A Beehive State of Mind

 Each morning, shortly after I wake up, I wish I were in Utah.

Sometimes while I'm peeing. Sometimes while I'm showering. Sometimes while I'm brushing my teeth. Always withing twenty minutes of rising out of my bed.

During the rest of the day, thoughts of Utah intrude. Over and over again.

I wish I were in Utah as I turn off the lights and close my eyes.

As I've written in the past, I have not plans to send myself to Utah, but many times a day, I wish I were already there.

You Don't Pass or Fail This Test.

It's been nearly six months since I did an autism assessment and my therapist suggested that I write this down because of, you know, dwelling.

I decided to share this because most of the information I found about doing autism assessments as an adult came from the UK. Having both public and private healthcare options at least gives some options. Also, the UK is less than 100,000 square miles. The state I live in, in the USA, is more than half again as big.

I expect that this will be long, disjointed, ramble-y, and that I'll go off topic.

So, a bit over 14 months ago I did a treatment called transcranial magnetic stimulation to try to help me with chronic depression. I got the treatment each weekday for 7 weeks. Once a week I would "meet" with two doctors via teleconference for 5-15 minutes. During the fourth or fifth meeting one of the doctors suddenly asked if I was autistic. The question seemed to come out of nowhere, especially because this doctor had only spoken with me for less than an hour over the course of several weeks. It made me wonder, though.

The next time I saw my General Practitioner, I mentioned it to her and she jumped on the idea. She said I should absolutely do it, with hardly a thought. One thing to understand is that I've known my GP since we were in high school together. We were friendly, but not friends. It was a friend-of-a-friend thing. Still, she's known me for more than 20 years and her quick reaction was intriguing and scary.

I went home and started to research what went in to getting an assessment as an adult because most assessments out there are for children and most clinics and doctors don't do adult assessments. I found some blogs and videos made by people who had an adult assessment, all from the UK. So, more research for USA assessments.

Here's what I found: None of the clinics and doctors I found who do autism assessments for adults take insurance, only cash. None of the clinics or doctors I found online would do an in-person assessment, only telehealth.

Fun fact about me: I HATE teleconferences. HATE them! Camera comes on and faces appear on screen and my brain starts screaming, "GET OFF! GET OFF! JUST SAY WHAT YOU NEED TO END THIS!" Not exactly what you want to have going on in your brain while going through a psychological assessment. Hard to give honest and complete answers.

My therapist didn't know of any local or local-ish options either. Autism is not her specialty.

The next time I saw my GP she asked me about my research. I told her I hadn't found anyone I could go to. She pulled out her phone and gave me the contact information for the PsyD who had recently done assessments for her wife and son. He wasn't local, but she assured me that he'd see me in person.

And so, I contacted the PsyD. Like everyone else, he did not take insurance, but his rates weren't horrible and I'm fortunate to have some savings. I scheduled three appointments, two for assessment times and one for the results. I could have done all the assessment in one go, but thought that a 4-5 hour appointment wouldn't be a good thing after the drive I was going to make. Also, I had to book hotels. Hooray! Now I have even less savings.

Anyway...

The title of this post was one of the first things the PsyD said to me when we started the autism assessment. I suppose it's a good thing to say to most people. I, however, went into the assessment not knowing the answer that I wanted. Without that, how could there be a pass or fail?

Anyway...

The assessment was sort of a lot of different games.

There was a set of letters and numbers on a page. I connected the numbers in sequence. Then I connected number 1 to letter A to number 2 to letter B and so on. These were timed.

The PsyD put a finger through holes in a piece of paper and then I repeated it.

There was a sort of Guess Who game. A series of images and I had to ask yes/no questions until I figured out what the PsyD had picked. I don't remember if I only had a certain number of questions. I don't think there was, though, because I figured them all out, eventually.

There was pattern recognition stuff. I got a series of images and had to pick the next one. I was given a bunch of cubes that were red and white then had to recreate the pictures that were on the tablet. It reminded me a lot of the tangram game that I used to play as a kid, Tangoes.

I did a couple of series of math and word problems. There was a word game where the PsyD would use a made-up word, like clest, and I'd have to guess the meaning and then the PsyD would give a sentence to add context and I'd guess again and a new sentence and a new guess for five or six times.

There were some listening exercises. One was the PsyD giving me instructions and then asking what the fourth step was or what was supposed to be done after such-and-such. Another was a series of recordings and answering questions about what was said.

Between the "games," the PsyD asked general knowledge questions. History. Life skills.

We discussed sensory sensitivities. Smells I don't like. How I reacted to noises. Textures that I can't stand. The fact that I don't like touching people or being touched by people. The difficulties of eye contact and the methods one can use so other people think you're looking at their eyes.

We talked about my enjoyment for fictious histories (science fiction, fantasy, and super-heroes especially) and my occasional obsessions over minutiae.

We also talked about the patterns I follow and how I park five minutes away from my office, out in the dirt, because I get to park in the same place 99 days out of 100 and my reactions to that 1 day that I can't park in my usual spot.

I also spent a while explaining, as I have for every mental health professional I've ever spoken with, the difference between being alone and being lonely and how being alone doesn't mean being lonely. It's discussion that is always, unfortunately, necessary.

I did several written self-assessments. One for depression. A couple on autistic traits. A few others for general emotional and intellectual health.

My favorite part of the assessment were the story telling sections because I really enjoy stories. For the first I was given a drawing and asked to explain what was happening and why in the picture. For the second I was given a picture book and asked to tell a story using the images; this was hard because I didn't know what was going to appear when I turned the page. Why the heck was there a knight from a chess game after the third page turn, but not on the ones before it and how do I fit it into the story I'd already started to tell. For the third and final story telling section I was given a bag of objects and told to pick five to use to tell a story.

During my assessment, the PsyD four times said, "Not in [blah blah] years of giving this test has anyone [blah blah]." I'm not sure how I feel about it now. I wasn't sure how to feel about it then.

The first and second times were during general knowledge questions.

