Category: Addiction

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Broken

I’m sitting in my recliner chair thinking about what didn’t happen yesterday.  Right now, I should be at the whirlpools along the trail near the Whirlpool Bridge, in Niagara Falls.  I should be sore and shaky as I take photos of the area.  My legs should be heavy and crampy and my mind should be blissful as I drive home, the Buffalo Half Marathon high in full swing.  I should have the shiny medal with the stars and stripes around my neck.  I should be pumped, knowing I walked the streets the Goo Goo Dolls walked as kids and teenagers, or that I’d just finished what is known in the running world as “America’s Best Race”.

Financial troubles are the main reason I couldn’t go; I could not pay for the downtown hotel.  That was a self-induced problem I created with my out-of-control spending addiction.  Also, I am facing unemployment.  Whatever money I might have must be saved for my day of doom.   I am about to lose everything.

The other reason is my illness. My body has become weak over the last several months.  I cannot even go on my beloved “easy’ 6 mile hikes every week anymore.  I tried a few weeks ago, and was burned out two miles in.  And I am lucky if I can go a mile around the high school race track without my legs and lungs burning.  One mile on the track is much easier than one mile on the street.

This time last year I was getting ready to go out to Seattle for the Rock and Roll Half Marathon out there.  I was in the later phases of training, and I got through the race no problem.  And I actually had money to spare.  Because of extreme irresponsibility (more so than the illness), I let myself go and am now in the most serious trouble of my life.

Even with my body being as it is, I would have tried at the Buffalo race.  Whether I got only one mile done, or all thirteen point one, I would have been okay with myself today.  Heck, even if I made it to Buffalo and felt too weak to race, I’d have gone and enjoyed a weekend away if it wasn’t for my money situation.

I am so broken I feel  I cannot be fixed.

When the registration notice comes out for next year’s Buffalo race, I will sign up and try again.  It will give me something to look forward to and work towards.  Perhaps I will sign up for the 10k instead.  But I know I will still be in financial trouble, more so than I am today.  I will have to be more creative finding ways to stay in the town that weekend.  Meanwhile, I’m still broken and will be for a long time.

Please feel free to leave comments or to contact me.

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Jill and Jansie

My first night working in the ICU after nearly eleven years went well. I was very nervous going in, with the same feelings I have before going on stage or stepping onto the glass at the Sears Tower observation deck, the Chicago streets 100 floors below me.  As in those two situations, I boldly went ahead with my new job.  Stepping through the ICU doors was an act of gritty courage.

My preceptor and I were assigned to two women I’ll call Jill and Jansie (Jansie is the name I chose for my novel’s main character).  I will muddy some of the details for the sake of patient privacy.

Jill was a twentysomething woman who had taken an overdose and was on a ventilator.  She was found unconscious by her aunt.  They were supposed to go shopping together and Jill didn’t show up.  Jill’s boyfriend alerted the police in the meantime to go and check on Jill, based on a cryptic text she had sent him.  Jill had a history of addiction to various drugs.  Her suicide note stated “I’m tired of fighting”.  When I entered Jill’s room, I saw a tiny young woman whose size and pretty face belied the rumors of her violent nature.  She was adorned with tattoos of roses and butterflies and messages of encouragement.

Jansie was in the adjacent room. She was middle-aged and had suffered complications following an orthopedic procedure.  The root of Jansie’s problem turned out to be pulmonary hypertension and mild congestive heart failure.  This was all new to Jansie, who was crying while trying to watch the Olympics to distract herself when I entered her room.  Jansie’s first words to me were an apology for crying and an expression of great fear and frustration.  Her entire life had turned upside down in the past month, and she was fearful of both death and burdening her wife.  Her feelings were amplified by new, chronic pain from a neck injury.  Several times throughout the night, I found Jansie sobbing.  She expressed fear that she will never be the same and asked why this was happening to her.

i felt a bond with both women, especially with Jansie.  I remember the flood of terror that bowled me over when I was first diagnosed with PH.  My own chronic pain from nerve compression and arthritis in my neck struck in 2015 and stayed with me, adding an even darker shade to life.  It peeled my fingers from the edge of the cliff PH had thrown me over, and I went into emotional freefall.  I shared my experience with Jansie, with the hope she’ll see I’m able to live a fairly normal life five years into my diagnosis.  I caught a fleeting look of reassurance on her face, and she stopped crying.  I even got a few laughs out of her with my crazy antics (“You can be G.I. Jansie in the war with your fear of PH.  You can even shave your head like Demi Moore if you want!”). Then the next wave of shooting pain would hit and take her down again.

