A bit of rational reaction at work

OK, it's near the end of the work shift tonight, and, the one other copy editor there has spit out all four pages for Saturday's religion section, working in advance. I had proofread them, marked up corrections, and stapled a little corrections check list sheet to each one.

He made the corrections, printed out another copy of the pages for a second reading by either the news editor or assistant news editor, the person off whose personality my anxiety level, already on high, has been feeding since being here, and stapled those second pages on top of the first ones, then placed them on the table for "advance" pages. All by the book.

She, the assistant news editor, picked up these pages, noticed the checklist sheet at the back of each "first" page, looked at the un-proofed "second" page on top of each group of three sheets of paper, and asked me where my correction marks were on each page.

When I first started to answer, I could feel the anxiety in my voice, and in my self. I said that I thought I had proofread the pages, then I remembered that I had seen him print out second copies of a couple of the pages, and with a bit more calm in both my voice and my body, said so.

I don't even need an "I'm sorry, I didn't see that." A semi-legitimate, "oh, OK," or even a halfway legitimate "oh," would have been nice.

She didn't say a word, though. She just put the pages back down.

I understand more all the time the managing editor's comment on the phone, when I was considering accepting this job, and he said, "If you're here a year, I'll help you look for other jobs within our company." Maybe that's not at all behind his "if," but it feels that way.

That said, both he and the executive editor commented on my openness at the time. I'll say no more.

Anxiety rears its head at work again

OK, a work in a bit of slow time, I click a link on one of the politics blogs I read regularly. Te actual link is a PDF, not a webpage. The Acrobat window opens, then my mouse freezes. I thought, "shit," what did I do?" Especially since I had just had replaced what had appeared to be a crappy mouse a week ago.I do several restarts, and full shutdowns-cold starts. Nothing. Mouse still frozen.

I eventually mention this out loud, and the assistant news editor on whose less-than-the best side over her personality my anxiety has fed voraciously since I've been here asks, "Is it loose"?

Well,. it being a PC, I bend down, sin the tower, reach behind, jiggle the cable end, which seems secure in there, but the actual USB port seems a bit loose. Whatever, it did thetrick. So, was that the problem with the previous mouse? And, was I too anxiety-constrained to think of that with it? Or to try the jiggling with this mouse, without outside prompting? Possibly.

A little assertiveness with a search firm executive

Via e-mail, I told the journalism search firm guy that he could, in sales terms, make job hunting for me more a "win-win" if he would take into account my geographic, political and demographic considerations.

===

XXX, I wanted to touch base with you on a couple of things, in hopes that we can see this from a win-win perspective for both today and tomorrow.

First, I should have done more inner due diligence on whether I really could pull the trigger on Buffalo, Wyo., based on my priorities, earlier in the process. I’m sorry I didn’t.

Second, and starting to get at the “win-win” idea, and I know you’re a good enough salesperson to be familiar with that concept, and to even believe in it, I think, if I were going up there, and got mad, or sad, or depressed, or some combination of the above, within six months, you have a publisher not just mad at me, but mad at you as well. Ditto if, before I got that frustrated or otherwise emotionally knotted up, I left in six months at the first available opportunity.

Third, and related to that, none of the three dailies the company owns would jump off the list at me either.

Fourth, and along that line, I would prefer jobs south of XXX. Throwing out the more conservative, more “insular” and more remote parts of those territories, and looking at a minimum for a place within 90 miles or so of a town of 200,000, at a bare minimum, that still leaves half the country as possibilities of reasonable interest. And, I’m sure I’m not the only candidate in the world who has said he or she has “preferences,” and that this influences their job hunting.

Fifth, I know jobs are tight, and you probably don’t have a lot in your hopper right now. Still, though, even if it doesn’t offer as much of a salary bump as Buffalo would have done, if it’s a job that better meets my other priorities, then you have a happier camper, and a happier person that hired him, too.

I know my parent company is in Chapter 11; that’s another reason I’d like out. But, I came here in the first place because I “had” to more than wanted to. I don’t want to leave here primarily because I’m running away from something.

I appreciate you listening to this.

Steve

A bit of regret? Sure. But only a small bit. The search firm head tried to lay it on me about the money I would be missing, how my priorities were wrong, how that had influenced his company's attempts to help me in the past, etc. (I have no idea if that last part is true; the last time I had an initial interview with one of his clients, I thought it went well, and that he then tried to "force" them on their decision-making process. But, that's another story.)