The first was "Who is Catherine the Great?" I knew she was an Empress of Russia. He said no one had ever correctly answered the before. And I guess that's okay. We're in the USA and, in my experience, people in the US don't know US history very well. I wouldn't expect the average person in the US to know European history. The PsyD asked me if I knew it because of the interest in general history we'd established I have. I had to say "No" because I researched who she was after hearing the lyrics "And if you think of her as Catherine the Great / Then you should be the horse to help her meet her fate" from the song "Go Home" by Barenaked Ladies. I wanted to get the joke. What do you mean most people don't break out an encyclopedia to research the historical allusions in pop rock songs?

The second time came when I was asked at what temperature water boils. I answered, "212 degrees Fahrenheit at sea level." He paused and looked at me and looked at his computer and looked at me again and said that no one had ever qualified the temperature at sea level when he'd asked the question. This did surprise me. I assumed that autistic people would be more likely to be precise in answering questions. Maybe it has to be a question about something you're really interested in though? I'm interested in preserving foods. You have to lengthen canning times at higher elevations because water boils at lower temperatures due to lower air pressure and you need to make sure you heat everything enough to kill the bad bacteria and whatnots. At the elevation I live at, water boils around 206 degrees Fahrenheit and I need to add several minutes to the canning times. Don't even get me started on pressure canning low acid foods: gotta adjust the PSI to make sure water doesn't even start boiling until it's close to 240 degrees Fahrenheit. Learn more!

The third time was while I was filling out a written assessment. It was a rate the statement from never to always and one of the questions read: "Daydreaming; spiciness" and I was like WTF? Okay, so, one of the reasons that I went to see a PsyD whose practice is nearly 400 miles away from where I live is because he was the only one who I spoke to who was willing to do the assessment in person. Everyone else said video conference only. Being in person would allow a level of comfort so I would ask questions when I had a hard time understanding what part of some questions were important. And this one was the most baffling to me. Daydreaming? Semicolon? Spiciness? Was it supposed to be about? Daydreaming about Thai food? Daydreaming about sexiness? Was it about a choice: daydreaming or spiciness? So, I asked, "Spiciness?" and he said, "What?" and I lifted the paper and pointed to the question and I said, "Spiciness." He took the test from me and read over the question. After a bit he said, "I've been using this test for 10 years and never noticed that before. No one's pointed it out." He told me to pick the middle score so it would balance out. To this day, I wonder, was it part of the test to see if a person would just answer the question without asking about it? It's hard for me to believe that no one else who's taken this exam wasn't confused by "Daydreaming; spiciness." Other people had to wonder, right? Were they just afraid to ask?

The fourth time was during the final story part of the assessment. As written above, I got to choose 5 objects from a bag full of stuff and was told to tell a story that used the objects. I very carefully chose objects that I believed would be found together. Objects I've seen sitting on kitchen or coffee table. I proceeded to tell a story about the objects and how they tried to help each other. I made sure that they all interacted with one another and gave them traits to make them unique. I even brought the story to an end where a couple of the characters were physically and/or emotionally changed. The PsyD said that it may have been the most creative story that he'd ever heard in his time doing this kind of assessment. I'll admit that his statement made me feel really good. Like I wrote earlier, I like stories. I like to experience them. I like talking about them. I like telling them. It's always nice to know that I've done a good job.

One thing, though, on my drive away, maybe an hour later, it occurred to me that there were no humans in my story. I anthropomorphized the objects, but I could have told a story about a person using the objects. As I drove, I thought about the objects that were in the bag and figured out what story I would have told if it had occurred to me to tell a story about humans. I wondered, and still wonder, if anthropomorphizing was more "normal" or more on the spectrum.

The next week I made the long drive again to get my results.

The PsyD began by reminding me that you don't pass or fail this test. He gave me a paper copy of my results and a pen for taking notes. He then said that if there was a scale from 0-10 for autism, he'd rank me as a 3.

After I sat with this information for a little while, I told him I was ready to move on and we went through the results page by page.

We played a game that was sort of like Guess Who? except it had all sorts of things, not just people. While looking over the objects, I noticed that if I asked one question the choices would go from a lot (I want to say 36ish?) to six or seven choices. (I think it was asking if if the choice had wings.) So, that was my first question each time. It worked once out of the three or four times we played, but it worked. When I got my assessment results this way of playing was considered an autistic tendency. When I asked him why he basically said that the first question should have been the one that eliminated half the choices each time. (That question would have been asking if the choice is living.)

This confused me because why is asking one question considered an autistic trait while asking another is not? Either way you are just asking the same question each time you begin. I've played Guess Who? for years with wide variety of ages (It's something that happens when you're the oldest cousin and the youngest is more than 20 years younger than you are.) and the most common question is asking if you are a boy or a girl because you can knock down half of your tiles. But if you ask if they have facial hair you can cut the choices down to five. When you win, you win big. And since the other player's choice is a random card, they can't fight your pattern. The PsyD got to choose the item each time.

Logically, I know that trying to cut the choices in half each time is probably the best play, but it feel so good when your first question knocks down 21 tile. Maybe I'm trying to rationalize away an autistic trait. Maybe it's a stupid data point in the assessment. I'm going to continue to ask if their card has facial hair, first.

Something that surprised me was learning that part of the assessment was an intelligence test. He said it was a standard thing.

I want to make it clear here that I am not bragging, but I'm afraid that it may come off as bragging or whining about something that I should be proud of/grateful for.

There are five parts to the intelligence test. I scored very well on two parts. On one part I scored very, very well. On the other two parts I scored just fine.

The PsyD told me that this is probably one of the reasons I have trouble connecting with people. He said that I process information differently, faster than most people and that sets me apart from them. This, he explained, is one of the things that makes me so different from everyone else.

He meant this as a good thing. A way that I could better understand myself. Maybe even something to be proud of.

But, for me, this is the most wounding part of the assessment. Learning whether or not I am on the spectrum was the point on this. Learning that I am different in a way that's... I dunno. Let me explain a bit of my insanity:

One of my greatest desires, for as long as I can remember, was to be "normal." Or at least perceived to be "normal" by people.

Why?