Jill reminded me of myself, as I was three weeks ago.  The police came to do a wellness check on me.  My bank notified them I felt like harming myself over my financial situation.  I was in a dire panic that night, beating myself up for what I’d done, angry as to why I have compulsive and addictive tendencies, afraid of what I’d gotten into.  I felt hopeless and saw no way out.  Jill also reminded me of two young women–one of them a teenager–in my recovery group.  Those ladies are struggling with drug addiction, and as time passes, two kind but hurting souls have emerged from under their anger.  My addiction is overspending, but I do it for many of the same reasons: to deal with “something missing” and to make reality disappear for a while.  Without it, my anger and panic flare.  I suspect there is a wounded girl under Jill’s violent facade, and I know how “wounded” feels.  Mental illness and addiction are two highly stigmatized problems, and intense shame goes with them.  I could feel much of Jill’s emotional pain.

Perhaps my problems can offer rays of hope for the people I will take care of in the ICU.  Maybe they’ll see I am the type of person who doesn’t stop, and it’s possible to push forward with life despite an incurable condition, pain, and living without my “substance”. Maybe they will look at me and see someone making the best of things, putting one foot in front of the other, one day at a time, and see that I embody possibility. I am “tired of fighting” most days too, but I have learned to keep moving and working and learning from my experiences.  I hope my patients will see that.

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Stuck In A Moment

My goal for this blog/website is to help people live their best lives in the face of chronic or incurable conditions.  To improve my skills, I chose to enroll in a life coaching course. The course I chose is “Life Coach Certification (Beginner to Advanced)” by Kain Ramsey.  The session I’m currently working on involves a story about a man going about his business then suddenly falls into a deep hole.  He fights to get out of the hole at first, but gets weary from his efforts.  Depression, doubt, hopelessness kick in.  He is too proud at first to call for help.  Then a therapist happens to walk by, then a doctor.  I imagine the former offered a form of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and the latter some antidepressants or anxiolytics.

The third person to come by is a friend or classmate who jumps in the hole with him…but reveals how to get out because that person has been there and can relate.  Such is the essence of life coaching.

I’ve mentioned a thousand times I am a big (but recent) fan of the Goo Goo Dolls.  I am also a huge fan of U2, and for over half of my life.  U2 has a song called “Stuck In A Moment”.  Bono wrote it about Michael Hutchence of INXS, a good friend who profoundly affected Bono’s life.  Hutchence was in the type of hole Ramsey describes.  Only he didn’t make it out.

The reason I am writing about this dark subject is because a week and a half ago, I nearly got stuck in a rough moment–forever.  Not only do I have pulmonary hypertension and fibromuscular dysplasia; I also have severe depression, anxiety, and addictive/compulsive behavior.  The latter got me into very serious trouble.  My issues with depression and compulsive shopping preceded any other problem by decades.

I binged on spending between September and the first week in January, sometimes several days in a row, and over $200 each time.  I knew I was headed for trouble, yet I felt some force was driving me to shop, to fill the holes in my life with “things”, to enter stores and not fight this force, even though I felt like a failure.

On January 12, I started working with a debt management company and their initial payment was $700.  That amount was taken out on Jan 15, along with my $412 retirement loan repayment.  I anticipated these.  What I didn’t realize was I’d scheduled many credit card payments and car payment all for that date.  The debt management rep warned me to cancel these, but I forgot (thank you, gabapentin, for messing with my brain).  I also made arrangements with the bank so I have limited access to cash, and no more debit card.  It’s a steep learning curve with no overdraft protection anymore.  When all was said and done, I was $1190 overdrawn, and there was nothing I could do about it.  The bank threatened to shut down all my accounts permanently and turn me over to collections.

