Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Salvation
Blue men saved my life.
OK, maybe that opening is a little exaggerated or pretentious, but I'm needing a little pick-me-up, so deal. Besides, it's mostly true. The "Blue Man" part is definitely true (even though that's not what you were thinking). But did they really save my life? Actually, yes. Now, this is going to be a little long, so get comfy and dive in.
Let's wind the clock back two years. I'm still getting settled into the house my wife and I built, I got a new car, I just wrapped up my first year on the new job with a positive review, and we all survived Y2K and the real turn of the millennium. I should be pleased as punch, right? Wrong. I've started having panic attacks. I'm stressed out to the max, and then my anxiety not only kicks it up a notch, but goes completely overboard. I'm absolutely freaking out at work, although I'm successful at not letting anyone see me in the midst of an actual attack. But I have withdrawn from my team, my peers, my friends, my wife, and myself. I'm not aware of it consciously, but I'm retreating into a place I haven't been since high school, and it's not pretty. And the panic attacks keep coming.
The downward cycle really kicks into gear when I start missing a lot of work due to health issues. I'm getting sick a lot, and finally my boss and my boss's boss call me on the carpet. My immediate boss is understanding and wants to help me find the cause of my health issues. Her boss is less compassionate. He's already been on my case for my team's performance and the improvements we need to make, now I'm on the firing line because of my "visibility" at the office. Do I feel better? No. The panic attacks increase in frequency. Now I'm having two or three attacks daily, and not always at the office. Over the next two weeks, I become even more withdrawn, more isolated, more panicked.
I decide it's time to reach out for help, but even with what I'm about to do, I'm only going through the motions. I hook up with the counseling center at the local college, because the sessions are really inexpensive (and I can't think clearly enough to look up my company's mental health benefit to see if I'm covered). In my initial session, I go through the standardized tests, and even on first glance at the results, they want to start with me immediately instead of waiting the two weeks they have been due to a shortage of available counselors. In my first real discussion with my assigned counselor, she reviews the results of my intake exam in detail, and asks me about my suicidal tendencies every other sentence. I'm clearly very, very depressed, and suffering from a great deal of anxiety. My obsessive/compulsive tendencies are swept under the rug to be dealt with later on. No matter how much I try to assuage her concerns that I'm going to hurt myself, she doesn't buy into it. We start meeting twice a week, but the void I've fallen into keeps pulling me further and further in.
Through my first month of counseling, I am able to put on the game face. Hey, I'm getting help, I'm dealing with the panic attack issues, I'm able to put a name on what's ailing me (agoraphobia- which is not a fear of wide open spaces but in fact a fear of panic attacks), and I start taking anti-depressant medication. The first medication they start me on actually makes me worse - my panic attacks get more intense, and I can definitely feel the depression. Instead of being this nameless thing that I refuse to acknowledge in my conscious brain, it adds another weight to my concrete shoes. I find myself wanting to reach out for help, but I just can't seem to find the energy to contact anyone, especially my wife. I justify that by telling myself that I don't want to burden her further. I've isolated myself from friends, loved ones, even my pets. I have stopped living in the "real world" and now spend almost all of my conscious time in this mental hell I've built for myself.
One Saturday night, my wife headed out to a gathering with some of her friends, and I stayed behind. I found myself in a catatonic state upstairs watching TV, and I couldn't make myself move. For over an hour I sat there, trapped in a body I could not will to move, and the thought that I might never be able to move again sent me into a panic state unlike I'd seen yet. Eventually, I was able to get up, and I came into my office, sat down at my Mac, and opened iTunes to have background noise on while I played Burning Monkey Solitaire. While playing, I happened to hear one of the tracks from the Blue Man Group CD entitled Audio. The track was "Drumbone." If you remember the Blue Man Intel ads from a few years ago, this was the one where they played the PVC "trombone" as the ad for the Intel chip. Anyway, even though I'd heard the track thousands of times, it struck me as new that night. I stopped playing Burning Monkey and just sat and listened to the track a few times. I began to feel an energy well up inside me that I could not recall feeling in a long time. I then set iTunes to play the entire Audio CD, and that energy level continued to increase. For the first time in a very, very long time, I was having positive thoughts and feelings instead of the destructive negativity that had been ruling my life. I think I listened to the entire CD through twice before my wife got home. And when we went to bed, I didn't have a panic attack while trying to go to sleep.
