To Just Smile

Sometimes the only thing someone with Dysthymia wants to do is just smile. No reason, but reasons help. But really just to smile feeling good about themselves and their life that moment. Nothing else, just to smile about life, if only for a moment every now and then. To feel good enough to smile.

Some Days

Some days living and dying feel the same. Some days I can't tell the difference. Some days I don't even care if there is a difference. Some days they are the same thing.

I Want to be

I want to be. I want to do. And I fear. The question is which is the greater each day, the fear or the desire to be and do, but all too often the former wins and the latter dies a little more. It's not about the fear of failure as there is no failure to be and do. The failure is the fear of just not trying.

I used to

I used to believe in myself. Now I don’t even ask myself questions.

Some Days

Some days the battle is just to survive the day, mentally, but I always lose because time always wins, except at least time grants me the one thing I wanted from the morning, nightfall and the opportunity to crawl in to bed, to sleep and wake up tomorrow with hope the day will be better.

Time is the winner, but a generous and gracious one, except you can't get the day back and you're one day older but no wiser. But you survived and didn't want to end time, your time on this earth, and that is enough some days.

There are people

There are people who's rewards center of their brain does not function completely or normally. Everything else about their brain works normally and in some ways works better than normal, like their sense of reality.

They do not have a mental condition or problem. They do not need drugs or therapy. They get by in life quite well. In fact, you wouldn't even know they are one of those people unless they told you. That's how normal they are as functioning people.

They experience life as everyone else, they just see it differently, as uniquely to themselves as everyone else sees life unique to them. The only difference is that they don't feel the overwhelming sense of happiness for more than a few moments every now and then.

There is nothing wrong with them, no more than any other normal person. There is nothing to change in them anymore than any other person. There is nothing to consider them abnormal any more than any other person.

They just are themselves as everyone else are themselves. They are unique as everyone else. They don't see constantly thinking that wanting to be happy is a way to be. They don't have the problem they won't be happy as other people if events don't happen to make them happy.

And for that they are often better, more normal people. They're not fixated on wanting and striving to be happy and dispair when it doesn't happen. They already know the extent of their happiness and the extent happiness will ever bring them.

They are already normal and happy as and with themselves.

Body & Mind

The body and mind occupy the same person, but don't mistake the two thinking their the same. Don't think what you see or see what you think about them. Think what the see or think about you. Would they be fair or right? Would they know you?

Would they spend the time to see and learn more? Would you of them?

Missing Myself

I've been missing someone of late, myself, since July when the Siatic nerve put me on the floor for 4 days, flat on my back where I couldn't sit, stand or walk for more than a minute without severe pain. The pain faded during July but the nerve problems didn't as the lower front half of my right leg is numb, almost totally numb.

And then in September an infection took me out again for two weeks. Anti-biotics cured the infection but both of these left me mentally tired at 63, and try as I have to exercise and get back into my life, work and projects, it hasn't happened.

And I've lost myself, namely four things, passion, inspiration, motivation and discipline. Pretty much everything we believe in ourself and do for ourself. Not gone, just lost somewhere in a spiritual fog of depression, for over five months now.

And the holidays has always been hard where I just muddle through them trying to avoid all the show and hype and look forward to January 2nd and getting back to something resembling a normal life for awhile with thoughts of spring in 4-5 months.

Those four things I've lost are the keys to enjoying your life and work.

Passion is what gets you up in the morning knowing you have a lot to do and you want above all else to do it.

Inspiration is what makes life fun and enjoyable and being creative and innovative about anything and even everything.

Motivation is what drives you in your life and work.

Discipline is what keeps the passion, inspiration, motivation going, through the ups and downs, advances and setback, and through all the problems and slowdowns.

All of them makes life good no matter what happens. And without them life isn't good not matter what happens. More thoughts to come.

A Blank Mind

Sometimes a blank mind is a good thing. It means it's not filled with thoughts and feelings, like self-hate. Sometimes feeling like you're inside a cloud is a good think. I means you can't feel anything worse than your immediate life, like wanting to fall not caring how you land.

Sometimes a blank mind is just what is needed, and the fight is to keep it blank, to keep all of your mental enemies out of your thoughts and feelings. Sometimes a blank mind is freedom, peace, a respite, a calm from all the mental battles in your own war on yourself.

Sometimes, a blank mind, by itself, is a good thing.

Some Days

Some days are over before they even start, and the last thing I remember was eating breakfast just a short while ago. Then the darkness of the evening arrives to tell me the day has been lost to time, and how it was spent is lost as well. And I go to bed to try again tomorrow.

Being 19

Sometimes I get the feeling I'm still 19. I'm 63, so what the fuck is up with this? Well, some part of me just hasn't grown up enough to forget all the shit in life I had then, being 1968, and all the people who gave me that shit in life, along with all the shit I thought and felt about myself.

