I managed to ruin my wife's birthday. A rainy saturday with not much to do to keep a five year old busy I suggest a drive and pickup a takeaway drink on the way home as nothing is open for dine in. We are atop a local lookout facing the beach and said five year old is complaining about the universe.
I started to feel a pain on the lower left side of my chest, like a cramp. The pain was quite persistent and despite deep breathing it seemed to spread to the lower right side of my chest. As it was not going anywhere I decided the logical thing was to get moving and hope the situation would right itself if I did nothing (like Donald Trump).
I drove down the lookout road and did a lap of the marina where I had to pull over as the pain had now reached my right elbow and I was suddenly feeling very hot and needed to take my jacket off. I got out of the car and stretched to see if the cramp would consider a recommendation of sex and travel but it didn't.
The car resumed and things seemed to be calming down as I could still speak, I wasn't short of breath and I had good strength in both hands. We stopped for a romantic drive thru cookie at subway and upon my son's complaining about 'why cant we go look at the car wash brushes..." the cramp returned to my chest and now I could also feel it on the left side of my neck. I drove to the local medical centre of excellence and again tried stretching and even considered going in. Not wanting to be silly or waste anyones time I got back in the car and drove home.
On the way I described the feeling to Mrs I.M and we agreed I'd call Health Direct at home. To call said service one must first answer questions about symptoms to get the phone number via the website. After answering them the message was "GO IMMEDIATELY TO THE NEAREST E.D".
I opened with "Hi there, I'm sure its nothing but I had this pain in the left side of my chest and it went down my right arm and up my nec...."
"Buzz!!"
"Go in now".
Two ECGs, two enzyme tests (my right arm sprung a leak in the shower later that night from where than canula was in but I wasn't keen on people seeing me with less clothes. I was asked if I was stressed. My answer was "I did a poo yesterday and that gave me a headache." It was Mrs I.M's birthday and she spent it indoors from the cold and rain, in a car with a crying five year old and then in the coldest corner of the emergency dept with her stupid husband. Happy Birthday sweetheart.
I have been politely advised that I should de-stress for a while. With COVID-19, meetings until the end of time, no sport (to participate in, not really keen on watching TV sport) and less time to wear the "me suit" I can hardly see many opportunities to de-stress.
Work will give the traditional "do what you have to do" but in the past when I've said "OK, I'll have the rest of the year off on double pay," I seem to hit a roadblock.
Tuesday, 26 May 2020
Monday, 18 May 2020
IBD me
Not having an illness but still having an illness is a pain. Essentially all the negatives of having an illness are still there but I don't officially have an illness. Allow me to elaborate..
I was fat growing up. I know this as I was reminded often and we had a mirror. I am still extremely ashamed of my body. I do not take my shirt off and cant stand anyone making any comments about my body. I have shocking posture from stooping over in an attempt to cover up fatness. I moved away to study and I got thin. I started drinking, partying, sleeping in, skiping classes through layiness and I got thin.
I got thin because I started crapping like a machine gun in a John Woo film (low BDQ). The result at uni was being tired, failing classes, freaking out about why I'm shitting for the olympics suddenly and then came the blood. Along with that came holidays and the comments from people back home about, looking great, deciding to shift the weight, good on me, keep going...
Diagnosed after a colonoscopy (a theme for the rest of my life) with Ulcerative Colitis. Get to keep the thin, drinking, partying etc just take these pills. That worked for 6 years or so until the day/year it stopped. Which coincidentally seems to be why I havent been able to watch 'Breaking Bad'. I worked sick, shitting 25 times daily wil blood and mucus, going home to sleep on the couch, get up and play sport because exercise makes you thin and being thin makes you healthy right Cathy Freeman?
I worked and played until the day that I couldnt get up anymore so I had surgery. I had a bag. Life with a bag of shit attached to your waist is less than ideal. Im a recovering fat kit so I have no washboard abs to attach the bag to, I have a flabby spare tyre that sticks out at all the wrong angles to 'hide' the bag. I got to order special pants that..What is it with the people who design clothes for people with ostomy appliances? Do they all have a vision problem or is it mass delusion? The pants looked like one of the brothers from school who had his pants so high all you saw of the shirt he was wearing was the man cans poking out...so there's that.
"You wont have to live in the toilet anymore."
