The Holiday Season

Hi all! I have been noticing an up-tick in anxious messages on the anxiety and heart boards I monitor. I think that is normal for most of us. The holiday season is stressful with activities, traveling when you are not comfortable, and dealing with the loss of loved ones. The only advice I have for you right now, other than the ones I always give is this; when the big picture becomes overwhelming, focus on the little pictures. The sound of your child's laughter, the feeling of a friend as they touch your hand, the fact that there is a God and He loves you very very much.

Sometimes for me the big picture is to great to look at and I have to stop and narrow my focus. I will sit outside and just feel the wind on my face, cook a good healthy meal, enjoy the tastes, call a friend and listen to their voice. When we are stressed, we can easily be consumed by the hustle and bustle of this time of year, even if you don't celebrate it.

Also remember to get your eyes off yourself if you can. We can become obsessed with mental rituals, like checking our pulse or running through our little check lists. That habit is SO destructive, let sleeping dogs lie. I have never seen anyone compulsively check their pulse and have it do anything good.

Maybe if there is an elderly couple on your street you could stop by introduce yourself as a neighbor and make sure they have everything they need for the season. Same if there is someone home-bound or sick that you know of. Take that time you normally over focus on your health issues and try to get some of it focused outward. Not only is that good for our anxiety and depression it is good for our souls. In helping others we often help ourselves without knowing it.

You know me and know I have a deep and residing love for God, but even if this season means nothing to you, it will still make the world a better place, so it's a win-win for all of us anyway. Be strong my friends, deep breath and relax. Yoou will get through this and in the process even when you are hurting so much, we can still spread the cheer and goodwill and peace that we wish for in ourselves.

You are not alone, you are loved and you are very needed right here on Earth, Love you all, and wishing you the best Christmas and a New year filled with peace, love and confidence.

Whatever you celebrate, enjoy it and be the change you want to see in the world. You are going to be okay, Promise.

So what happens when it seems you will never break out?

     Good morning from lovely urban New Jersey! I know it has been awhile but I wanted to stop in and see how you are all doing. So it has been about 5 weeks since my last post, where I told you all I was feeling very depressed. Guess what? I'm still feeling that way. Mine is more of a situational one though, and after taking a good long look in the mirror last night, I thought to myself, "What if your problems don't go away anytime soon?" I looked around my small apartment, "Is this it? Is this the sum of your being?"

     So I got on my knees and asked God for strength. I got off my knees and used the strength I already had and you know what happened?  Nothing yet, lol. Still depressed but I feel the old fire coming back. Each time I talk to you I call you warriors, because that's what you are. Warriors who struggle sometimes every day for what seems like months, years or decades. If we (I) don't fight back then we are not warriors, we are victims. I don't want that anymore, not even for a month.

      There are lots of things for me to be depressed about right now. Christmas time is hard, both my parents passed away in December and a dear relative on Jan 2nd. My finances are next to non-existent and like many in America, maybe everywhere, contrary to what the media would have you believe the true job market is horrible to worse.

     But I made a mistake, I let it overwhelm me. As if my shoulders were broad enough to handle all this alone. I got depressed, I let my good habits, like setting goals slip, and I wallowed. So last night I finally got sick of it. I know many of you are better at breaking out of the dark than me, but I also know there are some who have been trapped so long they have forgotten the light. So I am going to tell you the same thing I always say, Keep fighting! There are others who DO understand. The Holiday season is hard for many of us, instead of visions of sugar plums; it is of ones we lost, or the parts of our lives we lost, that dance through our heads.

     Don't do what I just did, to my sorrow, and isolate yourself. (I am old enough to admit my mistakes). Even if I never post again, you have to know that you are worth this struggle. Otherwise it's pointless isn't it? You are worth it, and so is the joy it will be to others around you to have you back.

