Calling it a day

It’s been a full day, with its share of unexpected “wrinkles”.

It’s been a good day – beautiful weather, and some increasing clarity on the direction I am taking with my life.

It’s been a long day, even though it “only” started at 6 a.m., and it’s not even 12 hours later.

One of the really good things about it, is how good I am feeling right now – how good I have been feeling all day. The mud is clearing from my perspectives, and I have more resolve than ever.

Also, all my stretching and 90-second breaks are really helping a great day. In fact, they are helping so much that I can actually tell that I am tired.

Way tired.

Bone tired.

Dog tired.

In the past, I would always push through – have some coffee, eat a candy bar, get bent out of shape over something – until I was too wired to feel anything.

Today, I am relaxed enough to know that I need to lie down for a nap for about an hour, before I’m going to be good for anything.

I didn’t get everything done today that I was intending to, but I can spend some time later working on things. The nice part about having a definite timeframe to move on, and a definite idea of where I’m going, is that I suddenly have a ton of energy for figuring things out and finishing up projects that have been in the wings for a long, long time, that I haven’t been able to get done.

So, with this final 2-month push, I’ll kick it and make some tracks. Make some progress. And really shape my future the way I am hoping to.

With plenty of breaks in between. To breathe. To settle. To balance. To regain my composure and head back into the fray.

On-ward.

Figuring out how to relax… and get on with things

The flood doesn’t have to last forever

I’m running a little late this morning. I was supposed to have an early phone call with a colleague on the other side of the world, this morning, but that was cancelled — partly because they told me they would be traveling at the end of this week, but I didn’t put it together that I should reschedule our meeting till when they got back.

No worries, though. They reminded me of it, and I’m rescheduling, so that’s fine.

In the past, I would have really given myself a hard time for not putting that together. I would have been unsparing and relentless in my self-criticism, and by the end of my internal tirade against myself, I would have reached the conclusion that I am good for nothing and I can’t do much of anything at all. It’s happened before, lots of times – especially at times when I’ve forgotten to reschedule meetings.

Today that didn’t happen.

If anything, I was relieved that I didn’t have to get on the call right after I woke up. I have had a couple of late-evening calls with colleagues, for the past couple of days, and I haven’t been able to get in bed before 11:00, or sleep past 7, which means I’m getting 6-7 hours of sleep, when I should be getting 8+. Oh, well. At least I’m not getting 4-5 hours, like I was last week.

I felt a bit foolish for a little bit, having spaced out on the schedule thing, then I just got on with my morning. I’ve had some time to check my personal email and make a list of things I need to get done today — and wonder of wonders, I don’t have anything scheduled for this evening, so I can take care of some things for one of the projects I’m working on.

There’s been an interesting change with me, lately. It happened around the time when I went to see my family and got out of my daily routine rut. There was a LOT of driving involved, I did NOT sleep very well, and the whole time was pretty uncomfortable for me in a lot of ways. But I handled myself extremely well, and as a result, no relationships were trashed or threatened, and there was no left-over biochemical sludge that I needed to clear out of my system.

Also, all during the trip, I was practicing the “90-second clearing” that helped me to regain my balance after upsetting or unsettling or anxiety-producing discussions or situations.

Basically this “90-second clearing” works this way:

1. I pay attention to my stress level, my physical situation — am I stressed? Am I relaxed? Am I getting tense and uptight? When I think about a picture of how I’m feeling, do I see a crazy line chart that looks like a craggy mountain range, with the line going wildly up and down to extremes?
2. If I am getting tense and uptight, I stop what I am doing and thinking, and I take a break for a minute and a half.  I stop the reaction to what’s happening. I stop the racing thoughts. I stop the escalation. I stop the fast breathing.
3. Then I breathe slowly for about a minute and a half — sometimes I need less time — until I feel “level” again.  I think about what my state of mind and body looks like, and if I see a line that looks like a nice little wave, or gently rolling hills, I know I’m good.
4. Then I can get back to doing what I was thinking and saying and doing before.
5. Then I can relax.

By stopping the crazy escalation and bringing myself back to a point of biochemical equilibrium (many times during my vacation), I was able to keep my head from going nuts over passing things. It wasn’t about tamping down my experience and suppressing my feelings and reactions — it was about just letting it all come… and then letting it all go… and moving on.

I’ve continued to do it, too — with good results. In fact, I just did it this morning, when my spouse and I were having a heated discussion about something that wasn’t going right, and we were both getting pretty uptight and tweaked over the situation. It wasn’t something that either of us had done “wrong”, just something that was wrong that I needed to fix — and we were starting to get pretty bent out of shape about it.

I managed to stop and just breathe for a minute or so, and the calming effect on me also had a calming effect on my spouse. I could relax. So could both of us. Good stuff. And now I can get on with my day.

