Connected by Fear

Much has been said about the sad loss of the actor Robin Williams. His death was apparently a suicide by asphyxiation and was the result of a battle with depression. He was a great actor and filled many beloved roles over the course of his career, so it is no wonder that there has been so much attention given to this tragic event. However, with the mourning has come a wave of advocacy to, and often from, those who suffer from depression.

Depression isolates. When you suffer from depression, it is easy to feel strange and uncomfortable around those who have what seems like a normal range of emotion. It can be hard to seek out help because doing so requires you to admit that something is wrong. In many ways mental illness is like being haunted. Often you are the only one experiencing anything out of the ordinary. Trying to communicate the strangeness of the situation is difficult because no one else can see what is tormenting you. It is easy to think that when you do ask for help you won't be taken seriously. Many who suffer from depression and other mental illnesses suffer alone, even if others are aware of their condition, because they don't want to burden their friends or family members.

Often the only reason that a person opens up about their suffering is when they are afraid of what might happen to them. Even though they know that they are not the only ones suffering from depression, it is easier to assume that others will not understand. However, you hear that someone you knew of has committed suicide, it reminds you that you too are being haunted by the same predatory force that has just taken the life of another. For a moment you feel connected to another human being, but that human being is dead, and you fear that you might be next.

The struggle against depression isn't easy. Losing someone who presumably at least had access to help, if not the will to get that help, reminds others who suffer that even those who have support can be lost, and that is terrifying. It can make you feel powerless in the face of your illness. If you know someone who suffers from depression, now is probably a good time to reach out to them. If you suffer yourself, it is always a good time to reach out to those who love you and to get support. If you feel like there isn't anyone who cares, know that right now there are thousands of others who share your fears, and they care. Even if they don't know who you are. Right now we share a connection as we face the terror of this disease together.

Update: I would appreciate if this post was shared. I feel like this is something that could be good for people to know, especially in light of the discussion that has been going on in the blogosphere about this topic.

Catching Up Part 1: Dead Serious

This last semester was pretty tough for me. I managed to do well in my accounting classes, which are pleasantly introvert friendly. Otherwise things didn't go too well. As things were not going well I had started to notice a number of unpleasant side-effects from my medication including some pretty significant weight gain. The real problem was something we just hoped was a side-effect of the medication, which was a significant increase in the frequency with which I was having self-destructive or suicidal thoughts.

I want to bring something up here for clarity. I think that in times of great stress, most people are likely to experience this kind of thinking at some point or another. For those who have mental illness the frequency with which you have these kinds of thoughts is going to increase because you experience more intense stress more often than most people via the effect of the illness. If you have loved ones who have any form of mental illness it's probably worthwhile to make sure they know to be open with you about this kind of thing. Maybe they don't have a problem with it, maybe they don't. You're going to want to know if they do though. If they are having a severe depressive episode, you should go ahead and ask if they are safe. For those of you who don't have those kinds of thoughts with any kind of regularity, here's a little breakdown of self-destructive thought flavors, because there are several. This is not supposed to be all inclusive, but I'm keeping my definitions broad enough that most cases should fall into one or the other. I'm going to define each flavor by the thought that it centers around.

"I want to die"
This is easily the most common form of the thought and, lets be clear, it can be very common. It is also the least worrying form as a general rule. The thing that really defines this flavor is that you don't want to do anything that will lead to your death, you just want to be gone, vanish, escape, or something along those lines. It's unpleasant, but generally since you aren't willing to take action there is little risk involved. It's just painful to experience. You are basically wishing for misfortune to strike you because that would somehow be better. Some people might not really count this as a truly suicidal thought, but I think it needs to be treated as such. If you experience this form for long enough then it can shift to the truly dangerous form...

"I want to kill myself"
This is the one everyone thinks of when they think suicidal thoughts. It is this one where you start to think about potential methodology and making some kind of plan. If you or a loved one is experiencing this flavor of self-destructive thought, then you need to get help IMMEDIATELY. Whether that means snuggling with loved ones on a couch, or calling the suicide helpline DO IT. This is plain old dangerous. The worst thing you can do while experiencing this is to isolate yourself. If you are having this kind of thought then get into the company of someone, anyone, who cares about you and talk to them as much as you can until the thought fades.

My big issue with having that be the only flavor of thought that is considered a "suicidal" or "self-destructive" thought, especially by those who are experiencing these kinds of thoughts, is that it's not going to be the first thought that comes to mind. Before you get here you will have experienced one or both of the other two, and by keeping better track of those other two you can hopefully avoid this one.