     As much as I wish it was otherwise, no one is holding our hand through this, (Except God). We are going to feel alone and tired and sad and hurt. But we have gotten this far, and we will get though this. Not only did I want to check in but I wanted to remind you of how beautiful and worth it you really are. Sorry for my silence, we all get hit hard sometimes, but I am still here, so are you which means every second of every minute is a chance for a new start, for the dream of hope and for a kind word, loving thought and prayer from and for us all.

Frank

Failure

So what do you all do when you get knocked down? I pray, I try to push on even harder, but some days it just doesn't work. Some days I just want to lay in bed and never get out. The energy it takes to stay awake seems misspent since I am only thinking down thoughts anyway. That's like asking the dentist NOT to give you Novocaine, if you ask me it makes no sense.

Normally I don't like people to know when I am down, after all we are all struggling, but in an attempt to have an honest blog, that is part of life I have to deal with quite frequently. And I know many of you do too. So see, I am no different that anyone else. There are days where I can't fight, I just want to stop and sleep. I know I will get over it, but the older I get, the longer and darker the periods seem. Man, do you ever just get tired of fighting? I am sick of it already.

Anyway I just wanted you to know you are not alone. I am there with you and millions of others feel this way. One day at a time, one hour at a time and eventually it will pass. I don't feel comfortable showing this side of me, but on long nights when you live alone and the only sound is your own heart skipping every other beat, it's rough. I know you understand.

I promise when I have a bit more energy I will post more and get back to some good positive posts. In the mean time I wanted you to know I am still praying for all of you, still thinking of you and reading your posts on the board. Sorry to be down, but we will make it my friends, some day.

Medicine and the unexpected problem with peace.

     I want to talk a little about medicine for a moment. But first the usual disclaimer, I am not a doctor, nurse or pharmacist. I am only discussing my results and if you ever have any questions, those are the people to talk to and ask questions, not me.

     Okay, now having said that, many of us have a drug fear. I hate taking new drugs, it sends my anxiety through the roof. I am always afraid of allergic reaction or drug interaction. I take about 10 different drugs since the heart attack. 2 of those being for my stomach because the other 8 rip it up something fierce.

     First a little piece of advice that may help some. When I have to take a new med. I ask my doctor if he would mind me sitting in his waiting room for 2 hrs. This alleviates some of my anxiety, at least for any life threatening quick reactions. (Never had one, but apparently I still worry anyone because the other 15,351 fears are not enough.)  Just sharing this because it does helps me to take meds in the beginning. My Dr knows my anxiety, so he is quite happy to let me sit there reading old magazines. (He should, I think I am single handedly putting his youngest child through college.)

      Also, to combat my anxiety I have started to take Prozac. Now I am just sharing. I had a HUGE problem with taking anxiety meds. Also since I was 15 they had tried me on three that did noting for me. Welbutin (Made me feel like a zombie). Zoloft (did not a single thing) and Lexipro (Made my depression at least three times as bad.) So I was very hesitant to try anything new, even after all those years. But as I saw my life slipping away and the anxiety gaining strength with age, not losing it, I knew I had to try something. And you know what.......it worked.

     I remember about two weeks after taking it, one day I was driving, going two hours by myself to a family get together. It was Summer time then and the sky was blue, the weather perfect and the windows open. Out of nowhere, I almost started to cry. For the first time, random thoughts of death were not screaming through my head, I could enjoy the wind on my face, I was out of the house and my safety zone and my shoulder muscles were not bunched and pulled up tight. It was a beautiful feeling.

     If someone had tried to tell me before hand, I would have laughed at them and just not believed it. But Prozac has totally changed my life. (That is the pill after 4 trial and errors that worked. It may be different with you, this is not a Prozac commercial. It just happens to be the one that helped me.) Trying to describe the feeling was like trying to describe a new color that you had never seen before, how could you? After a few days I settled on the analogy that I had been living my life in a house on fire, with the noise crackling and roaring, the constant struggle and fear to stay alive, the total chaos that I just accepted as normal. And then one day.......it just wasn't there. Amazing, wonderful and....scary as hell! My head was quiet, no anxiety songs of death and doom. Just me and i swear I could hear crickets if I tried. (Not actually).