This is a big change with me. I mean, just the fact that I even know what it feels like to relax, is a change. Up until about 5-6 years ago, that never happened. I had no idea what relaxation really felt like, and I wasn’t interested in finding out. I just needed to be ON. I just needed to be UP. I just needed to be GO-GO-GO, all the live-long day. And frankly it was tearing the sh*t out of me and my life and my relationships. Especially after my TBI in 2004, when suddenly I was unable to keep it together and manage the GO-GO-GO in a sensible way.

Then I started doing “stress hardiness optimization” which is guided meditation for first responders and other people in high-stress conditions. I figured that applied to me pretty well — especially since I felt like I was always responding to emergencies in my life on a personal level. That trained me to physically relax, with progressive relaxation.

Mentally relaxing and being able to just let things go, however, still eluded me.

But over time, the more I’ve relaxed physically and the more capable I’ve become at understanding and managing my own “internal state”, the better I’ve become at being able to relax my mind as well as my body.

Ironically, one of the things that’s helped me to relax my mind, is coming to realize that no matter what the circumstances, I’ll be able to figure something out. It may not be perfect, it may not be what I want, but I’ll be able to deal. I’ll be able to manage myself and my situation. I’ll be able to handle things. The 90-second clearing is a huge piece of the puzzle that helps me incredibly.

First, it defines my internal state of anxiety and upset as a biochemical thing. It’s not that something is wrong with me, and I cannot handle things. It’s my body reacting to what’s going on, trying to help me rise to the occasion with a flood of biochemical stress hormones that are specifically designed to kick me into action. It’s a purely physical reaction.

Second, it’s all about recognizing that my body can be a little “behind the times” — and my mind / awareness can jump in to help it calm down. My fight-flight system (like everyone’s) is quick to react, but slow to back off — once engaged, my fight-flight system doesn’t want to let go. It wants to keep me safe. It keeps escalating, until the “danger” has passed, but it doesn’t always realize that a “danger” is not actually dangerous. So I have to help it do that. It’s not doing it by itself. It needs my awareness to help. Which I can do.

Third, it’s about exercising my mind in very basic ways — just paying attention to how I’m feeling, and doing very simple things to adjust. It’s not about some elaborate plan that will require tons of practice and has to be done just right. It’s about just noticing what’s going on with me, and doing something with it. Taking action. Working with my situation to turn it in a different direction — adding important ingredients — elements of balance and just plain feeling good, which is a new experience for me. Just plain feeling good… what a concept.

Last of all, it just works. Slow breathing for a minute and a half puts a halt to my downward slide and stops the escalation in its tracks. I’ve used it a number of times in a number of different situations, with excellent results. I can’t even begin to explain how great it feels to have the waves of anxiety and dread and fight-flight sludge back off — to feel them subside, leaving calm in their place. It’s like the flood waters of the Nile are receding, leaving fertile fields awaiting a new season of crops. And it leaves me feeling awake and confident and better than I did before.

Feeling tight and cramped and anxious and nervous and antagonistic feels like crap, I have to say.

Feeling loosened up and relaxed and strong and flexible and friendly feels pretty awesome.

90 seconds is all it takes, too (well, sometimes it takes longer, but not more than a few minutes). It “resets” me, “reboots” my brain. And it lets me get on with my life. Relaxed, confident, and with a lot more better ideas than I had just a few minutes before.

 

 

Still managing TBI issues, still paying attention…

Brain injury is a funny thing — not funny as in “Ha-ha-ha”, but funny as in “How weird – I didn’t expect that to happen at all”.

One day, I’m fine, feeling good, and not sure how or why I ever had issues before at all.

And a few days later, I’m teetering on the edge of complete nervous breakdown, trying to talk myself back from that edge with what I hope is a calm and soothing demeanor.

It’s really weird, how things just suddenly become HUGE ENORMOUS PROBLEMS, for no apparent reason. Well, actually there are very good reasons, and when I track them over time, I can usually see how they happened. The thing is, leading up to those HUGE ENORMOUS PROBLEMS, I’m feeling good, I’m feeling fine, and things seem like they’re going along at a pretty good clip.

And all seems like it’s well. For all time. And I forget that it’s ever been any other way.

Or that it could possibly become any other way, without an instant’s notice.

But it can get ugly fairly quickly, and when I’m least expecting it. I’m not expecting it, because my attention is focused on other things besides my frame of mind and my stress levels. I’m caught up in something “important” — and it often is, despite my diminutive quotation marks — and I have a lot on the line, and I feel like so much is riding on me doing such-and-such in a certain specific way… I’m caught up.

And that’s when I get caught out. Pants down. Short and curlies waving in the breeze. And I have to stop the madness, back up, and start to put things back together again.

It doesn’t much matter whether all the excitement I’m dealing with is good or bad — I get tired and my system gets stressed in either circumstance. In fact, if anything, good things bode worse for me, because I get so caught up and so consumed by what I’m doing, and the energy is high, and I’m getting more and more tired but I don’t even notice it, because there’s so much good happening around me. And I don’t want it to stop. So, I keep going, keep pushing myself, keep stressing my body with a lot of adrenaline, but not always a lot of good food and water and rest.