He knows that, in general, I'm more OK with a smaller town, especially a more remote one, if it's either in a more liberal part of the country, or maybe, a warmer-weather one, if it's not quite so isolated. I've specifically asked him, before, if he had California jobs.

He then asked "where my aggressiveness was." I'll admit, I'm not "Mr. Type A. May never be. I'll admit I could maybe have a bit more at times.

But, overall, I don't like being guilt-tripped, OR anxiety-tripped about how the city/newspaper/company where I work now isn't so good. I don't like that and not being listened to. Especially when I don't always even listen to myself perfectly.

Jobs, anxiety, PTSD and more

Between my "fear of getting trapped" (which is itself a part of what CBT talks about as awfulizing or generalizing), and my not liking some particular things here in O-dessa, I looked at a job in Buffalo, Wyoming! A place where a fully rational me would never even think of living, and never acted to live there.

Fortunately, a nearly fully rational me, at least, is saying no to that. And, I hope, taking a few steps to boost my sanity and emotional well-being here, while working with renewed vigor on getting out of here.

The yelling? It's not quite yelling, but a certain person who has one personality when dealing with underlings and another otherwise, literally to having MPD-like multiple voices.

But, without taking this the wrong way, I have an opportunity to work on working with other ppl while still here, and either work with this person a bit more/better, or work around her more or better.

Anti-depressants beat CBT on personality change

I'm not a fan or touter of Big Pharma, nor do I denigrate talk therapy.

But, it seems that SSRI antidepressants are better than cognitive therapy in lowering neuroticism and raising extraversion in depressed people. CBT helps make changes there, too, but the changes are neither as profound nor as lasting as with medication.

This somewhat lonely, somewhat vacuous feelings

Earlier tonight, a portion of myself from within said that, in part, I haven't felt this bad since the year after I graduated divinity school rejecting following in my dad's footsteps. I lived in an old, kind of barren studio apartment.

Well, "lived" might not be the right word. "Existed" might have more accuracy. Damn, I want out of here.

Holidays not so helpful

I came (to Big Bend National Park to get out of the apartment in Odessa I still refuse to call home, since I had belated Thanksgiving holiday days to burn).

I saw (I was more burned out on Big Bend than before, in particular, and on desert hiking in general, for whatever reasons).

I conquered (nothing, even with primal screaming f-bombs to echo off canyon walls, and even briefly entertaining thoughts of throwing my cell phone against one of those walls, or my camera bag off a bridge, since I couldn’t or wouldn’t let go of my anxieties and other issues enough.)

'Picking' as 'cutting lite'

I've never been a "cutter," but I have been a "picker" in the past. Picking at scabs. Picking at fingernails, or biting, until I strip them down into the quick and they start bleeding.

I've gotten kind of bad at it since my recent move. I have a spot on top of my balded pate that got a bit sunburned this summer, and I've been picking at it a lot. I want help!

Rabbi offered cocaine for sex

This news of the weird story is certainly more proof of the power of, ultimately, multiple addictions, not just one.

Work co-dependency?

I saw this phrase on a recovery blog today, namely from someone responding to a post of mine about my frustration with my new job, job hours, one supervisor and more here in Odessa, Texas.

For people like me who, by nature, nurture or some combination thereof, are somewhat loners in general, and/or who focus either on the world of ideas or the world of things rather than the world of people, our jobs often give us a fair amount of person-to-person interaction.

So, his phrase was eye-catching indeed. But, when you are more of a loner, is something like that possible of happening?

A stressful last couple of days

Free-flating anxiety still running in my head.

Did some fairly serious "picking" this afternoon.

(I never did "cutting," but, picking at my fingernails down to the quick, then, picking at the skin until it bleeds, or a hangnail bleeds? Yes.)

Here’s a couple of great asexuality resources

New Scientist has a very friendly article on asexuality. From it, I found this informative forum.

A dysfunctional marriage, in poetry

Influenced by Charles Bukowski....

MOM AND DAD AND MARRIAGE AND KIDS

A marriage — a painful silence.
An isolated, somewhat schizoid mom,
And an angry, temperamental dad,
Who married each other trying to solve some old psychological puzzle,
But stopped trying after very long,
Perhaps not even conscious of the puzzle at hand, or in mind.
Instead, they burrowed into and intensified
Their old psychological roles and stances,
Topping that
With old conservative Midwestern religious values and stereotypes
About sexuality and gender roles.
After three boys and a miscarriage
They took a child-raising break.
(Not that either was doing much to raise those they already had.)
Then, after a move
With an attempted geographic cure for their unconscious puzzles perhaps not enough,
They started on baby-making again,
Or at least did nothing to prevent it.
Nine months later, without any choice in the matter,
Out I popped.
I want my money back.

