welcome to the inside of my brain

moving ahead

karusso — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 16:48:19 +0000

In the months since my last post, I’ve gotten a dog, moved back to Northeast Ohio, bought a house with my fiance (yes, I am engaged), started a new job, quit that job and started looking for another new job. So, my life has gone through a few changes.

I haven’t seen a therapist in months because at the moment I don’t have health insurance (there was no health insurance at the job I quit either. It was a horrible place to work and left me no time or opportunity to look for something better).

I also stopped taking the anti-anxiety medication. Actually, I stopped taking the meds about two months after I started. It just wasn’t working for me.

When things get rough, I have pep talks with myself or revisit some old therapist advice hidden deep inside my memory bank.

I still worry often about abandonment, germs, dog slobber, carpet stains, injuries and people thinking I’m boring or unlikeable.

But as one friend has told me in the past, “Relax, girl. Crazy chicks are never boring.”

At least that’s one less thing for me to dwell on.

crazy thing i do: april 18 edition

karusso — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 16:25:23 +0000

Even when I’ve just locked the door, I go back to check and make sure it’s really locked.

crazy thoughts that might not be so crazy

karusso — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 03:21:15 +0000

I think we all sometimes have silly thoughts that seem to come from nowhere. Yesterday, my therapist confirmed this for me. He shared with me a story about a time he was standing at the edge of a subway platform as the train was approaching. He thought for a brief second about what would happen if he just jumped. Obviously, he didn’t jump. And he wouldn’t have anyway. He knew it would either kill him or cause serious pain, neither of which he wanted to experience. But sometimes we just have random thoughts like that.

I’ve decided to share a few of my own:

>> I am planning a life celebration in the near future. While searching for the candles I am going to have serving as table centerpieces, I started having second thoughts. What if someone happened to knock a candle over and the whole thing went up in flames?

>> While driving on the highway, I have wondered what would happen if I suddenly removed my keys from the ignition.

>> I’m protective of my social security number. At the bank, when asked for the number on a rare occasion, I get nervous and whisper it because, for a brief second, I am afraid someone will record me saying it aloud, go home and steal my identity.

>> I’ve also (often) experienced this thought, mostly because I am afraid of knives: Say I am walking with a knife on a plate or a tray. I am tense the entire time because I keep visualizing myself tripping, the plate/tray flipping in the air, the knife lodging itself in my chest and me dying.

The odds of any of these things happening, I know, are slim to none. But I still can’t help having the thought.

halloween drive a.k.a how tampons can kill you

karusso — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:36:42 +0000

This blog was meant to be a light-hearted look at the ridiculous thoughts that often populate my brain; I strayed from that focus almost instantly. Now, I’d like to get back to it. I figure I could fill a set of encyclopedias with all the quirky, random thoughts and associations that pop in my head on a daily basis. So here goes:

Last night was trick-or-treat in my neighborhood. As I was driving home from work, I had one thought on my mind: Car accidents! (Or, more specifically, the odds that I would get in one on my way home, which at the time, I was convinced were pretty high).

My brain works in a worst-case-scenario kind of fashion. But, of course, even in worst-case-scenario situations, it never chooses to take the logical path. So, not only was I afraid that I would get into a bad car accident, but I also started to worry that maybe it would be a really bad accident and I would have to be hospitalized for a few days. What if nobody realized I was wearing a tampon and I got TSS and died?

I briefly contemplated taping a small piece of paper to my body that said “I’m wearing a tampon,” just in case. I dismissed the thought because I realized it was crazy.

crazy thing i do: september 4, 2010 edition

karusso — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 19:16:37 +0000

Every time I see someone throw a lit cigarette on the ground, I can’t resist the urge to stamp it out. Mostly because I’m afraid it will start a fire — even if we happen to be standing on concrete. Trust me, I know this is irrational.

Unless of course a car nearby happens to be leaking fluids …

starting over

karusso — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 19:10:29 +0000

I haven’t posted anything in a while (doesn’t this sound repetitive? oh, yeah, that’s because this sentence has appeared in probably my last 10 posts). Truth is, I’ve been unfaithful to you. I have continuously given up on this blog, but then I keep coming back to it weeks later. In the interim, I’ve been trying other ways to deal with my anxieties. I’m still unsatisfied with the state of the insurance industry — I can’t afford the therapist I was seeing even though I have insurance. For a while, I cut back to one therapy session each month, but even that became a little difficult to juggle financially.

Luckily, I found out that my employer offers 10 free therapy sessions through our employee mental health program. They started out as weekly sessions, but the therapist I’ve been working with has recently made them biweekly. That’s a good thing, because I’m about halfway through, and once I use all 10, I can’t get more. Those are the rules of the program.

Other life developments: I’m in a happy relationship now. A relationship I’m terrified my anxieties will make impossible to maintain. It’s good therapy though. It forces me to combat my fear of abandonment on (almost) a daily basis.

Also, now we think I might actually have OCD. My social fears act more in accordance with symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder than straight social anxiety, although it’s also possible that I have both. For example, when it comes to my fear that people won’t like me, I obsess over whether people like me, and the compulsion in these cases is to seek some kind of reassurance that they do. I exhibit other symptoms of OCD, which I would share here, but I’m thinking of detailing them in another section of the blog. A.K.A. a revamped version of the old “crazy things i enjoy doing” feature, except this time I think I’ll call it “crazy things I do” because I don’t really enjoy all of them.

