Lying in bed, typing this into my tablet, I think about sleeping.

Slept pretty darn deeply last night. Which is a good thing, though somewhat draining. As I type this, I am pretty close to sleep, and when I am done, I will probably go right back to sleep.

But I felt the need to put in at least a token effort at blogging before nodding off again.

So it is Halloween. On a Saturday, which wad great when I was a kid. Because it mean extra trick-or-treating time.

At the risk of sounding like a broken…mp3, Halloween does not have a lot to offer an adult diabetic unemployed person with social anxiety who lives in an apartment building and therefore receives no trick-or-treaters.

Then again, with today’s paranoid overprotective parents, there’s not much trick-or-treating going on anyhow. Gone is the era of my childhood, where our parents just dressed us up and turned us loose, trusting that it was perfectly safe for us to knock on the door of dozens of strangers and ask for candy.

And the thing is, it was.

I worry about what sort of message is being sent to kids when their parents act like the world is bristling with child molesters, serial killers, and kidnappers. I can’t help but assume that these are going to be some very fearful children when it comes time for them to deal with the outside world on their own. It’s like we’re raising a generation of agoraphobics.

And trust me, agoraphobia sucks.

But maybe I am wrong. Generations have a way of resisting the more negative aspects of the parenting of the previous generation. Maybe when it comes time for these kids, the ones who will be trick-or-treating in a mall tonight, to become rebellious teenagers, they will rebel with acts of radical trust and courage, and collectively confront the demons of unreasoning terror their parents, with the best of intentions, have installed in them.

If there’s one thing I know, it’s that trust in the world is a precious, precious thing, and the idea of all those kids never even getting a chance at it because of their overcompensating latchkey parents gives me a cold shudder inside.

I mean, I get it, Gen X parents. I would probably be an overprotective parent myself. And it would be very hard for me to keep my own terrible mistrust of the world from infecting my kids. I would do my damnedest to prevent it, but I might not succeed.

After all, I inherited mine. Well, some of it. My mom is shy and somewhat fearful and so am I. What Mom fears, you fear. It’s a basic survival instinct shared by all mammals. Little animals who don’t learn what to fear from their mommies don’t live long enough to contribute to the gene pool.

But sometimes, that information is false, and we end up fearing that which is harmless and living the life of the stressed, scared, and unhealthy.

People like me never entirely leave the adrenalized state. Actually, that’s pretty much everybody in modern times. That’s basically what stress is. Stress chemicals like cortisol build up in the bloodstream and keep us from being able to totally relax, and that prevents us from getting the kind of deep rest and relaxation needed for renewal.

I sometimes wonder if all the antidepressants and anti-anxiety pills we are taking these days could be replaced by something that simply eliminated stress chemicals while we slept. Then we could get really good sleep and wake up feeling wonderful, without any stress left over from the previous day.

I suppose that could lead to reckless action. I know that when I had a brief window of stressless existence thanks to being on liquid Valium during a laproscopic examination, I felt so good I felt like I was invincible. It took a pretty significant effort of will and restraint to keep myself grounded in reality long enough to get home and go to sleep.

And that was some mighty fine sleep. I can see why Valium became so popular. Talk about stress relief!

I still have those lorazepam tablets my therapist prescribed for me before the convention. I should put them in my bag. There have been a few times in the last week when I could have used some emergency stress relief.

Then again, maybe I am better off dealing with the stress without being able to escape from it even via chemicals. Yesterday’s events made it crystal clear just how much work I have ahead of me in order to learn to not be so panicky and view the novel and the unexpected as a challenge, not a tragedy.

I have been panicky my whole life, although a lousy childhood no doubt made that worse. But that panic-escape response has been with me as long as I can remember.

Maybe some people are just built that way, and the only choice we have is to give in to it, or learn to resist it. But I hope not. I hope I can, through therapy and spiritual growth, become someone who can face the world with greater calmness and dignity and well informed reason.

While still having fun and being funny, of course. I would never want to stop doing that. I love to make people laugh. I just want to go from zero dignity to “theoretically capable of being respected”.

Being around people without dignity, who just plain don’t look after themselves or make any effort to make a good impression on people, can be painful. I have been socially ignorant of how I come off for way, way too long.

I would like to be able to be around people without sending out those weird, creepy, sorta gross signals that a certain kind of low self esteem sends out. And I am not just talking about hygiene and clothing.

It’s about not sending out the message that you don’t care enough about others to do even the minimum to keep from offending them, I guess.

Social obliviousness only excuses so much.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.