Scared Bunny

People have been wondering why I am posting commercial stuff and not personal stuff. The reason is the commercial things kind of keep me occupied and I need to say something, even if it’s just for money. But the personal stuff, I just don’t feel comfortable writing about.

I don’t want to write anything that seems to be excusing myself, or pointing blame. But if I do write everything that is how some people will take it. On the other hand, if I just write about how bad I was and the things I did I am not being true to what happened or to myself. It doesn’t help anything to beat myself up or place blame.

I am not going to try to use what happened in my marriage for entertainment. This is not like writing about some woman who I dated a couple of times who ended up being a freak. This is also not like a woman who hit me, stole from me and tried to get me arrested and then turned around and asked me to testify that she was a fit parent. What happened is far too personal for even this site.

I have always been brutally honest when I wrote here. Sometimes I said more than I probably should have. But in a couple of cases I have said nothing because what happened is too important and real for that kind of treatment. I just don’t have it in me to write a Lifetime Movie Network version of events with a clear villain and a hero. That’s not what this was like or what it’s all about.

I also have been real hesitant to write about what is going on in my life because it would center on therapy and my personal crap, and I do not want that to be confused as me making excuses for anything. The reality is I wake up every morning scared for no reason and after the morning medicines kick in I relax enough to barely make it through the day. Then I go home, which I dread doing, and as the meds wear off I get more and more stressed until I finally go to bed to escape it.

I am in a holding pattern while I wait to start with a new, much better, doctor who will hopefully manage my meds instead of leaving me out on my own to try to find a way to make them work well enough that I don’t go off the deep end. I also am in slower therapy because the 90 minute sessions she needs are harder to schedule and sometimes I have to miss a week.

I am waiting for my hard efforts at work during a brief period of motivation to pay off, which will alleviate a lot of financial stress.

In short, I am waiting to feel like something less than a ticking time bomb.

So until I get the nerve to write about why I am changing doctors, I guess this will have to do.

Unless you want to hire me to write something.

Labels: ads, anxiety, life, medication, personality+tests, relationships, writing

I have decided that I just don't like people.

OK, that's not really fair. It's not that I don't like people it's that people make my anxiety worse. When I feel really tense I absolutely hate talking to people or having them around me. Isolation can make it worse too, so what I need is some way to not be alone but not have people around. And please don't say get a dog. I have one. It doesn't seem to help.

I can't wait to see my therapist and doctor to see if they have any ideas because this is just driving me nuts right now.

OK, I have to explain something.

People always wonder why I say bacon all the time. I don't say it as much anymore, but I still say it. Anyway, it's not just that I love bacon, because I do. It's those damn Beggin Strips commercials. The ones where the dog kept saying bacon always made me laugh, so I used to say it because of them. Now it's just a habit.

I also liked the original "Yo Quiero Taco Bell" commercials, but once that dog started saying other stuff it wasn't as funny.

Frankly I think talking dogs are the height of comedy.

I swear I am becoming a chick. My hands feel dry to me a lot and I have taken to using lotion several times a day. I even have lotion on my desk at work. I expect male coworkers to start making fun of me soon.

I wish I could explain why this happened all of the sudden, but I can't. All I know is that I am suddenly using it any time my hands feel a little dry. I already had soft hands according to my ex. She said my hands were like a woman's. I am not sure that's a compliment.

It does seem like a kind of feminine thing to be doing, but I just can't help myself. Maybe it's a compulsion. Maybe it's an anxiety thing. Whatever it is, I am using lotion a lot now, and I don't see it stopping. Hell, I even changed lotions because one didn't seem to work well.

OK, I'm weird.

If you get bluetooth you will start acting weird. See, you will talk on the phone more, which is good, but you won't have a visible phone. As you walk around talking people will assume you are talking to them. Strangers will hear a question you ask and then answer it. I have had people try to actually carry on a conversation based on what I was saying on the phone. It's kind of funny because you are replying based on what someone else is saying wo they think your answers make no sense.

Also, if you use it at work you will wander around getting coffe, making copies or whatever and keep on talking. You will completely forget that it's in any way strange. Your coworkers will see you wandering around talking to yourself and either call security or HR.

Overall it's really cool, but expect people to find you strange. I didn't notice the difference but you will.

