Controlled stress now for gradual improvement later

Today when I woke up, I washed my face and hands with cold water. You have to understand, I have always hated the cold. Even splashing it on my face used to make me nuts. But I have been acclimating myself to tolerating cold water on my face, first thing in the morning. And now I am rinsing my face 5-6 times with cold water when I get up, and it doesn’t bother me.

I also fasted today. I had a cup of coffee and an apple for “breakfast”, and I’ve eaten nothing else all day. No, I’m not trying to punish myself. I’ve been reading about the benefits of intermittent fasting, and I’ve been wanting to fast for a long time (I’ve tried it a few times, but I could never get past a day or two). So, today I decided to just do without meals until tonight. In another 15 minutes, I’ll start cooking supper, and I’m looking forward to it.

I noticed something very interesting today, while I was running my errands. I noticed that I was getting pretty cranky and short-tempered with people over little things, and when I noticed it, I stopped it. I actually had a pretty full day today, but I didn’t feel weak or faint at all. I just felt edgy and without as much impulse control as normal. That must have been the absence of food — maybe low blood sugar?

Anyway, this was not something that was unmanageable. I was able to keep myself pretty well in check and not get in anybody’s face. Good thing And it occurred to me that this could be a way to work on controlling my behavior under optimal conditions — when I am well-fed and rested (or not well-rested, as is usually the case). I know I’m hungry, I know I’m going to be more of a bear than I usually am, and I know this time without food will come to an end… so I can just chill and not let things get out of hand. It’s like being one of those folks in the Snickers commercial who turns into a maniac when they’re hungry — only in my case, I’m using my own resources to manage my behavior, not reaching for a candy bar to make it all better.

I think this could be a great way for me to practice self-modulation — under controlled circumstances, with a set timeframe, followed by relief and reward (a good meal). The issues specific to hunger aren’t going to continue after I’m not hungry anymore, so I can relax and know there will be an end to it… and I can develop some good coping mechanisms to fall back on when I’m in the thick of a daylong fast.

Also, when I’m hungry, all the stuff that bothers me comes to mind and starts messing with my head. Learning to handle those things more effectively (which I practiced today with breathing and relaxing and chilling) can only be good. I did notice that I’ve got a whole lot of resentments and frustrations that stay tamped down when I’m well-fed. Maybe food is keeping me from really seeing and dealing with them?

One last thing that I’m hoping I can learn from this, is how to tolerate being hungry right before meals without letting it make me nuts. If I don’t eat on a regular basis at my self-appointed times, I become very hard to live with. And that sucks for everyone around me. If I can learn to handle being hungry for a full day, then a few hours will probably bother me a lot less.

In any case, I’ll break my fast shortly. I’m looking forward to it. I don’t plan to do this every week, but doing it a little bit and then letting myself recover from the experience will probably be good for me.

If it’s not, I’ll find out.

This is my new thing — introducing small doses of controlled stress, followed by plenty of recovery time, to strengthen my system. I’m pretty good at stressing myself out — now I’m focusing on having it be for a specific purpose — better tolerance of cold and hunger, less distress over little things that make me nuts. And I’m focusing on having it be limited and controlled — not overdoing it, and following it with plenty of rest and relaxation. I slept for two hours this afternoon, which was fantastic. And I’ve been drinking a lot of water, which is needed.

I have written before about needing to improve my stamina. I found out, last weekend, what bad shape I’m in, when I mowed my lawn and it really took it out of me. I guess I have gotten too sedentary. I feel as though I just don’t have the staying power I used to, and that really bothers me. I need to have more stamina, and that takes training.

It also takes recovery — lots of it. I have been good at over-training, but really bad with recovery. Now I see the value of recovery, and I can actually enjoy it, so that’s a step in the right direction. A new chapter, a new page. A new day.

So, now it’s time to make supper. Soon it will be time to eat. Yeah.

How 90-second clearing helps

Here’s a picture of before and after I realized just how much 90-second clearing helps me:

This is what would happen before I could stop the crazy rush of panic chemicals:

Before – when my panic would get hold of me

Gray Zone

• Stress response to the thought of change – adrenaline, etc.
• Reduction in cognitive resources, narrowing, sense of danger, alert
• Escalation of stress response, based on sense of narrowing options, bad past experiences
• Fear / anxiety / dread mixture runs the show
• Chase back to how things are – get content, stay stuck

Before, I would escalate really quickly, thinking that I couldn’t manage, or that I was trapped. The stress response would trigger a physical reaction with me that would make me feel like I was blocked in and didn’t have a way out, and I would begin to panic. It didn’t matter if the change was something as basic as fixing a curtain rod that had come loose from the wall, or starting a new job. I would still feel it coming on and have the same catastrophic reaction. And because my own personal catastrophic reaction often involves involuntary crying, and I cannot stand to cry in front of people for no apparent reason, I avoided a lot of situations that I feared would get hold of me.