It shits constantly. No matter where you are and wht you're doing, you're shitting 24/7. Bonus being you get to take it with you, everywhere. Sometimes you're out in your expensive ostomy pants and the contants of your bag make a guest appearance at the table. Sometimes I'd empty it at bedtime anly to find myself covered in a huge sweat in the middle of the night...that's not sweat. All stemming from me not being legit thin like I should be to get anywhere in life. "It's just your body shape."
Combined with the feeling of shit coming out of my flabby abdomen at all times of conscoiusness it farts on its own as well. I remember being at a school PD with members of head office and the presenter was laughing so much at the sounds it was making that I just left. I was a 27 year old man too afraid to go to a pd session on literacy like a damn school child.
I've written before about how garbage I am at basketball. Age is exascerbating the condition. I now dont have the mental skills for the game and the physical skills have already fucked off. There's no basketball with a 'bag'. What happens if it leaks from sweating? What happens if you fall over and it spills onto the court? I was a health risk to others so retirement.
The incentive of having a bag for me was not being in a box in the ground and that's it. I understand that for other's it gave them their life back but for me in my circumstances it didn't. It consigned my life to the graveyard anyway.
April 2010 and the bag came off. Now the 'cure' is in. I can live like normal but without a lot of things. Some easier to give up than others. Alcohol was an easy one but until you've been the guy who isnt drinking among a group who are and enjoying themselves its hard to not buy into the idea that giving up drinking wont cost friendships. It doesnt but I think I was dropped casually from the roster and filed under 'acquantanceships' instead.
Its not all bad, I did stay with my girlfriend who turned into a fiancee and then wife although I constantly feel a burden for her and my son. They miss out on stuff because of me. I remember trying to go without meds and using diet. Try eating a banana before every meal every day for a month. Then go on an interstate train ride with one toilet per carriage on that plan, it was awful.
I have to get a camera crew up my bum every 6-12 months. I tried going for 12 once but it was so painful we went back to 6 monthly. It's supposed to be done in the surgery, cold turkey. It was excruciating when I did it once and I could barely walk after, thanks Mr Turnbull, would love to see you give that a go. Now its a hospital thing. Im seven at seven months due to the zombie apocalypse and it will be eight once it happens barring incident.
This post is running out of steam. I had plenty of crap circling my head whilst out walking the dog but it seems to have escaped my at this juncture. I take Loperimide 2mg 1-12x daily. They stop me shitting my trousers at work. oh speaking of that I only buy dark pants now, people have not seemingly noticed 1. they make me look thinner and 2. they dont show the marks. But you can get by on not enough and frequent trips to the loo, but if you take too many you can get a blockage and that can rupture the pouch and then you'll have a bag again forever.
I woke up in my own shit once before a staff thing. It was around 3am and Mrs I.M was only just asleep as Baby I.M was new an didnt sleep. She'd just dozed off and I woke up thinking I needed to dash but too late, I was in a puddle. What are the steps in solving that problem? Wake up wife, go shower and hope she doesnt roll over? Wake her and everyone up to change the bedding? Nights like that are less frequent but just as shameful becuase even at 38, a healthy 38 year old does not shit themselves while they sleep.
Everything is planned around toilet breaks, going shopping, taking I.M Jnr to a playground, marking tme, agreeing to meetings, car trips, walking the dog, playing sports. But I'm cured. Oh the staff thing, it was about being grateful for my life. I had to write about how I had been blessed that day. I think I wrote something about a sense of humour. It's not a thing people talk about in the staff room, especially now that they're empty. I now have a rule that if you wake up in a puddle of shit, you should take the day.
All this stuff makes me feel like I can feel my time ticking away. I have things I want to do and my life (reportedly now shorter overall and in terms of my fit, healthy younger years) ticks away and I feel every second. When we go away and have family gatherings I'm quite antisocial as 1. not to be am imposition (my young, healthy charming self died 10 years ago) 2. I can feel the time ticking away. I hate sitting down and sleeping in. I get tired and sometimes sleep in but it feels like a missed opportunity. All this happens and I still hate my body. Cant do ab exercises as it may tear the pouch off the wall of the abdomen according to the surgeon. Im stuck in the skinny, ex fat kid, flabby body and I hate it so much.
