Return of the Recluse

I'm so tempted to put Episode VI: Return of the Recluse...

Man, where to start...

First, I would like to explain my nearly half a year absence. After I had my left shoulder replaced, things quickly went downhill. Physically I was doing well (we'll get back to that later), but mentally something had happened that I could not fully explain. All I knew was that I was feeling disconnected, anxious, depressed, and extremely unhappy with life in general. Then in January, I hit rock bottom. I began to have nightmares, sleep paralysis, and suffered from extreme paranoia that made me jump at every little sound or even something as simple as an object in my peripheral vision that I couldn't immediately identify. I felt like I was going insane, that I'd finally suffered that long-term nervous breakdown that I knew would be coming for me at some point. I've had some breakdowns before, but none lasting this long. I was in this state of agitation for over a month and knew that I couldn't live life like that. So I sought out help and my therapist recommended that I try doing some mindfulness meditation (we'll get to that later, part 2). Shortly after I began the mindfulness, I started to feel better, also buoyed by an anti-depressant that I've been on and off since I was 8. It took me a while to figure out what was going on, but I figured out that it was my PTSD that was causing me to freak out and turn into a quivering shadow of myself for several months. My best guess is that this was all brought on because I no longer had any surgeries to worry about (or look forward to, if I'm being honest the thought of surgery has been more comforting than distressing, because I know what to expect) in the near future and my path was, for the first time, open for me to do as I pleased without having to worry about a very possible disruption from Murphy to derail my plans. However, I still have that fear of the future, moving forward is scary. Change is scary. I'm so familiar with what I have right now, even if I'm not satisfied with it, that to change and move on with my life and put the past behind me...it's terrifying to me. So that is where my life is now, at the precipice of an uncertain drop into the future. Behind me: solid ground, the past. Down there: black uncertainty, the future. So much of me is screaming not to take that leap, but I know I need to if I am ever to make all of my suffering and the suffering I've caused to those who care about me worth something. Now in my life comes the hard part...moving out of the label of survivor to thriver.

I suppose I should also discuss how my physical health has been, because that's important too. After the left shoulder was replaced, I began to use my right shoulder a great deal more (obviously) and as a result both shoulders are doing exceptionally well. I didn't have much doubt that the left shoulder would be anything but fine, and I was right. The left shoulder progressed even faster than the right, and now they are about the same, with much better ranges of motion and a lot less pain than I was having since the surgeries. Although the shoulders are doing well, my knees have been real asshats. I've been dealing with more general pain in both knees (the right one is worse), as well as random spurts of flaring and sharp pain that crops up at random times. I'm calling my knee specialist in the next couple days to see if I can get an appointment and find out what's going on. At the same time as the mental breakdown, I starting having a severe migraine storm (hurrigraine, as I have not-so-affectionately called them) where I have bad headaches on a daily basis and bad migraines a few times a week. I'm on a new medication for that now, hopefully it will calm that down shortly.

I don't really think I need to add too much more to what's going on mentally for me. Besides the depression, PTSD, nightmares, sleep paralysis, high anxiety, fear of the future, and completely shutting myself away and becoming hyper-reclusive, there's not much going on. Most of that I'd already discussed, and I am happy to say that a lot of the paranoia and nightmares have almost completely gone away. I'm no longer waking up screaming every night or nearly pissing myself if a box is left in the hallway and I see it out of the corner of my eye. So that's good. The depression and PTSD and anxiety are all still there, but I've been going to a Cognitive therapy group that has given me a few tools and insights in the three weeks I've been attending it. Mixed with the mindfulness mentioned above and it has been very helpful in getting me off my back and into a sitting position, with the goal of getting back on my feet closer to being within my reach than it was since my first shoulder surgery. (I identify that first surgery as the genesis of this breakdown, with the second one being the thing that helped break me completely)

Sadly, I haven't been doing much writing, but that's really not terribly surprising considering I've been totally drained of energy for the last five months or so. Depression does that to you. It's one of the hardest things for me to overcome at the moment, because it's still there, festering like an infected wound that I can't quite reach to clean it out properly. And the anxiety of trying to move forward in my life doesn't really help out too much either. But I am doing my best to fight against it, even if it often feels like a losing battle, because I know I can get through this just like I have everything else. I just need to push through and pull myself out of this deep dark hole I've dug for myself.

I think the only person I've seen with any real regularity is Nick. He and I are continuing to work on our books and are both in the editing phase (which means different things for him and I, but that's all just semantics). I'm around 1/3 of the way through my second draft of my memoir Life Has No Title, and Nick and I continue to make good progress when we meet up at least once a week. I would like to start doing some editing outside of those sessions, I know I should, but it's really tough. I think it's so tough because the Cognitive therapy lasts for almost five hours (half an hour drive both ways with over three hours of therapy) and I am completely exhausted mentally, emotionally, and physically by the time I get home and all I want to do is lie down and read or watch TV or anything besides push myself harder with going through the pages of a book that were excruciating to write. However, as I get better, I anticipate an uptick in my production and I have currently set the goal of being finished with the second draft by July 1, 2015. We'll see how it goes.