But now, I have a different way of handling things, and so far it’s working pretty well — when I remember to do it, of course

This is what is possible now, when I stop the escalation of stress chemicals and use my breathing for a minute and a half to calm everything down:

After – When I spend a minute or so clearing out the stress response and stop things from escalating

Yellow Zone

• Stress Inoculation Training, Stress Hardiness Optimization
• Ability to shift the physical experience by breathing and other coping mechanisms
• Clearing of stress response broadens options, opens thinking
• From fear / anxiety / dread into anticipation / engagement / hope

Basically, the difference is like night and day. The old storms that would come up don’t have to anymore. I have a way to calm them down and think more clearly about what is in front of me. And most importantly, I don’t feel like I’m hemmed in, simply because of a physical response.

My nervous system is wired to be, well, wired. It’s automatic with me. I’ve been trained that way by life. Now I need to train myself to be another way.

And so I am.

So what if it’s awful? That will change. No doubt.

The past couple of weeks have been pretty rough for me. Oh, hell, the past few months have been intense. Family issues, relationship issues, work issues. The whole gamut. And I’ve been feeling like crap, for the most part.

Pretty awful.

So what? It will change. I will change it. And that change starts with me actively amping up my responses to the events of my life in ways that I choose, and that suit me best.

One of the life-changing developments of my life, in the past while, has been using my 90-second clearing to take the edge off my anxiety, anger, fear, adrenaline rush. I learned about how stopping and breathing slowly will stop the downward slide and it gives me a chance to let the stress biochemicals in my system clear out – replaced by ones that are better suited to thinking things through in a rational and adult manner, instead of like the crazy person I can quickly become when I’m pushed too far.

I’ve been doing this 90-second activity for a couple of weeks, now, and it’s pretty amazing. And it shows me — up close and personal — how even in my most frantic state, I can get myself back to some balance. I don’t have to teeter on the brink of madness. I can take a bunch of slow breaths, step back, and turn around and head in a completely different direction.

Which is good.

It puts things in a whole new light. Because now, not only do I know that I can get myself back to feeling human again, but that generalizes to other parts of my life, and I can see how things can change so quickly. For the better. Or, even if they don’t get better, at least I can feel better, and when I feel better, I think better, and things can be improved.

Maybe not overnight, but I can at least make a start…. or, to be more accurate, make another start.

Some days it feels like I’m starting from scratch every single day. It’s weird — and a little wonderful at the same time. I believe it has to do with my working memory issues. I just don’t retain things really close to the surface of my memory — I have to revisit over an extended period of time, preferably with someone in the room. That’s where my neuropsych has come in, for the past four years or so — they’re someone I have checked in with regularly, once a week, to review my progress and keep me on track.

Well, money is short these days, and my copay went up, so I can no longer afford to see them every single week. I’ve switched to every other week. This is — again — weird and wonderful. On the one hand, I feel like an important support for my life has been removed; on the other, I feel like this is an important step for me, to be able to be more independent and draw on my own resources. I cleared out a bunch of old papers from my bookshelves this morning, and I found a lot of notes from my past sessions, and it’s remarkable how much progress I have made. Seriously, I have come a very long way, and I need to give myself credit for that.

Reading those notes is a little disconcerting — I can see how diminished I was, how limited I was letting myself be. But it’s also encouraging, because I’m not that person anymore. Not by a long shot. I think about how hard things were for me, once upon a time, and how awful they were, and I can see how much things have changed. So that is good. And it is encouraging.

The tough times I’m having right now are partly “withdrawal” from my weekly sessions, which have been safety valve for me. I’m adjusting and adapting and coming up with my own ways of releasing pressure and getting my bearings. It’s not easy. It’s very painful and confusing and fear-inducing. But so what? This will change. With practice and concerted effort, it will change. The tough times are also due to some real difficulties I’m having with my environment — and I know it’s not just me. I know it’s not just my attitude. The situations I’m in really do suck — by design by forces driving towards short-term maximum profitability, with long-term detriment to everyone involved. I have been stuck in this short-term frantic hell-hole of a workplace for almost three years, now, and it’s time to go. It just sucks so awfully, and I am simply accepting that as how things are — with a view towards changing it in just a few months.

These are all adjustments. Difficult adjustments. Problems with integration and assimilation — which should be problems, because when sh*t is f*cked up, well… sh*t truly is f*cked up. And there is no logical reason a person should stay in that situation, try to adapt to it, make it feel better, etc. I’m invoking Kasimierz Dabrowski now, who was a Polish psychiatrist who survived the Nazi and Stalinist eras and developed his Theory of Positive Dis-Integration (the “-” is mine in “Dis-Integration” because without it, the word to me means “dissolution” or “falling apart” in an internal sense, which doesn’t mean anything good to me). This theory states that people with high personal development potential, who are able to develop their own identities independent of the crowd, will necessarily go through some dark nights of the soul, as they develop and realize that they really don’t fit in with the crowd, and indeed they should not.