People want stories, so I guess I have to oblige. This isn’t a story about me though, because my life is pretty boring based on feedback from recent posts. It’s not even something I have seen personally, but is something I have been told. What’s going on in my life wouldn’t amuse anyone except maybe a sadist who wants to watch me sway from being ok, to being anxious to being depressed and back again.

Actually, this isn’t even a story because there isn’t any action that I am aware of. There probably for those actually involved there is action somewhere, but that I can’t speak of.

It seems that there are a group of dancers at the clubs in Dallas who have a pimp. Now, I know a lot of you are saying that you don’t think that is surprising, and I guess I can see your point. I am not sure exactly what a dancer gets out of having a pimp since she can get the job at the club by herself and the guys come to the club with or without the pimp. But they do have a pimp and they all have the same pimp.

Now, it seems that spotting the girls with this pimp is pretty easy because he brands them with a tattoo. I am not sure what it looks like, but I am told that you’d know it if you saw it. All over town there are these girls with matching tattoos. He wants them to be marked for life, and apparently wants everyone to know they are his girls.

So far you aren’t shocked, I can tell. But it appears there is another way you can tell these girls, or should I say two ways.

The first is their approach. These girls will always come up to you and ask if you would like a dance or a massage. When I used to frequent clubs I will say that a couple of the clubs did have girls who didn’t dance but did offer a shoulder massage. I never took them up on it because $20 for a neck rub seemed kind of steep. And most of them, to be frank, looked like they couldn’t have made it as dancers and this was just a way for them to make money. But I never had a girl offer a choice of a dance or a massage.

The second way you can spot them is the reason they offer a dance or a massage. It seems this “pimp” refuses to allow his girls to do more than dance or massage. Yes, you read that right; this pimp does not allow his girls to perform sexual services. These dancers are nothing more than dancers, even though they have a pimp. This is strange to me since so many dancers without pimps are actually more than dancers.

I’m really confused by the whole situation. First off, why does a dancer need a pimp? What does a dancer get from her pimp she wouldn’t get otherwise? Second, what kind of pimp does not want his girls to do anything sexual? Wouldn’t there be a lot more money if they did more?

My initial reaction is that this is a bunch of people unclear on the concept. But obviously I am missing something somewhere. Maybe it would make sense with beer or tequila or something.

Labels: bizarre, clubs, dancers, pimps, strippers

I want to tell you something I was told by my therapist. She had asked me what I wanted to be able to do after therapy and one of the things I mentioned was having a social life. I know it’s hard for some to believe, but I am incredibly shy. I feel very uncomfortable around strangers, and have a hard time forcing myself to talk to them. That’s a big reason I spend so much time alone and don’t go out. I get real embarrassed when I go out alone.

But, at the same time I had told my therapist I don’t like people. And if you ask me I would say the same thing. I feel like I don’t belong or connect with people. I also don’t have a lot of patience for ignorant people. I tend to focus on the things I don’t like more than the things I do like. I think it helps me justify being alone to myself.

But my therapist says the fact I have a goal of wanting a social life kind of shoots down the idea I don’t like people. Deep down, she says, I want to be friendly and outgoing. I want to have a lot of friends and to spend time with them. In short, I want to be a person very different from who I am.

The shocker to me, though, is that she doesn’t think the real me is the one I have shown everyone for years. She thinks I have taken on a role, since childhood, of an asocial outsider. I have to say she’s probably right.

My first clear memories start around age 7. One thing I recall at that age was not feeling like I fit in. I didn’t have any close friends in school. I was the smart kid who lived in the shitty apartments. My “friends” were all middle class at very least and I was poor. I remember being teased because at times we couldn’t even afford to buy bread so I had sandwiches on home made bread. Other times I had peanut butter on crackers. Eventually I was given free lunch at the school, but I still didn’t fir in.

What made it worse was that many of these kids had known my family for our whole lives. But they knew us through my grandparents, who were not poor. It was like there was an expectation my mother hadn’t met because she had gotten divorced and was now poor. And even the glimpses of memories I have before and after that period really reaffirm this outsider feeling.

I act like I do because I expect people to dislike me. I expect to be rejected. It’s not even just about romantic relationships. I expect guys to not want to be around me. I know that people can sense something isn’t right. If you are uncomfortable the people around you sense that and then they become uncomfortable.

