Saturday, September 15, 2012

Chained to the Past

I just realized that I haven't written anything for over a month. I expect much has to do with my new Meds. After my knee injury and a month in the hospital, I went into a major PTSD episode and all the old tapes that ran through my mind for the last 10 years resurfaced. I spent several months again in isolation trying to deal with it until I had to acknowledge I needed help. That isn't easy for me, never has been since I have always had to deal with all my problems by myself. I realized I no longer had the ability to quite the voices in my brain that made me feel I was going insane. So frightening since it leaves one without any sense of control.

I made the decision to seek help via my MD who offered me a new free Med. It has helped enormously in terms of relieving all the Anxiety that has been so debilitating but now after several months, have noticed a change in my brain function. I don't feel like I am a Zombie as with some past meds, nor in some state of 'fog' but there are definitely some changes. Most for my benefit in that it relieves my Anxiety and I don't wake up with Suicidal thoughts. In fact, most of the time, I am in a relatively peaceful space. The downside of this drug is that my mind is not as crisp, I have a difficult time problem solving, concentration, writing or becoming reflective. This is a huge challenge since I am having major problems with my personal Website and don't seem to have the motivation to correct the problem. I have a subscriber list of people who have received my daily quotes for over 5 years and have expressed how much the miss them. That should be enough of a motivation and yet it seems not. I loved creating them and miss that daily exercise that could take up to 2 hours so I have yet to understand why the motivation has gone. I guess I will have to examine the positives and negatives of this MED. I just know I don't want to return to that state of Extreme Anxiety again if I can help it. It will a come down to some of a trade off I guess. I expect I will choose to live with less Anxiety.

On a positive note, I have made friends with a delightful and humorous British couple here in my Apt. building and we run into each other almost every day and spend at least half an hour if not more, together. There is a wonderful story behind all this but for the moment, suffice to say, that after so many years, I have a new FRIENDS. Never expected that to happen.  We are smokers and if we didn't have to go outside the building to have a puff we would probably never have met.

I have become acquainted with many other nice people and this Apt. It is full of them. How lucky am I. This Apt. has a nice mix of young and old and I love that. In the last place I lived it was full of Seniors over 70 that I felt so out of touch. I moved in there when I was 58 and it felt like I had moved into an Old Folks home. I was much too young in mind and spirit. Stayed away from them since they loved to gossip.  I became aware of a minor gap between the years. I think that will become less so in the future as we remain more youthful and Tech savy.  As I just wrote that, I realize that I have already been left behind in the dirt on the path to Technology. I can't keep up. A generational gap for sure.

Just received an invitation to meet up with 5 of my old girlfriends for a cup of tea in two weeks so I look forward to that. I have so little to look forward to so this is a huge blessing.

~ Tutte ~