Stuff. Not good. Not bad. Just...stuff.

[Victator]

On 11/26/2017 at 9:26 AM, Ryan said:

Anxiety in general fucking sucks. It can cause so many weird things to actually happen that have no physical root cause to the body. In your situation, that's really bad, your CNS must've really been jolted by the whole thing. I hope you find something to help.

Sorry I did not see this earlier. The doctor gave me Klonopin and it keeps it from getting to that point. 

[Ryan]

I am on that as well. Works far better than the short half life benzos that are addictive and give a high.

[Victator]

They give me a high, but I don't have a tolerance.

[Ryan]

If you only take them occasionally they'll do that.

[bobholly138]

My doc tried Klonopin on me and I hated how they made me feel. So switched me to low dose xanax and I hated those even more. Been on 5mg Valiums for 5 years now and they work pretty well. Had to take one today cause of how crowded town was. They calm me down enough that I don't want to take the nearest blunt object and smash everything. But not so much I can't function.

[Victator]

Went to the psychiatrist today and found out I am full bi polar. 

I have mixed feelings on this. 

[Bustronaut]

...are you of two minds about it?

[OSJ]

11 hours ago, Victator said:

Went to the psychiatrist today and found out I am full bi polar. 

I have mixed feelings on this. 

Been living with it for years and a minimal amount of medication. I've sort of come to embrace it as when I'm on an up cycle I do a phenomenal amount of work, sometimes staying up for two or three days with just a couple of short naps. Kathy's learned to just sort of ignore me when I'm in that state because ultimately, something good comes of it,  be it a new story, putting a collection together, writing web copy for my publisher, listing stuff on eBay, etc. The only thing I have to watch out for is my tendency to shop for books and over-spending.

As for the down times, you just keep telling yourself, this will pass and it's perfectly okay if I don't do anything. Granted, I'm self-employed, so if I choose to sleep in most of the day, I can do so, and Kathy's pretty understanding about the situation. She just makes sure that I eat at least once a day and take  my meds.  I've gotten to the point that I can function at about 60% during a down cycle. Can't do much of anything creative, but I am able to do the basic stuff like taking care of the cats, shipping stuff and like that, just not a whole lot of writing gets done... I've tried it and after spending a couple of hours staring at a blank screen, I've come to the realization that there's just no point in trying to write during a down cycle because it just isn't going to happen and there's no reason to ad frustration to depression. 

Ask your doc about a low dose of anti-depressants, might be all you need to keep the downs from being too far down.

[Victator]

My current meds are helping. One issue has been where it makes me feel nothing. But that seems to not be a problem at the moment.

Aside from issues with the kids out of my control, I am pretty content. 

My manic episodes do result in me producing work I am happy with. 

[Guest Stefanie Without Stefanie]

There's nothing wrong with or any shame in being bipolar. As a culture we're bad about stigmatizing mental health issues as being things that are life-enders, but that's not the case. The most important thing is that it's been diagnosed and now it can be properly managed.

[Ryan]

Just keep an eye on any abnormal behavior type stuff or any weird side effects. It usually takes time with all those classes of drugs to work properly, in theory.

[J.T.]

On ‎12‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 1:51 AM, Victator said:

Went to the psychiatrist today and found out I am full bi polar. 

I have mixed feelings on this. 

At least you still have your sense of humor.  It is hard to stay positive and use humor as a defense mechanism now that my pop has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's.

[Bustronaut]

Last week I was scheduled the latest possible run the day of my Godmother's funeral.  I happened to throw a kidney stone that day, so I called in sick.  THIS week, I'm scheduled for that same exact run because our scheduler is a petty asshole who want to exert power over everyone.

[Tabe]

This is going to be a little long.  I apologize in advance for that.

Backstory:

My brother and his wife are difficult people with challenging personalities.  That's a very, very charitable wording.  I love my brother but there are plenty of times when I don't like him very much - like last Christmas when he tried to ruin things by screaming at my wife & I or the time a few years back where he nearly got in a fight in a restaurant parking lot with a father who was angry at my brother for dropping f-bombs all through dinner right next to the guy's 9-year old daughter.  I have never liked his wife.  She's very, very abrasive and thinks "hey, I'm from New York" is a valid explanation for it.  

In short, it's a good thing that they live in San Diego and we live in Spokane.

The Main Story:

My sister-in-law, since retiring from the Navy, has been working toward completing a college degree.  She's taken classes at a community college with the plan that they'll transfer to San Diego State or similar.  She got hosed by one of the big college fraud things a couple years ago and found out a bunch of her classes would not transfer.  So she's been taking classes.  She's had trouble with one particular math class and has failed it 3 or 4 times.  Over the last couple years, that class has come up in conversation multiple times as relates to her difficulties with it.  And every time, I have offered to tutor her.  Some of you may remember I was a math teacher at one time.  A really, really good math teacher.  My offers have always gone nowhere.  

Until this fall.

My brother emailed me a couple months back to tell me his was at his wits' end trying to help her (my brother is also really good at math but is definitely not a teacher).  She'd gotten a very low test grade and needed help badly and would I please help?  I love my brother and would do just about anything for him, so naturally I said yes.  So, over the last couple months, we have had once or twice-weekly, sometimes more, Skype sessions where I tutor my sister-in-law, to the tune of 50-60 hours total.  To my surprise, the sessions generally went well and we got along fine during them.  I give her credit - she busted her butt fighting her way through a class that she clearly did not understand and that she was always going to struggle with.  And, to be fair, it was not an easy (Algebra) class.  