This dark night that people experience is often diagnoses as a form of depression which should be treated – or it’s seen as a disease that has to be cured. Our standard-issue popular response to people who don’t fit in and don’t cotton to the pressures of the “normal” world, is to pathologize and/or medicate and/or institutionalize this state of mind, rather than working through it and seeing it as a sign that there is something more this person can — and should — be experiencing in their life.

That’s kind of where I’ve been for the past while — being keenly aware of how effed up things are around me, seeing the part that I’ve played in making all that possible — how I’ve enabled people to screw me over… how I’ve undercut myself with poor habits and lack of discipline… and most of all how I’ve numbed myself to the raw facts of things not being as they could be, simply by “changing my perspective” and looking at things from an angle that allowed me to make them all right, while ignoring the angles that showed that things were anything but right… and of course seeing how not managing my TBI symptoms and after-effects has made me a lot less effective and with-it than I could have been all along.

Probably the hardest thing to stomach has been realizing how I’ve made things harder for myself, by zoning out in a state of bliss that blocks out any pain or discomfort. I’ve been able to put myself in a state of bliss — total physical, mental, spiritual ecstasy — for many years, now, and I’ve been using that to dull the pain that comes from my everyday life. I also know how to direct my focus to one thing — and one thing only — effectively blinding myself to the troubles at hand. Because I’ve been able to do this — total focus and ecstasy without drugs — I’ve been able to keep myself from falling apart. But I’ve also been keeping myself from coming in full contact with my life and seeing clearly what needs to change.

I’ve been in a lot of pain for a long time, and I’ve managed to find a way to get my own relief. At the same time, that ability to cut the pain and block it all out has held me back from making the kind of progress I really need to make.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I do think that things have been so intense and potentially overwhelming that I have HAD to block them out and dull them. I fall apart over little things way to easily, and I have to stay functional. It’s been useful. And I do think that after the years of teetering on the brink of collapse, post-TBI, I needed to normalize and get to stable footing, which is where I am now.

So, in a way, this pain and discomfort is a good thing. It’s a sign that I’m ready to head to the next level and do some more great work, refashion my life, and do away with the things that keep me from living the life of my design. When I can sense the pain, I can take action and move away from it, thus living up to my potential. But when I cannot sense pain, well, I’m destined to be stuck with it for as long as I can tolerate it. Intolerance is a good thing, no matter how awful it feels.

Yeah, I’m intensely discontent and I’m in pain. Good on me. It’s a positive sign that I’m alive and ready to do something different with my life. Do doubt.

Onward.

No, stress is NOT all about our interpretation of TBI…

There’s more going on here…

So, I have some time to catch up on some reading, and I just came across a stress management consultant with many years’ experience coaching and counseling, who says “the source of all stress is the subjective meaning we attach to events”. I won’t say who it is, to protect the not-so-innocent.

Okay, that’s fine. I get that to a certain extent. Stress can be a killer — and it is, for many, many people. And the subjective meanings we attach to events can indeed add to the stress of our lives.

Here’s the thing, though — when you look at stress from a broader point of view that includes the physical part of life as an integral part, things start to be a whole lot less clear-cut. Or maybe they become even more clear. Because over time, you can build up a lot of physiological stressors which contribute to your overall stress levels… to the point where it doesn’t really matter how bright and shiny and positive your psychological outlook is — you feel like crap, and that stresses your system… and it also impacts your frame of mind (which is now inclined to look on the dark side, for reasons it cannot cognitively identify).

Even if you can get your mental, spiritual, and emotional stresses down, if you don’t have a handle on your physical stresses, there’s only such much progress you can expect to make.

Take for example, this scenario, which shows the relative stress levels of the four different areas over a time span that has a lot of the usual stresses we experience on a daily basis: trouble with the boss, re-org at work, $$$ worries, health problems, marriage troubles, promotions, raises, recovery, family problems.

Even if you do manage to cut down on the mental and emotional and spiritual stresses of your eventful life, you can still have a buildup of stress in your body that, if not dissipated or reduced in some way, will still keep your overall stress levels high.

Even when everything is going great.

Now, with a situation like TBI, where all of a sudden, sh*t is all effed up for no reason that you can explain, something as simple as making breakfast or getting ready for work can be a huge physiological stressor, because things that used to be so simple for you — like buttoning your shirt or combing your hair or getting milk and cereal to end up in the bowl instead of on the counter — aren’t going so well, and it’s just one surprise after another… one little “micro-trauma” after another, getting those fight-flight juices flowing like never before.

On a daily basis — and this is what a lot of folks fail to understand about TBI — you can experience hundreds of these little surprises, which pump up your adrenaline and alternately make you high as a kite and downright depressed. It makes you seem/feel bipolar to those who are fond of that label, and it keeps you on high alert, just trying to make it through the day trying to do all the things that used to come so easily to you, but now require a different sort of attention.