Being an only child probably didn’t help things, but more than that I was alone far too much as a kid. One thing I know I did, but have no real memories of doing, was coming home to an empty house as young as 5. When you hear about kids with a key on a string around their neck, you are picturing me. I went home to an empty house as long as I can remember. And we rarely lived anywhere near where I did have friends from school.

I could go on with examples from my childhood, but that isn’t the point. The point is that my discomfort with being an outsider makes my therapist believe strongly that is not who I was ever meant to be. I was conditioned to be an outsider and accepted the role because I didn’t know how to be anything else. What happens when you work hard and strip away that conditioning? What kind of person will be there when there isn’t 36-years of training to be asocial.

Here I am, a person who loves to talk and is generally considered good at it. I love going out and having fun. I love having close friends and hanging out with them. But I have some kind of barrier that convinces me people don’t want me around and don’t want to talk to me.

I just don’t even know who I really am anymore. I know who I want to be though, and that person is someone I rarely let anyone see. Maybe all this work will bring that person to the surface and I can get rid of the little kid scared of the world around him and the people that inhabit it. It’s all so confusing sometimes I literally think myself to sleep just trying to solve this puzzle.

And next week I start hypnotherapy where I practically will fall asleep to think about it and try to get to the bottom of the mess,

One thing people ask me a lot is how I am doing. I know why they ask though. People that know me I have been kind of walking in the razors edge for years. I never really got healthy when I went through therapy, and I had decided that I could get by with just medication and self-learning. Of course that really wasn’t the case, and isn’t for lots of people.

They have seen how things like what has happened can affect me. Well, not like what’s happened because most of them weren’t around for my first divorce and that was a very different situation. But they know how susceptible I am to depression and anxiety and they get worried. I appreciate their concern more than they will ever know, but, to be honest, thinking about how I am is a problem for me.

Right now I go in and out of anxious states every day. Sometimes they get real bad and other times I am just fine. Lots of times there is a trigger for the anxiety, and the things that trigger me that can be avoided I just avoid. That would be like songs that remind me what I gave up, or even certain TV shows. Hell, I can’t even think of listening to country music without a problem.

But the biggest trigger of anxiety is thinking about what has happened and thinking about anxiety. If you take a body that is accustomed to running on the adrenaline and tension of anxiety, it’s pretty easy to get it back to that state. If my doctor hadn’t got me started on distraction techniques I swear I’d be dead by now because the building of the anxiety would never stop.

It’s kind of like the song by Blue October, “Hate Me”:

I have to block out thoughts of you so I don’t lose my head
They crawl in like a cockroach leaving babies in my bed
Dropping little reels of tape to remind me that I’m alone
Playing movies in my head that make a porno feel like home

In the opening to the song they play audio of an answering machine message from the lead singer’s mother. She is concerned about him because she knows he’s been upset and she wants to make sure he’s taking his medication. I have gotten those calls before, and sometimes the people checking on me now remind me of them. They really do serve not as a comfort, but as a trigger. They really do remind you how alone you are and how bad things really are.

But to those who wonder, no, I’m not suicidal. I am dealing with a huge loss and it hurts like hell most of the time, but I also am always focused on the fact that I can be happy and healthy if I just learn how to do it. I am working with someone who does a great job at helping me cut through the static a person with a mind like mine has, and who teaches me how the same mind can use that power to get better if you let it.

I think there is only one person I am close to who has been there for all of my bullshit over the years, and while he and I talk, and I go to him sometimes when I need to get something out, he also has not once probed as to how I am. He has been through a loss I can’t even imagine, and is just now coming out of the darkness. And he and I are so similar sometimes it’s scary. He knows that sometimes words meant to help cut deeper than things said out of cruelty. When someone insults me usually I can look at that person and realize there is no validity in their opinion. But when a person who is worthwhile says something that reminds you where you are, it really can hurt more than it can help.

So the answer to anyone who wonders is: “I’m alive.” How am I? Depends on the day, the hour or even the second. I’m not happy. I’m not satisfied with where I am in life or what all has happened. I don’t suddenly think I am OK and all is well. And at no point do I look at anything that has happened and say I am right where I want to be. But I am dealing with a situation where the best I can hope for is to be numb, and sometimes that is the best I can do. It’s something I will get through, and maybe I really will emerge on the other side a different person.

