Howlyncat said...
Debaser
Although you may think it not needed to talk about your past I agree with Dave that it should be done
There has to be more than medical issues being the root cause
Perhaps it is back in your mind so far you dont remember...........
I really do hope you will try to "dig up some of the ole Memories and thoughts from Past"
I believe too it will help you out in so many ways
I did the Sobriety thread and my story and to be honest it dug up some really rough and disgusting times in my life BUT the end result was I did help a couple of ppl get sober and I am happy for that (they got sober but really read my story and didnt want to live like that )
I know my past has so much to do with my A/P and I do think back on it daily not to dwell but to make sure I remember the way it WAS and the was it IS now for me ........
Okay, then. Here we go:
Age two: Brother dies
Age three: Mother in deep depression, never leaves room. Dad works two or three jobs
Age four: Mother comes out of it, Dad goes crazier than she did. Ends up in State Hospital for a while
Age five: Dad suddenly becomes part of some small time crime syndicate: bookie and a fence
Age six: Divorce
Elementary school: fairly normal childhood, considering. I stayed alone a lot. Never wanted friends. Learned to read at age 3 and was in all of these "talented and gifted" classes at school. Underachieved from the beginning. I read and educated myself, but school bored me and I never did my work. Mom still had issues, and she was also angry with me a lot of the time about
school. Eventually kicked out of TAG and went to normal school, where I still did just enough work to advance. We were very poor. My mother won the house in the divorce but with that also came the mortgage. She worked for little more than minimum wage most of this time...we had barely anything. Dad never paid child support.
Jr. High School: Started making friends and girlfriends. Played tennis. Finally got an electric guitar and learned that style of music. Was set up by the school in "advanced" classes, but it was the same story as above. I wound up in regular classes every time. Started hanging out with an older friend and got into lots of trouble, but nothing ever serious. Got in some fights at school. Nothing unusual.
High School: Dropped tennis, switched to baseball. Was very good at it. But then I became more and more inclined to play music, so I dropped that, too. Played in a locally famous band, very young to be in that position. Did some drugs and drinking more than average, but nothing too serious. Barely got by in school. Senior year, I met the love of my life, a girl we'll just call "redhead". There were lots of girls in high school, but I really loved her from the start. We broke up, though, and there were other girls. Took SAT's after a night of serious partying. Scored second highest in school, and very close to highest. Graduated with a GPA of 2.1!
High School Ends: Didn't know what to do for a while. Dated redhead some more. Screwed around. Smoked the dope. Played music for a few months. On a whim, joined the Marine Corps. Bad mistake. It just wasn't the life for me. I was good at being a Marine and even tried out for Force Recon (I figured if I was unhappy I might as well be the best of the best), but got injured in jump training. Marines gave me the opportunity to leave with medical discharge and I took it. Thank God for post-Cold War downsizing. I'm lucky I didn't end up in Bosnia.
College: This is the only time of my life that I really thrived. I was still young...not quite 21. Redhead found out I got out of the Corps and transferred to my university. We went out off and on for a total of nine years. Lived together for two...that was the longest "on" period. I did really well in college, making the dean's list several times while partying a lot and playing in bands. For the first time in my life I had real friends, and I still have that core group of friends to this day even though we're spread out all over the world. During the third year of school my grandfather died, and this affected me a great deal. He taught me how to play music and work on cars and what have you. He had his faults like everyone else, but to me he was always a wonderful man. I still dream about
him. After that I started doing more poorly in school. Still made A's in classes I was interested in, but core classes were always dropped or barely passed. I even failed a few. Got in some credit card trouble. Forgot to say that I met my dad again on high school graduation night. He promised to help me the first year of school when I was living in a dorm. I put it on a credit card -- tuition, fees, books, room and board -- but he never paid me back. Never had GI BIll...prior to this I was working my way through school. Anyway, after my grandfather died I experienced a pretty deep depression and let a lot of stuff slide. Redhead and I still loved each other but broke up more often. Eventually I got into photography and lucked into a couple of clients. Started making so much money it was stupid to waste time with college. Bitter about
my debt and something that happened between my dad and mom, I cut off contact with him.
Post-college: Redhead met another guy during this time, but he was killed in a car accident. I helped her through a rough stretch then we finally got back together. She asked me to marry her but I refused. A few months later she met some other guy and married him a month later. That rocked my world pretty good. In the meantime, my two major photo clients went out of business and I went into a very rough stretch of depression again. Eventually found a new band and that perked things up for a while, then it split up. I was mentally better but had gotten really fat and didn't know what I wanted to do next in life. I was around 26 at this time, I think, and this meandering went on for a while.
2004: A friend of mine in Austin got me hired to work at the company I'm now working for. I relocated and went from crappy jobs to making a fairly good salary. Advanced very quickly. The woman running my department took a liking to me and mentored me. When she left the project, I actually got her job after only five months of working there. So I had money in my pocket, a job I liked and could be proud of, three great friends in town, and life was going better than ever.
January 1, 2005 to December, 2006: Got extremely ill after eating what is known around here as "Frito Pie": corn chips, chili, and cheddar cheese. I ate it during the day but threw up all night long. It was well cooked -- I knew it wasn't food poisoning. I wasn't hungover. There was no explanation for this. I got a little better and returned to work, but the illness kept coming back again. I wouldn't usually throw up, but I'd get extremely ill, especially after eating. Eventually subsisted on saltine crackers and water. Dropped forty pounds in six or seven weeks. From then on out, Id' get a ltitle better for while and then go back to being worse. Missed lots of work. Went to lots of doctors. It took them months to figure out what was wrong with me: gallbladder. I had surgery in the middle of June, but never really got well. I was better than I was before, but definitely not well. It went on like this for over a year, and got really, really bad last October. My mom called my dad (who lives closer to me than she does) and asked him to take me to the hospital in the city where he lives. That was a weird experience, but I was too sick to care. I wasn't admitted at the hospital and instead stayed with my dad as I took or re-took just about
every abdominal test imaginable. Everything came back negative and was eventually diagnosed as "atypical panic attacks" by my GI (late October 2006). At first I was incredulous. I thought he was out of his mind. The doctor at the diagnostic clinic concurred the panic thing, so over the next week or so I thought about
it and started noticing patterns and symptoms that I'd never noticed before because the nausea was so overwhelming. I continued to take the last medical tests to rule out GI problems, but after excepting the diagnosis I felt better until just knowing what it was. I still had the attacks but managed them a little better and was no longer afraid to eat. Got fattish again. Not obese like I was prior to the illness...just pudgy and "soft" looking. By this time, by the way, most of my friends had moved out of town. I only had one left. Still would get sick after eating, but just put up with it.
2007: Work started slowing down. It was a "dead" month. I hate not being busy, and the panic attacks started up again at work. Then at work and at night. Missed a lot of work as January went on. In February, the last of my friends moved out of town and, psychologically, this must have done something to me because I got just as bad as I was when I went to the hospital. Pissed off that the doctors at the hospital gave me no guidance on treating anxiety, I just went to my family doctor. After a couple of visits all my records were rounded up and he prescribed Klonopin. As you all know, I was scared to death of it. It took me nearly a month to finally take it, and all that time I was for all intents and purposes not working at all. I just stayed in my apartment all day and night, pretty much, and was sick as a dog more than half the time.
Then I finally took the meds and that's where this journal begins.
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So there you have it. My abridged life story...a work in progress. Any ideas?
Post Edited (debaser) : 4/20/2007 3:31:12 PM (GMT-6)