When unfortunate things are happening with me, it can actually be less stressful overall, because I’m aware that I need to actively manage my stress levels, eat right, get enough rest, etc. Because there are “bad things” happening, and I need to be up to the task at hand. So, when things are rough, I’m actually less stressed overall. Here, let me show you:

The good, the bad, and the results – the higher a rating is, the better it is. The lower it is on the chart, the worse the situation is.

Click the image above, and you can see the relative difference between sleep deprivation, anger, anxiety, and excitement – and you can see that my “AMF” (or “Active Management Factor”, which is the rating I give myself for how much attention I am paying to my situation) is actually a bit higher when things are bad – which translates into less anger, less anxiety, and less sleep deprivation. And more excitement. The less well I manage myself when things are going crazy around me — even if it’s a good crazy — the less enthusiasm I have over time, as well, so it’s an all-round whammy, when I don’t pay enough attention to myself and my state.

When things are rough, then I tend to pay closer attention, because I know bad things can happen. But when things are going well for me, I tend to not actively manage my situation, and then I lose out on things like sleep and good food and also excitement. Keeping up the excitement when I’m dog-tired is even more work, even if the excitement initially drives my behavior that deprives me of sleep.

I can easily get complacent, when things are going well, but the net effect on my overall system is the same — I wear out.

That’s kind of where I am right now – I spent about 15 hours yesterday working on a project that I am very fond of, and which I believe has a lot of potential. But today I am wiped, and I’m feeling pretty antsy. I did a LOT of work yesterday that was good, and now today I am feeling the effects of it. So, I need to take away the arbitrary deadline(s) I set for myself, and stop stressing myself over this. There is a lot of stress going on at work, these days, and I can’t afford to let everything get the better of me… which is the line I’m treading right now.

I need to be smart about this… and also manage this situation actively. It doesn’t help me at all, if I push and push and push… and then end up with a crappy result. I need to give myself more time, not let the adrenaline and arbitrary deadlines drive me. I need to do a reality check and just get myself collected and sane again.

Because I have more to do today, than just work on my project. And my project is the one part of my life that I’m NOT driven by someone else’s insanely stupid deadline. So, I can cut myself a break. Give things some thought, and let reason drive my motivation, not some crazy lottery-style pipe dream that’s going to solve all my problems in one fell swoop. That’s no good. Let reason prevail.

And so I shall. Because it’s a beautiful day. And I want to keep it that way.

Taking the edge off

Sometimes you just gotta let it go…

Few things in my life have been more of a roller-coaster than this TBI recovery business. I wrote recently about feeling like I was stalled – stymied – unable to move forward. And it felt pretty rotten. I have been feeling really down on myself, lately, and it hasn’t been helping me at all. The worse I feel, the worse I do, generally… and then I feel even worse. It’s a downward spiral that usually has its roots in fatigue and stress and me believing everything that goes through my brain.

You’d think I’d realize by now that my perceptions are not always consistent with the truth of the matter… I know my brain plays tricks on me. I know it blows things out of proportion. I know it loves to get worked up and all stressed out, because it loves the feeling of that rush, and it doesn’t feel awake without it, sometimes. But when the agitation gets going, the first thing I do is start listening to what my brain is telling me — which is the last thing I should do. I should really listen to what my mind has to say. I guess I need to keep learning that lesson.

Heck, maybe I should make myself a sign that says, “Don’t believe everything you feel.”

I think I will. Put it where I’ll be sure to see it on a regular basis. ‘Cause falling for what I feel is one of the biggest sources of pain and complication and suffering for me, that I can think of.

Anyway, it occurred to me not long after I’d written the post about feeling stymied, that I am actually doing really well in some truly substantial ways – the main way being, I’m a LOT less “hot” and reactive than I have been in the past — even in the recent past. I’ve recently started doing my conscious breathing again, and I’ve been incorporating it into my everyday life, taking a break to breathe and relax when I sense things are getting really tense. And I have to say, it feels pretty good. AND it takes the edge off my hot-headedness.

As an example, I was washing up dishes the other day, when my grip slipped on the dish I was washing and it clanked loudly on the bottom of the sink. A number of things happened that in the past were sure to set me off: I lost my grip on a heavy dish, running the risk of breaking it… my grip was slippery, which is a strange little stressor for me — if I don’t have a firm grip on something, it sets me on edge… there was that loud and startling “clunk” that really threw me off and sparked a little “alarm wildfire” in my brain. I’ve been having a lot of vertigo, lately, and it’s stressing me out, making me even more susceptible to flare-ups when simple things like this happen.

In the past, I would have freaked out. Lost it. Started banging things around and cursing and then getting really down on myself for getting so bent over such a simple thing. Few things kill my self-respect like blowing up over little things like losing my grip on a dish I’m washing… or dropping something, or not being able to get a hold on something — and these have all been happening to me a lot lately.