I often think of my Dad's theory of winning a car (a school friend won a Mercedes Benz and my dad imparted this knowledge to me). If you buy a raffle ticket for a car and win; never service or repair a thing. Drive it until the wheels fall off and its on fire at the side of the road because it will be the cheapest car you ever owned. I feel like that about my body. Just use it until it breaks. Pity I'm a coward and will eventually go to the doctor.
My cured body means I can do some of the things I like compared to having a bag and doing some of the other things that I like. Life isnt that same and never will be. I hate my body mainly because I never got healthy, I got thin and they aren't the same Cathy Freeman. The time just ticks away until it breaks again and I play along happily watching the clock run down and try to find something that I care about that I can actually believe I am good at.
Sometimes I think I've come a long way, and other days it feels like I've yet to sart healing. Maybe people with mental health concerns arent 'cured' but they have an understanding and the rational, cognitive tools to process things better. If that's the case then I am the former today. Feelings wise its the latter.
Happy World IBD Day
I got thin because I started crapping like a machine gun in a John Woo film (low BDQ). The result at uni was being tired, failing classes, freaking out about why I'm shitting for the olympics suddenly and then came the blood. Along with that came holidays and the comments from people back home about, looking great, deciding to shift the weight, good on me, keep going...
Diagnosed after a colonoscopy (a theme for the rest of my life) with Ulcerative Colitis. Get to keep the thin, drinking, partying etc just take these pills. That worked for 6 years or so until the day/year it stopped. Which coincidentally seems to be why I havent been able to watch 'Breaking Bad'. I worked sick, shitting 25 times daily wil blood and mucus, going home to sleep on the couch, get up and play sport because exercise makes you thin and being thin makes you healthy right Cathy Freeman?
I worked and played until the day that I couldnt get up anymore so I had surgery. I had a bag. Life with a bag of shit attached to your waist is less than ideal. Im a recovering fat kit so I have no washboard abs to attach the bag to, I have a flabby spare tyre that sticks out at all the wrong angles to 'hide' the bag. I got to order special pants that..What is it with the people who design clothes for people with ostomy appliances? Do they all have a vision problem or is it mass delusion? The pants looked like one of the brothers from school who had his pants so high all you saw of the shirt he was wearing was the man cans poking out...so there's that.
"You wont have to live in the toilet anymore."
It shits constantly. No matter where you are and wht you're doing, you're shitting 24/7. Bonus being you get to take it with you, everywhere. Sometimes you're out in your expensive ostomy pants and the contants of your bag make a guest appearance at the table. Sometimes I'd empty it at bedtime anly to find myself covered in a huge sweat in the middle of the night...that's not sweat. All stemming from me not being legit thin like I should be to get anywhere in life. "It's just your body shape."
Combined with the feeling of shit coming out of my flabby abdomen at all times of conscoiusness it farts on its own as well. I remember being at a school PD with members of head office and the presenter was laughing so much at the sounds it was making that I just left. I was a 27 year old man too afraid to go to a pd session on literacy like a damn school child.
I've written before about how garbage I am at basketball. Age is exascerbating the condition. I now dont have the mental skills for the game and the physical skills have already fucked off. There's no basketball with a 'bag'. What happens if it leaks from sweating? What happens if you fall over and it spills onto the court? I was a health risk to others so retirement.
The incentive of having a bag for me was not being in a box in the ground and that's it. I understand that for other's it gave them their life back but for me in my circumstances it didn't. It consigned my life to the graveyard anyway.
April 2010 and the bag came off. Now the 'cure' is in. I can live like normal but without a lot of things. Some easier to give up than others. Alcohol was an easy one but until you've been the guy who isnt drinking among a group who are and enjoying themselves its hard to not buy into the idea that giving up drinking wont cost friendships. It doesnt but I think I was dropped casually from the roster and filed under 'acquantanceships' instead.
Its not all bad, I did stay with my girlfriend who turned into a fiancee and then wife although I constantly feel a burden for her and my son. They miss out on stuff because of me. I remember trying to go without meds and using diet. Try eating a banana before every meal every day for a month. Then go on an interstate train ride with one toilet per carriage on that plan, it was awful.
I have to get a camera crew up my bum every 6-12 months. I tried going for 12 once but it was so painful we went back to 6 monthly. It's supposed to be done in the surgery, cold turkey. It was excruciating when I did it once and I could barely walk after, thanks Mr Turnbull, would love to see you give that a go. Now its a hospital thing. Im seven at seven months due to the zombie apocalypse and it will be eight once it happens barring incident.
