When Getting Ahead Means Not Falling Behind

For many years my life has been one of working, eating and sleeping long before the pandemic.  The only "going out" I'd ever do is for errands.

Today I am officially self-isolating.  The only difference between then and now is that now I work from home instead of at the workplace.  My errands are not restricted (at least not the ones I do.)

When I saw gas prices plummet a few weeks ago¹ and then learned that I'd get a 2% raise, I became hopeful that maybe I'd be able to save some money and not have to live paycheck to paycheck (albeit with a small cushion of savings).  As well it was reported that car insurance companies would be mailing checks to its customers who are driving less and getting into fewer crashes.  All that, in combination with a CARE act payment, got me thinking that I might be able to get ahead before having to pay off massive student load debt that has been deferred to November.  And speaking of student loan debt, the government set interest rates to 0% for their loans.  What a relief!

But just as quickly as the good news accumulated, it all came crashing down.  First I learned that my employer will be cutting salaries and maybe even reducing hours for some employees.  It’s not that business is bad.  Actually it’s just the opposite; customers are increasing orders.  However, the CEO believes that things will get bad very quickly.  The current uptick in sales is due to customers wanting to “pull in” and build inventory in the event of a supply chain failure.  So my employer is being proactive to sooth the fears of investors.  After all, the aristocrats must never be inconvenienced!

And then when the student loan interest rate was set to zero, I suddenly found that I had to make my first payment next week.  This payment is about 30% more than my housing expense!

And on top of that, my term life insurance policy lapsed due to late payment.  They’re so busy responding to death claims (unfortunately) that I can’t make any progress on getting it reinstated.  (True I was a dumbass for making the payment so late….)  So now I’m extremely anxious I might die of coronavirus and leave my loved ones in the poor house.  Plus I was just diagnosed with prostate cancer, so who knows if they will agree to reinstate me, or even if I can even get another insurance policy?

And of course most of my retirement savings is in equities, which have dropped sharply in value.

Well, I did manage to re-request the deferment from the student loan servicer, so I managed to plug one of the leaks in the dyke.

It’s at times like these that I start to catastrophize:

• What if an appliance fails and needs replacing?
• What if a tree falls on the house (or a neighbor’s house)?
• What if the car needs major repair work?
• What if I lose my job?

So then I need to breathe, bring myself back to the present and think of all the good fortune I have.

Hope all is well with you!

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¹The drop in the cost of gasoline was due initially to a feud between Saudi Arabia and Russia.  The policy of self-isolation came later and further lowered prices due to a decrease in demand.

The First Pill

I took my first dose of Lexapro last night, a few hours before bedtime.  I decided to cut the pill in half and take only 5mg, rather than the full 10mg that the doctor prescribed.  I plan to titrate up in a few days.  Usually the recommended children's dose for OTC meds is sufficient for me.

After about three hours, I had dry mouth and felt very tired.  The reaction reminded me of how I feel after taking Benedryl.  I drank two glasses of water before going to bed.  Then I had to get up twice to pee.

We're on a college tour right now.  While driving here I had to fight an overwhelming urge to sleep that went away after about 30 minutes.

I have no inkling of any elevation in mood.

Depression Follow Up

I actually saw the doctor about my depression.  I use "actually" because I almost never go to the doctor, at least not for an ailment.  Usually the long wait time to see a doctor exceeds the duration of any medical condition that sidelines me.

The appointment didn't go the way I'd hoped.  That's probably because my wife was there with me.

My idea was that the doctor might recommend light therapy (due to the seasonal aspect of my condition) plus exercise and perhaps meditation.  And he did mention light therapy.  But my wife's agenda was that I'd leave the office with a prescription for an SSRI-type anti-depressant.  So that's the direction we took.

It amazes me that despite all the medical screw-ups my wife has experienced, she still puts so much faith in doctors and prescription medication.

In fact, my wife interrupted our non-medication discussions a few times with increasing urgency, insisting that my condition was dire.  I thought she was going to erupt in tears at one point.