But this time, I handled it. It seems like such a small thing, but it’s huge for me. I just stopped and took a long, slow breath. I relaxed my tense shoulders and cracked my back (all I have to do is lean left or right, and the “popcorn” starts to pop in my spine). I just took a little break to gather myself, and when I went back to washing, not only did I feel calm and together, but I felt more calm and together than I had all day.

Magic. At least, that’s how it felt. But it’s actually more science than anything else — and it’s repeatable. I’ve been doing it, on and off, for the past several weeks, and while I’m not 100% successful at never ever blowing up over stupid sh*t, the fact of the matter is, I’m 5000% better than I was, several years ago. Just taking a breath and stopping and relaxing — stopping that chain reaction of WTF?! before it had a chance to get started — got me back to where I wanted to be.

And even though the vertigo is still a problem with me, I have far less anxiety and anger and frustration than I had in the past. I’m breathing consciously more often, in the course of everyday stresses, and I’m taking breaks to compose myself in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges. I’m giving myself a chance to feel something other than the perseverating junk that gets lodged in my system, and I’m consciously smiling or laughing at situations that are usually great reasons for me to get worked up and bent out of shape — often over nothing. Just getting out from under the little black clouds that seem to follow me everywhere, even for a few short moments, has been helping a lot. And a simple smile — even if no one is around — has the surprising ability to change my perspective just enough to find something else to focus on — besides the WTF?!

Not freaking out over losing my grip on a dish… not blowing up over every little thing… actually feeling relaxed in the face of stress and drama… what a concept.

I could get used to this. It feels pretty awesome.

 

Whatever I want it to be…

The last day of a long week. After another long week before that…. and another long week before that…. Come to think of it, February was a long month. The shortest month of the year was the longest, experience-wise. And packed full of new details. And as stressful as it was exciting. A real roller-coaster ride, if I say so.

I’m sure things will settle down as we move forward and people find their place. At least we have our job responsibilities clearly (well, sort of) outlined and described in our HR “goals and objectives” system. And it’s pretty good, when I step back and take the view of someone who is just passing through, rather than chained to this galley bench till the end of the sea voyage.

A lot of folks at work are incredibly stressed out over everything. There are adjustments going on with everyone, and tempers run hot at times. People are tired and long-term stressed, and we all know what happens when that happens. Unfortunate things are said and done, and then everyone gets all worked up over this, that, and the other thing. Over nothing, really… And then the fur flies, and people dig in, trying to justify why they did or said that stupid thing, 15 minutes ago… and a whole elaborate conceptual framework gets built up around people trying to defend a position they know is not right to begin with, just because they feel they need to defend it or they will lose face, lose ground, and not have the same standing with others that they want to have.

Some call it “ego”. I call it a heavy-duty bias towards the sympathetic nervous system — you know, that fight-flight-freeze response that is all but out of our control… but we can manage and modulate with the right approach(es). Some people spiral out of control in a downward slide, when things change or go wrong, while others find ways to work through them and come out on the other side in one piece. In my former life before my TBI in 2004, I was the kind of person who could deal. I could handle things that came down the pike that threw other people for a loop, and I prided myself in that ability. After I fell in 2004, that all went out the window, and I lost myself in the increasingly stressful details of my everyday life. I felt terrible about myself, I felt like I was useless, couldn’t handle anything, and that I was good for nothing to anybody anymore. It took such a toll on my self-esteem and ability to interact with others… and I built up this whole new self-perception that just wasn’t accurate. I believed that the way I acted under circumstances in a given moment, was an indicator of who I was all the time — and that messed with my head like nothing else.

Now I know that my perceptions just were not true. I can be however I want to be, and I can interpret situations however I want to. I am not chained to any one version of reality, and in fact so much of what we call “Reality” is just a conditioned response that makes us feel a certain way. Our body chemistry — like a radio — gets tuned to a certain frequency, and even if we don’t like the music at first, we get used to it. And then when we’re in that “frequency,” if it feels right, then we think that what we’re thinking and feeling and observing is true. Our systems are built to acclimate to “normal” circumstances and then reinforce us when we are in that “normal” zone.

But the thing is, all that “normalcy” is nothing more than habit. We just get used to things being a certain way, and when they’re not that way anymore, we freak out – to a greater or lesser degree. Our freak-outs can range from general discomfort… to cranky-bitchiness… to outright meltdowns. And you know what? It’s not the external circumstances that are to blame. It’s our own internal reactions to them.  We are just so accustomed to our own internal reactions and our own “scema” of “reality” that we take them for granted, and they never get questioned until something changes that doesn’t synch up with our assumptions. And 9 times out of 10, rather than blaming our assumptions, we blame the thing that changed — something outside ourselves — for the problem. It couldn’t possibly be us… right?

Now don’t get me wrong. I do think that a lot of external circumstances are genuinely stress producing and can make us miserable, no matter how well-prepared or well-tuned we are. It’s just how we’re built. And obviously something like an earthquake or flood or tornado or organizational “redesign” at work will throw you for a loop. But we often make things harder for ourselves than need be, with our reactions and our determination to interpret things in the old way — which stopped being valid, the minute things changed.