Well, because being normal means you're left alone. Ignored. You're safe. I want to fade into the background and be barely noticed.

Because I've been fat for as long as I can remember (my clothes came from a special aisle of the kids clothing section), I could never really be "normal" by just keeping my mouth shut. I had to work at it.

When I learned that it was "weird" for a kid to take ball and bounce it alone in the corner of the playground, I discovered that if I stood in line for 4-square or tetherball I didn't have to speak with the other kids, but everyone thought I was interacting. Bam! "Normal"!

When I learned that you weren't supposed to watch TV shows that were geared toward younger kids or kids who weren't of your perceived gender... well, I didn't stop watching those shows because I enjoyed them. I watched the shows with giant robots and lasers, and the shows with groups of friends in rainbow colors, sometimes also in fruit flavors, who would offer the villains friendship, and the shows that taught kids numbers and letters and empathy, but I didn't talk about two out of the three groups of shows with people who were outside of my family.

When I was outright told by other kids, of all genders, that it was wrong for me spend time with people who weren't of my perceived gender, I stopped spending time, outside of the classroom, with those who weren't of my perceived gender. This one hurt because I couldn't spend time with people I liked and I believe genuinely liked me. I still feel guilty over this, but I didn't want to stand out.

I want to make this clear: wanting to be "normal" is wrong and stupid and a lot of exhausting work. I don't want anyone out there to be something other than themselves. I want my siblings and parents and nephews and niece to be happy with who they are. I want this for everyone out there.

The good news is that I don't have to put on this kind of a show as much. Not because I've gotten over it, but because as I've gotten older, I'm less required to be social.

Also, I want to say that I never felt wrong or bad being me. I enjoyed bouncing a ball by myself. I enjoyed the TV shows and people I enjoyed. I'm cool with my sexuality and gender (once I learned there were words for who I am). It's always been for other people so that I could feel safe.

Anyway...

I've known I'm officially on the spectrum for about six months and I still don't know what to think about it or how to... I don't know, understand it?

I've visited websites and forums, but they haven't been helpful. There are a lot of people out there who tell others that they aren't being autistic properly. You should do this. You shouldn't do that. You're hurting other autistic people by just trying to live your life comfortably and safely.

Maybe my therapist is right. Maybe getting this out of me will help. Not right now, but maybe tomorrow?

Less Than 4 Hours To Go In My Wedge Of The World

 When your day begins with disappointment because you wake up, you'd think that what happens the rest of the day wouldn't effect you. It does, though.

Here's to a new year of hoping for the best and not quite being prepared for the worst!

CBT

Why do psychiatrists always insist on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy after a thirty minute meeting?

I HATE Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. HATE IT!

It's like being given hours of homework for the subject you hate most.

Assignment 1: Do something you hate doing it.

(After Assignment 1: Feel bad about myself.)

Assignment 2: Do something else you hate doing.

(After Assignment 2: Feel bad about myself.)

Theory: Do the things you hate doing over and over and you'll rewire your brain and you'll enjoy it.

FUCK YOU!

Always Tired

 It's been more than five years and nine months since I wrote this post about now I had been tired for more than five years. I'm sorry to say that I have not gotten any better since I wrote that post.

I don't think I've completed reading a novel in that time. I believe the travel book that I keep in my car is the same one that I was reading way back then. The idea behind the car book is to have something to read while I'm waiting for appointments or for take-out to be made or to read before a movie and eventually I'd finish and move on to something else. It used to take me about a year to finish a car book.

I get enough sleep.

Before I did TMS I was sleeping between 11 and 14 hour each night. Even on weekdays. I would go to sleep that early. After TMS my sleep adjusted and I sleep between seven and nine hours a night.

Still always tired.

On a good day, it's just being tired. On a bad day, it is straight up exhaustion.

Doctors, for the brain and the body, have been of no use.

Not currently on any brain medication. Haven't been on any since October or November of 2024.

No trips to Utah planned.

Be well.

To Use an Old Metaphor

I have no plans to go to Utah. However, I think about going to Utah everyday and often desperately wish I were there already.

It’s Been Awhile

The short: lithium poisoning.

It's a interesting experience to be sent to the emergency room, get interviewed by the check-in nurse, then be pushed to the front of the line, in front of people with their arms wrapped in bloody dishtowels, because your brain isn't working properly.

But the poisoning isn't what I'm here to write about.

In my ongoing attempt to correct my brain problems, I spent seven weeks doing TMS. Five days a week I had an electromagnet put to my for up to 20 minutes. Once a week, I met with two doctors who run the clinic, but weren't actually at the clinic because their main office is in another city, to check my progress. When it was becoming clear the I had no progress, the doctors started bringing up possibilities for what is causing my brain problem. After discussion, one of the doctors asked me if I am autistic.

This caught me off-guard.

To the best of my knowledge, autism is not a cause of major depressive disorder. Autism does not cause a person to wake up just as exhausted as you were when you went to sleep. Autism does not cause you to sleep more than 12+ hours a night, if you don't have an alarm to wake you up. Again, to the best of my knowledge. These are the things that I was hoping TMS would help fix.

And yet, it stuck with me because I have... tendencies.

Last year, I brought up autism to a psychiatrist, and he blew it off completely.

Having it brought up to me by a doctor, though, that's different. That's an external source, listening to me describe myself, and coming to a conclusion that maybe I'm somewhere on the autism spectrum in a way that affects my life.

I took several online tests for adults to see if I may fall somewhere on the spectrum. All of the, every one I've taken, say that it's quite possible that I am on the spectrum. Every. Single. One.

So, what next?

Based on the research I've done, diagnosis will cost me $4500-$8500. That's not counting travel and hotels, because nothing is local. Sure, everyone offers video conferencing for the testing, but I can't be myself, for better or worse, on a video call. When I'm on a video call for more than 90 seconds my brain starts shouting at me to get off as soon as possible; I'm the same way on a phone call, get off as soon as possible. So, if I am going to do this, I need to be able to do this in person.

If I do it at all.

Because, honestly, what good would an autism diagnosis do me?

Sure, there's that simple elation of getting a diagnosis. That moment of feeling not alone. But what's next?