And those stresses add up. The biochemicals keep collecting in your system, by default. Because you have to stay ON, to keep from falling off. And you end up on constant alert, a perpetual first responder to your own personal mini-disasters… which may not be that big, objectively, but seem bigger and bigger and bigger because, well, you’re really pretty tired from all the adjusting, and that adrenaline and ephinephrine and norepinephrine is actually making it harder for your brain to learn the new things it needs to learn.

Which is yet another source of stress… which has next to nothing to do with how you look at things.

Now, I’ve talked with neuro-rehab folks who were of that same philosophy — that the thing that gets us into trouble with our stress levels is the way we interpret what’s happening to us. And I agree, to some extent, that interpreting everything along catastrophic lines raises our stress levels and is a big culprit in frying our systems. At the same time, people seem to be overlooking or discounting the role that the body plays in all this — in the role that physiological stressors play in our lives. It’s NOT all about how we look at things and the meaning we ascribe to what happens. It can be just as much — sometimes even moreso — about the physiological burdens that we have to deal with.

Does our mindset affect our physiological stress levels? Absolutely? We can flood our systems in an instant with a reaction of our choosing. Can our mind reverse physiological stressors on its own? I’m not so sure. I think the body needs to be directly involved to do that to the fullest.

All this being said (and I wish I could say everything that’s in my head, but I’m still a bit foggy from the past week), I think that any stress management program needs to incorporate the body. Actively. On purpose. As a full partner in the whole process. We need to use our bodies to move all that biochemical sludge along. Can you say lymph?

And I also want to say that I don’t think that stress is necessarily a bad thing. It’s the long-term effects of stress that do the job on us. I personally believe that when we develop ways to discharge the effects of stress and use the energy for good instead of evil, we can build up a sort of immunity to the downsides, and stress can actually become a vital and productive part of our lives. Rather than being something to dread and try to control and “overcome”, stress can be our friend. One of our best friends, in fact.

I have friends who would cringe to hear me say how much I love stress. But I can’t help it – I do. I really thrive on it. The thing that gets me in trouble is when I don’t allow myself enough recovery time from tough stints. I also work in a stupid job that is constantly stressful and doesn’t let you stop moving for a minute, so that’s another effing culprit. I work at a very high, fast pace, and I can get pretty intense. I get a ton of stuff done on a regular basis, and I enjoy it. I’ve figured out how to be ultra-productive after years of experimentation and trial-and-error, and it works for me. I just know how to get sh*t done. And Stress (capital “S”) is a big part of that. So removing stress from my life — rising above it, overcoming it, keeping it within “liveable levels” — is the kiss of death for the parts of my life that I love the most. Hey, I’m a jock, okay. I want to run faster and lift more and be stronger… It’s in my nature, so if you take that away or diminish it or talk it down, then you’re hacking away at my innermost core and you’re pulling the rug right out from underneath me.

The thing is, I know what a toll all this can take on me. It gets me hurt. It ruins my life. I burn out  in a very big way. So, I need to find a middle ground that lets me keep going, without heading right off the cliff.

Nowadays, what I’m working with — especially with my 90-second clearing — is letting my energy spike, then bringing it back down, consciously, to restful levels. I push myself hard for a period of time, then I stop, slow it down, get myself out of that frantic mindset that drives me forward, and put myself in a calm, relaxed state that actually feels really good.  For me, it’s not the pushing hard that does the number on me — it’s not having a rest/recovery period to let it all sink in and integrate. I’ve been recovery-deprived for a long, long time. Only in the past few years have I actually learned how to relax and feel good. And only since I learned how to feel good while relaxing, has it truly become clear to me that my continued growth and improvement depends on recovery as much as it does on testing my limits.

It might even depend more on it.

For my money, one of the most important things anyone recovering from TBI can do, is figure out how to get to that sweet spot of emotional/spiritual/mental balance, where it’s possible to feel physically good. If you don’t know how to get there, and you don’t get there on a semi-regular basis, your recovery is going to be hampered. You’re going to stay amped up on fight-flight biochemicals, and you’re not going to learn as well as you can, when you’re able to relax and just enjoy yourself. Feeling good doesn’t have to even be a huge deal — if you can just manage it for a few minutes a day, and remember what it feels like to take the edge off, that can help. Absolutely positively. But if you never figure out how to get there, and you find yourself unable to relax and settle into a sense of being OKAY, I predict you’re going to have a tough row to hoe.

And we don’t want that.

Anyway, it seems I found the words I was looking for.

Bottom line is, as much as some folks would have us think that it’s our interpretation of events that does a number on us, rather than the events themselves, I have to respectfully disagree. The stresses and physical reality of dealing with one surprise after another, having to pump yourself up to keep going, and having to constantly be aware of ways you need to shift and change, can be physiologically stressing in ways no change of mindset will reverse.