The point is, we always have a choice about how we’re going to interpret the world around us. We’re not locked into any one “real” way of thinking or doing or being. There is no such thing. And the things we believe are true, are more true to our biochemistry than they are to our actual circumstances. Especially in America, we tend to believe the more true and real and authentic something feels, the more true it must BE. And yet our feelings stem from habits we’ve become biochemically attached to, along with the reactions that we have that reinforce our biochemical experiences. They’re real. They’re visceral. And they can really save our asses in a pinch when we don’t have time to think through things. But as a way of living life… going by gut feeling and sensation alone can get you into real trouble.

Anyway, today is a new day, and I am taking special care to watch out for what I’m thinking and saying and feeling and doing about things. In the past years of my recovery from TBI, a lot has changed in my mind about my life and what it’s all about — a lot has changed about who I am and what I am all about. The bottom line is, I get to choose today, how I will feel and how I will interpret things around me. It’s a dramatic time with work changing so drastically, and it’s a hard time for so many people around me (including myself).

For today, this day isn’t just about stress and anxiety and change. It’s about opportunity and potential and growth. There are elements of both sides in all this, and there’s a lot that’s out of my control. I have been having headaches. I am generally exhausted. I have a pretty short fuse, these days. And my light and noise sensitivity is pretty amped up, these days.

But there’s also a lot of good in my life, and spring is on they way. It’s my choice how I feel about things, and it’s my choice what I focus on.

Onward.

Keeping calm, keeping focused

I work with a handful of people who are constantly going-going-going. Their jobs are very involved and very demanding, and they also have a very close-knit team. They deal with a lot of different types of people on a daily basis, and they have a lot of agitation from the people they work with. One of the people who causes them agitation is me. I work with them on certain projects that are always time-sensitive and mission-critical, and which they are very much invested in.

I do like them, and I think they’ve got a great team. The one thing I don’t care for, is their need to be constantly ON, constantly up in arms about something, constantly stressed. Come to think of it, a lot of people I work with are like that — mainly because they have come up with some fixed idea in their minds about what should be done, and how it should be done, and they are practically welded to that fixed idea… and damn all evidence that it might not be as mission-critical as they believe it is.

Okay, so in fairness to everyone, their compensation is directly tied to what they deliver, when they deliver it, and how many victories they can declare in a set amount of time. Everybody wants to make a decent living, and everybody needs to pay their bills.

I’m just saying that the level of intensity and drama gets to be a little much, after a while, and despite their apparent belief that staying stressed and anxious and pumped, 60 hours a week, is the way to go, I know differently. At least, if you’re interested in having a long and healthy life. Stress and lack of sleep does terrible things to the body and the mind. The research is finally showing it, and people are finally paying attention. The thing of it is, our culture, our society (American, that is) has such an investment in high stress situations — work hard, play hard, with nothing in between — that to suggest something different might be in order is seen as, well, un-American. And we can’t have that.

You know, it’s kind of bizarre, actually… this fascination with stress. Then again, it isn’t. I know full well what it’s like to really feed on that sensation, to be constantly pushed forward — on-on-on, go-go-go — and never take your eye off the prize, no matter what’s going on around you. I know what it’s like to use stress as a potent pain-killer, to rely on it for my energy and my sense of purpose, to really soak it up and feel the power of a sustained, intense adrenaline rush. And I know why it’s so important to people who are continually rewarded — by themselves and their sense of self — for that kind of living.

Yeah, I know what that’s like, and I know what it’s like to crave that, to live for it, and to think that anyone who isn’t all about that is just plain lazy. Or stupid. Or unmotivated. Or whatever else you can think of that implies they’re not quite all there. And I know how hard it can be to disengage from that way of life, to either wean yourself off it, or go cold-turkey. I know how painful it can be, how frustrating, how alienating it can be.

But I also know what that kind of living does to you, internally and externally. I know what it can lead to, and I know what it can cost you. I know why people end up in mid-life crises, when they’ve been running at top speed for a couple of decades, then suddenly look around and realize — hey, this isn’t exactly what I was hoping for, when I started out down this road…

Most of all, I know that I would probably still be on that hamster wheel, grinding away day after day, if I hadn’t fallen, 8 years ago, and had everything start to disintegrate around me. I know that I would probably be looking around and wondering WTF?!  when all my best-laid plans failed to come through, despite my herculean efforts, and I know that I’d probably be queueing up with my peers to buy some shiny, sexy object to boost my self-image, if I hadn’t fallen and been rendered incapable of keeping up that pace.

Right now, my attention is focused on staying calm in the midst of the storm. Because things are crazy, right now, and everyone around me is melting down in the adjustments to the New Way Things Are. Some are handling things better than others. Most people are alternately bitching and complaining and venting, and putting their heads down and driving through. They’re finding relief in drinking or some pharmaceutical solution, or they’re prepping their resumes to move on. In any case, there aren’t that many people who are truly chilling through it all.