I was very upset talking with the bank reps, trying to explain my mistakes and eventually telling them I am in a recovery program with people recovering from drugs and alcohol, to learn the tools they are taught and get help.  I spoke of the hopelessness of my problem; how “this keeps happening no matter what I do”.  Next thing you know, the police were at my door for a wellness check.  The bank rep put another rep on the phone during our conversation…while she went to call  911.  I was going to kill myself.

The following day, I confided in a few close coworkers, who then got concerned and went to management.  Management went to Human Resources, and now I have to jump through hoops to keep my job.  I must go to mandatory counceling, with a counselor who is “in the system” and chosen for me.  Meanwhile, I set up an arrangement with the group of counselors my psychiatrist recommended, so I am seeing TWO separate therapists in response to this emergency.  I am only allowed three “free” visits with the one arranged by my employer.  Then I’ll have a $90 copay, regardless of who I pick.  And when cash is already an issue…

Anyway, I believe in honesty and transparency, so I chose to share this with you, my appreciated readers.  This issue is proving to be MUCH harder than dealing with the PH and FM.  I might have even forgotten about them as all the mayhem was happening.  Sometimes emotional turmoil is worse than physical illness or pain.

For now, my plan is to a) not spend at all for the month of February, except for cat food/care, groceries, gas, and utilities, b) return to SMART Recovery meetings, church, and social outings with Meetup groups and c) practice mindfulness each day.  We’ll see if I can stay off the ledge.  I am never really that far from it, even on good days.

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A Hard Day

This day has been a real challenge.  I knew it would come, and I thought I had prepared by making sure I had many goals and projects to fill in the hole that would be created.  I suffer from what is known as a “soft” addiction (“hard” addictions are alcohol and drugs).  Soft addictions don’t get much press, and it’s often difficult to get help for them.  People tend to tell you to “stop it”.  What they don’t realize is “stop it” was the first idea that came to your mind when you realized you were in trouble.  My soft addiction is compulsive shopping, and it got the better of me this past week.  I went crazy, for example, in Target on Wednesday.  I had a new credit card, and although I went in for cat litter, I tossed anything that jumped out at me in the cart.  It made me feel wonderful and free.  And out of control.  I walked out with over $600 worth of stuff and a nauseous feeling.  But I kept walking and took my stuff home.

I did the same every day until Saturday.  I went to Michael’s for a memory box frame and I also wanted a videography how-to book.  I came out of the store with Halloween masks, various items to create the memory box, and went to the bookstore.  I did not find anything on how to shoot video, but emerged with several how-to books on other things (blogging, WordPress, and Photoshop CC, and a bunch of book markers). $200 to that point.  Then I crossed the street in search for a computer table.  I found a glass art computer C table at Pier One Imports that was too much (should have just gone back to Target).  Pier One also had a fancy witch hat to complete my costume, glass art pumpkins, and a lovely fall themed wreath for the door.  Then I went to the music store for new strings for my 12 string guitar.  I managed to stick to that one item, but all the way home I thought “This is ridiculous and needs to stop”.  I immediately went online and began SMART Recovery…again.

I think what is wrong is that the Goo Goo Dolls’ tour is ending tonight, and it served as a wonderful and much needed distraction for me.  I had grown close to the fan community, chatting online with them nearly every day since tickets went on sale in February.  There was the anticipation of the tour, the meet and greet in Boston, and the release that comes with a good night out.  And of course I got to indulge my “Johnny and Korel” crushes.  It was a pleasure to see those two so often.

The experience of the tour made me enthusiastic about life and increased my positivity and mental energy, despite being diagnosed with a new–and also incurable–condition as it was all happening.

Then the fan activity on social media began to slow down.  I knew this would happen.  Last December, when their tour ended, everything Goo Goo Dolls related went painfully silent.  As a new fan, I found myself scrambling to keep the feeling going.  And I failed.  And the dark feelings I have to fight every normal day returned with a vengeance.  Maybe they only seemed darker after getting a glimpse of joy.  And maybe my shopping binge went out of control because of the anxiety of knowing my distraction will once again be gone after tonight.