We need to recognize the role the body plays in stress, and find ways to address our physiological stressors, so that our minds can relax and we can learn the lessons we need to learn.

It’s all a process, of course, and an imperfect one at that. But if we pay attention and keep an open mind and realize that 9 times out of 10 we are unconsciously deluding ourselves — and then take corrective action, we just might get somewhere.

Onward

Do I stay or do I go?

Just what I’ve been waiting for…

The post office is open for another 45 minutes. I have a package I have been waiting for, for about a week, which has finally arrived. Great!

Now, do I pick myself up and go get it, using about 20 minutes of time I can be blogging and reading and catching up with myself? Or do I stay here, finish what I’m doing, and just go get it in the morning?

The pros of staying here are that I can keep doing what I’m doing without interruption, while I’m still fresh from my 2-hour afternoon nap (which I desperately needed)… I can finish my thoughts… I can do some writing… and I can plan my next three days, which are mine-all-mine!

The cons of staying here are that I won’t have my package right now, accompanied by the big energy boost of having it in hand… I’ll have to remember to go pick it up in the morning, and I might actually run late… and it will be one more thing that I have to do, versus just doing whatever I like in the morning.

I’m staying put.

First of all, I covet the time I have by myself at home — my spouse is out running errands, and the house is quiet and I can hear myself think. I also have uninterrupted time, so very rare and precious to me, compared to how things are at work, which are marked by constant interruption to the point of never being able to complete anything — tasks, projects, thoughts — in a steady, measured manner. If I leave now, I am giving up my quiet, uninterrupted time for a drive to the post office, which is not far, but is through rush hour traffic.

Second of all, I have my list for the weekend, and I’m being really good about following what I’m writing down. I don’t need to fear not getting the package, because I’m going to — at a more steady pace, not rushed and frantic. I can work it into my list of things I’m going to be doing tomorrow — and on top of it, having that package pickup on my list is going to get me out of the house before noon (which I tend to have trouble with) because it’s something I want to do. It’s something I want very much. So, no fears about not doing that.

As long as I follow the list, I’m good.

Thirdly, I have fallen so far behind on my emails and my reading this week (as well as responding to everyone who writes), that I need this time to just center in and remember why I do what I do. I’ve had some pretty great mental shifts and revelations this week, and I really need to write about them. It’s exciting. It’s good news. It’s been tough learning these lessons over the past week or so, but I am doing good things with what I’m learning. And I really do believe it’s going to pay off, in small ways and large, in the short- and long-term.

It’s all a matter of perspective, I guess, and despite being dog tired and out of it for days and days, my perspective is good, and I have a focus and direction that I know I want to go in.

So, that’s good.

And it’s good that I’m staying put. It is so tempting to want to jump up, throw on some sandals, hop in the car and scoot down to the post office where my long-awaited package is, but I’m going to hold off. Because there are other things I need to be doing right here and right now, and I need the practice at keeping my focus and concentration.

God, but my job has done a number on my distractability. Then again, maybe it hasn’t. I’ll be writing more on that later.

Much more.

Just start it

I have been struggling with getting started a lot more than I ever realized. This difficulty spans the gamut from not being able to get out of bed in the morning, to not being able to start certain tasks during the day, to not being able to initiate conversations, to not being able to get things done around the house.

Nowhere is this more visible, than the last area — my house and property are full of things that need to be done. Little things, mostly, that I haven’t been able to start.

Something pretty amazing has been happening, lately. After years of having things languishing “in the wings” — not keeping my lawn cleared of ground cover, not clearing out leaves and debris from around my house, little broken things not being fixed — I have started tackling them one at a time. And I’m realizing that the things that have stumped me for so long — years, in fact — are actually not that difficult, once I get started.

Once I get started… that’s the thing that has stumped me for a long, long time. I got hurt less than 2 years after I moved into my house, which was terrible timing (not that timing a TBI can ever be good), because I had a bunch of necessary projects planned that depended heavily on my ability to keep employed and productive.

Of course, that changed when I fell in 2004, and over the years, I have not been able to even start a lot of the issues that have been staring me in the face since then. The problems with my hard, the broken things that need to be fixed, the disorganized piles of papers and magazines that are still lying around the house, the fluctuating collections of crap that I can’t seem to organize on a regular basis. Every several years, I have a big initiative to clean something up. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. And the net result is more chaos that I need to navigate on a daily basis.

Which doesn’t help much. Sure, at the time, it’s a short-term solution, but in the long-term, it adds up. Not so great.

Lately, though, I have been starting things in a whole new way. I’ve realized over the past months, that when I take my sweet time to do things, they do not get done. In order to be at my test, I need to have intensity of focus and work in short bursts of energy, followed by extended rest periods. It’s really how I am. The slow, methodical step-by-step approach opens me up to way too much distraction, and I typically do not get things done as well as when I work quickly with 100% focus on what is just in front of me.