But that’s my goal — to chill, through it all. To treat it like a movie I’m watching and not get too invested in the day-to-day drama and whatnot. There’s no resisting these changes, no matter how hard they are for us… and in the meantime, life goes on, we go about our business, live our lives, and if we’re lucky, we get a few things done. And then try to explain why the other things didn’t get done.

Anyway, speaking of getting things done, it’s time for me to get ready for work and head into the fray again. I know how important it is to stay chilled, to stay steady, to not get too tweaked over everything, and I’m stepping up my breathing and relaxation activities to offset the drama. Truly, it is helping me… and keeping track of how I’m doing physically — if I’m tense, if I’m not really breathing much, if I’m getting agitated and worked up — is helping me to manage my physical state, which also helps me manage the changes around me.

Keeping my heart rate steady… keeping my stress response chilled… keeping my head about me, and working at being resilient… these are my intentions and my focus, these days.

And it’s helping. It sure beats the alternative.

 

I used to care… now I take a pill for that ;)

A little helper…

I recently saw this slogan on a t-shirt, and it made me laugh. And then I found this image >>

It’s kind of how I’m feeling, these days. Work is a roller-coaster with all the changes going on. One minute, I’ve got a promotion… the next, I might be re-assigned to my old work, but I don’t know yet for sure… the next, people are talking trash about me behind my back… the next, they’re all nice and friendly and how-can-I-help-you.

Geez. What a monumental waste of time. I mean, I’ve got to make a living. Everybody’s got to make a living. But doing the whole political dance and song just irritates the living crap out of me.

So, I’m not going to bother. People at work are understandably anxious, upset, etc. I have too much work to do, to get into that. Life goes on. Things change. If someone can decide what the hell they want to happen, and then let me know, that will be great.

I seriously need a pill for this stuff. Because it’s taking a toll on my home life. I have been extremely difficult to live with, for the past few days — meltdowns coming out of nowhere — blindside — and a whole lot of anxiety all around, because of things in the past that seem like they’re happening all over again.

God, what a pain in the ass this TBI business is. I used to be better at this, but in the past years, I’ve become stupidly erratic with this stuff, and I find myself blowing up over stupid things that shouldn’t even phase me. If I could just have some peace… but all around me, I have to constantly parse out the messages and communications and signals from anxious, nervous, frightened people who are doing and saying some very unpredictable things. Sure, I can offer them some reassurance, and they can offer me good information. But it takes a lot of energy. And that drains me. I know I’m supposed to have “peace from within”… But all the extra activity demands more of my energy and attention, and it makes me nuts. It sucks the life out of what I want to be doing, and it just depletes me, so I have even less resources available for my loved ones. My moods are all over the place, my anxiety and temper has been spiking, and I am having trouble sleeping.

Others have this, I know — TBI or not — yet with me it gets so amplified, so exaggerated, and it also brings up a lot of old “stuff” about all the changes that put me over the edge, when I was first grappling with the TBI I had in 2004. That was brutal. Terrible. Life-threatening. And there’s still the residue of that old biochemical crap that’s rattlin’ ’round in my nervous system.

Joy.

If only a pill could make it all go away… but I know it can’t and it won’t. Plus, TBI makes me extremely sensitive to pharmaceuticals, so even if there were a pill for this, I probably couldn’t take it without it completely knocking me for a loop, which is never good.

Anyway, so it goes. Life goes on. Changes happen. The main thing is that I keep calm and centered and don’t lose it over stupid sh*t… and that I don’t project and make all sorts of scenarios up in my mind, which is the most dangerous thing of all. Because then I end up reacting to all sorts of things that never will happen, and I waste a ton of energy on stuff that should not even be on my radar.

The least (and most) I can do is just keep steady and only think about the things that actually ARE happening. Right here, right now, right in front of me. To do anything else, would be punishing myself unnecessarily. And there’s no point in that. After all, when I punish myself, it’s not only me who suffers — it’s everyone around me who has to deal with a lunatic who’s unbalanced themself over nothing much at all.

Ah well. So it goes.

Onward.

Rolling with the changes

Roll with it

So, the new managers from HQ have returned to their homes, and we have one last day with the old boss — who is definitely not the same as the new uber-boss. In spite of the uncertainty and the stress of dramatic change, I am very glad that this change is happening at work. I feel like I can breathe again. Literally.

I hadn’t realized just how strongly I had been affected by the behavior and demeanor of the old uber-boss. They were just so manic. Always pushing and pushing and pushing and instigating and maneuvering and working an angle and promoting their agenda, which has seldom been the same as the company’s agenda. It’s been very stressful to walk that fine line between what the uber-boss tells you you’re supposed to do, and what the company (and their boss) expects of you. Frankly, it’s really screwed up the past two years of my performance – I haven’t been able to serve two masters effectively, but that’s exactly what I’ve had to do.

I think those days are behind me, and I’m feeling pretty positive about this change.