"I wish I were dead"
This is the "It's a Wonderful Life" kind of thinking and it can lead to the more motivated flavor very easily, but it does not necessarily involve a call to action. I feel like this deserves to be separate from the other flavors because it feels very different. I would say it is more dangerous than the "I want to die" flavor because while wanting to die sucks, being so full or self-hate and disgust that you wish you had not existed to do the things you have done is exceptionally painful This kind of thought is generally accompanied by a total invalidation of anything good that you have done, and as such can generally be countered by reasserting the validity and goodness of your accomplishments.

With that fun bit out of the way I'll go ahead and confess that towards the end of the semester I was having the "want to die" flavor of self-destructive thoughts, on average, about 3-5 times a day. When those thoughts intruded on me, I did my best to dismiss them immediately, and generally that worked out pretty well, at least for a while, but that was just on an average day where nothing special, good or bad, happened. So I went into the doctor, and I've just finished the process of weaning off the medication I was taking. My anxiety levels have gone up, and that's... exciting, but the self-destructive thoughts have diminished significantly. On an average day, there aren't any! That's what I call progress. I was going to do more catch up here, but this seems like about the right time to wrap up. There may be another post today giving some more updates, but it might have to wait for a while.

As a final note, I want to be clear that I am not a professional. I find psychology fascinating, have done a lot of personal research, and have taken a college level course in which I did very well, but most of what I'm pulling these definitions from is personal experience. Your mileage may vary. However, I feel like this is something that really needs to be talked about. I think that self-destructive thoughts are probably more common that most people expect, but those experiencing those thoughts especially the dominant "I want to die" flavor, don't want to freak people out by saying, "Yeah, I regularly want to die." It makes people scared or sad, and that is natural, but it's better for them to be a little worried than to have to deal with the potential consequences of just leaving the sufferer alone. And if telling people about it leads to more people getting whatever help they need then things will just be better.

I'd love to see some discussion on this topic in the comments, at least partially because it'll let me know people are reading, but also because I feel like this needs to get talked about, so feel free to discuss. I'll try to answer any questions that people have.

The Shroud of Silence

This is something that I have noticed about myself and which others have noticed about me. It has been called my superpower, which is why I gave it a cool name. Basically this is something that I think most people do on occasion that is almost the default for me. The shroud of silence is that thing you do when you're upset about something or other and you adopt certain body language and mannerisms that indicate to others that you wish to be left alone.Since being around large numbers of people generally upsets me, I generally throw on the shroud as soon as I get to campus. In general it actually takes conscious effort for me to drop that so that I can actually communicate with others. Though my body language, I make myself "unavailable" to others. This one is pretty core to my overall problems, but unfortunately it's still more of a symptom than a cause. I keep myself unavailable because I'm afraid that people will find me strange or unlikable. I can attempt to communicate with others normally, but it's a struggle and I feel fake when I do it, and then just end up feeling like others MUST find me strange because of my clearly artificial socialization attempts. The trick is getting myself to believe that people don't just look at me and think I'm a terrible person.

Why the Church isn't perfect

I was just thinking a bit about this, and had a thought I decided was worth sharing. To answer the question of why the church, which we claim to be run by God, is not perfect, I would encourage an examination of the raising of Lazarus from the dead with two questions in mind. What did Christ do? What did he have others do? Feel free to look up the story, but to be brief, Christ didn't actually do much himself. He had others lead him to the tomb, others open the tomb, others remove the ceremonial wrappings. All Christ did was command Lazarus to arise. In other words, the only thing he did was the thing that only he could do.

So why isn't the Church perfect? It is because he lets us do most of the work and only steps in when he feels it is essential to do so. If we think church policies are flawed then it is up to us to first seek confirmation from the spirit that our cause is just, and then to encourage others to do the same. We should be willing to raise our voices, and hope that through our efforts the Church can be a little more perfect. We can do this without criticizing church leaders. They are inspired to keep us headed in the right direction, but they are only going to be guaranteed to get the guidance that is essential to their calling. We can all help to increase the amount of inspiration driving the church. If "by the power of the holy ghost [we] may know the truth of all things" then we can know when there is truth that is not being fully lived up to.

The Illness of Lost Opportunities

Today seems like an appropriate day to talk about by brain a bit. Story time!

What Dreams May Come

An interesting development in my brain state, which may or may not be related to my current medication, has been an increase in distress levels in my dreams. I have sometimes recorded my dreams and I often remember them quite well. While I am no stranger to implied danger in my dreams, it has almost always been me that had the clear upper hand. Even when I did not, I was empowered to avoid serious danger. Whether that meant flight, phasing, telekinetic power, or just sweet moves, I was able to fight or avoid real danger. More often than not, any dangers were impersonal. Giant monsters made of trash (honestly those were pretty cool), stone golems, vast conspiracies, nothing that cared who I was or what I did, just things that wanted me dead because I was not them, and this was just what they did.