— Oct. 27, 2009

Junk food equals heroin in addiction

At least it does for lab rats. The more they consumed, the more they needed to consume to get the same pleasure feeling.

After just five days on the junk food diet, rats showed “profound reductions” in the sensitivity of their brains’ pleasure centers, suggesting that the animals quickly became habituated to the food. As a result, the rats ate more food to get the same amount of pleasure. Just as heroin addicts require more and more of the drug to feel good, rats needed more and more of the junk food. “They lose control,” Kenny says. “This is the hallmark of addiction.”

The effects lasted for days afterward.

Solitary, secretive, scared and shabby

I substitute "scared," for alliteration, for the "Solitary, secretive, timid & shabby" I heard earlier today in an online chatroom. Great description, sadly, of an end-state alcoholic drinker or addicted drug user.

Some more thoughts on sex and Internet pornography

This is not just about sexual acting out... i.e., inappropriately acting sexually on actual sexual feelings. That said, it's not just "acting out" as a process addiction, either, although it certainly is that in part.

Certainly, with a new job right now, it's in part about anxiety still here, anger still at losing my old job, anger at the way my old company was managed, anger about the state of the newspaper industry, anger about not being able to get a reasonable job back in Dallas and more.

But, there's one ogther factor involved.

Beyond Jung, there probably is some legitimate study of sexual splitting as part of our repressed selves, and I've started doing a bit of that with Nathaniel Branden.

And, I started realizing, or picking up on an old past thread, of how much I envied women being women. I don't think I'm a woman trapped in a male body, nor is the envy level high enough to want reassignment surgery.

But, in a number of ways, especially coming from a conservative family and religion background that "assigned" traditional, stereotyped roles to women, I recognized that I, as a person who feared the testosterone, anger and competition of stereotyped masculinity and felt beat down by it, that, I was jealous of the "passiveness" that stereotyped women could in some ways, seemingly enjoy, while working a backdoor, quasi-assertiveness angle as well.

And, short of male violence, nowhere did that seem more true than in sexual relations. And, now, part of me wonders if I'm not jealous of the pornstars and centerfolds, or the real women cammers, working that type of assertiveness.

A serious look at anxiety

The NYTimes mag has a long story, focused on the work of Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan, of much of our current knowledge about anxiety.

Moving, new job and other anxieties

It's been a while since I wrote anything here.

Well, after two months of unemployment, I found a new job, and decided to take it. It's still in newspaper journalism, but I had to leave Dallas for Odessa, Texas. And, unlike three years ago, when I last lost my job, it (with the hindsight of that case) seems unlikely that I will get back to Dallas. (Yes, part of me has wanted to move on anyway, but I'd like somewhere further west yet, I think, if I'm going to sacrifice all the things I like[d] about Big D.)

I am also adjusting to night hours as a copy editor at an AM daily newspaper. That's been more difficult than straight job adjustment. I think I am fighting a low grade dysthymia as well as anxiety.

The first week here, I had no problems with acting out. I was too emotionally and physically tired. Since then, I am at about the level I was before I moved, though no worse.

On the plus side, though at times it may have added to short-term anxiety or dysthymia, I have increased my journaling, especially my structured journaling from Nathaniel Branden. And, I've learned more about just how much buried anger I have, and where some of it hides.

Conditional-love parenting doesn’t work, Dr. Phil

Showing Dr. Phil and others, who oppose Carl Rogers’ ideas, quite wrong, studies show that conditional-love parenting produces, in essence, conditional self-esteem in children.

I think there’s a lot to this story.

This ties directly to some of the work of Nathaniel Branden, father of the self-esteem movement. (The movement behind things like Character Counts, ultimately, and NOT the father of the false self-esteem movement of never confronting a child and giving everybody in class an A.)

This should also have implications for teachers, especially in younger grades.

And, to the degree support on the job, etc., can be more unconditional vs. less unconditional, I daresay it has connections to management, etc.

Emotional dissonance

We hear so much talk in the modern world about "cognitive dissonance," where you're sure such-and-such is the case/fact/answer but society/peer group/family or whomever work to change mind.