     I was not prepared for this. I didn't and am still learning to cope with, this emptiness. Don't get me wrong, it is not a zombie state. I am still vivacious, (my story), outgoing in public and friends have noticed nothing but good things. (No slowing of speech, no sluggishness, etc. I trust their observations more than my own.)  Lets go back to that fire analogy and the noise, it was totally disconcerting. Not horrible just new. But all that anxiety I had felt all my life, that struggle to just put one foot in front of the other. The struggle to get out of bed was gone. Suddenly, I had no fight but 47 years of training on how to fight and 0 years on how to live at peace. It is still an adjustment and it is still a hard struggle, but I never want to go back to that again. You don't realize how much energy it takes till all the emergencies that you worry about but never happen are gone and you have nothing to do with the energy. Yes, I am still depressed, (More on that in a moment) but that unyielding, undying anxiety is gone like it never existed.

     Now let me say this and say this opinion clearly. Medicine is not the only answer. Yes Prozac has done some amazing, life changing things for me, but it will not undo 47 years of wrong thinking. That is not its job! For the pills to be really helpful they MUST be used in conjunction with therapy. The pills will take care of your chemical imbalances, but it will not stop your mental thoughts and how you have changed your thinking to live with the stress, depression etc. Pills are only one part of this war to free yourself and live the life you were meant to. You know that many of you, I know you are out there, are not even sure they deserve a life free of pain and full of happiness. A pill isn't going to help that. I swear just as much by the other parts; therapy, nutrition, exercise, church attendance and getting yourself plugged into your community. These will help just as much. Each one plays a part so that one day we may not need the pills or therapy. But lets be honest, okay. If whatever we were doing was working and allowing us to live rather than just survive you wouldn't be reading this and I wouldn't be writing this. Therapy is long and painful. The meds may take quite a few tries to find the right one. But you are using all that energy now, just to brush your teeth and pretend this is the life you want. My friends, please I am begging you because you mean so much, realize this IS a WAR and if you don't realize that and fight it as such you are only going to be the FIRST casualty. Family, children, loved ones, friends, will all suffer right along with you.

     Now getting that out of the way, let me tell you before my life got so bad I had to develop this thought of Total War, I cursed mind medicines. I felt like taking them was losing, like killing off that bad part of myself was a weird form of suicide. I literally hated the thought. I have writings, poems about why I wouldn't take them. As if that twisted malformed and ultimately destructive part of myself, was something to be protected because it was me. Let me say this loud and clear from the other side now....it is not! If our eyes are out of whack we get glasses and we don't cry and say, "Well that is just me and part of me!" Twisted leg? do we cry over leg braces that can eventually correct the problem? Do we not remove a tumor? That is what that chemical imbalance is, a tumor, a cancer that is eating at your soul. And after it now being quiet enough to finally hear the 'real' me, I would never go back. Don't believe any of those lies. You wouldn't walk around with bad teeth because they were part of you if you could afford it, so don't believe this dark twisted thinking is you either.

     I will say this again, because you are all worth the fight and you are all so very precious to me, even if I don't know your name. You can not lose this war. You must fight with every tool you can. The enemy; our fear, Satan, rough childhood, whatever, can only use lies to stop you from using the tools it knows will work. You are tired, you are fighting everyday anyway, so why not go on offense? Why not attack the root instead of just trying to live with the problems it creates in your life? You are a fighter, now take the fight to the problem instead of the other way around!

     Talk to your doctors, get second opinions, get therapy, talk to God, help your fellow humans when you have the energy to. With every victory you will become more confident and want more victories. With each step you will become healthier, nicer to yourself, a better husband, wife, parent and friend to others.

     I know you have suffered, I really do. I know you are tired but this fight is everything and you know what? You might not believe this, you can actually win this fight instead of just surviving it!