I have tended to put pressure on myself to go slow and steady, thinking through things one at a time, so I wouldn’t screw them up. And I needed to be that way for a long time. Now, however, I feel that I’ve been so slow and deliberate about things, that I have a lot of things pretty much figured out — with respect to regular everyday activities. I’ve trained myself to do a lot of really basic stuff with almost the same fluidity that I could do them before. It’s been painstaking and really grueling at times, but I’ve made great progress.

But the one thing that has gotten me kicked into gear even moreso, is getting in the habit of just rolling with things when they go wrong. When things turn out different from how I anticipated and planned and wanted and needed, in the past, I have panicked and dug my heels in. But now that I know how to do my 90-second clearing, where I can take the edge off my adrenaline/stress rush and get myself calmed down again so I can think… I have a lot more range and flexibility. Surprises don’t need to throw me for a loop anymore. Sometimes they do, but I know how to stop that downward slide and keep myself from the edge of the abyss.

So, when things don’t turn out the way I want/plan them to, it’s not this huge catastrophe anymore. It’s just an annoyance keeping me one step away from where I need to go. I slow down my breathing, settle my mind, and I get back into things. Knowing that I can do this makes it possible for me to approach things that used to send me over the edge with anxiety. Because I know that no matter how much I may be surprised, I’ll be able to move forward and keep going till I figure things out.

So, now I can just start things. And see how they turn out.

And that’s progress.

I’m supposed to start working in 20 minutes…

1-2-3 Puuull..!

The good part is, I am working from home today. Sweet silence. No distractions. I can actually focus on one thing at a time without being constantly interrupted by people who do not want to actually do their own work, but expect me to do it for them.

My spouse is a late riser, so there will be no sign of them till noontime, which leaves me almost 4 hours of quiet productivity.

I’m actively rethinking my job search approach for the future. I have been thinking that I need to find a job with an established company that gives me a place to go each day. But in fact, what I really need is a remote job, where I can work for a set amount of hours, and then lie down and take a nap when I need to. Or I can travel and work remotely from wherever I am. The whole commuting to work – working 9 hours – commuting home thing, to and from a place where I’m chained to the galley bench with all the other worker bees just isn’t working for me. I am exhausted. Depleted. And I miss those hours I spend in the car each day.

So, either I find a job that’s remote, so I can come and go as I please and get things done on my own time in my own way, or I find something that is close to home, so I don’t have to waste all that time each day. I think the former makes much more sense to me — especially because of the fatigue thing, not being able to rest when I need to, and gradually becoming more and more exhausted.

My neuropsych tells me I should not be taking naps during the day. But if I don’t, I am so depleted that I can’t get to sleep in a good way. I get so tired, I am too tired to get to sleep.

So, it’s time to start looking around online for remote work. There are plenty of telecommute jobs out there. I just need to find them.

Onward.

Weekend break : Food and travel and doing

This was like my weekend break – more fun than it looks like

I took a break this past weekend. Actually, I worked my ass off around the house, and I didn’t have my nap, either day, and I didn’t get a couple of of important things done that I *had* to do (oh, well…)

But I still took a break. I took a break from the crazy confusion, the frantic ad-libbing, the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants improvisation that wipes me out and depletes me and makes me feel worse than ever by the end of the day.

To be honest, I am pretty fried. I’ve been fried since Saturday morning, actually… I was in really rough shape — Woozy and out of it and really confused and off balance. Forgetting things left and right. Having to double back and do things over and over and over, till I actually do them correctly. Literally not knowing where I was or what I was supposed to be doing… till I stopped and took a breath and looked around, and then — oh, yeah — then I remembered. But in slow motion. Everything in    v e r y   s l o w   m o t i o n… Crazy.

Feeling all weekend like I was being dragged behind a horse with my foot jammed in the stirrup, and there’s no end in sight to the gallop. I woke up feeling sick and tired, Saturday  morning, and I’m still feeling sick and tired. The main difference is that this sick and tired is a whole lot less stressed than I was on Saturday morning, 48 hours ago.

Because I took care of business. I made my lists. I mean, I was brutal to myself this weekend. No Mercy. NO DISTRACTIONS. NONE.  ZIP. NADA. ZILCH. Not Even Going There. I had a lot to do, and the whole lot was a confusing mass of must-do’s, to-do’s, better-do’s, and what-not, some of the things more mandatory than others, but all of them feeling mission-critical.