One more day with the uber-boss in the house. One more day…

They’re not a bad person, just problematic. And badly behaved. Hurt and insecure and passive-aggressive. They are also in a marriage that doesn’t work for them, which I’m sure contributes to their level of stress and their bad behavior.

Anyway, that is nearly behind me now, and it’s time to move on to what’s next. What’s happening now. I have a lot to catch up on, and now that there isn’t constant interference and people constantly trying to steer me in the wrong direction, I can relax.

And stretch. Last night when I got home from work, I was so wiped out. But then I stretched a bit, and it felt like some life was coming back to me. I have been so tense, and I didn’t even realize it. Or maybe I did realize it but I figured that’s just how things were, so there was nothing I could do aside from accept it. So I just went with it and tried to do what damage control I could.

Now I feel like I am out of damage control mode, and I’m loosening up again. Stretching my tight and tense muscles, cracking my joints, feeling my whole body loosening up. I don’t feel like I have to be in a protective state anymore, always braced for what new foolishness is coming down the pike, and it’s pretty great. All these changes, I can take, because it’s not personal anymore. It’s not individual. We’re all in the same boat, trying to keep afloat and move in the right direction, which is a very different scene than it was before.

So, change… I do need to take care of myself, and make sure I get some good sleep this weekend. I am listing all the things I need to do this weekend, making my schedule now, so I don’t have to think about it for the next two days. Just do it. I’ve got to replace some insulation in my basement, and clean up a bunch of crap, so I can move things around and have a decent living space. I also need to get some extra sleep — a nap on both afternoons, if at all possible — and get some exercise, too. I am feeling a lot of energy coming back to me, and I need to pace myself, so I don’t wear myself out. It’s all very exciting and dynamic; I just need to make sure I don’t over-extend myself in all the excitement.

Fortunately, that seems to be the direction that our new management is going – they don’t want to move too fast and make changes too quickly. And that’s good. It will give us time to adjust and adapt and figure things out as we go along. I’m sure there will be conflicts and confusion along the way, but in the end, I do believe it will all work out okay.

Of holidays, distraction, and career choices – a holiday saga

Very cute and cheery, but very distracting

One of the worst things about the holidays for me, is how distracting the whole experience can be. I don’t live close to my family — in more ways than one. I have a very technical career that is nothing like what the teachers and preachers and caregivers in my family pursue. I also live in an area that is more affluent than theirs, and I have very different values and priorities than when I was younger and living at home.

And in the course of my normal everyday life, that’s fine. I am aligned with my own values and I am on my own track and path. I have my plans and my desired direction, and I stick with it. I have my daily routine. I have my priorities clear. And I take definite steps in the direction of my choosing.

But during the holidays, all that changes. It begins with Halloween, when my regular schedule is up-ended by the sudden appearance of “seasonal” distractions — in grocery stores, things get moved around, candy starts to appear, all sorts of new items appear on the shelves, and I have to adjust my usual course through the store to find what I want — as well as block out the distractions of Halloween items which just take more time to think about and parse.

Thanksgiving isn’t much better. If anything, it’s worse, because there’s travel to families involved, and usually in the aftermath, I get sick. And I stay sick for the month of December, which frankly really sucks and makes it harder to just live my life. Also dealing with my family, even though I do love them and enjoy being around them, is a huge time and energy sink. Plus, when I am around my family, my focus gets diluted, I start to think about how things were with me when I was younger, and my values and priorities shift a little bit to be more like they used to be — as in, I start to think more about writing that novel, and less about honing my technical skills. I start to think in broader, more abstract ways, rather than in specific, concrete ways. My family is a very heady bunch of people, with very strong beliefs that I used to agree with and relate to. Being away from them and their way of life, it is relatively easy to focus on my own priorities and tend to the things that matter most to me. Being out of my element, in their midst, throws me off – as little else can.

Family is really important… at the same time, it can be a real hindrance. Especially when everyone in your family thinks of you in a certain way — and that way only. They don’t think about me as a person who has to get more sleep than most. They don’t think of me as a person who is easily fatigued and overwhelmed. They don’t think of me as someone who needs a little extra time to cover all my cognitive bases when I am making decisions or doing something new. And they don’t think of me as someone who needs to make adjustments in my work, because the way I think and feel and relate to the world requires that I make those adjustments to take care of myself.

My mother can’t wrap her head around me needing naps in the afternoon while I’m at work. My father doesn’t get why I work such long hours and stay so late, to avoid traffic. My siblings all seem to think that I live this charmed life of affluence and ease, because I have no kids. I haven’t told everyone about my TBIs — just my parents and one sibling. But the ones I’ve told still aren’t getting it. They’ve made it clear that they’re not going to even make the effort, and that’s that.