I'm not suddenly going to want to join a community and make friends. My depression won't go away because I have a label. I won't feel again. I won't be able to stop masking. I still won't be whole.

But... knowing would be a good thing. Knowing more about myself, understanding myself better, would be good.

While I'm pretty sure that I fall somewhere on the spectrum, I don't know if I'd even be able to get a diagnosis because, based on my research, for diagnosing adults they want to speak with someone who was an adult when you were a kid so that they can get an idea of who you were back then because, again according to my research, an individual on the spectrum couldn't know how to mask when they were young. And I don't think I can trust my parent's to give an honest account of how I was when I was younger.

When I've brought up the idea of getting a diagnosis to them, my dad is indifferent. He says that if I'm autistic then I'm high functioning, his words, and it shouldn't matter because I live a life. Also, I don't know how much my dad actually saw me as a kid. I think, to him, I was a bit of a mystery: a kid who wasn't a kid the way he thought kids should be. My mother, on the other hand, seemed offended at me even considering that I might fall on the spectrum. She worked with autistic kids when she was an aide at an elementary school. Not the worst of the worst, but pretty bad. Kids that really couldn't function if they didn't have a constant guiding hand and I did not need that kind of help growing up. There are no other people, who were adults when I was a kid, who I spent significant time with. My parent's are my only option.

Am I willing to shell out up to $8500 to have my parents possibly derail the process? I've read too many stories online about someone who had their diagnosis process stop after the adult person was interviewed. To not even get the chance to describe yourself would be terrible. More than disappointing. Legitimately terrible.

****************

I don’t know if I’ll be writing again. I want to, but I just don’t know.

Be well.

Dear Nobody

I am not well.

I am always tired. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. Always tired.

The worst is mentally.

Long ago, I used to be able to read a couple of novels each week. Now I struggle to read one a month, if at all. I can only read three or four comic books in an hour. The less words and pictures there are, the faster I can read it, but I still can't read quickly.

I'm also way, way fatter than I've ever been in my life. I've always been fat (I remember when I was seven or eight being taken for a blood test to check my thyroid. I sat next to my Dad, waiting, and asked him what was going on and he explained to me that we were going to see if my thyroid was working right because it could explain why I was overweight.), but never like this. Never.

I sleep and don't feel better.

Yesterday I woke up. I did my laundry. I went back to bed. I woke up seven hours later. I ate dinner. I went back to bed.

I'm concerned about this.

I've been trying, for nearly two years, to get better.

I got a CPAP machine for sleep apnea. It hasn't worked. I keep using it, though, because when I have forgotten it on trips, my sleep is constantly interrupted. I don't wake any more rested.

Now I'm working on medication adjustment. Hoping that something will help. Hoping that a tweak will give me just a smidgeon of energy back and I'll be better able to move forward.

My doctors' don't seem so concerned about my concern, though.

They are more worried about the fleeting thoughts I have of killing myself. Fleeting because it just crosses my mind briefly a couple of times a day. No dwelling. No planning. Just a swish across my thoughts.

I keep trying to convince them that more energy would help with those thoughts. More energy would allow me to move forward with things. Work on hobbies. Write. Find healthy distractions. Be able to make decisions. Be able to think clearly.

My thinking is fuzzy. Especially after work. I put so much of my brain power into doing my job well that I have very little when the day is done. My focus isn't strong at the beginning of the day. It's pretty much non-existent at the end.

And there's no one who isn't a brain specialist who I feel like I can talk to about this.

I don't have friends. And even if I did, I wouldn't want to burden them.

Which leaves my family.

One of my brothers has cancer in his brain and it regrew earlier this year. He had surgery in May or June. He's been out of state getting radiation treatment since the end of July. He has burns on his face and is losing his hair. When he gets back, he may be back on chemo, again.

My mother is focused on my brother, his wife, and the grandkids. It's her way of coping. But it seems to make it hard for her to be elsewhere. And it makes her feel guilty that she's not doing more for others while she feels guilty for not being able to do more for my brother and his family.

My father doesn't understand because he's never been through something like this. Without first hand knowledge, he has a hard time being able to grasp the situation. In the past, I've been able to find a starting point he knows and then help him use that to lead him down a path that helps him understand. I don't have the brain power to do that right now, though.

My other brother live a long way a way. He's an Md. To be a bit cruel, I don't need anymore clinical bullshit. I don't need to hear statistics and about studies and blah blah blah. He might not do this, but he might, and I get it enough from the people I pay for help. Also, he has a family that he doesn't see enough and shouldn't be burdened with my crap.

So, that leave me. Me sitting in a shirt and underwear watching TV and clicking around the internets and playing mindless computer games. Sitting, trying not to think about being stuck. Trying not to think about faltering and sliding back into the worst. Being petrified of making decisions. Being scared of being who I am. Being scared of being who I may be. Being scared of being.

To Sleep Perchance

When I'm feeling down in the dumps, like the air itself is trying to crush me, I tend to stay up later than I should. That is to say, tonight.

It's an illogical way to put off facing tomorrow for as long as possible. Unfortunately it also makes tomorrow harder because I'm tired.

The Humor of the Situation

Even with all the medication and seeing a brain whisperer every week, there's still a voice in my head that would like me to get rid of me. Probably the most dangerous part of that voice is that it's funny. And funny is seductive. And funny is comforting. And funny is insidious.

He Lives with Chronic Depression

So, Wil Wheaton wrote a speech about living with depression and posted it to his blog. It's a good read and it's making rounds on Facebook. I hope it's actually read by lots of people, rather than just giving it a thumbs up. I hope that they take it to heart.

To me, the most important line of the whole speech, which I think most people will miss, because it's in the beginning of the speech, is this:

"When I tried to reach out to the adults in my life for help, they didn’t take me seriously."