More recently, as you likely have suspected by now, this has changed. I still generally have the edge. I'm used to being empowered in my dreams so when danger rises, I just pull on those dream memories to do something or other to avoid it, however when danger hits my family, like the dream where Diana climbed out of the car on the freeway, there is little I can do, and I have had a lot of dreams where the dangers are caused by people, and as such are driven by personal dislike of me. Say hello to a trigger for my social phobias! Now I now these are not real people who are hating me, and I know that Diana is actually just fine, but once I get some anxiety running getting rid of it again is not easy. 

Last night's dream was a new special kind of fun that hit me especially hard. I'll leave out some details, but in the dream, one of my actually super nice professors called me out specifically as having upset him and then as a result gave everyone a six page essay test. Also, to add insult to injury he was giving other people books  because he liked them. Seriously, it sounds kind of funny, but in the dream it was super hurtful. My alarm woke me up in the middle of the dream. I didn't really get myself out of bed for another couple of hours. When I did, I had shivers, and felt an uncomfortable pressure on my chest the whole time. Which includes now for that matter. The good news is that of the ways that my Avoidant Personality Disorder (I really need a shorter term for that) works, the anxiety facet is the only one that's active right now. I may be feeling constant fear, but I could also be feeling fear, and self loathing. 

Welcome to the Breakdown

I feel like now is a good time to get some basic definitions down. These aren't dictionary definitions, this is just the words I use to describe things and what I'm trying to express when I use them.

Constant fear - This isn't exactly what it sounds like. Try to separate the  physical symptoms of fear from the mental ones. There is definitely some conscious fear going on, but if I don't focus on it, I can be fine for a while. However, the physical symptoms continue, and serve as a reminder to pull me back to more of the conscious fear. The conscious fear is usually undirected. I tend to want to avoid people and/or places where people gather, and I feel very uncomfortable in social situations. Physical symptoms can include increased heart rate, nausea, and sweating.

Flipped out - If I say I am flipped out it is usually primarily anxiety, with a healthy splash of self-loathing. Basically I no longer trust myself to not lash out at perceived threats/overstimulation. Instead of just fear, there is fear mixed with irritation and a loss of trust in ability to handle things. Sometimes I still try. Sometimes I just put myself wherever I feel as safe as possible. Dark quiet places tend to be the ideal. If I can't find a place that is both quiet and dark, quiet is the higher priority. This tends to feature a lot of mental white noise.

Mental white noise - If you've ever been in a really noisy room and hard a hard time thinking clearly, you've experienced this. Based on what I've read and my own experience, the effects of most mental illnesses all share this symptom, and the effects of the symptom are almost identical in their tendency to reduce the ability to think clearly and to make decisions well. When things get bad, things usually feel extra noisy in my thoughts.

Those are all the more unusual ones, at least that I can think of right now, the next couple are going to be terms that are generally understood, but I'm going to do my best to explain what specifically they mean to me.

Depression - When I experience depression, it is generally a loss of hope for the future. and a lack of faith in my ability to do either the things I want or the things I need to do to support myself and my family.This very quickly transforms into feeling like my efforts are pointless/meaningless as well as feeling that everyone else can see how worthless and terrible I am, and some assumptions that I am just generally unlikable. Sometimes this can throw in paranoia about my friendships, making me doubt my ability to be a good friend or that I am someone anyone would even be interested in being friends with. Lots of self loathing in here. Depression and self loathing very rarely stay separate for long, but one can start without the other.

Anxiety - This is mostly what I've already described above. Lots of feeling uncomfortable at best and being downright terrified of other people at worst, to the point of not wanting to go outside and at the very very worst, not even wanting to see my wife and kids. Not wanting to see the kids tends to come earlier because as much as I love them, babies are basically stinky gross noise machines when they aren't being adorable, and you never know when they're going to switch between the two.