Labels: anger, anxiety, depression, hurt, life, pain, well wishers

"Numb"
- Linkin Park

I'm tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless lost under the surface
Don't know what you're expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)

I've become so numb I can't feel you there
Become so tired so much more aware
I'm becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

Can't you see that you're smothering me
Holding too tightly afraid to lose control
Cause everything that you thought I would be
Has fallen apart right in front of you
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
And every second I waste is more than I can take

I've become so numb I can't feel you there
Become so tired so much more aware
I'm becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

And I know
I may end up failing too
But I know
You were just like me with someone disappointed in you

I've become so numb I can't feel you there
Become so tired so much more aware
I'm becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

Labels: linkin park, lyrics, music, numb

You know I have to say it kind of frustrates me when people want me to date, or assume I am dating, or any of that. Dating is the furthest thing from my mind right now. I am really just focusing on work, getting healthy and my son.

Even if I wanted to date I couldn’t do it. When I think about being in a relationship it is all I can do to not have a panic attack. I don’t mean dating as a concept. I mean I can see people dating and all that. But if I think about me actually being involved with someone the physical symptoms start up. It is God’s way or my mind’s way or whatever of telling me to stay single. It’s not exactly something I am happy about, but it sure does make the decision easy.

I am not in any condition to be in a relationship. It’s kind of funny though because I am doing real well at work. I am having fun with my son. For the most part I am taking care of myself, my house and everything like that. I am even getting a decent tan. But this one area of my life is just not right, and I have to accept that.

My therapy kicks in to high gear soon. They are going to be using hypnosis to get me relaxed enough to get past my mental barriers and find out why I am like this. I am not talking the “you will quack like a duck when I say watermelon”. This is the kind of hypnosis where they are really just trying to get you to relax and focus. My doctor thinks I will be very responsive because I seem to be able to enter the state already.

The cool thing is not that I would be able to have a relationship if it works though. I know it seems strange, but that is not why I am doing it. I am really just tired of the anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach. I just want to be healthy. I really am not doing this for any other reason. And I have to say this is the first time I ever went in to therapy with a specific goal.

In the past my goals, if I had any, were vague. The first time I wanted to know why I was so angry, and they gave me an answer. Of course they didn’t do anything to make it any better. They never even really got specific with the causes. But they did a bang up job of making me angrier and meaner.

The second time I never found the right therapist. I wanted to “be healthy” but had no idea what that meant. I was always working on what was going on right that moment, even when I was doing ok with things. I needed a solution and understanding, and instead I got coping mechanisms related to things I wasn’t dealing with and advice to “get out more.

This time I know what I am trying to do, and my therapist is working with me on it. I want to first deal with anxiety, but not through just coping mechanisms but with a permanent treatment. If that means I need to revisit my past I will. If that means dealing with some ugly truths, I will. Only then can I learn why my ways of thinking are wrong and learn new better ways of seeing the world.

I think too many therapists are trying to find easier ways to deal with their patients’ issues. If the issues are minor then little coping tricks really can work. Some people just need someone to listen to them. It’s like the old ladies who get their hair done every week not because it needs done, but because they crave the physical contact.

I have a therapist who seems to like to get down in the trenches and fight the wars that need fought. I am not saying she couldn’t help a housewife who just feels unappreciated. I mean that she seems to have a mindset of finding real problems, real causes and real solutions. It makes me feel better about myself, and I see a light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s such a change, yet I still have so far to go.

Labels: anxiety, fear, life, relationships, single, therapy

OK, I have to preface this one again. This is not targeted at anything anyone has said, or anything that has happened. In fact, this wasn’t “caused” by anyone or anything other than my mind.

As you know if you read this, I have an issue with hearing about sex from someone I am involved with. While other people have no problem with it, it does bug me. And I know it’s hard for the people around me. I also know that anyone who reads my blog gets a lot of stories about my past, so they feel like I am being a hypocrite. But I have to say one thing in defense of that. I have never, and will never, write a post like that when I am involved with someone. To me it just seems disrespectful. I have even considered deleting the posts that are out there but haven’t because it would feel like I was trying to hide my past, even though I admit I am ashamed of most of it.