I was a kid who fell into the depression well and when I tried to talk about it, I was ignored or blown off or told that I didn't really feel that way or that I'd get over it. I quickly learned not to bring it up anymore, not to bring up how I really felt at all. I learned to fake a smile. I learned to eliminate my feelings so that the well grew deeper. I learned the different signs that adults picked up on that made them think that something was wrong (guys growing their hair long, girls cutting their hair short, anyone dying their hair black or odd colors, dressing in too much black, the stink of not bathing enough) and made damn sure that I didn't do any of them because when those kids were talked to, it seemed to only be accusations from authority, no discussion. No understanding. And I didn't want to be hassled about something that they thought was somehow my fault. Even if these things were noticed by adults and taken as cries for help they were ignored. I did my best to hide everything. I kept my hair short. I made sure to shower. I kept my clothes in colors with a joke on the shirt, if I could.

No one would have seen how I felt inside on the outside because no adult would listen to me when I literally cried for help.

I hope that Mr. Wheaton's speech gets more adults to listen to children because usually a haircut is just a haircut and how do you know what it means unless you hear what's being said.

Stronger Than You?

So, I'm sitting here listening to Steven Universe songs because, for a while now, they're the only things that really make me feel. And I mean FEEL... something... anything. Mostly lost because it's so hard to feel. I don't know how much of it is the depression or the medication or what we're taught to just be from a young age. So I sit and I listen and I start to feel a lump in my throat and then my eyes swell up with water. And I wait. I wait for the water to leak. For that physical expression of feeling. It doesn't come. It never comes. It just sits there until the tears dry in my eye and there's only something little to wipe out of the corners.

On How to Help?

Dear S--,

I've been trying to write this for about a month, now.

I ran into your Grandpa at the grocery store and although it had been five months since you killed yourself, he looked shaken up. I suppose that the nice thing to do would have been to offer him some sort comfort? I should have acknowledged what happened and then told him how sorry I was about it, I suppose.

I couldn't though. Don't think I ever can.

So I asked him how his foundation work is going and we chatted a bit about my shitty job. I mentioned that I had recently visited family up your way and he said he was heading up in a week or so to see your family and your Aunt's family. His family. I still didn't have anything to say to him. And we left it at that.

It's not like I had nothing to say, but what I had to say wouldn't have been a comfort to him because knowing what you did... I can't say that you were wrong.

The last time I saw you was almost exactly four years ago. I was at your Aunt's house visiting briefly before I headed down to my family. It was your cousin's birthday party. You were the oldest one there, by several years, which isn't easy, but you were trying. Trying to be included. Trying to one of them. Trying to keep it up.

I've known you for a long time. Not quite since the day you were born, but pretty close. I remember meeting your father, back when your mother and him were lying to themselves about themselves. They were idiots. Then he was gone and you were with your mom and the stream of guys she kept promising you she'd marry until she didn't. How many time was it? Five? Six? Seven? No matter the exact number, it was too many.

And so I watched you. I wasn't really friends with your mom, but with your aunt and her husband. They were my friends. But your aunt was very careful to be around you as much as possible. I don't think she trusted your mom. So, when I visited we ended up at a lot of places your mom wanted to be with her friends to keep an eye on you, I think.

I think that because I can remember several occasions when I was the one watching you. You would walk off looking for rocks, you really loved rocks for a while there, and I'd see you go and your aunt would see you go (and your uncle may have seen you go, but before he had kids, I don't think he had ever thought about how easy it is to lose a kid). I'd look at your aunt and jerk my head in your direction. She'd give a weak smile or a stony look and nod. I'd get up and follow you. I'm sure she would have if I hadn't been there, but I was and since I wasn't really wanted anyway I wouldn't be noticed.

Mostly, I just followed you. You'd pick up rocks, look at them, compare them to each other, and put them in your pocket. When you found an acorn, you threw it as hard as you could and then look for another rock. Occasionally, you'd call me over and talk about your rocks. You'd talk like you were a scientist, even though you didn't have a clue what you were talking about. You sounded authoritative, though. I didn't say much. I just listened. I knew that you weren't listened too very much. Most of the time you were just talked at and told what to do. You needed to do some talking.

In time, your mom moved, with you, and I saw you less because, again, I wasn't really friends with her. I'd ask your aunt about you, though because I could see, even when you were little, that something was hurt and hurting. Something that wouldn't be easy to shake and I wanted you to be well.

I did see you on occasion, though. I'd visit your aunt on holidays and you'd be around, so I saw you get bigger. I saw that you always wore your hair long. Was that your idea? I think it was. The main reason I think so is because you always kept hair in front of your face. Trying to hide. Even when you laughed, it was from behind a curtain of hair.

At your cousin's birthday four years ago, your hair was the longest I'd ever seen it and it was always blocking your face. All day long. All day long.

I mentioned to your aunt that I though something was wrong. That you weren't happy. That it might have been deeper. She said she'd mention it to your mom. Your aunt was going through her own shit at that time as well as trying to raise her kids. I'm sure she mentioned it to your mother and was blown off.

Your mother always seemed to attribute your actions and attitude to something you were eating. The nitrates or nitrites or whatever else the liberal mommy blogs were saying at the time. Plus you probably weren't acting much different from usual. Was she dating at the time? I can't remember. It was only a year or so ago that she finally got married to one of the guys that she'd always say she married. Did you do things to try to drive these guys away, or did you want a dad?

Anyway, after you killed yourself, I didn't feel surprised. I felt more like it had been a long time coming. That's not fair and not nice, I know.

The problem is, though, that I've been near that point myself and ever since then I can't say the suicide is a bad decision. I can't. It doesn't feel like a bad decision in the moment, and it doesn't now, either. Even in these moments where I can hope for a future I can't say that suicide is not an option.

In the moments when I imagine talking to you before you kill yourself, I imagine telling you that it's an option. Not necessarily the best, but it's an option. I can't promise you that things would get better either. I could tell you that things change, though; that things would be different. I would tell you that people would miss you. Your aunt would. Your grandpa would... does.

Would any of that helped to stop you? I don't know. Would you have heard the honesty, though? I think so because at my lowest, even when I couldn't feel like anything but a burden on the world as a whole, I could recognize honesty.

Still thinking about this won't bring you back. It's unlikely that any of your family will know that I wrote this and I don't think it would bring them comfort. Probably just make them angry. And you'd still be gone.