Self-Loathing - This one is pretty much what it sounds like, but I'm going to go ahead and go into some detail. I have been told for a very long time that when I sit down and work at something I do, on average, pretty great. I am an exceptionally capable kind of guy, except when it comes to breathing during heavy exercise. (Thanks asthma!) Normally this is great for my self esteem. I'm super cool and good at stuff! When this part of my disorder kicks in everything gets turned on it's head. Every failure I have ever had becomes unacceptable because I'm supposed to be some kind of super human. The smallest mistakes start looking like unforgivable character flaws. This is the one that leads me to thoughts of self-harm. I feel like I deserve nothing good, and my mind can get to the point of positively raging with white noise. The other aspect is tied into the social phobia. Not only am I failing, but others know that I am failing, and these are the same people who supposedly think of me as being very capable. Not only am I failing, but I am failing to live up to their expectations. On the other hand, I also tend to feel like there are those who are happy to see me fail. There is actually precedence for this because it happened to me a lot when I was younger. I was the prototypical underweight, short, glasses and braces wearing nerd who spent all his time reading, and at least in elementary I was getting top scores in my classes, and even today I test very well. When I screwed up it was prime fodder for bullies. Some part of my brain hasn't let go of that. So when I fail at something that I worked hard on it can be very difficult to deal with. 

Social Phobia/Avoidant Personality Disorder - This one I have had for so long that I didn't even think it qualified as a disorder until someone told me. I had a tendency to think that I probably didn't do things quite the same as others in the social world from the time I was in Kindergarten. Looking back at the reports from my teachers which my parents saved, it is pretty clear I was no social butterfly to to the point where those teachers sometimes worried about me. I'm going to go ahead and quote Wikipedia here. "\People with avoidant personality disorder are preoccupied with their own shortcomings and form relationships with others only if they believe they will not be rejected. Loss and rejection are so painful that these individuals will choose to be lonely rather than risk trying to connect with others." That sentence by itself probably gives a pretty clear indicator of how this has silently shaped my life. This is the driver for the other problems, and to some extent the others are just an extension of this. I would rather not get attached to anyone than feel like I am going to be hurt. I don't really think of it that way, because I really love being social and having good friends, and I have some very close friendships that are very important to me, but in the end those are people who I realized I could trust before I actually put any trust in them and I can (but won't) cite examples where some of my friendships were hurt or lost because I got scared and basically just vanished from the relationship. Social anxiety disorder, of which avoidant personality disorder is considered a severe form has been called, "The illness of lost opportunities". I once managed to spend almost a year in a new town and only managed to make a couple of new close acquaintances before I left. I see how close my wife and friends are to their siblings and I realize that I even avoiding forming close relationships with them. Thinking back on that kind of thing in my life can be very hard to deal with. The hardest part about this one though is the fact that I can't even remember not thinking this way. I know that I want to be more open to forming relationships with other human beings, but I honestly don't know how to think in such a way that that becomes my normal way of life.

In a way that is what this blog is all about. I have spent so much of my life avoiding adventure. Opening up about that is already proving to be a bit of an adventure in it's own right. I have been surprised by the amount of support and help that has resulted from doing so already. It helps me think that I might just be able to get over it, at least a little.

Welcome

Maybe I should avoid an introductory post and just jump into content, but I feel like a small forward won't hurt. If nothing else this can serve as a kind of mission statement for me in writing in this blog. I don't really want to restrict myself with this. I can write about whatever I please on here. There will be a few topics that are going to be prominent however.

• Dealing with my mental disorders
• This is the one that the blog gets it's name from. I have been told that my primary disorder is what is called avoidant personality disorder. As you'll see if you follow that link, there is some disagreement about whether this really serves to be it's own disorder or whether it is simply a more severe form of generalized social phobia. If you've heard me talk about this then the second is probably what you have heard me call it, because I feel like it is more helpful to those who are trying to understand it. While this has been a very long term issue for me, more recently I have had a major jump in the levels of anxiety this creates. To be frank, I'm a bit of a mess right now. I'll be talking about the anxiety, fear, depression, and self-loathing which form the emotional base of my disorder.
• Cool Stuff
• I try to keep pretty up to date with the news, and that includes a lot of really neat science and technology. I also follow a variety of artists in several different fields and sometimes they will probably make things that I feel like sharing. If I find something cool and I have something to say about it, then it'll go in here.
• Philosophy
• Sometimes I feel like talking about some of my views on life which, while colored by my life experience, and thus my disorders as well, are not going to focus on that, but instead be more general. These will be editorial opinion type things, and will probably be mostly written using a stream of consciousness approach with minor editing afterwords. In other words, it will be how I feel on a specific topic at a specific time, and I will be happy to read respectful comments that disagree. I like to think of myself as pretty open minded, and I hope that if someone presents an opinion differing from my own that I find to have a stronger case, then I can drop some of my biases and change my mind.

That's about it. First main post should be coming soon and will probably be another intro post specifically about some of my disorders and how they have, to some extent, shaped who I am. Be excited!