But the reason it bugs me I have always pegged on insecurity. To a certain degree that is true. It does feel like if someone I am with is talking about sex with someone else they must be thinking about it. And in my mind that means they want that person more than me. I am not saying that’s a fair assessment, but it is how my mind works for now, and until I get through an awful lot of therapy.

But it occurred to me there is another big reason it bugs me, and I feel like a chick for thinking like this. It bugs me because it makes it feel like the sex we have in our relationship is not special. If sex is just another thing you do, and just something you talk in detail about with everyone, then it’s not special. It makes it feel like it’s no different than shopping or washing the car. It’s just another topic of discussion. And with my insecurity I need it to be important. If the sex isn’t important, then I’m not important.

I took one of those quick and dirty personality type tests yesterday, and it hit the nail on the head when it comes to relationships. I am basically a needy bastard who has to be protected and has to be made to feel special and important. If I don’t feel that I am going to freak out. It also said that sex for a person like me is not about the sex. In fact, it’s not so much a physical act as an emotional act. In a relationship it will be a main way that we express love. So if you cheapen the act in any way, or make it seem unimportant, then it makes it very hard to feel loved.

And outside of a relationship it has been a way I was able to feel special when I really didn’t feel that special normally. When I look back at my whole romantic life I can see how that has been true. I can also see how it makes being with me very difficult. If I need someone who is very open to sharing their feelings (which I do so they can feed my need to feel loved) they are likely going to be open in other ways as well. That means hearing things that will then, in my twisted mind, cheapen that love.

I can look at what I have been through in relationships and see that the type of person I need in one area contradicts what I need in another. As a result nobody can keep me happy while still being true to themselves.

There’s a lot more I really realized about myself when I read the test results, but one really stuck out: “Will stay in the wrong relationship for a long time rather than face the conflict of ending it”. Well, damn, if that’s not me to a T (remember Heather) then I don’t know what is.

Labels: dating, insecurity, life, personality+tests, relationships, sex

I started many times to write an entry. A lot of things I have seen and heard would have made good entries. But today something happened that I knew would happen, but wasn’t really ready for.

If you have read all my entries I have probably mentioned on more than one occasion that the mother-in-law from my first marriage was not a woman I had a good relationship. In fact, we never got along, and I had known her since I was in middle school. I was always a bit of an outsider, and she was always striving to be among the popular families. As you can imagine that guaranteed a clash, so when I married her daughter there were going to be problems.

But today she succumbed to sickness she has had as long as I have known her. It was the first time my son, who is 8, ever really had to deal with death. He had lost his great-grandmother, but they were never close, and that loss was much more about his seeing the effect it had on the family. This time it was dealing with the loss of a woman he knew well and loved.

This is a woman that he would spend days at a time with when his mother had to travel. She would make plans for weeks as to what they would be doing. She would make sure to have new toys, games and puzzles at her house, even though she had no other use for them. And she would spend this time keeping him occupied even though her health was never the best and he has endless energy.

When his mother would need to leave for a few days and he would need to go to school she would sometimes volunteer to stay at his house and watch him so they could travel and he could still make it to school. While they didn’t live states away, they are easily an hour from where he lives, and away from what little she knew of the metroplex. But she always volunteered.

I used to resent a lot of that time because it was time he could have spent with me. I was selfish and truly wanted al the extra time for myself. I would even convince myself that she only volunteered because she didn’t want me to have that time. Our relationship has not gotten better over the years since the divorce, and I admit I thought the worst.

But today, when I had to tell my son that his beloved meemaw had passed away, he just wanted to cry and be held. He needed to be held. A woman he truly loved is gone, and he knows that he will never again get that time with her. He told me how much he would miss meemaw watching him during the day so he could see peepaw at night. And I knew that he had a bond with her that was very special. With that precious little boy in my arms crying on my shoulder I knew I had wronged that woman in my head and my heart. And there is no way I can take any of it back or make up for it.

So, Kathy, I am truly sorry for all I did, said and thought. You will be missed, and when you left a small part of a little boy’s heart went with you. I know you are looking down and always will be. Know that he loved you dearly, and he always will.