This post is running out of steam. I had plenty of crap circling my head whilst out walking the dog but it seems to have escaped my at this juncture. I take Loperimide 2mg 1-12x daily. They stop me shitting my trousers at work. oh speaking of that I only buy dark pants now, people have not seemingly noticed 1. they make me look thinner and 2. they dont show the marks. But you can get by on not enough and frequent trips to the loo, but if you take too many you can get a blockage and that can rupture the pouch and then you'll have a bag again forever.
I woke up in my own shit once before a staff thing. It was around 3am and Mrs I.M was only just asleep as Baby I.M was new an didnt sleep. She'd just dozed off and I woke up thinking I needed to dash but too late, I was in a puddle. What are the steps in solving that problem? Wake up wife, go shower and hope she doesnt roll over? Wake her and everyone up to change the bedding? Nights like that are less frequent but just as shameful becuase even at 38, a healthy 38 year old does not shit themselves while they sleep.
Everything is planned around toilet breaks, going shopping, taking I.M Jnr to a playground, marking tme, agreeing to meetings, car trips, walking the dog, playing sports. But I'm cured. Oh the staff thing, it was about being grateful for my life. I had to write about how I had been blessed that day. I think I wrote something about a sense of humour. It's not a thing people talk about in the staff room, especially now that they're empty. I now have a rule that if you wake up in a puddle of shit, you should take the day.
All this stuff makes me feel like I can feel my time ticking away. I have things I want to do and my life (reportedly now shorter overall and in terms of my fit, healthy younger years) ticks away and I feel every second. When we go away and have family gatherings I'm quite antisocial as 1. not to be am imposition (my young, healthy charming self died 10 years ago) 2. I can feel the time ticking away. I hate sitting down and sleeping in. I get tired and sometimes sleep in but it feels like a missed opportunity. All this happens and I still hate my body. Cant do ab exercises as it may tear the pouch off the wall of the abdomen according to the surgeon. Im stuck in the skinny, ex fat kid, flabby body and I hate it so much.
I often think of my Dad's theory of winning a car (a school friend won a Mercedes Benz and my dad imparted this knowledge to me). If you buy a raffle ticket for a car and win; never service or repair a thing. Drive it until the wheels fall off and its on fire at the side of the road because it will be the cheapest car you ever owned. I feel like that about my body. Just use it until it breaks. Pity I'm a coward and will eventually go to the doctor.
My cured body means I can do some of the things I like compared to having a bag and doing some of the other things that I like. Life isnt that same and never will be. I hate my body mainly because I never got healthy, I got thin and they aren't the same Cathy Freeman. The time just ticks away until it breaks again and I play along happily watching the clock run down and try to find something that I care about that I can actually believe I am good at.
Sometimes I think I've come a long way, and other days it feels like I've yet to sart healing. Maybe people with mental health concerns arent 'cured' but they have an understanding and the rational, cognitive tools to process things better. If that's the case then I am the former today. Feelings wise its the latter.
Happy World IBD Day
Sunday, 3 May 2020
Affirmative Me
Why depressed people say yes (I think)
- Yes pleases others.
- Yes is part of the front and automatic. Saying it requires zero effort.
- Yes ends a conversation quickly. Nobody requires an explanation of why you said yes. Try that with no.
On a down. The front is in full swing at work. At home I have things I want to say but they take an enormous guttural effort to bring them to my mouth. As that is difficult I (and I’m sure others resort to automated conversation) I am listening, I do care.
I’m relying on the conversation drifting toward them to drop into conversation but it doesn’t. Further making me think my thought process is so out of whack with the world.
I can’t motivate myself to do much outside of the automatic. I can try to please others and I can get out of others way.
Agreeing with someone never leads to confrontation with that person. Someone avoiding confrontation will do whatever they can to avoid it. So agree and skip (not a fight) a discussion. Nobody evaluates why you said yes to their request or suggestion. Maybe they should.
Can’t look at myself. I used to shave in front of a mirror. Now I shave by feel. I used to style my hair, now I just shave it off. And weighing myself is a terrible idea.
Saturday, 22 February 2020
Manageable Me
Education is quite focussed on management. Managing situations into good outcomes and managing deteriorating situations to avoid bad outcomes. Bad outcomes involve less premptive work but require much more paperwork after the event.