The next morning, Anna went to church without me, which had been the norm for quite a while. But as soon as she left, I went upstairs and started playing the Blue Man CD again. It wasn't a fluke - the same positive energy I had experienced the night before began to swell in my soul again. And in the course of a few minutes of arguing with myself and thinking the best and worst thoughts a human can think, I came to the realization that I didn't want to live the rest of my life in that depression. I had a taste again of what feeling good can be like, and I wanted more. I even got dressed and met my wife at church, walking in about halfway through the Sunday School class, much to her great surprise. I shared with her my awakening, and asked for her help.
That was the turning point. I shared the experience with my counselor, and the remainder of the sessions we had were productive and beneficial. I shared my revelations with my boos and my friends at work, and got their support. Once I had regained some of my self confidence, I shared my turnaround with my boss's boss, but I was far enough back on the road to recovery that even his complete apathy didn't set me back. I got on new anti-depressant medication, and it didn't have any of the god-awful side effects that some can, or that the previous one did. I changed counselors and really started taking my recovery process seriously.
All because some guys in New York thought it would be cool to wear blue face paint and pound on percussion.
Like I said up front, that's not completely accurate. I had reached my nadir and became aware that I needed to get well, but it was that song, "Drumbone," that sparked the inspiration. If I hadn't listened to that song that night, I don't know how much longer I would have gone before I finally got the help I needed, voluntarily or involuntarily.
That was nearly two years ago. I'm still not completely out of the woods, but I'm in a much, much better place now than I was then. I realize now that I'd been in a depression for nearly 6 years before the panic attacks started. I know now that I have very serious issues related to my family of origin, specifically my paternal unit, that I have buried away for over 20 years and let fester inside me. Getting the boot at the job in October didn't help much, but I am so thankful that I'd had over a year of recovery from my worst point to prepare for that event.
Still, I struggle with this every day. It's only today, just now, that I'm comfortable enough with what happened two years ago to be able to write it down in any sort of meaningful discourse. Still, this is part of my healing process. Being able to own these events, these feelings, and face them directly is a huge step from where I had been.
Those of you who read this who don't know me well may be surprised to know what I've been going through. Those of you who have been closer to me and knew something was going on, well, this was it. Some of you helped me through this, and this is my way of getting to a point where I can acknowledge your help and thank you directly. In the meantime, I continue to rebuild my self-confidence, my positive self-esteem, and my connection with the world. And through this and other activities, I'll get there, especially with the continued help of those of you who have been there for me.
All I can really say, now, is -
Thank you.
OK, maybe that opening is a little exaggerated or pretentious, but I'm needing a little pick-me-up, so deal. Besides, it's mostly true. The "Blue Man" part is definitely true (even though that's not what you were thinking). But did they really save my life? Actually, yes. Now, this is going to be a little long, so get comfy and dive in.
Let's wind the clock back two years. I'm still getting settled into the house my wife and I built, I got a new car, I just wrapped up my first year on the new job with a positive review, and we all survived Y2K and the real turn of the millennium. I should be pleased as punch, right? Wrong. I've started having panic attacks. I'm stressed out to the max, and then my anxiety not only kicks it up a notch, but goes completely overboard. I'm absolutely freaking out at work, although I'm successful at not letting anyone see me in the midst of an actual attack. But I have withdrawn from my team, my peers, my friends, my wife, and myself. I'm not aware of it consciously, but I'm retreating into a place I haven't been since high school, and it's not pretty. And the panic attacks keep coming.
The downward cycle really kicks into gear when I start missing a lot of work due to health issues. I'm getting sick a lot, and finally my boss and my boss's boss call me on the carpet. My immediate boss is understanding and wants to help me find the cause of my health issues. Her boss is less compassionate. He's already been on my case for my team's performance and the improvements we need to make, now I'm on the firing line because of my "visibility" at the office. Do I feel better? No. The panic attacks increase in frequency. Now I'm having two or three attacks daily, and not always at the office. Over the next two weeks, I become even more withdrawn, more isolated, more panicked.
I decide it's time to reach out for help, but even with what I'm about to do, I'm only going through the motions. I hook up with the counseling center at the local college, because the sessions are really inexpensive (and I can't think clearly enough to look up my company's mental health benefit to see if I'm covered). In my initial session, I go through the standardized tests, and even on first glance at the results, they want to start with me immediately instead of waiting the two weeks they have been due to a shortage of available counselors. In my first real discussion with my assigned counselor, she reviews the results of my intake exam in detail, and asks me about my suicidal tendencies every other sentence. I'm clearly very, very depressed, and suffering from a great deal of anxiety. My obsessive/compulsive tendencies are swept under the rug to be dealt with later on. No matter how much I try to assuage her concerns that I'm going to hurt myself, she doesn't buy into it. We start meeting twice a week, but the void I've fallen into keeps pulling me further and further in.