Well, why don't we hear more about the parallel, "emotional dissonance"?

Especially in families, how often is the phrase, "You wouldn't really feel that way if..." - or something similar - used?

And, how often have people been tempted to drink/use, or actually did so in the past, over such "emotional dissonance"?

I may throw out more thoughts on this in days and weeks ahead; I'd like to hear from others.


For some of us, emotional dissonance, perhaps along with cognitive dissonance, may have begun in childhood. (Tim, the dissonance comes from analogy with music; the "outside" will "tell" you or me to think or feel one way when you know that's not what you actually think or feel; two different beliefs feelings, in dissonance.)

Personal experience: Being upset, and dad saying, "I'll give you something to cry about." Or, on both cognitive and emotional sides, the minister father telling me (pre-teen, still very "concrete" thinker) to lie for him on the phone, even if an adult lie.

Then, particularly here in America, you have a society that strives for forced happy endings, and sweeps unhappy ones under the rug, like the high school football player paralyzed in practice who does NOT walk again.

And, perhaps that's another deal with "the other sobriety guys": their "promises" of things such as the claim that fear of economic uncertainly will leave us. Like other such emotionally-pushed belief systems, it sets one up for dissonance. What if I still have that fear? Then, can I no longer be "happy, joyous and free"? Beyond still being fearful, should I be guilt-tripping?

Frankly, beyond addiction and sobriety, I wonder if this isn't part of the reason for the increase of depression and anxiety in the modern world.

The placebo effect strengthens

Some would-be new antidepressants can't get to market because they can't pass
clinical trials. They can't pass clinical trials because the placebo effect is
getting stronger.

No, it's not less effective drugs, and it's not just anti-Ds or anxiety drugs,
either. Non-psychotropics are having the same problem in a few instances, and
it's clear that, yes, the placebo effect is getting stronger.

And, that it varies in different parts of the U.S., and in different parts of
the world. And, that beyond just being given a pill, things like pill dosage
frequency and even COLOR of the pill are causative factors.

The full story is here.

Resilience vs (?) dissociation

Well, it is now two weeks since I moved to Odessa, Texas, 350 miles west from Dallas, to take a job on the copy desk of the Odessa American, a seven-day daily.

The political atmosphere here is not my cup of tea, and, if I had had to move out here, I wish at least it would be on the Midland side, with a touch more in the way of culture, shopping, etc. But, it's not.

I got a congratulations today on my one sobriety e-mail list about my resilience.

Is it resilience, or a side effect/flip side of the coin "gift" of dissociation, at least in part? I think it's the latter, as I still feel like I sleepwalk through life at times, and this is one of them.

Yes, this "resilience" by another name may be helping me right now. But, its original cause wasn't worth the price; even without that original cause, being this dissociative probably isn't worth it, overall.

That said, at least it's not the dissociation level of a decade ago.

The little boxes of life

Thinking about moving, going to a new job, but within the same career path, my post on David Brooks’ new column about America’s “advantages” over other Western countries having its price, and, lo and behold, an e-mail from a friend sums this up well. From that e-mail …

Not my poem, but the song that used to intro the HBO series “Weeds.” Malvina Reynolds wrote it in 1962:

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,1
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

YouTube link here.

The paradox of emotional awareness

THE PARADOX OF EMOTIONAL AWARENESS

I became the emotional sponge of sorts
As mom and dad drifted, even careened, toward divorce,
Whether or not they were at all conscious
Of their emotional dumping
Through surrogate spousehoods, pedestal-placing, or other tricks.
And yet, though an emotional sponge,
I was often poor at reading people’s faces, actions and moods.
Why?
I think I had nearly fully despaired, by that time,
Of any control over other people’s emotions.
I had learned to “freeze” quickly, already, for Dad’s anger,
So I had no need to react any quicker to advance signs of it.
Parental dismissal, of various sorts, if only on the minor or modest levels
(Though it was sometimes major, sometimes huge),
Had become the norm, and so, didn’t need to be “read.”
And love and hope?
The reality of them, beyond any words, was so unlikely,
Especially on a deep or ongoing basis,
That I couldn’t have “read” them anyway; they were too unfamiliar.
And, if attention can be called an emotion, it was rarer yet;
The flip side of dismissal, it rarely came up heads.
Those emotions were shut books, and so I was illiterate.
Beyond that, though, the dismissal, the passive dismissal,
The simple non-interest, was the worst.
How could they not know the even darker secrets of our household,
Beyond even some sexual issues they themselves projected?
How could they not ask why I was afraid to sleep,
And still be awake at 2 a.m., beyond a thirst for late-night reading?
How could they not know, I used to wonder.
Today, as I stumble toward more emotional, and psychological,
Awareness of both past and present,
I wonder no longer.
They knew. Maybe not everything, but something.
And did nothing.
NOTHING!
Did they even care nothing?
My mom saw my first suicide attempt, as a child;
My dad heard me tell of my second, at the end of college.
Does an emotional sponge even suck up nothingness?
Well, I ate, had clothes, and a roof over my head.
So, on a surface, and material, level, they did.
Beyond that?
I, as an adult, don’t have to read Sartre to know existential nothingness;
I just look inside, for the face and voice of a numbed-out child.