Yeah, mission-critical. Whatever. I got my notebook out with my to-do list in it, and I sat down each morning, yesterday and today, with my special pen that I always use when I am writing Something Important, and I waded through my lists, culling the things that could wait, and making damn’ sure that I did the things that Couldn’t Wait. I felt like a blithering idiot, needing to write down each step:

• Go to the post office
• Check whether mail has come
• Pay box fee
• Go to the bank
• Deposit one check in one account
• Deposit the other check in the other account
• Go food shopping and buy [insert items here, grouped by the section of the store where they are located]
• Eat lunch
• Take the trash to the dump

… and so on, but I did it. Because if I didn’t write it down exactly the way I needed to do it, it wasn’t going to get done. I was going to get pulled in a million little directions by a million little distractions. And I needed to get things done.

I took that to-do-list notebook with me everywhere, and I checked in with it every few hours, to make sure I was still on track and not wandering off into never-never land.

And you know what? It worked. As fried as I was, as sick, as confused, as turned around and impulsive as I was, I soldiered through. And by the close of Saturday night I had completed the last of the Ultra Critical items that Must Be Done, and I could finally wind down the evening with some hot tea and a glass of cold water. And some Advil, of course.

Not that the weekend wasn’t without mishaps. I jumped the gun and ordered a $30 replacement battery for my cordless drill before I thought to check the Home Depot website, where they actually had the exact same battery for $9.97. That’s an expensive mistake. I can’t afford to just spend $30 at the drop of a hat. But I can’t cancel the first order. Screw it. I’ll justify it because I’m supporting a local business instead of a massive big-box chain store, so I’m fine with spending that $30 (almost). I went ahead and ordered a second battery at the great price, and now I’ll have two batteries that hold a charge, instead of one little weak one that peters out after I drill a couple of holes in some plywood.

It took me forever to get going in the mornings. I couldn’t settle down and get myself in the right direction for hours. I was incredibly distractable, both mornings, going in circles at top speed. Crazy. But when I reined myself in and got myself back on track, it was okay going.

Get that list together. Check that list.

Right now, it probably doesn’t sound much like a weekend break. But it was — with my lists. Sitting down and figuring out what I was going to do – and when – and then just going through the steps of doing it all, one piece at a time, really took the pressure off. It let me stop thinking about what I was going to do, and let me focus on the things I was doing, when I was doing them.

Trying to figure out what to do next is a big problem for me, and it’s a huge time and energy suck. I can literally run in circles, trying to get things done — and getting nothing done at all. It’s also a big source of stress for me, because I can get caught up in the logistics and trying to figure things out and trying to think through what’s next – what’s next – what’s going to be next after that.  Caught up and confused. Crazy. And then I end the day feeling like crap because I got nothing done that I intended to.

Fortunately – and thanks to my lists – I managed to get a bunch of stuff done around the house that I’ve been meaning to do for years. I did a bunch of work in the yard, clearing out a ton of weeds and invasive plants that have been wreaking havoc with my grass for years,  but I never got around to addressing. I also cleaned out my garage and gave it a good sweeping-out, which it has also been needing for years, but hasn’t happened. Till yesterday. I worked in my basement, rearranged things that needed rearranging, managed to hook up my web cam on my computer, fiddled a little bit with video, moved some files around on computers, did some research, and got just about everything important checked off my list.

Amazing. Pretty fantastic.

So, what’s with the food and travel? Well, this weekend I was flying solo. My spouse was traveling for work, and I had the house to myself. I also had the kitchen to myself, and I was able to experiment a little with the meals I made. Friday night’s experiment was pretty much a disaster. It didn’t taste bad, but the house smelled terrible all night, and I was concerned it might still smell bad by Monday. I aired the place out on Saturday, so that helped. I also decided to try my hand at making barbecue pork in a slow cooker. On our recent trip to see family, my sister-in-law made pork and onions in her crock pot, and it was amazing. I couldn’t remember what all she’d put in it, other than pork and onions, so I looked up some slow cooker recipes, combined some of the simpler ones that sounded good, and by 8 o’clock Saturday night, I had a killer batch of pork BBQ that was out of this world. I mean, it was good. Very sweet and mellow with just a hint of tang. I bought the cheapest ingredients I could find — it was an experiment after all — and I kept it super simple. But the end result was nothing short of phenomenal, and I dined on that all weekend.

And the travel? Well, both Saturday and Sunday nights, Anthony Bourdain was on CNN (in between the tornado alerts from the network), exploring regions to the north and mid-east. So, two nights in a row, I got to see parts of the world I may never get to see in person. And I got to see the food. The chances of me ever going to any of those places is slim-to-none, so I’m happy to let him go there with a camera crew and bring back his impressions. He seems to be one of those guys who just goes to soak it all in, enjoy it, and let the experiences affect him – be that positive or negative. He just is, in the midst of all that crazy doing and happening and activity. Sure, he does along with folks, but what strikes me the most about him is that he just IS.