Out of the Breach

I've been feeling okay for the last two weeks. Not great, but I don't have thoughts about killing myself several times an hour every day. Only a couple of times a day. And in between those time there were periods where I may have been grasping at normal; a finger on a ledge and maybe it's possible to get a second and third up until I can get a firm grip. I'm pretty sure it's due to the additional medication my new brain doctor gave to me about eight weeks ago.

Before today, the worst day was a week ago, the 23rd. I was a my brother's in Los Angeles with my parents. My brother and his wife threw a baby shower. Their son is expected in about six weeks. About thirty people were there. Thirty people. That I didn't know. My brain kept shorting out. I would be listening to someone and then I heard everything in the room all at once and couldn't focus. It was awful. After it happened a few time I went to a bedroom and just stayed there for a while. Eventually I could focus again and went back to the party, but I acted the same way as I did before I lost focus: I sat in a chair and didn't say a word to anyone.

This afternoon is a going away/early birthday party for one of my cousin's. He just graduated from high school in June and will be shouting "Semper Fi" in a week or so. But that's beside the point. Today was much harder than last week. Almost as soon as I walked through the door I had trouble focusing on a single conversation without the other babble leak into my ears. So, it was hard to begin with and then I made a mistake of getting involved in a discussion about the presidential election.

It started out fairly innocently. There was a question about the delegate rules and I knew the answer. There was more talk about rules and then some talk about the conventions. (I mentioned how much I liked parts of Ted Cruz's speech and wished that Bernie Sanders had been as brave in his speech.) And then the dreaded question was asked. Who am I voting for in the fall? I gave my true answer, which is I think I know, but I'm not happy with either candidate. My uncle (who said he can't seem to ever vote Democrat because they don't seem to represent white males anymore) asked if the one I'm leaning toward starts with an "H"? And I had to answer yes. My grandpa (who said he doesn't understand the people who simply vote the party line without any thought and is also married to my grandma who has only ever voted Republican, even down ticket, because she won't ever vote for someone who supports "hand-outs") asked why? So I had to talk about Trump not being presidential and that if he's gets angry at internet nobodies who make fun of him online, then how is he going to take criticism, legitimate and not, from world leaders. I don't think he'll handle it well. My grandma said that he's already worked with all of those people, which I assumed meant the world leaders. I said he hadn't, that he worked with people who want to make money off of him and then I ranted about all the people overseas who seem to hate the man, including employees at his resorts and the town-folk who live near the resorts, I then got into his lies about his fortune, his use of bankruptcies to hurt employees and investors to save himself (I acknowledged he used the law to do it legally), and his self-made man crap when he got a million dollars from his father to start his business. My grandma said that she's read about these criticisms, too, but that I have to read stories from the other side.

I was baffled. What other side when you're stating stuff that happened? Were these not things that happened? Were they not facts?

Then Grandma moved on to how people who are on Social Security earn too much money, more than she and my grandpa, and that they constantly whine about not having enough. This is where she always goes. She hates Social Security, for those that didn't pay into it, especially those who aren't of retirement age (even though that was kind of the point when the program was created). She hates food stamps. She hates that people who don't work/pay get medical and dental and vision insurance. I didn't get into it with her over this. We've gone through it before, but she told me what she has always said. She and my grandpa have never taken anything. They've never earned much money. They do what they can to help people through their church and that's the way everyone should be and blah, blah, blah. (In the past she didn't like it when I brought up the uncle who used food stamps to keep his daughters, her granddaughters, fed. So I didn't bring it up again.) She then started in on a story about how her parents would invite people to their farm for dinners and there were sometimes up to 60 people and they all got fed and ... I didn't understand what the point of the story was.

That's when I hit my limit. That's when I had to leave. More was said, but I did my best to turn my brain off and simply look like I was listening. I hope she doesn't think I understood or agreed with her.

Of course I waited the appropriate time before I left so it didn't look like she set me over the edge.

This is why I avoid politics when talking to people. Most everyone, I include myself in this statement, aren't flexible enough to want to hear differences in thought and even is they hear the difference they don't discuss, they go on attack arguing why the other side is wrong rather than arguing why they are right. And attacking is no way to discuss anything.

The Medication

The pills have complete control over what little life I want to live.

Dear Old Friend

I'm writing this today, in part, to apologize. I have not tried hard to remain in contact with you. I don't write you regular e-mail. I don't drive to your location to simply visit you. I don't call you one the phone or text you. I don't even know if I have your phone number. This is on me.

To be fair, though, it's on you, too.

When I have written in the past you responded with only a sentence or two and after I wrote back you didn't. You never seem to be the first to send an e-mail. Why is that?

When I've been near where you live, I have let you know so that I could visit with you. You never seem to be near where I live. Those few times you have been near, you haven't always let me know. Why is that?

I rarely call or text anyone. If I don't have your phone number I haven't asked you for it. Which would be the same reason you don't have mine. If you asked, I would give it to you, but I'm not going to call. I have issues with myself that don't allow me to call you. Do you have similar issues?

The other part of why I'm writing this is because I think I'm done calling you/thinking of you as "friend."

"Friend" should be more than a person who can see your Facebook feed. It should be more than hitting a "like" button or posting a comment on a picture. I don't know what that more is, but friend should be more. Maybe regular reconnection through thoughtful communication to see how we've both changed and how we've stayed the same and how we're still compatible, but in a new way. We haven't done this in a very long time.

Maybe it's because you've changed so much more than I have in "grown-up" ways: spouses, children, mortgages. In my mind I can't picture myself with the first two and the third is only a possibility of a possibility. And when you have spouses, children, and mortgages those thing are what should be important to you. I understand that. I know that's how it should be. Just because I don't have those experiences doesn't mean I don't understand them or that I don't want to understand them.

Do you remember the last time I visited you? I was horribly uncomfortable. I don’t know what to talk to you about. Your life seems so focused because you have these outside things to focus on that are also intimate and personal. My life isn’t. I have no focus and my interests are not personal at all. For how long can I force the conversation into deconstruction of pop culture things that I’m interested in and you may or may not be before I wear out my welcome?