Poetry: THE COMPUTER TURNS THE MAN INTO A BOY

THE COMPUTER TURNS THE MAN INTO A BOY

The Firefox window freezes again
Or, it’s my e-mail doing that.
And, even without my fear and anger at unemployment piling on,
Suddenly, I am 8 years old again.
“Stop it,” I half-yell through gritted teeth.
It’s not Flash, it’s not Java, it’s not connection speed.
It’s me. The 8-year-old me,
Frustrated at a childhood world
That will not listen to me,
Will not respond to me the way I want,
And generally has no special regard for me.
It’s me, at age 5, or 7 or 8,
But trapped in an adult body,
With adult responsibilities,
Forced to act like an adult,
Or pretend being one.
And the little old ladies,
Who bought the 5-year-old me
Sherbet at the ice cream parlor,
Before we moved,
And the world turned far worse,
Are all dead and gone, dried up and blown away.
Sometimes, I hurt.

— July 18, 2009

Complex PTSD – and alcoholism and addiction

As some psychological research estimates as many as 15 percent of alcoholics and 30 percent of addicts may have PTSD, and it’s often undiagnosed, more light is needed, especially on the little-understood complex PRSD.

Here’s a longer definition from Wiki and here
That “explanation” she holds on to is a shorter one.

Some good resources are here.

Anxiety and panic relief without the addiction

German researchers believe they have discovered an anxiolytic drug without addictive qualities of benzodiazepines such as Valium.

Now, anti-depressants can help a chronic tendency toward anxiety, but, for a person with new, and acute, anxiety symptoms, their four-six week latency period rules them out. XBD173, though worked within one hour of administration, in tests

Not so fast on ‘alcohol is good for you’

Most those highly hyped studies that claim that? They don’t meat the scientific smell test, and, shades of Big Tobacco, they’re financed by the alcohol industry. That’s complete with paid-off scientists denying the research subsidies had any effect.

George Vaillant 42 years later

George Vaillant, a psychology professor at Harvard, inherited what was then the Grant Project. Under Vaillant’s hands, it became the largest- and longest-ever longitudinal study of human psychology.

Atlantic Monthly has an update on Vaillant’s work after 42 years.

Although not planned as such, the survey has many invaluable spinoffs, including seeing how manic-depressive or bipolar illness was eventually distinguished from schizophrenia, the state of development in psychology in general, information on human happiness and its whys, and more.

The more includes it becoming an invaluable longitudinal source on drug and alcohol addiction and recovery.

Apropos of that and other things, the Atlantic story has a couple of good rhetorical questions:

Can the good life be accounted for with a set of rules? Can we even say who has a “good life” in any broad way?

Probably not, unless, riffing on Thomas Szasz, we rely on groupthink societal definitions of what the “good life” is. Or, what “happiness” is, for that matter.

That said, Vaillant himself developed some intriguing findings about “positive” emotions:

In fact, Vaillant went on, positive emotions make us more vulnerable than negative ones. One reason is that they’re future-oriented. Fear and sadness have immediate payoffs—protecting us from attack or attracting resources at times of distress. Gratitude and joy, over time, will yield better health and deeper connections—but in the short term actually put us at risk. That’s because, while negative emotions tend to be insulating, positive emotions expose us to the common elements of rejection and heartbreak.