So the plan is that I'll take the medicine to make my wife feel better.  As if I already don't do enough shit for her.

Now I really feel depressed.  But I'm hoping the doctor prescribed a placebo.  Do they even do that?

Here's a little SSRI humor for you.  I can't seem to embed it, so I hope you'll make the effort to click on it and watch.: http://jonesnco.com/junk/proloxil.swf

Picking and Biting Again

Back in September 2010 and again in January 2014 I wrote about my little habit of skin picking and skin biting.

I've started it up again.

The first photo shows the callus I've built up on my knuckle just prior to picking and biting it.  Gosh my hands look really old.

How I've Lived With Skin Picking Disorder

I've lived with Skin Picking Disorder probably for about 45 years.  It started when I was a young boy.

It would start out as a callous on the knuckle of the index finger of my left hand.  This callous would develop from a soft toy doll that I'd sleep with.  Even though the doll was soft, it had a dense seam that I enjoyed grinding my knuckle into.  Then I'd pick at and bite the callous.  Or I'd stick a pencil, pin or nail into it.  It would hurt.  It would bleed.  But I liked doing it.

Back then I was very ashamed of letting anyone see the knuckle, especially my mother.  I made sure to keep it hidden.  If I had to point, I'd use my right hand, or I point with my pinky while I kept the knuckle tucked under my thumb.

I don't have the doll anymore, but I still go through spells in which I form the callous using the inside seam of blue jeans as I sit at my computer.  I am no longer ashamed, though.  First, no one but my daughter calls attention to it.  Second, it's just what I call "Nerves," or a manifestation of anxiety from having a partly disabled wife; a gifted, eccentric daughter with massive inferiority beliefs; and a dwindling bank account due to expenses that exceed my income.

Eventually, I'll wrap a bandage around it to prevent myself from picking and biting, and it will look normal.

Here is "Nerves" for you to see:

Skin Picking Disorder -- Left Index Finger

Fear as an Ally

I was a Trekie for the first half of my life.  Many episodes were thought-provoking and expanded my mind.  A great example is the episode of Voyager in which Captain Janeway confronts Fear incarnate.

The first four scenes establish the background that leads up to the conclusion.  There is a simulated being, called "The Clown" that lives off the fear of those in stasis.  This being would cease to exist once stasis is no longer needed, so he compels the ones who are in stasis to stay, using threats of torture and death to control them.  They are his hostages.

In the last scene, Captain Janeway agrees to enter stasis herself in order to confront Fear, but only if Fear will agree to release the others.

Here's a link to the scene on Youtube.  I hope you'll watch it -- it's my favorite scene featuring my favorite Star Trek character:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYwEaBu6lfQ

The point is that I learned something very important.  We, as complex beings, can experience fear in response to our own thoughts.  If we pay close attention to fear, we can grow.  Our thoughts cannot physically harm us, but they can hold us back from achieving our goals.

So whenever I experience fear going into a situation, such as public speaking or traveling to a distant part of the world, I resist my natural tendency to avoid it.  Instead, I become emboldened and look the situation squarely in the eye.

Key to the Past

I'm about to open a briefcase that I haven't opened in over twenty years.

It's a briefcase that has stewed in the juices of my childhood.  It served first as my brother's school bag, and later, mine after he got too cool to use one.  If this briefcase could talk, it would reminisce about former teachers, bullying on the school bus, the numerous girls I've had fleeting crushes on.

In a sense this briefcase can talk -- it contains over one hundred memo pads, dating back to when I was thirteen, that I used for my Diary.

Wow.

And when I dig up old stuff like this, feelings of foreboding and dread fill me.  And mostly Sadness.

The motivation for this expedition is to find some old poetry that I wrote but don't fully remember.  I want to publish it, but not here.

The first step was finding this key, which could very well be older than me.

Amazing Quotes From "Zoobiquity"

Some animal intestines perform an amazing trick. They expand and contract like accordions. This may not sound all that impressive, but its effect on weight can be profound. It allows the body to absorb varying quantities of calories from the same food, depending on the task at hand.