     If you haven't heard it lately, I think you are wonderful. A beautiful fighter who is tired. I am praying for you and trying to let you know you are not alone. God DOES love you, I love you and kid, you are soooooo worth it. I promise!

     As always, thank you for letting me ramble, you rock and stay strong brothers and sisters. You are not alone and you can and will win this. Be strong and of good courage!

     Frank

What people don't see

     As usual I had a post planned for today but changed my mind because I think this is more important. Many of us are here for different reasons; anxiety, health issues or addiction as examples. Most of these can not be seen by another human being without tests or knowing what to look for. We get the odd looks, the casual, "Get over its," the, "Oh I forgot you had that." as if it were something trivial.

     Nothing hurts me more or makes me feel alone, like a loved or respected person in my life not understanding what is going on in mine. Or worse yet, being outright hostile towards the idea, that something may in fact may be wrong with me, just because they don't understand it. I am lucky and don't have too many of those, although I know some of you do. Husbands, wives, family and friends who say "Just get over it, you are doing it to yourself." or "It's not that bad, you are a hypochondriac!" Or "You've had a thousand chances to walk away from your problem but you never will, you are hopeless."

     Many times that makes us afraid to share with those closest to us because we are afraid to drive away the last little support we have in desperate times.

     So today I wanted you to know something. I believe you. I believe you are hurting, and struggling. I am so glad that no matter how long it has been, you haven't given up. I understand that silent, lonely pain seems amplified. I understand, because I have been there with you. As someone who has walked a similar road to yours, let me say you are doing great. It has taken such power to get where you are now! It has taken struggle after exhausting struggle, so raise your head up! Do not feel ashamed! You are not alone and many people realize how hurt and strong you are at the same time.

     Knowing that you are going through this, breaks my heart. How do you explain to someone that just convincing yourself to brush your teeth if you are depressed is a fight? How do you explain if you have fibromyalgia, hashimotos or POTS or something else that is not easily seen, nor readily understood by even doctors, how isolated you feel and the pain of just moving or anxiety of going out? It is close to impossible. That is why we have support pages and blogs and each other.

     So today I don't want you to feel ashamed. Doesn't matter if the problem is physical OR psychological. Hold your head up because you are a survivor! If other people are unsupportive or hostile towards your problems, maybe you need to re-evaluate their position in your life. I would rather go through this alone than pull the dead screaming weight of a jerk behind me. We can barely lift ourselves at this point, carrying an ungrateful other is not an option.

      So to you all of my beautiful warriors, today I pray for peace and strength and blessings. I pray your self worth grows and grows and is not dependent on another persons views of you. I pray you know you are not alone and how much I appreciate you even though we have never met.

     You exist! You are worthy and have every right to be happy and free of derision or scorn. We may never meet but I wanted you to know someone DOES understand, the best he can anyway, and there is someone rooting for you every day of the week! You are not alone my friends and I think you are beautiful!

     God bless you all,

     Frank

How being "strong" almost killed me.

     When posting here, I am not looking so much for wrong or right when I tell you a story. Sometimes they simply are what they are. And when I describe my thoughts, I know some are old fashioned, a.k.a. misogynist. It was the way I was raised and I have changed most of it but as we all know old habits die hard.

     When I grew up I was taught boys don't cry. Crying was weak and, "If you want something to cry about, I'll come in there and give you something to cry about!" Whereas women are expected to live their lives perpetually 20 pounds underweight, men are expected to be emotionally stunted for theirs. I am not complaining, it is one of the only areas I think men have it worse than women in this life.

     Since I was raised that way, I very rarely showed my true emotions. As a matter of fact, since like many of you, I had a rather 'odd' upbringing and childhood, I began to distrust emotions all together. Growing up watching the original Star Trek, Spock was almost an idol to me. And over time I did learn to master my emotions. I could and still can stop from tearing up at the snap of a finger, I can walk away from most tragedy with a determined look and kind words for everyone else. I wasn't being a jerk or superior, I just thought it was the way I was supposed to be.