It's taken 4 weeks to get to this point where the first "down" of 2020 has occurred. It's easy to spot the the 'event' which broke the camel's back but harder to focus on the corcumstances which led up to it. In the aim of better mental health (as I think that's all anyone can aspire to) what happened?
Working in education is difficult, but so is any job. The difference is the person you are when seen outside of hours. One must be very protective of their own life away from the edu-space and that can be draining. It can be more so for people who live in smaller communities where their life can seem to exist in a fishbowl. Someone saw you telling off your child at the football ground and cant wait to tell you what their parents thought of you come Monday etc. In a good week I can get to be myself (uncensored warts aand all) for around 30-60 minutes. Enough time to get air for the upcoming week,
What happens when that time becomes rationed? Well, I have an idea. 60 Minutes a week (just over 8 minutes a day) became 60 minutes in 2.5 weeks (17-18 days give or take) thats now 3min 20 seconds per day. One pop song's time to let go of everything if you can find that time. One thing I am not good at is time manufacture. Two nights I was watching a film, which entailed watching snippets of 10-20sec while adding to work pintrest boards, adding planning, writing on a student shared document and researhing options for hands on ways to teach narrative writing.
"There are some great resources online", is a term that can hugely misrepresent the time needed to locate and implement such things. Multitasking via smartphone is my only way of getting close to the job done because to work in education nowadays you must feel you are 'called' to be so. It can be a position which consumes all of you until the point where I feel like I cant draw breath and my heart races and my head is dizzy and I write annoying run-on sentences with a total lack of punctuation or regard for the poor person who may or may not wind up reading them just to show what it can be like and how important those 60 minutes are because you are on show and a model of responsibility, compassion and humility while putting yourself aside for the needs of others in and outside of your employment....
So the break time is important and I cant figure out where to take it. Do I not be there for family? do I not be as prepared as I can be for work? or do I not take my 3min 20sec a day? guess which I have been choosing.
I need help to manage my life. I don't know how to let other's know of that expectation. Maybe it's unreasonable but its the expectation I've had to work under my entire professional life. Today it will seem to others that I'm all bent out of shape over breakfast. I'm bent out of shape over the compromises and failures of the last two and a half weeks and not being able to get air leading up to breakfast.
The bad mood has been mostly kept to myself today and I shall contunie to try and stifle it for as long as possible. Knowing its probably another 10 days until air. Breathe shallowly.
It's taken 4 weeks to get to this point where the first "down" of 2020 has occurred. It's easy to spot the the 'event' which broke the camel's back but harder to focus on the corcumstances which led up to it. In the aim of better mental health (as I think that's all anyone can aspire to) what happened?
Working in education is difficult, but so is any job. The difference is the person you are when seen outside of hours. One must be very protective of their own life away from the edu-space and that can be draining. It can be more so for people who live in smaller communities where their life can seem to exist in a fishbowl. Someone saw you telling off your child at the football ground and cant wait to tell you what their parents thought of you come Monday etc. In a good week I can get to be myself (uncensored warts aand all) for around 30-60 minutes. Enough time to get air for the upcoming week,
What happens when that time becomes rationed? Well, I have an idea. 60 Minutes a week (just over 8 minutes a day) became 60 minutes in 2.5 weeks (17-18 days give or take) thats now 3min 20 seconds per day. One pop song's time to let go of everything if you can find that time. One thing I am not good at is time manufacture. Two nights I was watching a film, which entailed watching snippets of 10-20sec while adding to work pintrest boards, adding planning, writing on a student shared document and researhing options for hands on ways to teach narrative writing.
"There are some great resources online", is a term that can hugely misrepresent the time needed to locate and implement such things. Multitasking via smartphone is my only way of getting close to the job done because to work in education nowadays you must feel you are 'called' to be so. It can be a position which consumes all of you until the point where I feel like I cant draw breath and my heart races and my head is dizzy and I write annoying run-on sentences with a total lack of punctuation or regard for the poor person who may or may not wind up reading them just to show what it can be like and how important those 60 minutes are because you are on show and a model of responsibility, compassion and humility while putting yourself aside for the needs of others in and outside of your employment....
So the break time is important and I cant figure out where to take it. Do I not be there for family? do I not be as prepared as I can be for work? or do I not take my 3min 20sec a day? guess which I have been choosing.