Through my first month of counseling, I am able to put on the game face. Hey, I'm getting help, I'm dealing with the panic attack issues, I'm able to put a name on what's ailing me (agoraphobia- which is not a fear of wide open spaces but in fact a fear of panic attacks), and I start taking anti-depressant medication. The first medication they start me on actually makes me worse - my panic attacks get more intense, and I can definitely feel the depression. Instead of being this nameless thing that I refuse to acknowledge in my conscious brain, it adds another weight to my concrete shoes. I find myself wanting to reach out for help, but I just can't seem to find the energy to contact anyone, especially my wife. I justify that by telling myself that I don't want to burden her further. I've isolated myself from friends, loved ones, even my pets. I have stopped living in the "real world" and now spend almost all of my conscious time in this mental hell I've built for myself.
One Saturday night, my wife headed out to a gathering with some of her friends, and I stayed behind. I found myself in a catatonic state upstairs watching TV, and I couldn't make myself move. For over an hour I sat there, trapped in a body I could not will to move, and the thought that I might never be able to move again sent me into a panic state unlike I'd seen yet. Eventually, I was able to get up, and I came into my office, sat down at my Mac, and opened iTunes to have background noise on while I played Burning Monkey Solitaire. While playing, I happened to hear one of the tracks from the Blue Man Group CD entitled Audio. The track was "Drumbone." If you remember the Blue Man Intel ads from a few years ago, this was the one where they played the PVC "trombone" as the ad for the Intel chip. Anyway, even though I'd heard the track thousands of times, it struck me as new that night. I stopped playing Burning Monkey and just sat and listened to the track a few times. I began to feel an energy well up inside me that I could not recall feeling in a long time. I then set iTunes to play the entire Audio CD, and that energy level continued to increase. For the first time in a very, very long time, I was having positive thoughts and feelings instead of the destructive negativity that had been ruling my life. I think I listened to the entire CD through twice before my wife got home. And when we went to bed, I didn't have a panic attack while trying to go to sleep.
The next morning, Anna went to church without me, which had been the norm for quite a while. But as soon as she left, I went upstairs and started playing the Blue Man CD again. It wasn't a fluke - the same positive energy I had experienced the night before began to swell in my soul again. And in the course of a few minutes of arguing with myself and thinking the best and worst thoughts a human can think, I came to the realization that I didn't want to live the rest of my life in that depression. I had a taste again of what feeling good can be like, and I wanted more. I even got dressed and met my wife at church, walking in about halfway through the Sunday School class, much to her great surprise. I shared with her my awakening, and asked for her help.
That was the turning point. I shared the experience with my counselor, and the remainder of the sessions we had were productive and beneficial. I shared my revelations with my boos and my friends at work, and got their support. Once I had regained some of my self confidence, I shared my turnaround with my boss's boss, but I was far enough back on the road to recovery that even his complete apathy didn't set me back. I got on new anti-depressant medication, and it didn't have any of the god-awful side effects that some can, or that the previous one did. I changed counselors and really started taking my recovery process seriously.
All because some guys in New York thought it would be cool to wear blue face paint and pound on percussion.
Like I said up front, that's not completely accurate. I had reached my nadir and became aware that I needed to get well, but it was that song, "Drumbone," that sparked the inspiration. If I hadn't listened to that song that night, I don't know how much longer I would have gone before I finally got the help I needed, voluntarily or involuntarily.
That was nearly two years ago. I'm still not completely out of the woods, but I'm in a much, much better place now than I was then. I realize now that I'd been in a depression for nearly 6 years before the panic attacks started. I know now that I have very serious issues related to my family of origin, specifically my paternal unit, that I have buried away for over 20 years and let fester inside me. Getting the boot at the job in October didn't help much, but I am so thankful that I'd had over a year of recovery from my worst point to prepare for that event.
Still, I struggle with this every day. It's only today, just now, that I'm comfortable enough with what happened two years ago to be able to write it down in any sort of meaningful discourse. Still, this is part of my healing process. Being able to own these events, these feelings, and face them directly is a huge step from where I had been.
Those of you who read this who don't know me well may be surprised to know what I've been going through. Those of you who have been closer to me and knew something was going on, well, this was it. Some of you helped me through this, and this is my way of getting to a point where I can acknowledge your help and thank you directly. In the meantime, I continue to rebuild my self-confidence, my positive self-esteem, and my connection with the world. And through this and other activities, I'll get there, especially with the continued help of those of you who have been there for me.
All I can really say, now, is -
Thank you.
Entire contents of this site © 2003-2004 Eriq Oliver Neale/Simultaneous Pancakes Media unless otherwise noted. I hate that I have to point that out...