I want you to understand that this isn't a spur of the moment thing. I don't want you to think that I suddenly got tired of you posting pictures of your children. There's been thought about this.

Several weeks ago, one of my cousins got married. The person he wanted to have as his best man, his step-brother, couldn't be there because of Army. My cousin's step-father stood in as best man. Neither person was chosen out of obligation. Both were asked because of love and friendship. That's also why they accepted.

I sat there wondering if I were to ever get married, who would I have to step in as my best man? I had no answer for that. When I wondered who I would ask to be my best man in the first place, I had no answer for that either. Maybe one of my brothers, who would have to do it out of family obligation. Maybe not.

Fifteen years ago I know who I would have asked. Ten years ago I would have asked a different person, but I knew who. Five years ago I'm not so sure. Today, there is no one I could ask and not feel like I was backing them into a corner. A position like best man shouldn't feel to either party like its being forced.

This has been coming on for a long time. I remember when I felt like I was an afterthought. The person who was called only when you realized that I wasn't already there and an extra body was needed to play a good game of Risk. Not long after, I wasn't even a thought. I was a person who wasn't even invited to a party in his own home. Asked days and weeks later why I wasn't there and told I was a liar when I said no one told me. How could you not be told about a party where you live? I was asked. How, indeed.

Part of me wishes that I could be cocky and cruel about this. I wish that I could say I replaced you with someone and your friendship hasn't been necessary for years. That's not true, though. I haven't made a new friend in at least eighteen years. Me choosing to no longer call you friend leaves me with no friends. No friends.

Those words were not easy to write and I paused for a minute or two before I continued.

"No man is an island," John Donne wrote. "Every man is a piece of a continent." Many people use the first four lines of that poem to talk about friendship and togetherness without actually reading the rest of the poem and seeing that it's about people dying and how each death, no matter if one knew the dead personally, is a blow to mankind. As with so much poetry, we tend to ignore the words and meaning of the whole to focus on out of context bits.

I don't know if I'm an island. Or a rock. I do know that the longer I live, the less I desire to try to make, or keep, any kind of interpersonal connections. I can't remember ever desiring children. It's been nearly a decade since I wanted a spouse. Much of this blog has been about my lack of ability to make friends. Now, I don't have the drive to make friend, nor do I have the desire to pretend that people from my past are still friends. No matter what you may think. I can't control that. I am, however, sorry if I have offended you. It wasn't my intention, but I can see how it may be a possibility.

Last week I found a psychiatric term for who/what I am. Beyond the depression thing. It starts with a horrifying word, but the meaning of the whole title isn't as scary. It is me, though. And I know it's dangerous to self-diagnose, but in the age of the Internewts it's hard not to. Also, I don't think me finding a label is a bad thing. It makes me feel less unique to know that I'm not the only, let alone the first, to be the way I am, in a good way.

I seem the brain doctor on Tuesday. I keep wondering if I should bring this label up to him and if so, how to bring it up. There are a couple of problems, though. The first is, he is completely retiring at the end of the year and I will probably see him only one or two more times before he's done. I also doubt that I'll be seeing another brain doctor after him because there aren't any nearby who accept my insurance. There are several an hour+ drive from where I live, and that's where my current brain doctor is, but I don't like making the drive and the one on one talk seems to be mostly me manipulating the brain doctor to not ask me certain questions. (Now that I've been with him for three years, I'm much better at doing it than I used to be.) The second reason is that there isn't really any fix for this personality disorder. Drugs can be used to lessen depression that may or may not have to do with this, but it only works on depression which makes one want to kill oneself less, but doesn't really do anything to the other stuff. There's talk of group therapy maybe working, but for group therapy to be effective for someone like me the group needs to understand that I won't participate much, if at all, for months. The third reason is do I want to change. Am I unhappy being the way I am? Does it cause me to be depressed? Most people learning that I am friendless probably assume that I am lonely, except that I'm not. By myself I'm almost never lonely. In a crowd is when I feel a loneliness so crushing that I'm surprised my bones don't crack under the pressure. What happens if I lose the ability to be alone?

If this is wrong, then who am I when I'm right? Am I at all?

I don't know. In the end, I don't know if it really matters, either.

I thought you should know all of this. I thought you should know because I wanted to be clear that while I accept that it's mostly me, and it is mostly me, it's partially you, too. I also want you to know that I understand that it's not malicious. You've simply changed to accommodate things that I won't have, that I don't want.

So, when you see on Facebook or here that I was in or near your neck of the woods and I said nothing about it, this is why. I'm done making efforts. I'm done trying. I'm simply going to be me.

Be well,

ticknart

Four or so weeks ago I went to this mini conference thing for the local community college. It was a lunch with the business teachers and local schools and businesses. I was there as a representative for the prison I work at and spent most of the time shouting that people, not just the youth, need to be taught how to fill out an application properly (a waitress who writes "I waited on tables" does not actually tell me what she did) and have fuckin' manners on the phone (no, I am not here to take your abuse and I'm not going to fill out the application for you nor will I take the exam for you).

This year also included instructors from the computer science-ish type classes. This way we could also talk technology and the programs that student's will be using once they enter the industry of, hopefully, their choice. One of the instructors was a teacher I had nearly 15 years ago. I took three classes from her all based around graphic design. I did two classes on Adobe Illustrator and one for InDesign. (The second semester of InDesign was with a different teacher.)

I spoke with her before the lunch and the talk began. Mostly, we talked about her classes. She's still doing the Illustrator and InDesign, but she's also teaching Photoshop (which she taught way back when, but I wasn't interested in taking), an computer aided animation, not Flash, and 3D modeling in Maya. All of it excited me. We did get around to talking about me. She seemed... well... disappointed with where I was in my life.

I was, too.

Ever since that day, going to work and staying at work has been very hard for me to do.