To illustrate his point, he told a story about one of his “prize” Grant Study men, a doctor and well-loved husband. “On his 70th birthday,” Vaillant said, “when he retired from the faculty of medicine, his wife got hold of his patient list and secretly wrote to many of his longest-running patients, ‘Would you write a letter of appreciation?’ And back came 100 single-spaced, desperately loving letters—often with pictures attached. And she put them in a lovely presentation box covered with Thai silk, and gave it to him.” Eight years later, Vaillant interviewed the man, who proudly pulled the box down from his shelf. “George, I don’t know what you’re going to make of this,” the man said, as he began to cry, “but I’ve never read it.” “It’s very hard,” Vaillant said, “for most of us to tolerate being loved.”

I will vouch for that indeed.

Of course, so could Vaillant.

He got married three times, and after six years with Wife No. 3, went back to Wife No.

The frustrations

I think the biggest recovery frustration is knowing that I lost a certain amount of both “self” and opportunities for career, relationship and other development in the real world, but …

Not knowing how much.

As I sit single (has some advantages), with a job paying less than $30K (Texas is a low cost-of-living state, but still), and in a career I drifted into after trying to walk in my dad’s footsteps all the way to graduate divinity school.

And, as Eliot said in Sweeney Agonisties, I do measure my life in coffee-spoons, often.

Take child sexual abuse and child PTSD seriously

Let’s stop blaming priests, or dirty old men on park benches, and instead look inside the four walls of home, or relatives’ homes, a lot more. And, let’s recognize that this causes “PTSD on the home front” (now that, due to the Iraq War, we’re sadly aware of PTSD). That, and more, is in my annual April column.

I thought secular recovery groups were more scientific

It’s all right and good for a group like Lifering Secular Recovery to bash Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous for their reliance on a higher power, confession of sins, etc.

But, for Lifering to have the founder of an acupuncture-based addiction clinic as a principal speaker at its annual convention is, at least least, a bit uninformed and at the most, a bit hypocritical.

For the real poop on acupuncture and acupressure, read the Skeptic’s Dictionary.

A reply to 'Invictus'

Am I indeed the captain of my soul?
I find it hard to believe that is so.
Translating the individual “I”
To the global core of humanity
I think that it’s well-nigh impossible.
The individual human psyche,
Convoluted and self-referential,
Means the “I” is not quite that simple.
As for that “master” subroutine inside,
The one that supposedly masters “I”?
The king always faces peasant revolts.
If not that, a master can go haywire.
And, when that happens, then who masters it?
– April 2, 2009

INVICTUS, by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

"Process" addictions....

Does giving them a name make them any easier to deal with? If I had had the same problems with drinking as I do with Internet p*n-surfing, I'd be drunk in a gutter and hoping for death right now. Being lonely, bored, fearful, anxious or whatever does NOT help.. and acting out just makes all of that worse.

Has anything changed in 11 years?

SUNSET DRIFTING

The sunset this evening
Was like the one I saw
In Jacksboro eleven years ago.
Where have all those years gone?
Treading water?
I haven’t even done that, economically.
I have done that, and more, career-wise.
I have higher levels of confidence, dedication and skills
Than in Jacksboro.
All in the name of a career
In an apparently dying industry.
A non-Jungian symbol for my life?
I’m not quite dead yet, though.
And neither is my current job,
Nor my career hopes.
The sunset is long faded into night now,
As I try to reflect on what emotions it stimulated
Besides a bit of nostalgia
And a full measure of semi-poignant reflection.
No, my past eleven years don’t feel “wasted,”
But, whatever “better” means for me,
I wish I were “better” off than I am.
Whoever I am.

— March 18, 2009

Seeking entry to Middle-Earth

My senior year in high school, I was surely battling some unrecognized depression. My dad was in graduate school; his divinity school had those “mushroom lights” around most of the sidewalks on campus.

Anyway, I had already read “Lord of the Rings” once, and was re-reading it. It prompted me to try to call out to Earendil one night while walking by the mushroom lights, as described by this extended-haiku poem.

A ELBERETH GITHONIEL

Earendil, hear;
A Elbereth Githoniel;
Elrond, set me free.

So said a young teen,
Depressed and seeking escape —
Frodo’s Middle Earth.

But nothing happened;
No transmogrification;
Mushroom lights stayed fixed.

Homeward back I trudged
Depressed and distressed yet more
With no one to hear.

Is this all Fourth Age?
Elbereth availed me not —
I still lack magic.

Want to quit drinking? Address quitting smoking, too

New studies show a synergistic effect between the two addictions. They also show that cigarette-smoking alcoholics smoke more than non-alcoholic smokers. And, while I'm not in Big Pharma's pocket, and don't normally tout particular products, it appears Chantix can help on the smoking side.