My final update: I have recently started taking anti-anxiety medication. I’ve never trusted drug companies. I usually think of them as snarling, evil weasels. When I started this blog, I started it as a way of self-medicating (sans illegal drugs) and coping with my issues (which at the time I thought was a form depression — man, I have learned so much since then). But I also know that sometimes drugs can help. They might not be for everyone, and I am in no way advocating for or against general use of medication. Everyone has to do what feels right for them, personally. It got to a point where I felt like my anxiety had taken over my life for so long, and I was so worn down from dealing with it, that I thought I needed some extra help. I’m going to continue to work with a therapist and research ways of dealing with my anxieties on my own in the meantime. My family doctor suggests I stay on the medication for a year. I guess we’ll see what happens in that time.

I’ll be chronicling my journey here.

I’d also like to share one of my new favorite quotes. It comes from an odd source — for an inspirational quote, anyway. That’s probably why it appeals to me.

“Whatever you fear most has no power over you. It’s the fear that has the power.” — Lyn Cassady, The Men Who Stare at Goats

Although a fictional character (albeit one based on a real person), I think the man makes a good point.

thieves?

karusso — Sat, 22 May 2010 20:58:16 +0000

As most of you know, I spend a good deal of time thinking about time. I wanted to share a quote I came across a while ago that really sums up the way I’ve been feeling about time lately. Take from it what you will.

“We crucify ourselves between two thieves: regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow.” — Fulton Oursler, American journalist and author (1893-1952)

apprehension

karusso — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 21:02:11 +0000

I’ve been feeling a little apprehensive the past few days, and I can’t find a specific reason why. I’d describe the feeling as dreadful; almost queasy. Like something horrible is going to happen and I’m just waiting for it to hit. But there is nothing I know of in my near future that I should dread.

I’ve not lost my optimism. It’s still there. My overall mood is still positive. It’s just become slightly overshadowed by this feeling of apprehension.

This sparked a conversation the other night with a friend who was going through some emotional turmoil as well. Her theory is that even though things are looking up, my subconscious is probably still waiting for the next thing to go wrong.

I’ve been thinking about this, and it makes sense, to me at least. After such an extended period of shittyness, my brain doesn’t know if it’s truly over and is waiting it out in the form of the awful dread living in the pit of my stomach.

How odd the mind is. It can force you to fear something is wrong even when everything around you is perfectly fine. Even though I think said friend’s theory makes sense, and I’m fully subscribing to it, I can’t shake the feeling. For now, I have no choice but to recognize it’s there, ignore it and focus on the positive. I’m still coming out on the other side.

addendum to breakthrough/apology for being corny

karusso — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 20:58:00 +0000

I just want to add that it’s funny how emotions work. A year ago, I felt like my life was collapsing. Like I was sinking and drowning, and the driftwood that could save my life was always just beyond my reach (I will note that I still have moments when I feel like this — I think we all probably do, but these moments happen much less often, and I feel like my overall mood has changed).

But after feeling depressed for so long, it’s almost like my contented feelings are sometimes magnified to sheer joy. Joy and relief that I’ve gotten through it and I’m coming out the other side? I don’t know. I can only guess. But I have these strange moments where I’m filled with nothing but love and compassion for every living thing, and I have the urge to hug complete strangers on the street and call every person I know and tell them that I love them and appreciate having them in my life. I don’t act on these urges (mostly because I can imagine how annoying that would be), but they are there.

Oh, well. I guess it could be worse. If I’m going to have crazy urges, at least it’s a good crazy. At least I don’t have an urge to impale people with sticks. That would be a bad crazy.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Consider this post my makeshift apology for past corny posts/warning for the future that more heartfelt corniness could follow. I’ve been feeling a lot of corny in my life lately. Thanks for your patience.

another breakthrough

karusso — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 20:18:29 +0000

I’ve been seeing a therapist again — trying to sort through my thoughts and the pieces of my past. We’ve made progress. I’d been doing a lot of exploring and introspection over the past few years on my own anyway. I just needed someone to help guide me. She tells me I’m not chemically imbalanced; I’m just traumatized. She says I’m trying to work my way through early adulthood with the hand I was dealt. Trying to adjust to life changes the same as anyone else. I’m just having difficulty with that because I was never given a strong home base to start from. I never had a supportive family life or a chance to grow and explore on my own as a child. And now I’m trying to sort out my life while at the same time dealing with the ways the past has affected me.

This all makes sense to me, and I’m relieved to know this. I still have anxiety and depression issues to deal with, but it means my struggles will be much easier to overcome. Does it suck that these issues are the result of my childhood? That if my family life had been better maybe I wouldn’t be broken? Yes. It does suck. Sometimes it makes me frustrated and angry. But, overall, I’m not angry. I’m oddly thankful that my experiences have given me the ability to understand the struggles of others. Greater struggles or lesser struggles — it doesn’t matter. We all have struggles. I don’t think anyone’s struggle is too small; if it matters to that person, then it’s important. For people who’ve had greater struggles, even though I can’t know exactly what they’ve been through and what it’s felt like for them, I know what I’ve been through, and that gives me a starting point for understanding. The things I’ve been through have strengthened my compassion, and though I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, I can say I’m grateful for that.

I can also say that as I’m exploring and learning more about the inner workings of my brain, I’m finally feeling at peace again. I feel a contented peace and a gratitude for life. Also my birthday is coming up again.* This time I’m marking a quarter of a century. It seems odd to think about that. But it’s definitely a milestone to celebrate.

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*Just a note for those of you who might not remember: Last year’s birthday was kind of shitty. I have a good feeling this year’s is going to be much, much better.