I need help to manage my life. I don't know how to let other's know of that expectation. Maybe it's unreasonable but its the expectation I've had to work under my entire professional life. Today it will seem to others that I'm all bent out of shape over breakfast. I'm bent out of shape over the compromises and failures of the last two and a half weeks and not being able to get air leading up to breakfast.
The bad mood has been mostly kept to myself today and I shall contunie to try and stifle it for as long as possible. Knowing its probably another 10 days until air. Breathe shallowly.
Monday, 3 February 2020
Repairable Me?
Very much questioning the mini fridge's ability to maintain 4c when the temp hits 40. Wishing I'd read the specs before drinking the milk that had been stored in said mini fridge (cooler actually).
Back at it, with a goal of being a marginally better person this year and less whiny. I think I'd become a part of "cancel culture" for a while there and stepping away from social media is a nice way to get to know people rather than interactions with news feeds. I think I will strive to have more months away this year.
Health: physically, see the above and mentally things are going OK. I might be at a high point but I seem to be able to hit a number of targets but will see how things go when the number of targets which require hitting ramp up at work. I started toying with the idea of a bucket list at the end of 2019. Which things constitute bucket list worthiness? I don't have much of a desire to see the Himalayas or sleep in the desert or jump out of a plane. Does my lack of willingness to do such things make my goals less worthy?
I have goals in my life, some are experienced based and deeply personal. Some would doubtless make little to no sense to anyone else, but they're mine and time is ticking. Someone may want to go skydiving and I want to fix an iPod. One idea I have had is that many people's goals seem to have some element of conquering the world in which they live. Climb the mountain, swim in the hot sporing, see all the points of the compass. I want to conquer the place where I live, between my ears.
Sleep is the word
One week in at work and perhaps the biggest shock is that I'm still tired. My knee aches after sitting for long periods, which is difficult if I am completing a lot of work at the desk or kitchen table at night. I have tried a few things, pillows, wheat bags, ice packs and medication. Unfortunately the medication that affords me sleep is highly addictive.
From what I can deduce my sleep issues come from a couple of places:
1. GPS (Gotta Poop Syndrome) having no large intestine and a small internal pouch means no colostomy bag for me but also frequent trips to the toilet at home. The best method to not spend all day in the little room is to keep busy, intellectual rigour. Sleep time discourages mental problem solving and I will wake frequently in the night to engage our facilities. The alternative is to sleep and crap myself, not likely.
2. Pain, getting to sleep requires a fair effort and it seems laying still makes my knee ache quite badly. I have taken some codeine based meds to help with the pain and induce sleep (they re even mildly constipating which helps with GPS) but they are highly addictive and I don't want to become dependent. The pain coming off them is worse than the pain that drove me to taking them.
3. Stress, everyone is stressed. Everyone has worries. So do I. Maybe the worries that I cannot talk about are the same as yours, but I cant talk about them. I am lucky to be able to share with my Mrs I.M and Cate (with a C) which helps but these are not the kind of things that I can talk about with anyone else and to be honest I would never feel comfortable in doing that anyway. I have some stresses from work as we all do and then the ones that follow me around. My teeth, my breath, my face, my upper body, will I need the toilet soon? Do I snore? Why would anyone marry me? going on in the background along with Stress X (the aforementioned unmentionable kind). Is that like everyone else? Do you feel like a teenager whenever you're talking to someone? As if you have no knowledge or life experience, or you're just trying too hard to impress?
4. Caffeine. Stress and work and life make me tired so I drink a fair amount of coffee. I try to have no more than 6 a day at worst. Currently lowering that to 4. Caffeine helps you stay awake to deal with the tiring workload of life but then it makes it hard to fall asleep and also exacerbates GPS.
5. Ability to relax, this may seem to be a part of stress but I see it as separate. stressed people find ways to relax all over the world, as have I. Having conducted some 'tests' there are some interesting things that happen when I can be relaxed and, watch my caffeine intake and diet. Pity there's a lot to do in the meantime and little time for it, relaxation is limited to around 20 minutes per week.