I not only suffer from pulmonary hypertension, fibromuscular dysplasia (the newly discovered one, which I may have had for “a decade” according to doctors), and chronic pain due to neuropathy; I live alone and feel invisible and have to self-motivate all the time.  That gets exhausting, and there are days when I am not up to the task.  The negatives of life come barging into my mind, often driving me to tears or leading me to stay in bed for days.  The thought of no more Goo Goo Dolls shows (perhaps ever, because I don’t know when my illnesses will take me down or disable me) creates a sense of desperation and panic.

Shopping won’t help.  Neither will the bottle of wine in my fridge, or the games on my Kindle, or any other thing I might get hooked on to make the miserable feelings go away.  All of those things will make a barren life worse.  The Goo Goo Dolls tour was also a crutch.  And you know what happens to a cripple if you take the crutch away.

The key is to find another way of dealing with the barrenness, to fill the gaping holes with something productive, something that will help other people in some way.  That’s one of the reasons I started this website.  Maybe there is someone out there who will read this and understand how loss of something you focused on for months can serve as a trigger for unhealthy behavior.  I have read about this phenomenon in books on negative thought patterns and addiction.  But going through it is never easy.  The next few weeks/months will be rough until I can latch onto something else to occupy my mind and put me in touch with people.  I’ve done it before.  I’ll make it this time too.

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Grateful

Long before I developed the chronic medical conditions I have now, I was consumed with other concerns. It doesn’t take a bad diagnosis to make you go into a tailspin.  Anything can take you by surprise and send you reeling in a new direction, one you hadn’t planned to take.  One that throws you for a loop.  A road you avoided, but are now forced to explore.  Examples include–but are not limited to–losing your job, filing bankruptcy, losing a loved one, economic downturns, betrayals, and natural disasters.

I honestly don’t know why I had depression and anxiety most of my life, and why it led me to do some of the things I did.  Addictive/compulsive behavior got me into a lot of trouble, starting at around age 17.  At first, I drank a lot.  But when the partying stopped, other addictive behaviors took over.  Like binge eating, compulsive shopping (to the point where I landed in bankruptcy court and faced the humiliation of repossession.  I lost friends, boyfriends, etc., to this behavior).  For many years, it was the primary issue I had to deal with.  Even today, I battle many temptations and compulsions.  Whatever restraint I had before my pulmonary hypertension diagnosis evaporated in the face of my eventual death.  I stopped caring.  Just like you can stop caring when faced with any crisis.  Only now I have to deal with the PH, the FMD, and the consequences of my indulgences.

So what can be done in this situation?  Medical bills on top of consumer debt on top of anxiety meds on top of overeating?  Seems impossible.

I can be grateful.

Forcing myself to appreciate my life, to stand back and look at how good I have it compared to some people, and even at the time I’ve been given beyond what I thought I would have, takes my mind off my negative thoughts.

It’s hard to be grateful in the midst of a crisis, when you are scared to death or feeling like you aren’t in control.  But it’s a choice.  Find something to appreciate.  It may take some effort, but you will.  If you have a dog, for example, pet him.  Look at his eyes.  Notice how he comes to you, how happy he is to see you no matter how dark you feel or nasty you have been.  He doesn’t care.  He loves you as you are.

Or consider the homeless people.  When I went to Boston to see the Goo Goo Dolls a few weeks ago, I came upon a woman in the train station who was curled up in the corner with a sign saying “My name is Amy”.  I didn’t read beyond that.  She was emaciated, maybe 18 years old, pale, and quiet.  She had marks on her face you sometimes see with methamphetamine use.   I said hello to her, mostly to help her feel acknowledged and visible.  She probably feels pointless, ashamed, and dirty.  Regardless of Amy’s reason to be in the train station begging, she is worse off than me.  I felt great compassion for her, drug addict or not.  Though I was still floating and happy after meeting John Rzeznik, Robby Takac, and Korel Tunador (and several others who work for the band, and members of the opening band as they passed the line), I stopped for a minute to consider Amy.

Of course, I can easily spot people in need and am much more open-minded after a good experience.  When down, I have learned over the years that acting like I care makes me care.  Acting grateful makes me grateful.  And that changes my entire outlook.  So each day, no matter how I feel, I choose gratefulness.