I have spent much time looking at the classes she offers, but most are during the day now. Way back when she was only a part time teacher and her classes all took place in the evening. But how do I justify to my boss and then her boss, the Warden, missing six hours of work each week? Especially for classes that would do nothing for promotional purposes? How do I make those hours up without wanting to poke my eyes out? Should I use 90 hours (more than two work weeks worth of time) of vacation time over a semester to take a class? I don't know!

Not since I was little did I really know what I wanted to do as an adult. For a time, I thought I could be a professional story teller, or at least a semi-professional. That idea was squashed out of me in college. The closest I came to finding something that really interested me was the graphic design. I moved from Cowtown to Cowcity to continue design courses. It was just starting in Cowtown, but Cowcity had a real curriculum and was building a 3D modeling/animation curriculum at that time. Eventually, I didn't get enough hours working at a coffee shop and couldn't afford to live there anymore. (You can actually read about this time on this blog by clicking through 2004 and 2005 through September or October. Crazy.) I ended up back in Cowtown, where I didn't have to pay rent, and looked for a job that would actually pay me money and I wouldn't have to live with my parents or a roommate. That's how I ended up with the State in September 2005. In 3 1/2 months I will have finished my tenth year with the state. Fuck.

Most of the ten years have been okay. Just a job. Stuff I do for money. Unfortunately, I've never done a lot outside of the job stuff because of the depression thing. So, I just worked at work that was work that didn't make me more miserable. Work I didn't hate. Work I still don't hate. The problem is that I was reminded about something that I liked that could have lead somewhere, or not. Like I wrote, it's been hard to go to work and then stay there for the full day.

And along with all that it's been really easy to want to quit, give up, and go away.

Children Without a Parent

About three weeks ago my brother caught up with this here blog. He worried and fretted and then showed what I had written to his wife. His wife, the kind and sweet woman she is, told him to drive down and see me. Which he did.

However, he didn't tell me. I just got cryptic messages about breakfast and seeing him and I don't really know what. Of course I had a feeling that he was driving down from Oregon, but I hoped, so hoped, that he wasn't on his way. My brother, being my brother, didn't respond to me about, well, anything. His wife, unlike how she usually is, kept cryptic on me and experienced a partial me not being so nice. (This is where I try to tactfully tell the person who they are or what they're doing in child friendly language, but all the subtext comes out as me yelling at them to stop being a fucking asshole and tell me what I want to know, in a very passive-aggressive way. I did, sort of, apologize for acting this way.)

Eventually, I got confirmation from my brother that he was in California and he wanted to take me out to dinner. Nothing about why he had driven nearly 700 miles, but I could guess. I knew what I had been writing and how it would look to someone who hadn't been following daily, but rather read everything in one chunk. Of course, I spent the whole day feeling sick to my stomach because I had made my brother leave his family out of concern for me, which is something I never wanted to happen.

It also made me rethink this whole blogging thing. In part, especially over the last year, this has been a record of just how sick my brain has been. Reading it, you can see the few highs and horrible lows. And I think that's a good thing. Maybe not for me or my family, but there's this sickening cycle of thought on the web that may help other to understand what it's like to be a severely depressed person. A person on meds that worked and then stopped working and the mental and physical pain that's one can go through trying to get back to okay.

That evening we met and we talked. I felt like I was driving the conversation more than him. There are two reasons for this: 1. I'm very good and sneaking conversations onto other topics that are comfortable for everyone. 2. I kept pushing back toward the blog and depression because I wanted to reassure my brother that nothing was going to happen, for the foreseeable future.

It was a weird dinner and a weird after dinner, too.

He left for Oregon so his wife could get back to work. I went back to the house and thought about deleting everything I'd written on the internets, or at least this blog.

Also, while he was in California, he stopped and talked with each of our parents. Our dad, for the first time ever, had a flash of understanding about the sheer insanity this depression thing is made of. I'm not sure what he and our mom spoke about, but she reminded me that I can talk to her and my dad about anything. ("Hi. What'd you do today?" "I stared at the brick corner of the building for a few minutes trying to figure out how fast I'd need to swing my head so I can smash the bricks through my skull and deep into my brain while picturing that exact scenario in my head." "Uhhh...")

A couple of nights later, my dad wrote me a pretty long e-mail, at like two in the morning, which I feel guilty about. In it was all sorts of advice on how to counteract bad things with good. (He's a fixer.) He reminded me that he has felt depressed in his life so he does know what it's like and not to dismiss his advice. I wrote him an equally long e-mail and very carefully laid out what my depression is like; what depression is like when you can find no person, no action, no thing, no emotion to blame it on; how this depression is just being mentally exhausted all the time and knowing, simply knowing, that there is only one way to stop being exhausted and that one way is socially unforgivable. I think he understands what I've been going through better. The other night he was willing to engage me with questions about depression and that's a big step for us.

As for the blog, I don't know. I didn't like the idea of deleting it. It charts the course of my life very well, especially the last year when I decided no one was reading so what the hell. I'm surprised I'm writing this. I still feel very uncomfortable and I'm censoring myself more than I was because it was my fault my nieces didn't have their dad for three days. And that's just one problem that I know I caused.

Schrecklichen Schönheit

On TV, death can be funny and it can beautiful even when it's horrific, but it's rarely sad.

In life, death is never beautiful. It is always sad and often horrific, but it is never beautiful and only "funny" in the Darwin Awards.

Yet in my head I see stark, contrasting colors and unique environments.

Day Off

I took a mental health day today. Well, mental and physical health. The new pills are still doing a number on my stomach, so much so that I hurled this morning.

On the brain side, well, I'm ready to take a trip to Utah.

I see the brain doctor tomorrow afternoon. We're going to have to try something new. I don't want the sweating and the headaches and nausea anymore. How can someone feel mentally good if they feel physically disgusting all the time. It's hard enough being morbidly obese and trying to be accepting of oneself.

Anyway, the time away from work didn't really help me, but I made sure that it didn't hurt other people, either. Tomorrow my concentration will be just as poor as it is today and my stomach will be just as achy, but I'll go to work and then, eventually, drive an hour to see the brain doctor. And I'll hear him tell me, again, to just hold on. Of course I'll hold on. There's a lot of stuff to do before I'll be ready to go to Utah.

*blink*