     Till the anxiety attacks started happening. I fought them for years and when I finally learned how to lock down my body and stop them, or at least not show any reaction to them.....they started coming when I was asleep. Oh I was mad! How can you defend against anxiety in your sleep? They were so bad I could barely stand up or hold anything in my hands. I was a wreck and even began to fear going to sleep. My body was cheating as far as I was concerned, it was a traitor and out to get me. Then the lone arrhythmia started, which I will not blame 100% on my emotions but it did have a factor to play in it. All this while, when I thought I was being strong, I was pushing more and more emotions and worry into a small shallow hole, that could and would no longer contain it. But again that is what I thought life was. If you know no difference, how can you question it? Then came hospital stays, trips to the ER, panic and that feeling of having lost all control.

     As part of what I call Total War for my life, I started to see a therapist. And let me tell you it is hard to rewire 4 decades of thinking. But I am trying. And emotional acceptance and well being is a huge part of it. Dealing with problems in the light of day can save you a night of terror and depression.

     Now many of you probably just said, "D'uh, I could have told you that!" And you would be right. However not everyone is quite sure that emotions are safe, that people can be trusted or that they even deserve to be pain free and loved. Trust me you do!

     On the other hand we have the exact opposite, people ruled so much by emotion they can't tell the truth because they don't feel it. Your brain tells you 1 million times that you are dying and you believe it each time, even though it has been wrong 1 million times. People who listen to that fear and are afraid to step outside, because something bad will happen, when you can just do it and test it out. Emotions suck don't they? It is very hard to find the proper balance between living like a robot and living like a madman ruled by them.

     So what I want you to do today, is figure out where you are on that scale. Are you denying your emotions? Are you being driven mad by them? Then figure out how to fight it. and we ALWAYS fight lies with truth. If your mind tells you that you can't step outside, do it. Just one step. See the lie. If it says you are worth nothing, no one loves you, the you need to tell it, physically say it, "I am worth something and my self worth is not derived from other people!" 

     I have been going out and making new friends (Do you know how odd that feels at 47?), I started a blog to express my feelings, I am getting therapy and taking meds. I think the next post will be on meds, just FYI. I still have so long to go. I still can not say, "I need.." without feeling like I am losing. But I am trying. The palpitations are down, but still there at times. As we fight this we need to take a good look at out brothers and sisters in 12 step programs and just fight it one day at a time. One struggle at a time. I know if I look forward, too far into the future, the struggle seems endless and it saps my energy, but if I look at now, it's not so bad. Sure I may die someday, but not today and not from THIS problem. That gives me enough to go on, while I truly learn what it means to be strong.

     As always beautiful warriors, I am thinking about you and praying for you. May God bless you with love, safety and peace.

     You can do this, you are worth it, you are something VERY special in this world! Keep up the good fight and never give up, you are not alone.

    Frank

Short note

Just a quick note today to ask a few things. 1)What would you like to see me write about on here? What do you need to see/hear more of? 2) Have you set any goals yet or changed anything? (Remember insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result!) 3) Did you tell yourself, physically, that you are beautiful, strong and can beat this? 4) Did you smile for no reason today? 5)Do you realize you are not alone. 6) Have you talked to God today?

     Hang tough all my wonderful friends, the old saying goes , "It can't rain all the time." If it is a rough day, hunker down, struggle on and know that you can do it! If it is a good day, smile and enjoy it, because they are far and few in between sometimes. You deserve it, share your smile with someone else if you can.

     You all impress me so much, love yourself and help be the light the world desperately needs when you can, and take comfort you are not alone when you can't.

     I am thinking about you, praying for you and ask that Jesus bless you mightily today.

     Thank you as always, I know it is hard, but I know you are strong. To everyone, no matter what religion or none, what ethnicity, what proclivity and any other dividers we put on ourselves. You are wonderful, beautiful and I think you are pretty damn awesome.

Frank