I think that's about it for now. I will likely go into more detail about the Cognitive therapy and Mindfulness and maybe even my mental health in other posts, but the fact that I'm even writing this is a good sign. It means I am trying to come out of my self-imposed exile and wish to stop being reclusive and attempt to be social again. It's hard, really hard. It's comfortable to be disconnected from everyone, but I know it needs to be done. I have a message that needs to get out and I can't do that sitting in my car driving between doctors and staying at home and picking away at random projects. This is what I need.

Welcome back to my blog, let's hope I can be consistent with the posts like I was before. Fingers (and everything else that's flexible enough) crossed.

Hectic

Hi blog,

Apologies for the late post, my computer recently attempted some bizarre form of self-destruction and I put it in the time out corner...forever. In its place is a new computer that seems to function normally as of writing this, so I shall stick with this one because I like functional technology. But the technology has not been the only hectic thing going on lately, it's been a veritable madhouse of events and non-events.

The magnetic donut

Still no word on my knee. In fact, I still haven't even had the MRI. I should have included in last week's post about the fun MRI waiting games "Hey MRI, when are you going to get scheduled so I can actually learn something?" But I have a date with a giant magnetic donut machine on October 10th, so at least that's good. Although if it takes two weeks to get figured out, I'll be cutting it really close to my surgery date on the 28th of the same month. Down to the wire!

It is now official: I have begun (in earnest) on the second draft of my memoir. Please, please, hold the applause. Oh, there is none...right, well keep holding it then. After Nick got back from insane death race in which he kicked proverbial ass (because kicking a real ass usually pisses off its owner, or worse, it'll kick you back), we shortly resumed work on our books. Nick has been screaming through his (I'm not sure if that's literal, you'd have to ask him) and cranking through his edits at a blistering pace. Meanwhile, I am trudging through the quagmire of my childhood and questioning the legitimacy of keeping any of it for the final product of the book. It's an agonizingly slow, painful, annoying process to go through nearly 40 pages of probably unnecessary junk to sift out what is important, especially when you know the real content hasn't gotten done and you feel like all you're doing is wasting time when really you'll have to rewrite that whole section almost completely. And the feeling that I have to rewrite that entire childhood-high school section is reinforced by reading Lance Armstrong's 2000 memoir and seeing how much more compelling the telling of his story is than the telling of my story (at least through the pre-cancer parts). It's driving me crazy, knowing that what I've done is supremely subpar work and having very little idea how to fix it save for scrapping it all and starting over is just...GAH!

Anyways...I'm at least making progress through it and am now on the edge of getting to the real meat of my story. Progress has been slowed somewhat by a resurgence in physical issues (discussed shortly), but I'm doing my best to push through them and get the work done anyways.

(Told you it was shortly)

Well if I ever had a nickel for a dime, I'd tell you that the first part of this sentence makes no sense. However, I'd also tell you that my migraines have crept back in when I wasn't looking. Over the last week I've been dealing with borderline crippling headaches, and over the last two days the headaches haven't been borderline at all, they've been full-force Andrew-stopping nightmares. I'm not sure where this sudden surge of headpain comes from, but I suspect it's stress-related. The other option is that my preventative migraine medication is no longer functional. This happened last year with a different medication, which I'd been taking for a year. Now that I think about it, I've been taking this new medication for about a year too. That's probably just a weird coincidence that I don't particularly like at the moment.

But let's focus on something else: my shoulders! The right shoulder continues to improve and is now functioning just as well, if not BETTER than the left shoulder! Then again, this might not be as impressive as it sounds, because my left shoulder is slowly deteriorating at an increasingly not-so-slow pace. In fact I can hear the grinding crackling crunches when I rotate my left shoulder in certain ways, which, although they don't hurt, elicit a kind of anticipatory wince for the pain that doesn't come. But I'm not worried about the left shoulder, because I'm getting a better one soon anyways. What's more important is my right shoulder and how it's been holding up. The range of motion is improved, the pain is nonexistent at the best of times, and not as bad as it used to be at the worst of times. I'm continuing to stretch and work on both shoulders, both in physical therapy and at home (although probably not as much as I should be at home, but that's something I'm working on), and I think I can expect a very good recovery for the right shoulder, and the left one once that's been dealt with.

All right, time for me to fly off and do something. Ciao blog and readers!
Your aeronautic overlord, Andrew