And when I watch him just BE in the places where he is, talking to folks, exploring, taking it all in — and eating — I get to do that, too. I get into the spirit of his adventures and get to watch how he does it. It’s a good model for me, because that’s the kind of spirit I want to bring to my own work and life, and watching someone just be open to what happens, and then talk about how it is for them, reminds me that it’s possible to be that way — even when I am dog-tired and in pain and am running out of ideas about how to be in the world.

Not that I want to make myself into Anthony Bourdain. I’ve got my own ways, my own personality, my own take on things. It’s the spirit of his work that speaks to me, and that’s what I look for.

… Not to mention, learning about amazing new foods… most of which I may ever make, but some of which are giving me ideas.

Anyway, after a very full and productive weekend, I am feeling a little better, but I’m still feeling sick and woozy. So what — I’ve got to get on with my day. The thing with me, these days, is to not let feeling bad hold me back. I might be dizzy, confused, disoriented, distractable, forgetful, and have almost no impulse control, but I have my ways of dealing with it:

• dizzy : take it slow, keep one hand on a stable surface at all times, don’t make any sudden moves, and think about what I’m going to do before I do it
• confused : make notes about what I need to do, keep refining my list, striking off the unnecessary things, and using post-it notes to remind me of what I’m doing
• disoriented : again, use the notes, and don’t get too bent out of shape about being so disoriented
• distractable : keep things simple, keep one task in mind at all times, repeat to myself — out loud and silently — what I’m doing and why I’m doing it
• forgetful : see disoriented and distractable above
• almost no impulse control : take it easy, and when I screw up (which I often do), just take a deep breath, think about what I should really be doing, and do that, if I can.

It’s not fun and pleasant, and if I think too much about it, it’s pretty depressing, but in the face of all of the above, I can still get on with my life and be productive and effective. It might take me twice as long as I’d like, and it might make me nuts at times, but it can be done. And in the end, I’ve got something amazing to show for it.

I now have a clean garage and a mowed yard, and a lot more hope and peace of mind. Not bad for a weekend’s work.

The up-side of frontal lobe damage

Apparently, frontal lobe damage affects how we process “negative” information –

Pollyanna Had Brain Damage! Study Claims Faulty Brain Wiring Sparks Unrealistic Optimism

You might be a “glass half empty” person or a “glass half full” person, but if you’re a “glass is half full even if it’s empty” person, your brain may be a tad off kilter.

That’s the conclusion of a neuroimaging study published in the peer-reviewed journal, Nature Neuroscience.  Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) wanted to find out what’s going on in the brains of people who remain optimistic even when every bit of evidence argues for a less rosy perspective.

Check out the Forbes article for more >>.

It begins with the body

If the body is stressed, and you don’t do something about it, the mind is going to suffer.

People love to separate “mind and body” as though the two could ever be separated. Many intellectually developed people I know — who are high-level professionals and leaders in their fields — are quite antagonistic towards their bodies. They don’t seem comfortable living in them. And when I try to explain how my state of body affects my state of mind, their eyes glaze over.

Or they congratulate me on figuring out something for myself, appearing to think that it’s my own special little trick I have for making myself feel better in the face of life’s existential onslaught.

So, I don’t go into it with them. I save my body-mind pep talk for people who get it and don’t need to be convinced.

By far — and I mean FAR — the most helpful thing in my TBI recovery has been learning ways to calm down my system and just not Feel Bad. I firmly believe that TBI puts us in a state of perpetual stress, and just as a gazillion sub-concussive hits take a toll on football players, the gazillion little “micro-traumas” of everyday living with TBI also takes a toll. If anything, I think the buildup of stress over many years of dealing with the confusion and frustration of TBI had an equal (maybe even even greater) effect on me as the injuries proper.

That build-up of stress made it harder to think, harder to feel, harder to learn… it just made everything harder, which in return held me back … and contributed to my overall sense of disconnection and confusion and frustration. A vicious circle that was a feedback loop from hell.

Things are different now, though. Fortunately. And not just from fortune, but by design. I almost happened upon helpful tips by accident, piecing things together from various sources, and trying just about anything that didn’t seem too dangerous or counter-productive. I was open to just about everything, really, if there was a chance it would help. I learned a lot of things by trial and error, and a lot of the time, I didn’t realize what I’d learned until later. Much later. And then, I was often so busy trying to deal with a new situation, that I couldn’t fully appreciate what a difference it had made in my life.

I’m appreciating it now. All of it. It’s been amazing, and it continues to be.

Oh, hell – Just learning to relax, and learning how to Feel Good on a purely physical level has made a tremendous difference in my life. All the logistics and daily tips and tricks are useful and needed, of course. But just the simple ability to feel good, to relax, to let myself settle down after the day and just BE… this is probably the most helpful thing of all.

Speaking of settling down after the day, I need to do exactly that. I’ve had a really long and tiring day, and I need to take a load off. I have a lot I want to get done tomorrow, and I need to start early. So, I’m going to finish up early and hit the hay.

And that’s real progress for me.