can sympathize with their plight a little bit: I know academic life is a tough slog and is why even though I think I would be well-suited for academia, I’ll probably avoid the temptation just to keep things profitable in other areas of my life.  But I thought I could just BS my way through these classes and get As.  I think Bs are definitely doable with a minimum of effort, but in the paper I got back from my english class yesterday, dude actually called me out for having “an eloquent pen but not much to say here”.  He’s totally right, too!  I don’t have much to say because the part of the text I picked to expound upon was a crappy choice, and I can see that I’m going to have to choose more wisely next time.

Writing is such a finicky endeavor for me, and the main reason my posts here are so short is because I can easily get to this stage of narrative where even I don’t believe the bullshit I’m going on about. And if I’m getting to that point, I figure what’s the use of trying to get anybody else on board the tripe-mobile with me when there are better things to do.  Well, writing for school has proven to be no different, because I had to literally force myself to continue to write just to make the 1500-word requirement for the assignment.  I’m probably the lamest English major of all time, because even though I have a passion for good books and am a pretty strong writer myself, I find it fairly difficult to wrap me brainbox around the idea of Criticism as a Serious Pursuit.  Mayhap I’m not a Serious Person, and if so please forgive the impertinence, there’s a good chap; but I just think the best critics are people like Roger Ebert, who have been able to sythesize criticism and autobiography in such an awesome way that, in some of his finer examples of long form writing, Ebert is actually able to surpass the object of his criticism.  People who read Ebert will know what I mean by this, he is a master of the subjective narrative and I think in a hundred years, while we may not still care about James Cameron, we will still be reading Ebert’s reactions to him.

None of this is to say, “oh, if only they’d give me free reign, I’d tear some criticism up and have it screaming my name”, because I don’t think that’s the case.  I appreciate the fact that school is a structured environment where you sometimes have to do things you don’t necessarily find to be intellectually fulfilling.  I get it.  But passing over the noble arguments about ideal educational approaches, the hard truth is that my GPA sucks, so I have to start making some As in a hurry so I can get past the sins of my younger days, and it’s a tad discouraging to me that I’ll be upset if I end up with Bs instead.

I hope I haven’t jinxed myself by complaining.  I’m going to have to take a look at this post again in December.  If I end up with Cs I swear to Baby Jesus I’m going to cry bitter bitter tears.  Thank God for vodka.

1. Go to work while it’s raining very hard.

2. Fall into a puddle and thoroughly soak your socks.

3. Try to microwave the socks.

4. One minute later, enjoy your blackened, burned, useless socks.

4. One second later, throw them shits in the trash ’cause they stank.

4? Relent to societal and workplace demands, put your wet feet into a pair of ten-year-old leather bucks with no socks, and no hope of getting socks.

4! Work with nice older ladies who prefer the thermostat to be set at all times to 62 degrees.

∞ Watch as your nice eight-hour workday turns into Ī́̅̂͌҉̺̲͕̺̺̳̣̫ ̵̣̖̹͙́͂͐͌ͦͬ͗̓ͤ́C͉̳͙͊̇͑̄ͯ̊͟͝Ä̶̹͔͚́̇̄̅ͯ̇ͯ̃̚͘N̛̳̼͔̫̥̎͆̅̚ ͯ̑́҉̤̲̹̹̕͟S̷̺̹̬̭̪̤̾̅ͦĒ͂̃ͭ̋ͫ̎҉̴͕͕̝̪͍̪̮ͅE̺̭̬͍͇̬ͭͣ̈́̏̂ ̺̳̯͔̞̳̽͊̊́͋ͫͬ́͢F̲̻͚̈̏͂̓̏ͫ͑͢Õ̴̻̘͎̪͎̹̮̳̒͌̂̕R̩̭̆̀̐̽̀̔͟E̐̆͒̉ͭ̋ͥ͐͏̵҉̠̖̪̮̬͓͇V̋҉̙̻E  ̹̤͔̹͖͎̞̤͛͆R̡̗̣̥̳͇͔̓͋ͣ͝.

The glasses that I received are pretty awesome.

Fig 1. Pretty awesome.

I was immediately impressed with the build quality and the index of the lenses was awesome, because they are so thin compared to my old pair!  The frames are not the high quality enamel of Ray Ban or Oakley, but they are good solid plastic frames, and because they are not enameled they are also extremely light, which has turned out, weeks later, to be a huge plus. I have already ordered another pair of similarly accoutered sunglasses for myself.  It’s a great deal as long as you aren’t tempted by the upgrade features like photochromic lenses, super high index lenses, blinged-out cases and whatever else they hit you with at the end.

The downside to our experience has been Jeannie’s glasses.  The frames are really high quality, but for whatever reason, the lenses just weren’t right.  We looked over our prescription though and the problem appears to be that the official pupillary distance measurements are different from the measurements we made ourselves, so it does seem to be our fault.  However, we were offered a 70% refund and we think that is fair, as getting glasses is just as much a service as it is a retail product.  Anyway, we put in another prescription, this time with the proper PD measurement and we’ve got our fingers crossed that these will be as great as mine have been thus far.

My take on it is that it’s a really good deal and the only reason to say no is that you have some silly requirement to have a specific brand label on your eyewear.  Because let’s face it, glasses get to looking pretty junked up in a hurry, no matter how expensive they are, and when you pay (much) less for (slightly) less quality, it’s doesn’t hurt the wallet nearly so bad when it’s time to replace the glasses you have.  So far, I’m a fan of this company and this business model.  It’ll be interesting to see whether this opinion is redeemed or refuted in the next few days, as we attempt to collect our refund and get our new pairs in.

*UPDATE 8/3/2010*  & The whistles go WHOO WHOO!

These new sunglasses are so bad-ass that I wear them at night (so I can, so I can, watch you weave then breathe your story lines).

Fig 2. So bad-ass, e.g. Corey Hart

Seriously, I like them a lot, I have done a complete 180 in that I NOW CRAVE SUNLIGHT FOR TO TEST MY MIGHTY SUNSHIELDS.  And my wife’s came in and they are also very good quality and fit great and make her to look like the sexity (I don’t remember what they are called, so photo is a no-go, bro).  And yep, if you’re keeping track, we did get the refund for the bad pair after about a week.  So, my money is going to these guys from now on, until they fuck up, which will be never because my readership at this blog is INTENSE and is a TERRIBL(Y INSPIRING) MOTIVATOR for any business looking to stay afloat.