I asked Cate if I was broken at my last session. She didn't believe so but conceded that it would be difficult to break a cycle that has been who I am for my lifetime to try and be who I am, not who I've been. I'm under renovation and the building site is messy. With her and Mrs I.M I'm slowly sifting through the rubble to see what goes back in and what is discarded. The last week let me know that everybody is a ticking clock and we don't know when our time is up. It stresses me to think that time is running out as my life has already been rebuilt twice. It does, however heartened me to think that the ticking clock might force me to just out and be 'me' because life is meant to be lived honestly and happily (supposedly).
Maybe the reason this song resonates so much.
I.M
Back at it, with a goal of being a marginally better person this year and less whiny. I think I'd become a part of "cancel culture" for a while there and stepping away from social media is a nice way to get to know people rather than interactions with news feeds. I think I will strive to have more months away this year.
Health: physically, see the above and mentally things are going OK. I might be at a high point but I seem to be able to hit a number of targets but will see how things go when the number of targets which require hitting ramp up at work. I started toying with the idea of a bucket list at the end of 2019. Which things constitute bucket list worthiness? I don't have much of a desire to see the Himalayas or sleep in the desert or jump out of a plane. Does my lack of willingness to do such things make my goals less worthy?
I have goals in my life, some are experienced based and deeply personal. Some would doubtless make little to no sense to anyone else, but they're mine and time is ticking. Someone may want to go skydiving and I want to fix an iPod. One idea I have had is that many people's goals seem to have some element of conquering the world in which they live. Climb the mountain, swim in the hot sporing, see all the points of the compass. I want to conquer the place where I live, between my ears.
Sleep is the word
One week in at work and perhaps the biggest shock is that I'm still tired. My knee aches after sitting for long periods, which is difficult if I am completing a lot of work at the desk or kitchen table at night. I have tried a few things, pillows, wheat bags, ice packs and medication. Unfortunately the medication that affords me sleep is highly addictive.
From what I can deduce my sleep issues come from a couple of places:
1. GPS (Gotta Poop Syndrome) having no large intestine and a small internal pouch means no colostomy bag for me but also frequent trips to the toilet at home. The best method to not spend all day in the little room is to keep busy, intellectual rigour. Sleep time discourages mental problem solving and I will wake frequently in the night to engage our facilities. The alternative is to sleep and crap myself, not likely.
2. Pain, getting to sleep requires a fair effort and it seems laying still makes my knee ache quite badly. I have taken some codeine based meds to help with the pain and induce sleep (they re even mildly constipating which helps with GPS) but they are highly addictive and I don't want to become dependent. The pain coming off them is worse than the pain that drove me to taking them.
3. Stress, everyone is stressed. Everyone has worries. So do I. Maybe the worries that I cannot talk about are the same as yours, but I cant talk about them. I am lucky to be able to share with my Mrs I.M and Cate (with a C) which helps but these are not the kind of things that I can talk about with anyone else and to be honest I would never feel comfortable in doing that anyway. I have some stresses from work as we all do and then the ones that follow me around. My teeth, my breath, my face, my upper body, will I need the toilet soon? Do I snore? Why would anyone marry me? going on in the background along with Stress X (the aforementioned unmentionable kind). Is that like everyone else? Do you feel like a teenager whenever you're talking to someone? As if you have no knowledge or life experience, or you're just trying too hard to impress?
4. Caffeine. Stress and work and life make me tired so I drink a fair amount of coffee. I try to have no more than 6 a day at worst. Currently lowering that to 4. Caffeine helps you stay awake to deal with the tiring workload of life but then it makes it hard to fall asleep and also exacerbates GPS.
5. Ability to relax, this may seem to be a part of stress but I see it as separate. stressed people find ways to relax all over the world, as have I. Having conducted some 'tests' there are some interesting things that happen when I can be relaxed and, watch my caffeine intake and diet. Pity there's a lot to do in the meantime and little time for it, relaxation is limited to around 20 minutes per week.
I asked Cate if I was broken at my last session. She didn't believe so but conceded that it would be difficult to break a cycle that has been who I am for my lifetime to try and be who I am, not who I've been. I'm under renovation and the building site is messy. With her and Mrs I.M I'm slowly sifting through the rubble to see what goes back in and what is discarded. The last week let me know that everybody is a ticking clock and we don't know when our time is up. It stresses me to think that time is running out as my life has already been rebuilt twice. It does, however heartened me to think that the ticking clock might force me to just out and be 'me' because life is meant to be lived honestly and happily (supposedly).
Maybe the reason this song resonates so much.
I.M
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