So, I do the best I can with what I have with these folks. I love my family and I love spending time with them. At the same time, though, their way of life and their philosophies and their orientation to, well, just about everything, is sharply different from my own — and many of the differences have to do with the accommodations I have to make for myself, and the lack of energy I have to go “bounding about” doing mental gymnastics about things that I don’t believe anyone truly understands, anyway. Maybe my life is simpler, because I’ve let go of a lot of devotion to holding specific opinions and wanting to figure everything out. Come to think of it, I’m sure it is.

It’s having to deal with my family’s devotion to being “Right” and figuring things out, that is so exhausting for me. ‘Cause then I have to re-orient myself to myself and my own beliefs and priorities, all over again after the holidays.

I realized, over this past weekend, how much Thanksgiving threw me off, when I went down to visit my family. It’s like getting pulled back in time… and then having to extract myself from the sticky goo of my past. In a way, it was good that I traveled, after I got back from Thanksgiving, because it gave me time to reset my mental compass. But now I’m sick, and I’m looking ahead to another trip down to my family, and it’s starting to get on my nerves.

Ah, well — so go the holidays. And at least I’m aware of how much my family re-calibrates my thinking when I am with them… so when I get back from the Christmas trip, I can dig in again and work on my job skills, rather than thinking about that novel I was going to write, that I was so sure would be a best-seller. Cripes, but there’s a lot swirling in my head that I need to manage.

And it’s pretty much stress-related. I find that when I am really stressed, I turn to writing fiction for relief. I start writing novels. Or short stories. It calms me. It gives me another place to “go”. But it also distracts me from doing what I need to do. The rush I get from starting something new is a powerful opiate for me. It dulls the pain and gets me thinking about all the new possibilities in life. But after the newness wears off, it’s just another thing I have to do — and it just drags me down.

So, enough of the novel-writing. At least for the next six months. If I’m ever in a position to just kick back and spend hours on end doing nothing, and my job situation is secure and stable, and I don’t have pressing financial needs, I’ll turn to writing fiction. But until that time, I need to keep steady in what I have been planning and working on for the past months — beefing up my technical skills, focusing on certain specific areas where I feel I can really contribute and make a positive difference, and worrying about a decent paycheck, not whether to write in first or second or third person.

One thing I know for sure, that is giving me a great deal of comfort — I would much rather be an individual contributor and work with numbers and code, than deal with people each and every day. I don’t want to be a manager. I want to make things, create things, invent things, render things. I want to interact with machines that will just tell me yes/no… instead of the endless dancing around all the issues and the nuances of human interaction. It’s just too stressful for me. It’s just no fun. It might look more impressive to the rest of the world, but it’s not what I want to do with myself.

I DO know what I want to do with myself. And that is a huge comfort. Especially on days like today, when everybody is clamoring for some sort of overdue thing, they’re getting snotty and irate because it’s closing down on year-end and they haven’t met all their goals, and I feel like I’m going to fall over and/or throw up.

I DO know that I’m outa there in the spring. I will have my skills in place adequately to do just that. I DO know where I’m going to focus my attention, and I DO know how important it is to not lose my train of thought again. I’m also aware — more than ever — of how distracting my family is for me, when it comes to living my life. I have to sorta kinda guard myself from their well-intentioned “guidance” and fend off their “caring” interference. They mean well. I know that. But they just don’t help, when it comes to making decisions about where I need to go next in my life.

Maybe it all boils down to possibility and opportunity. I know I live in a much wider world than they do, and I am much more hooked into what else is possible for me. I need to keep that in mind, as I move forward.

And so I shall. The last big trip of the holidays is coming up, and I’ll be seeing a lot of family — both sides, actually — on the road. My spouse’s family is much more supportive of my career than my birth family, so that will be a relief to be with them. I will need to create some sort of reminder for myself about what truly matters, over the coming months, and I will need to be careful to keep on track, so I don’t get pulled off the rails too much — or at the very least, I can get back on track after the trip is over. I’ll have to think about how to do that… it may be a real challenge. But then, real challenges are usually easier for me to handle than the “easy-peasy” ones. So, my task is clear.

Onward.

On-ward.

 

Homeward bound

This Thanksgiving has been a good one. It’s been a whirlwind tour, and it’s been completely exhausting, but I have held up remarkably well, I’ve taken good care of myself, and I haven’t had any terrible breakdowns, as in years past.

So, for that I am very thankful.

I got to see family members who live far from me. Got to reconnect, had some good times playing games and visiting. There’s a lot about this that makes me sad and angry and upset, but when I am rested, I can handle it.

So, I’m handling it.

I’ve been taking regular naps — yesterday I didn’t get one, but that’s okay. I’ve also been pacing myself and making sure I step away on a regular basis. I don’t feel the need to force myself into the fray constantly. And the old pressure to pack as much visiting in as humanly possible, has given way to common sense and a better pace.

I’m pretty well exhausted from it all, but I’m doing my breathing exercises, and I’m getting regular brisk morning walks up a very large hill, which is helping a great deal.

I’m headed home this afternoon, and I’m looking forward to having my life back – in my own home, with my own food, my own bed, my own schedule, in my own way.

It’s been good here. And it’s enough.