Fast forward to last week for our final tutoring session.  It's the week of her final exam and she's got a practice test to go over.  We work through the problems and progress is really slow.  We're into a section on graphing and she's insisting we spend waaaaaay too much time on each problem.  The instructions are to "graph the given function" but she's wanting to do all kinds of extra stuff on each one for some reason.  I pushed multiple times to move on but she insisted we stick with those problems.  We ended up spending probably 90 minutes on 5 problems during a 2-1/2 hour session.  Finally, after that length of time, I told her I needed to go to bed (it was nearly 11pm).  And she starts trying to lay a guilt trip on me because we only got through something like 16 of 37 problems on the test.  And that pissed me off.  Wasn't my fault we wasted so much time doing stuff she knew how to do and that wasn't even necessary and now you want to guilt trip me because we didn't finish the test?  Uh...no.

Come to find out it was NOT a practice test.  It was actually a take-home part of her final.  And she flunked that part of the test.

Anyway, that's not even the reason I'm writing.  I found out tonight that she passed the class.  How did I find out?  Did I get a super-excited thank you phone call from my sister-in-law?  An "oh man, I passed!" text from her?  A grateful phone call or text from my brother?  None of the above.  I found out because my brother told our mother and *SHE* texted me.

So lemme get this straight - I give up 50-60 hours of my precious time to tutor you, you *PASS* the class on your now-5th try, and you don't even tell me?  Fuck you.  Fuck both of you.

[Brian Fowler]

And the horse they rode in on

[Red is Dead]

Tabe - you're a far better person than I am for putting up with the 50-60 hours of what seems like utter hell.

Fuck that shit, I'd be out like a light with that individual. 

Still, it's probably the last time you help them, right?

[Victator]

On 12/15/2017 at 7:31 AM, J.T. said:

At least you still have your sense of humor.  It is hard to stay positive and use humor as a defense mechanism now that my pop has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's.

I have used humor most of my life to get thru some very bad times. Always at my own expense, because I never want to belittle anyones pain. 

My mother died ten years ago. Her final four years were not easy to deal with. My father and her mother dying so close together did something to her mind. She always had problems. But this pushed her past the point of no return. That, existing mental illness, a drug problem and letting her diabetes run out of control. She lost her mind and the woman who raised me seemed largely absent.

I had to hear her say she hated me and to know me was to hate me on a nearly daily basis. Or be called a "faggot" semi regularly. Now on a clinical level, I know this is not really my mother saying this. This is whatever her demons had done to her mind. When I was at the point I was ready to leave (my sisters couldn't or wouldn't care for her) she would become Mama again. She was genuinely contrite for how she treated me and was grateful for what I would do for her. But it never lasted and the mental illness would regain control. 

It took finding religion for me to make peace with it all. I'm sorry I did not mean to overshare. It just kinda flowed out. 

I'm sorry about your father. Just try to be there for him. If a dark joke comes to you, enjoy it and laugh. You are trying to get moment to moment. 

[Tabe]

6 hours ago, Red is Dead said:

Tabe - you're a far better person than I am for putting up with the 50-60 hours of what seems like utter hell.

Fuck that shit, I'd be out like a light with that individual. 

Still, it's probably the last time you help them, right?

Honestly, the tutoring sessions were not bad. They were frustrating from an educational perspective but not from a personality perspective. 

I doubt I'll help again, yeah.  

[Control]

So wait, you unknowingly were helping her cheat on an exam?

[Tabe]

1 hour ago, Control said:

So wait, you unknowingly were helping her cheat on an exam?

That's an aspect I hadn't considered. Grrrr. 

[Control]

1 minute ago, Tabe said:

That's an aspect I hadn't considered. Grrrr. 

Oh man I'd be furious.

[Dewar]

Christmas fun time around here. One of my brothers and his wife have decided to take their kids out to her brother's cabin for Christmas, so they are not going for dinner at my mom's house. I think it's a good idea, because the kids end up having major meltdowns every Christmas from too much going on anyway. My mother disagrees, and she's livid because "they didn't tell her soon enough" they are not coming for dinner.

Now she's threatening to return gifts. The Christmas spirit is strong!!!

[AxB]

I asked for a day off on Christmas Day. My boss decided there  wqsq nobody available to cover the shift (nb: He's Hindu. He doesn't celebrate XMas). So then he decides that actually not only do I have to work, but I also have to start two hours early*, so I'm finishing Christmas Eve t 11 pm, then I start Christmas Day at one in the afternoon and finish at 10 pm. And them I'm doing Boxing Day as well.

He's also under the impression he doesn't have to pay double time (or even time and a half) for those shifts. But he doesn't have a legal leg to stand on there. I haven't had to intimidate anyone in management for years**. I miss it, honestly.

* Apparently the guy who's doing the early shift is then working somewhere else from 2pm. Sounds like bullshit to me though.

** One manager tried to intimidate me, and it made me angry. He backed down so hard, he told everyone he knew (including the two subsequent managers we had) that I was not the guy to fuck with. Apparently, I'm very intimidating in person.

[CSC]

My co-worker, who has been sick and having back issues for months now is trying this new holistic treatment of putting onions in her socks to leech out the toxins, or something like that.  It's been two weeks now to the point where I can hardly sit at my desk because the room has become overwhelmed with the stench of never ending onions. 

[Bustronaut]

Send 'em a snopes link.