The mechanism is simple: a ribbon of muscle running the length of the intestine allows it contract and expand. When guts are clenched, they’re shorter, tighter and smaller. When relaxed, they’re elongated.

When intestines are in the longer, stretched-out mode, they expose more surface area to the food passing over them. This allows the cells to extract more nutrients and, therefore, energy. When the intestines shrink back to their shortened state, some of the food passes by essentially unused.

Could a similar accordion-like lengthening and shortening in human intestines underlie some unexplained weight gain in our species? ...there are intriguing clues. Our intestines are also lined with smooth muscle. And we know from autopsies that human intestines are some 50 percent longer after death, when smooth muscle control is no longer exerted. Perhaps, during life, dynamic muscle activity allows the human intestine to vary its calorie-absorbing length in response to medications, hormones, and even stress -- factors frequently pointed to when weight inexplicably increases even when a patient isn’t eating more. Many common drugs cause undesired weight gain through unclear mechanisms. It’s intriguing to consider whether smooth muscle effects of these drugs contribute to ... intestinal stretch leading to greater calorie absorption and weight gain.

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Psychiatrists studying eating disorders note that bulimic binge eaters rarely overconsume protein or leafy greens.  ...they focus their eating sprees -- sometimes with obsessive intensity -- on sugars and simple carbohydrates.

In the Yale study [of grasshoppers exposed to predatory spiders], the insects’ food choices were driven by external factors beyond their control, in other words, the ecology of fear.  In the presence of a predatory threat, they chose foods that would accelerate a lifesaving escape.  These animals provide an underexplored possible context for a human binge eater’s food choices.  They suggest an evolutionary origin.  A stressed person’s decision to forgo the chicken breast and vegetables in his lunch box and consume candy bars instead can seem pointless, weak and even self-destructive.  But knowing that some nonhuman animals prefer high-sugar foods when they’re fearful could help a human stress eater better understand his own candy binge.  While he knows it’s unhealthy for his waistline, blood sugar, and molars, the impossible-to-resist impulse may spring from a hardwired response to threats that for eons has saved animals’ lives.

Stress Management -- Autogenics Training

"Autogenics training teaches you to create a feeling of warmth and heaviness throughout your body.... [As a result you can experience] a profound state of physical relaxation, bodily health, and mental peace."

Learn autogenics training for free at this website. It's simple to do. Treat yourself!

Weighing on my Mind

Anxiety returned suddenly.

The big event occurred on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. It was windy, and a large branch broke off the smallest of our pine trees. As it landed, it broke off a branch from a nearby maple tree, but it did not reach the house, and it just missed the little Star Magnolia that we planted when our daughter was about four years old. So there was little damage, and a neighbor cut up the trunk with his chain saw while I cleared the brush.


It's clear that the tree is in a weakened state and should be taken down. I called the electric company because the tree is only a few feet away from their lines. Their general policy is to remove trees that are damaged or weak if they are near power lines. So I was confident that they would get to work on this, and I was guardedly hopeful that they'd recognize that the other trees pose a similar threat. Unfortunately, the arborist that showed up said that they wouldn't bother with it as there are many trees all over our state that are 10 times worse. If it falls and takes out the power lines, they'll just come and put the lines back up.

This episode caused the acute flare up of anxiety. But it's been building due to other issues, such as:

• My wife's under-treated chronic pain.
• The pain doctor's insistence on charging two co-pays for each visit (never mind that he under treats the pain).
• My daughter's inability to fall asleep at night and her tiredness during the day.
• My daughter's apparent depression on the day after Thanksgiving after our family friend left for the airport.
• The dog's tumor.
• The rise in health insurance premiums and co-pay amounts.
• Other rising costs and stagnant income.
• Maintenance work needed on the cars.
  

The stress itself tires me out. Add to that the need to play Mr. Mom when my wife is out of commission. The result is a need to collapse into bed right after supper and stay in bed until just before the cats decide to test whether human tastes better than Tuna Fish.