But it ain’t easy.
I think my fear about my health has transmogrified[1] into a general state of agitation. I feel jumpy and edgy and kind of cranky.
I feel like I want to scream my pain into the sky, or slap a dozen strangers, or have crazy sex involving dairy products and farm animals and stainless steel funnels.
Let’s go crazy Wisconsin style!
It’s made it hard to sleep. I lay down and relax as much as I can but all I get is an hour or so of dozing before I have to get up and do stuff again, even though I’m very tired.
Tired but not sleepy. Tired n’ wired, I call it, and I hate feeling this way.
So I am doing my best to keep moving and not focus on it. I suppose writing about it could be seen as doing the opposite of that, but what the hell, that’s how I deal with things, I write about them.
Writing is a vital part of my emotional coping strategy.
And besides, writing about it burns more energy than just sitting around thinking about it and feeling miserable.
This is actually making me feel somewhat better.
I feel like I should print “doing things makes you feel better” on a thousand sheets of paper and paper my room with it so that I don’t forget.
Because depression, that filthy disgusting liar, tells me the opposite. That the only safety lies in staying very, very still, like I am hiding from a predator.
But the predator never gives up and goes away. So I stay in hiding.I’ve been hiding for so long that I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know how to do anything else any more.
I have forgotten what it’s like to not be afraid of the world.. To feel comfortable and relaxed outside of the hyper controlled environment of my bedroom. To be able to go where I please like any normal adult without having the fuse to the time bomb that is my anxiety burning down at an alarming rate.
I can cope with it, when I have to, I can make myself do things. I can maintain my wall of frost that keeps the world at bay even when i am out in it. I can get by.
But the fear is always there, waiting to come out and ruin me, I tend to think of myself as more depressed than anxious, and compared to a lot of people with anxiety disorders that actively torment them all the time, I have it easy.
But still, the anxiety is always there nipping at my heels. It is the depression’s enforcement mechanism, ready to freak me out if I should even think about escaping.
Well fuck you, anxiety. I’m ready to face the maelstrom and spit in its eye. Let the winds howl and the timbers creak and the sea scream out my name – I will sail into the heart of the storm with a song in my heart and a grin on my lips.
More after the break,.
How much does a sub way?
Decided to treat myself to some Subway tonight.
It’s been ages since I have been to one, and I’m quite fond of the place. It’s one of those rare places where the food both tastes good and leaves you feeling good.
I recognize that some people say it no healthier than McDonald’s, and I suppose if you focus on things like cholesterol or fat, they’re right.
But I am objectively getting way more meat and vegetables than I would if I got a Big Mac, and that’s got to count for something.
Speaking of the Way of the Sub and nutrition, though, what kicked off my Subway craving was a news item about everyone’s fave sub shop.
It seems that the Irish Supreme Court recently ruled that because of its high sugar content, the “bread” in Subway’s subs is not actually bread, and is in fact a “baked confection”, like a donut or an éclair,.
So now I am picturing a Subway sub, but the bun is a giant Long John.
The issue at hand was whether or not VAT (Irish for GST) should be charged on Subway subs. Because if the bread was bread, well, bread is a “staple food” and the VAT doesn’t apply to those.
But if it is basically a crusty cruller, that’s a luxury food and VAT applies.
This sounds a lot like the sort of folderol we’ve had to go through with the GST, and is a prime example of how a seemingly simple law gets very complicated very quickly when you try to balance everyone’s concern.
Meanwhile, on the home front, life’s been okay. I haven’t felt too bad today, presumably because I didn’t try to walk anywhere,
But I also think that my anxiety about my dying and such was partially assuaged once there was a plan in place.
I’m going in for testing and X-rays tomorrow, then that info will go to my GP, and I will hear from him some time next week.
So it’s out of my hands, and that’s a relief. Now, all I have to do is do what I’m told.
Kind of like being a kid, really. There is comfort in knowing your role and what is expected of you. I’m not particularly good at figuring it out myself.
I’m just too protean and malleable. The eternal shapeshifter, never able to make up his mind what form to take, so he takes none.
Anything else is too much of a commitment.
That’s why I need an external force like school or a job to give me purpose and form.
On my own, I am everything all at once but nothing in particular.
But once I have a role to fill, I can take form and be whole.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.