Yeah, I never grew up in some respects, but then, I hope I never do. It's what makes me feel alive about life, all the anger I had at 19, with life, my family, my job, college, the draft, ad infinitum. We're supposed to grow up and get through to get on to a mature life. I didn't.

Being 19 shouldn't be forgotten, ever in your life. You should die still thinking when you were 19, and smile you made it this far still being 19.

There Comes a Moment

There comes a moment in your life when you realize all the what if's are what is, and there are no more what if's left to ponder and wonder, to hope may come true if you only tried, if you changed, if you believed in yourself enough.

And when that moment arrives, it's always a slow revelation in your mind and then in your body, a quiet, subtle sense of loss, even defeat, that you are as far as you can go and all the rest is just what happens with what you have, who you are, and what you do.

It's all just what is from now on and all the what if's are just memories of what may have been than what can be.

DSM-IV-TR

Reading about the release of the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual on Mental Disorders, or DSM-IV-TR, why do I get the feeling the book is more a political one than a psychiatric one? Why do I get the feeling the book is defining many normal human thoughts, emotions and actions as abnormal?

I have no doubt there is value in the book for psychiatrists, psychologists and other therapists who need a reference for standards for diagnosis and treatment of patients, but I have equally no doubt the book is more about politics, drug companies and money.

I feel that because the more mental disorders they include and the more broadly they define disorders, no matter the semantics of the name in the manual it's still a manual of mental disorders, the more they get work for all therapists, the more drugs are prescribed, and the more money everyone makes.

Making normal behavoir abnormal ensure their own jobs and helps keep the drug companies in business selling anti-disorder drugs and developing new ones. And guess who pays the bills? The health insurance companies, Medicare/Medicaid, and the patient.

They plan to keep the book updated as things change with disorders. Any bets no disorder is removed, no disorder is defined more restictively and no disorder has no pharmaceutical treatment. And you can kiss cures out the window because once you're diagnosed with a mental disorder, you never get out of it.

As the Eagles sang in Hotel California:

The last thing I remember
I was running for the door.
I had to find a passage
back to the place I was before.
"Relax.", said the nightman,
"We are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like,
but you can never leave."

Kinda' said it all back then.

The First Thing

The first thing is that you have to do and be at least like your body, and hopefully, love it enough to know it's what and who you are. If you don't like your body, and even hate your body, the war is over, and all the battles to do and be better won't succeed.

If you've hated your body from your childhood, because of all the criticism and verbal abuse you heard from your parents, teasing you got from your friends and classmates, and failures trying to be "normal", you may never win and will always lose.

Lose your self-esteem. Gone from childhood and never reclaimed or owned beyond hoping, trying and failing, realizing your body just isn't going to be what you want, even be someone anyone will like, and not even be someone anyone will love.

Lose yourself in hating what life gave you, hating hearing and being everything everyone said why you weren't any good, couldn't succeed and even be liked let alone loved. And you'll fight your whole life just to find peace with your body, maybe, hopefully, possibly.

But probably, no. Not in your lifetime, at least more than acceptance of what it and you can't be and are resigned to be in life, hate it or not, just the reality of your own body. It's the best you can do and be.

I Worry

Sometimes I worry there will be times I will want to take a nap and not care if I wake up. I worry. I worry enough not to take a nap when those thoughts occur when I want to take a nap because I'm tired,  knowing it's not really me, just being tired of life and myself. I worry that I will worry about these moments as I get older.

When I am sane

When I am sane, I'm stupid, silly, ironic, obscure, funny (I think so, sometimes anyway), smart (occasionally), witty, irrevant (and yes, often irrelevant), observant, open, understanding, nice, kind, and all the rest of me.

When I am sane, I'm mentally and physically active. I listen to music, a lot of different types of music. Music fills the space. I read everything which interests me and about Mt. Rainier. I read and listen to the news. I work on my Website and projects. I think about and do photography.

And when I am not sane, I'm not. Not any of those. I just hate myself. It's the times in between I have to  watch to see which direction I'm heading and what I can to do if I'm not sane, but then I fall into Heisenburg's uncertainty principle about observations applied to the human mind about ourself.

How do we know what we think is what is real and true, or just what we want to be real and true? Can we trust our observartions of ourself to be accurate and correct? Or are we just victims of what Heisenberg said about observations in physics applied to our mind?

Do we know ourself enough to trust ourself? To be honest with ourself? There's a fine line between sanity and insanity. When do we know we crossed it? How do we know? And what do we tell ourself about what we see, think and feel? Do we believe ourself?

The Obvious

Kinda' says it all. It's not a matter of the mind but the chemistry of the brain creating the state of the mind. It's all just biochemistry. Feeling and thinking are the actions and emotions and thoughts are the outcomes. Consciousness is only the final expression.

Never

Never interrupt a person with depression or tell them anything negative, especially any form of the word "no." Never tell them to stop expressing themselves. For one simple reason.

You can only see what they think when they say something.

Otherwise, all they have is silence. And silence is deadly.